I never enter awards, so I never win any, but it’s nice to see that the Audi A5 Rhythm of Lines microsite I helped conceptualise and design with Good Technology has won a BIMA 2007 Award for best microsite!
This illuminated image wall was in a nightclub in… Guildford of all places. There were quite a few backlit walls which looked great and were topper for posing in front of for some drunken snaps. This one’s a poor homage to Bruce Forsyth. I did a much better on but it’s one someone else’s camera phone…
“It’s not a logo, it’s a brand”
“This is an iconic brand”
Sounds like Lord Coe and Tessa Jowell have been well and truly coached by the branding specialists down at Wolff Olins.
Of course, the logo bares a striking resemblance to a graffiti tag, so it may be a minor hit for a segment of the London youth, but I think the claim that “It can talk to anyone” might be pushing it a bit.
Anyway, the BBC say it is intended to evolve. Let’s hope so, it’s got 5 years to go yet. Most big brand logos don’t last half that time before they are subjected to the attention of focus groups and a makeover.
This is a great idea - the coloured strips on the sides of the door frames shown in this photo are actually part of a signage and navigational system. The photo was taken in the circular corrider that runs around the entire building beneath the Roundhouse in Camden, North London.
This part of the building sits directly beneath the main performance area, and houses Roundhouse Studios which is a great facility for young people to get to grips with a range of skills in creating and producing music, television and radio broadcasting, photography, digital arts and web design. I’m sure there’s more too. Oh yes, drama. Anyway, it’s a confusing place to be since there are no external windows and you very quickly lose your sense of direction when walking around the circular passageway that leads of to the various recording suites and practice rooms. This problem is of course made worse by the fact that a lot of the people here will be disorientated anyway as it’s somewhere entirely new for them, as students generally attend short courses.
The answer to the problem is coloured door frames, grading gently through the spectrum from red to blue as you move around the circle. It’s great because you notice it without realising. If you drift off to the loo without noting which room you were in you can still find your way back, as you quickly get a sense that you might be in the wrong part of the circle if the overall colour of the corridor feels wrong.
It’s also great as it avoids the need for signs sticking out of the walls in what is a fairly narrow passage. Signs stuck flat against the wall might work, but this is far more elegant, and gives you a sense of destination when you spy the orange bit coming around the bend. The building was renovated in 2006 by John McAslan & Partners, though I’m not totally sure whether they were responsible for this innovation - I’ll find out.
Other interesting stuff, they have the headphone switch used in the recording studio of the original Star Wars soundtrack, and if you speak while standing slap bang in the middle of the central circular room within the studios you hear your own voice reflected back from the surrounding brick, producing some weird kind of 360 degree surround sound. Spiffing.
I finally managed to visit the Alan Fletcher exhibition at the Design Museum this weekend. Not a moment too soon as it ends on the 18th, so make haste if you’ve not been. Within just a few minutes of being there it occurred to me how many of the pieces of work clearly demonstrated the fundamental principles of good graphic design (nay, visual communication). This sounds obvious I know, Alan being one of the all time greats, but it really helped crystallise those principles which I’ve long known, but possibly neglected over the last few years of running a business and getting bogged down 90% of the time with non-design related activities.
So, I thought I’d revisit these principles here as a way of focussing my attention back on what really matters, and try and keep these at the forefont of my mind, even when credentials presentations, VAT returns, wireframe reviews, endless meetings and general day to day business running conspire to ensure that the design work often gets squeezed down to the nub end of the day.
This is a work in progress and I’d welcome feedback and input. Let’s call this ‘Graphic design principles: version 1.0′. I’ve tried to illustrate each principle with an image - some of them are undeniably rough. Some of the pictures I took at the exhibition were even beyond publishing so I’ve resorted to Google image theft.
DRAWING
All college lecturers bang on about poor designers not being able to draw, but it’s true that if you never wield a pen or a pencil, even in a rudimentary fashion, then how can you ever explore a visual idea or try to explain it without resorting to the all together less instantaneous computer.
HUMOUR
Or wit. Whatever it’s called, if it’s apt and causes a positive response then it’s an effective piece of communication that stays with the viewer far longer than a piece of passive communication.
INFORMATION
Let’s not forget what’s at the core of what graphic designers are supposed to do: communicate information, be it a telephone number, a provocative statement or an instruction. Sometimes that means getting down to basics, laying out an order form or some such piece of everyday stationery. But there are so many ways to do it badly.
CONTEXT & AUDIENCE
A guiding light for how we should present information and content, the context and audience should always inform how we approach these facets of a project. This can often render humour and wit a useless tactic of course.
PLAY
Go on, have some fun. If you don’t enjoy what you do, how the hell do you expect anyone else to enjoy, appreciate or benefit?
MEDIUM
Unless you’ve been expressly told to ‘design a brochure’ the medium should be informed by information, content and context. Choosing the right medium not only makes the information more accessible, but in itself can carry a whole meaning. Even if you have been told to ‘design a brochure’ there’s a hundred ways to do it and even more papers and printing methods to use.
CRAFT
Sometimes it can take a while to get something looking right. It’s about crafting. Taking the time, and getting something to a point where you say ‘that works well.
INSPIRATION
Take it when it comes, and be ready for it at any moment (carry a pen, write on your hand). We use a tiny percentage of our brains. The unconscious mind is really the driver, the conscious mind just rubber stamps the thoughts. Ideas will come at any point, and often marinading an idea in a bus ride or a good walk will yield results, such as these clam ashtrays.
CARING
Odd one this, but if you don’t care about what you’re trying to communicate you’ll do it badly. So, even if you’re designing a catalogue for wire, find something about wire that you care about (even if it’s just the beautiful cross sections!)
STANDPOINT
This is a tricky one, but sometimes you need to adopt a standpoint in order to care. It’s your way of bringing something extra to your work. An observation that translates into an approach, an action or a belief. It’s obviously a more readily obvious principle for personal and unpaid work driven by personal impulse, but can be judiciously exercised in commercial projects too, where you have the ear of the marketing director.
One my clients has a whiteboard. It’s about 2.5 metres tall, about 3 metres wide and is only a few millimetres in thickness, yet it radiates light, allowing anything written on it to be easily seen with the room lights switched off. Yet it consumes no electricity and isn’t powered by tiny bioluminiscent sea creatures. What infernal technology is this? Nothing more than a white window. So simple yet brilliantly effective. Of course, group brainstorming has to be kept strictly to daylight hours, and if it’s a particularly dull day you may need to draw your chair up a little closer than normal, but it’s a great way to save some energy, and it looks marvellous.
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