The directive was to come up with a logo for what is hoped to become an annual mathematics festival for New York City. In the end, the Museum decided to go for a more generic look for the promotional material, but I was quite pleased with how these were turning out so I decided to showcase them here.
Tag: on advertising and design
Why I like the new Google logo
I’m kind of glad that the New Yorker published this article lambasting the new Google logo as it helped to solidify my opinion on it.
I happen to like the new logo. It does what it needs to do from a design perspective. I don’t mean aesthetic, I mean design. It needed to be clean and easy to read on mobile, which is where most people consume these days; it reflects the new Alphabet corporate feel, which the former Google corporation needs to promote; and it is less unwieldy from a rendering point-of-view, which is important as bandwidth and processing power is precious. I’m sure a lot of people find it jarring, since the Goog didn’t prepare us, but I admire that they released it this way – they got the logo onto the site, several of their apps (although it would have been great if it were in all of them), and onto their headquarters building in Mountain View. Honestly, I think more people should be discussing the upcoming Verizon change (ugh) than this. I like that they are completely embracing the idea of design – this goes so much better with the new Material Design aesthetic than the old Google “Anti-Logo” did. It bodes well for design as a whole that the company that didn’t care one whit about what a thing looks like has realized that design can make everything more useable – both engineering-wise, and pleasure-wise.
As a side note: I just want to say: using the hipster Comic Sans hatred in design commentary is the last refuge of a scoundrel. It is overused and needs to go away.
Why hire a professional designer?
I own an entire closet full of tools, from basic hammers and screwdrivers, to drills and circular saws. In theory I should be able to create just about any wooden object my family or I would ever need. Why, then, do I buy all my furniture from manufacturers who make these things professionally? Because I am not a carpenter. If someone came to my home and saw a table that I had built, it would be blindingly obvious. Said table would be structurally unsound and horribly finished. I don’t know enough about making a table, nor about what it takes to make it well. It would be an amateur job. You wouldn’t want it in your home, and neither would I.
A person can purchase the same applications designers used to create professional designs, but that does not make them a designer. Designers aren’t people who merely know the programs available for design. They are not trained monkeys who exist solely to push the correct buttons. Designers are professional aesthetes for hire… people who understand not only the “hows” of design, but the “what works” and “whys”. They have an innate ability to create – to merge word, space, and image in a way that compels.
If I tried to make a table, it would be have four legs and a top… and it MIGHT stand on its own. It wouldn’t be something people would admire, or to trust to do its job properly.
My dinner deserves more that that… and so does your business.
Don’t fear the deadline.
As with just about everyone growing up, I feared deadlines. They felt like a great wall looming in the mist – something that would race up and slam into me. They crippled my creativity by lacing it with dread. I had yet to understand the great gift that a deadline gives a creative endeavor.
By setting a deadline, the creative worker gives him or herself a tangible goal to work toward. A deadline helps a designer structure his schedule, plan out the workflow of a project, consequently feeling less stress instead of more. Without a deadline, a creative person cannot help but procrastinate – whether it is because he suffers from the fear of the blank page (a subject for a future post) or because there is simply no reason not to go and do something else… something that HAS a defined finale (and a timely paycheck).
If I’ve heard this complaint from non-designers once, I’ve heard it a hundred times: “I hired a designer, but they took forever to finish the project.” To which I always ask, “Did you give them a deadline?”
Guess what the answer inevitably is.
Deadlines add structure and direction to your workflow. They reduce stress and make the client understand that they’ll get their work in a timely fashion. Even if there isn’t a press date or an event to work toward, deadlines are a wonderful gift that designers give themselves – and forces them to confront the blank page, work through it, and get the job done.
And done is always beautiful.
Why you (don’t really) hate advertising.
You hear this a lot: “I hate advertising.” Most of the time that opinion is based on either display (transit/billboard/etc) advertising or, even more often, online advertising. The thing is, you don’t really hate advertising. You just hate how it is done. Before I get into that can of worms and how ads can be done well and in a satisfactory way for all parties concerned, let me point out a benefit for the consumer who really isn’t interested in what you have to sell.
Advertising subsidizes content. Ads in newspapers and magazines pay for MOST of the publishing costs so you don’t have to. Subscription costs don’t cover all that much – which is how magazine companies can charge you those special rates of $1 per issue (if you subscribe TODAY!). The primary reason for subscriptions is to show the potential advertisers how many people may reliably see their ads in a given month (quarter, whatever). These subscription numbers help make a magazine (or newspaper, or website for that matter – although you can substitute “hits” for “subscriptions”) valuable to an advertiser and those numbers determine how much a publisher can charge the advertiser for the space. This also holds true for buses and bus shelters/subway cars and their stations/trains and train platforms, etc.. The ad space is rented from the transit authority by display ad companies who then rent the space to advertisers. This helps to keep your transit prices from shooting into the stratosphere because the transit authority can use that rent to offset the cost to the consumer. It isn’t a perfect system, but it does, in fact, make a significant difference.
Back to the potential consumer/client:
One major problem with online advertising is this: we get followed around from site to site with the same ads yelling at us to buy the thing we’ve already looked at. That doesn’t really advertise anything. It is a nagging that can get really obnoxious very quickly. For example: I like taking photographs. I visit a lot of photography blogs, watch photography YouTube videos, and go to Amazon, B&H Photo, Adorama, etc. to price lenses and equipment that I could never really afford. The problem is, I then get followed around by ads from Amazon, B&H Photo, Adorama, etc. featuring the very same lenses that I was looking at. I already know what I want and where to get it. It is a waste of time and money for these companies to follow me around for a week or two telling me things I knew before the ads started. I was the one who started the chain of events by going to Amazon, B&H Photo, Adorama, etc. in the first place. I don’t blame these companies, for they have merely fallen into the online advertising trap and its lousy algorithm. But there is a solution to be found for this particular form of advertising. And it lies with the first retailer I mentioned. No doubt you’ve browsed something at Amazon and under the item you are interested in, there is a list of other things that people who have looked at this item have bought. This is the kind of thing that should be happening all over the net. I shouldn’t be seeing the same Canon 35mm prime lens following me around… I should be seeing the other things that people who have bought (or at least perused) the Canon 35mm prime lens or seemed interested in it.
Of course, this doesn’t solve the most basic problem of these ads – that you are being followed from site to site with the same ads from retailers that you already knew about. Other than retiring that kind of ad, I don’t really have a solution for that. I do, however, have a suggestion as to how advertising can be more effective yet less obnoxious.
The great thing about the older model of advertising, and what made it most effective, was that it was relevant to your audience’s interests. Local papers (or national papers with local sections) would make you aware of sales and services that you may need or may not have realized you needed or wanted until you saw an ad that a company or person placed. The ads were relevant to your locale and helped stimulate the local economy. Magazine ads would be relevant to the audience of a magazine (for the most part… personally I don’t much care for perfume ads in cooking magazines – I think it makes it hard to get excited about a recipe for pumpkin pie when all you can smell is lavender and musk). Ideally a space representative for a publishing company will target agencies that specialize in that magazine’s market and sell space to advertisers who are relevant. This helps the advertiser not waste his or her money targeting the wrong people. This is something that is woefully lacking in online advertising. You either get ads that hold no interest for you whatsoever, or you get ads that are so obnoxious about trying to sell you something you already know about that you get turned off by them. The algorithm controlling the placement of ads is lacking in human understanding – what makes a person respond to an ad and why it should be there in the first place. It is getting better, but it simply isn’t good enough.
We are, at first embarrassed and then annoyed at the person who tells the same story over and over. Online advertising in particular has become that embarrassing friend who is quickly sliding into (if it isn’t already there, considering the vitriol against the field you see online) being so annoying that you’ll soon stop inviting them to your parties.
People hate things that are obnoxious – you hate the jerk in the room who is spouting off their opinions at the top their lungs when you simply don’t care about the topic in the first place. Advertising has become really good at yelling, but is getting really bad at selling. It needs to re-find its center. A place where you can tell a person who may be unaware that you have a product or service they may need and not know about. A way to suggest to the consumer what company can improve their life or happiness with their wares without annoying the heck out of them.
We are grateful to the friend who helps us find something that makes life easier or increases our personal happiness. Advertising in its best form is that friend. When it is, you are happy that you saw that ad… so happy that you acted on its advice. That is an ad you DON’T hate. And if you see an ad that doesn’t necessarily interest you, you should still be happy it is there. It is making the magazine you are enjoying, the train you are riding, or the website you are reading that much more affordable. How can you hate that?
Design and ego.
Design is not a competition. It is not about ego. It is about doing the best job possible for your client. If winning a competition helps the client (or helps you keep your client) that’s fine… but it should never be the primary goal of the work.
I’ve both judged and won competitions, and, although it feels good to be appreciated, the platitudes I am most proud of are the surveys in which our ads were the ones that stayed in the minds of the readers over all others in that particular publication. It told us that we were doing the best job possible for our client.
And that, in the end, is the point.
(this post was inspired by a rather gloating post on Google+)
On borrowed interest
Borrowed interest adds nothing but confusion to marketing. If something doesn’t relate to your product, service, or company image, it doesn’t belong.
Borrowed interest belittles your product by showing that you have nothing to make yours the best of the lot and insults your true target audience by promoting fluff over substance.
Branding vs Marketing
This morning I read a point/counter-point style article that came my way via Twitter (thanks to @boxofnuts22) talking about the difference between branding and marketing. Here’s the gist of it:
The first person’s explanation was long and winding, full of MBA-style doublespeak and overly complex sentences. Boiled down he says that branding is company reputation and marketing is everything else – from logo design through advertising, etc.. The second fellow wrote short, simple statements claiming that branding was what makes you different from your competition, logo design, color schemes, etc.; and marketing is how you sell your company’s product or service.
Now if the description of the styles of explanation didn’t tip you off, second fellow is correct (I’ve no idea where the first guy got his ideas).
Branding is what helps the audience know who you are without explanation. It exists to make it possible, at a glance, for a potential client to say, ah, this is a Spacely Sprockets product, not a Cogswell Cogs one. It encompasses logos, color schemes, typeface choices, and the style that makes a company recognizable (think Apple’s simplicity and penchant for black, white, and aluminum).
Marketing is how you use your branding to get the message out there – whether it be advertising, PR, social media, etc..
Very simply put, branding defines the topic and marketing is the message.
Context in design.
Context is key.
You get a lot of people who feel that Helvetica makes everything better and Comic Sans is the typeface of the devil. Here are two designs that follow different philosophies… one based on flat design and Helvetica and one based on a more dimensional design and Comic Sans. I asked my two-year old (who would be the target audience) which he liked better… guess which he chose? Everything has its place. It is vital to consider the tastes of the audience.
Whether it be typefaces, copywriting, or design style, it is all a question of context.
(Note: these weren’t done for a client… they are quick and dirty designs for illustrative purposes. Although I do like the bear).
Let me tell you a story…
That’s what advertising is about. It is about telling a story. A story of boy has a problem, girl has the solution. Boy meets girl and she solves his problem.
Substitute boy with your target audience and girl with your company and you have an ad.
You are trying to convince your target audience that your product or service is the very thing they need to solve their problem or meet their need. It is as simple as that. If you don’t engage your target by making them empathize with the story, you aren’t engaging them. A list of your product’s benefits simply isn’t enough. It won’t compel your audience to put themselves in a position that makes them want to come to you. People are convinced to act based on need or perceived need. If you can’t make them feel that conviction, that need to have a problem solved, then you have probably failed to get a customer.
And without your customers you don’t live happily ever after.