Noisy Decent Graphics

Devil May Care

Wednesday saw the release of the first 'real' James Bond book in years. The first as in the first official book, written in the style of Ian Flemming. Officially sanctioned by the International Committee of Flemmings. Trust me, it's exciting news.

I bought a copy. And it occurred to me that it's the first time for a while that I've opted for the thing as opposed to the digital version. You know, audio book, dvd, iTunes etc. So let's take a look at the graphic design of said object.

First up the cover, or more accurately the dust jacket. I don't like it at all. The type is OK. I like the full cap DEVIL MAY CARE. I can't (quickly at any rate) work out what font it is. It's Gill Sans esque, but it's not Gill. The foil embossing works well and it's a decent tight little unit.

The woman / flower graphic is an OK idea, very Bond, but it's badly executed. The two different styles, one for the woman and one for the flower, clash horribly. It's not a seamless segueway. The shapes are nice but they don't seem to work together.

The dust jacket itself is glossy and shiny and doesn't really feel special. Nothing like those little special editions Penguin were doing  a few years ago. I don't feel like I'm being rewarded for buying the actual thing. In fact, I binned the cover straight away, much to the chagrin* of my colleagues. I always bin the dust jackets. These days they look shit and they just get in the way. They're cumbersome and besides, the books look so much better without. Don't ya think?

Much better. There's that nice little 007 Penguin logo. I like that. Do you?

There are end papers too, which is a nice change. They're OK.

But, you know what, everything is OK and OK just isn't good enough. Especially when I've gone and bought the actual thing. You'd think that designing the cover for the first official Bond book in years was a dream brief for many a young designer, wouldn't you? And it's for Penguin too! Not good enough.

There are some special editions kicking around and they look pretty decent. This is probably the best one.

That's more like it. I know they can't make special editions for everyone, but they could have copied some of the graphic style.

What do you think?

* Devil May Care joke.

"Sorry, I'm not txting, I'm taking notes"

This a picture of my Rodchenko notes, my meeting notes are all a bit longer but a bit more confidential.

In my continual quest to become uber organised, I have recently ditched Moleskine's in favour of note taking on my Jesus Phone.

This has several advantages.
1. Less stuff to carry around.
2. When it's done, it's done. No typing up the notes.
3. You can email the meeting notes to the client as you leave the building. When they arrive back at their desk, it's in their inbox. Trust me, this impresses clients.

The only problem is that I have to start every meeting with "Sorry, I'm not txting, I'm taking notes" which makes me sound like a wally.

Brilliant coins

My coins arrived the other day. Lovely aren't they?

Great graphic design if you ask me. It's engaging, it's fun, it will entertain your Grandad as much as your 5 year old nephew, as the designer says, "It's easy to imagine the coins pushed around a school classroom table or fumbled around with on a bar - being pieced together as a jigsaw and just having fun with them." It's practical, it's relevant and it's appropriate. It's different, it's very now and yet it won't date. It's brilliant. Literally.

I've only met one person who doesn't like them so far.

The designer, Matt Dent is one of the speakers at Interesting 2008, that'll be good.

"We don't have any PC's"

I've just played answerphone tennis with someone I've never met before who works for one of our clients.

They left a message and asked if it was OK if they brought some "stuff" with them to the office for a presentation. I left a message and said yes, but we don't have any PC's, so bear that in mind.

We eventually spoke and after a few pleasantries the conversation went like this:

Them "Do you have somewhere I can print stuff out?"
Me "Err, yes, we have a printer."
"OK, do you have something I could plug a USB stick into?"
"Err, yeah, we do, yeah."
"OK. Do you have PowerPoint?"
"Umm, yes."
"Oh, it's just that your message sounded like you didn't have any computers there?"
"Ahhh I see. When I said we didn't have any PC's I meant that we only have Macs..."

Classic miscommunication. Although if they seriously thought we didn't have any computers I'd be a bit worried.

For the record we do have a PC for testing etc but we keep it quiet...

Craig's 12 in 12

Remember Craig? He did that hand drawn letter thing last year. And he works at The Chase and they're good.

He's just sent me a copy of his latest project, 12 in 12. Actually he sent it a few weeks ago, but I've just got round to blogging about it. It's a nice big (A3 ish) booklet he put together for a talk he gave at Falmouth. It's basically 12 things he's learnt in the 12 months he's been in the industry. It's funny and useful and well written. If I'm honest it gets a bit waffley in places, but I'd love to have gotten this if I was a student.

Click on this picture to make it bigger and you'll see he's lumped us in with great companies such as Johnson Banks, The Chase, The Partners, Williams Murray Hamm, LOVE, Carter Wong and NB: Studios. All great people to be associated with.

He also talks about how being a designer is different to other jobs and he very kindly links to The Design Disease post.

You can read more about the project here and if you're nice Craig will probably send you a copy.

Do graphic designers have tattoos?

Where do they make creatives?

A bit of fun for a Friday. If you've ever wondered where creatives come from, find out in this little video.

The biggest Pantone swatches you'll ever see

Just in! New blogs!

I tend not to write about other blogs and I try not to just link to stuff I've found on the web. I like to be a little more in depth for you, my beloved listeners. I also tend to think that you lot read all the same blogs as me. That's probably wrong, but probably broadly right.

Anyhoo. Here's some new blogs I've found. I hope I'm illuminating you a little bit with these.

Martha Stewart's Blog
I'm not a Martha Stewart fan at all. But she's got a blog and that (in my opinion) is exactly the sort of thing Martha Stewart should be doing. I've being reading it for about 5 months, and you know what? It's brilliant. It's updated regularly, it's well written, it has good pictures, it's honest, it's interesting and it's refreshing. You get the feeling she writes a lot of it, she probably doesn't, but t feels like she does.

Here's some photos from a helicopter trip she took over her farm.

Feels better than all those fake cutaways of Surallen's Canary Wharf empire, doesn't it?

Here she is out and about at the White House Correspondents Dinner. No pictures of her with the President, but lots of genuine 'night out' photos.

It's good. Subscribe and be surprised.

Mark Porter
Mark Porter is probably a genius. I say probably because I don't want to sound like an over excited football commentator. He's Creative Director at The Guardian and he won a D&AD Black Pencil for that redesign. I'm the only person I know who's not a huge fan of the redesign, but it's massively popular and to win a Black Pencil is a huge achievement. Even more so for a newspaper redesign.

He only started blogging two months ago and as you'd expect he writes about graphic design and editorial design. Here's a review of the FT Magazine's redesign and here he is talking about the Mirror's ongoing redesign. Interesting and valuable stuff from someone at the top of their game.

Jan Chipchase
Jan is Principal Researcher, User Research at the Nokia Research Center. He blogs about the future, which sounds awful but he actually spends his day researching the future, so it's a fascinating glimpse at weird and wonderful things all around the world. Like the Golden Week in Japan. Jan is also an 'on the road' project management expert. Find out why, on the road, inanimate objects have names. Laptops = Names beginning with L. Dispatches from the frontline, you should take a look.

David Jones
David is IT Director for AEG Europe  (owners of The O2 ) in London. He blogs about the effective use of IT at home and at work. Here's a good post about the (frankly horrific) possibility of using your mobile on the tube. Here's another good post about how the BBC manages it's different web design relaunches. Good stuff.

id8
I'll declare an interest from the outset here - I'm on the Board of Advisors for id8 and we designed their business cards last year. Based in Chicago and San Francisco they've just started a blog and it's going to be exciting. If you're interested in usability, interaction design, start ups or the emerging technology iRise then pop over there and subscribe.

Designed to distract

Did you know that this orange kit is designed to distract strikers? Fact.

 

Super-cali-Adi-flickr-licious

The other day as part of my Flickr 366 thing I posted this picture, taken in our production meeting.

Then in the recent activity thing in Flickr I noticed that Adi Dassler had added it as a favourite.

That's a little odd, isn't it? Here's Adi's Flickr profile.

And here's some more of his favourites. All adidas related obviously.

Adi happens to be dead, so it's not him. It could be a sneakerhead. Or it could be some adidas marketing department, but they've spelt adidas with a capital A and that's a big no no in the adidas marketing department.

So anyway. As you were.

Esquire Covers Exhibition

I went to the Esquire Magazine Covers exhibition at The Hospital the other day. Don't waste your time going, it's shit.

They've taken great covers from the sixties, the Muhammad Ali, the Vietnam one, the Dustin Hoffman one etc, and recreated them with, er, people from the fashion industry. It's not even well done. Bad photographs and bad Photoshop work. It's quite insulting to be honest.

Anyway. One of them is good and that's this recreation of the Warhol cover with Paul Smith. You can buy these exclusive, limited edition covers at the exhibition and so I bought the Paul Smith one. It cost £5 and came in a handy, foil blocked paper bag. Maybe that's the way forward for magazines - put them in over elaborate bags and raise the prices?

There's a more sensible discussion about these over on Jeremy's blog.

Oh just piss off*

* I've not been as "punchy" recently as I should have been.

Are you a graphic designer? Do you have a tattoo?

Alex and I were talking the other day about tattoos. I hate tattoos. Alex said that all the graphic designers he knew didn't like tattoos because they could never pick one mark, or design, that they could be sure of liking forever. Let alone a font, "The font is always something Latino and gangster". Couple that with the horrible colour distortion of tattoos over time and you've got a designers nightmare.

But obviously there are designers with tattoos.

And some marks would be OK for life, wouldn't they?

Let's do a quick poll. Are you a graphic designer? Do you have a tattoo?

 

Dymaxion Chronofile

In other Buckminster Fuller news did you know that he loved to Twitter?

No I didn't either. The Dymaxion Chronofile was Buckminster Fuller's attempt to document his life as fully as possible. He created a very large scrapbook in which he documented his life every 15 minutes from 1915 to 1983. Every 15 minutes!

There's a good description on Wikipedia and shed loads more on the Buckminster Fuller Institute's site. Amazing.

Tensegrity

Tensegrity - my new favourite word.

Used by Buckminster Fuller it means, "a portmanteau of tensional integrity. It refers to the integrity of structures as being based in a synergy between balanced tension and compression components."

Further more, "Tensegrity is the exhibited strength that results "when push and pull have a win-win relationship with each other". Tension is continuous and compression discontinuous, such that continuous pull is balanced by equivalently discontinuous pushing forces.

Buckminster Fuller explained that these fundamental phenomena were not opposites, but complements that could always be found together. Tensegrity is the name for a synergy between co-existing pairs of fundamental Physical law; of push and pull, and compression and tension, or repulsion and attraction."

How fucking cool is that?

&AD

Here's some more pictures from last night.

Three great links from the CR Blog this morning. First up, here's the full list of all the D&AD winners from last night.

And here's a good discussion between Michael Johnson and Sean Perkins (from North) about why they think graphics was so under-represented this year. This year there were no pencils in graphic design.

Lastly, here a great article from Patrick on where the D&AD and Graphic Design go next. Well written, well worth a read and well worth taking part and commenting. It's an interesting debate.

Live D&AD Awards Twittering!

It's good in here. Good music. Good atmosphere. Better than Billingsgate. Everyone at D&AD seems happy.   about 2 hours ago 

"It's all moan, moan, moan, in here" Iain Tait, non pencil winner.   

There are huge queues for everything, and the food is a bit slow in coming. But overall we don't think anyone will be wanting a return to Billingsgate. I think there are some robots on stage. about 4 hours ago      

Imagine the letters in Campaign. about 4 hours ago      

Wow. Juan and the Gorilla get a Black. about 4 hours ago 

We did alright on the predictions didn't we? about 4 hours ago 

Websites now, Yellow for Uniqlock and Black for Get The Glass! about 4 hours ago 

Apple have now won more Black Pencils than anyone else. Ever. about 4 hours ago 

Apple get 3 yellows and... 2 Blacks for iMac and iPhone! about 4 hours ago 

Grand Jury by The Partners gets a Black! about 4 hours ago       

The first Black Pencil of the night for Uniqlock! about 4 hours ago      

Uniqlock gets a yellow about 4 hours ago      

Yellow for Get The Glass in gaming. about 4 hours ago      

Juan. Bunnies. Again. about 4 hours ago      

Juan is up again. Yellow for the bunnies. about 4 hours ago      

Cake gets a Yellow. Best baking 30 seconds. about 5 hours ago    

Gorilla wins a Yellow for sound. Juan is on stage. First of many? about 5 hours ago   

No pencils for Graphic Design. about 5 hours ago      

Nothing for Saks (as we predicted). about 5 hours ago      

John and Frances Sorrell get the presidents award. Well deserved if you ask us. about 5 hours ago   

Your president is wearing a pencil encrusted suit. Tony Davidson said he looked like a prisoner. about 5 hours ago 

Amstell is very funny. "When you guys run out of ideas you put a man in a guerilla suit and give him drums." about 5 hours ago      

The team at NDG aren't too fond of the programme typography. about 6 hours ago      

Just sitting down in the RFH now. We're running a little late. about 6 hours ago      

The terrace is packed. All the usual suspects here, ex Presidents etc. Lots of skinny ties and pointy shoes. about 6 hours ago      

Saks to get nothing and everyone is very mixed up about the Gorilla. about 7 hours ago      

OK here are the official NDG predictions. Blacks - iPhone, Grand Jury and Get The Glass. Silver - Uniqlock, Spot The Bull and Bravia. about 8 hours ago

Anyone think the Gorilla will win? about 8 hours ago

Send us your Black pencil predictions.   about 8 hours ago    

The entire NDG team have been for a slap up meal. (Gotta eat sommits if we don't get any scran til 9.15.) about 8 hours ago

More predictions - what will The President wear? about 9 hours ago 

Tom and I are speculating on food for tonight. Mini burgers, mini chips, mini portions, mini everything we reckon. about 11 hours ago      

Welcome listeners. Live D&AD Awards Twittering begins at approx 7pm BST. about 13 hours ago 

Live D&AD Awards Twittering!

Hold on to your hats. For the last couple of years (2006, 2007) we've written, exclusive, no holds barred, comprehensive, glamorous reviews of the D&AD Awards. For contractual reasons we may not be able to do that this year. So here at NDG we've decided to put the whole editorial team into Live Twittering the event. You know, like those brilliant live text things the BBC do for the football. Except bigger and better. No expense has been spared.

We'll get interviews with all the big names. We'll get gossip. We'll get scandal. We'll get tantrums and tears. We'll let you know, first, whether the Royal Festival Hall is better than Billingsgate. We can't promise to break news of every award but we'll be keeping an eye out for the Saks identity, the UNIQLOCK, the Grand Tour, the Gorilla and of course the iPhone. Will Jony get another Black pencil to go with all those black tshirts?

The Twittering will start around 7pm BST and will appear up there in the next post and over here on Twitter. Hit refresh to see any updates. Bet you can't wait.

Why graphic designers are like hairdressers.

More and more I'm convinced that graphic designers are like hairdressers. Graphic design agencies are like hairdressing salons.

I believe you could open a hairdressing salon in any town in Britain and you would make money. If you were sensible and kept on top of things you could make a nice living. Nice house, nice car, two holidays a year. All that.

I also believe there could be three hairdressers in this same town and they would all make money. All have nice cars. Two holidays. That's all perfectly possible.

I also believe you could open a graphic design agency in any town in Britain and you would make money. If you were sensible and kept on top of things you could make a nice living. Nice house, nice car, two holidays a year. All that.

I also believe there could be three graphic design agencies in this same town and they would all make money. All have nice cars. Two holidays. That's all perfectly possible.

You could repeat this formula up and down the country and it would still work. Just because there's already a hairdresser in town, it's no barrier to setting up another one.

Essentially all of these hairdressers will be of roughly the same quality. You could walk into to any of them, anywhere in the country, and get roughly the same haircut for roughly the same price. From time to time some of them will win awards and some of them will have good patches, but essentially, they're all just as competent.

Every once in a while one of these salons will become very well known. Famous, even. That's because approximately a couple of percent of everything will always be very good. The rest will be average. It's the same with graphic design.

From time to time some of these salons, or agencies, will go bust. Such is life. The staff move on, the good ones start up on their own, taking the good customers with them.

With the right financing and the right management a few of these salons could expand and go nationwide, maybe even international. But this will be rare, because essentially the business model isn't scalable.

According to the Design Council, 95% of design consultancies have less than 5 staff and a turnover of less than £250k a year. I wonder if The Hairdressing Council have similar stats?

Imagine a hairdressing salon pitching for your custom, how would they differentiate themselves? Could they differentiate themselves? If Bob cut your hair at British Hairways, would you change supplier when he moved to Curl Up And Dye? If The Cutting Corner was busy one Saturday and you needed a haircut quick would you chance it and get it done at Head Masters? Apply that thinking to your agency and your clients. Ever wonder why they find pitches so confusing? Worth thinking about that.

I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. It's just something I've noticed. What do you think?

More pitch stories

Here's a form I was asked to fill in for a tender the other day.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Key information about your agency

1.    Key skills and experience
Please list any key skills or experience that you think are relevant to XXX and make you stand out against other candidates

2.    Relationship and Communication
Please explain the relationship that we would have with you in terms of the way our account is managed and your preferred frequency and methods of communication

3.    Quality procedures
Please explain the quality procedures that you have in place to ensure the work that you deliver is of the highest quality standard.

4.    Project Management procedures
Please explain how you would go about managing complex projects, for example we often have projects that involve the production of several different versions of a piece of literature to serve all of our European markets. What procedures do you have in place for complex project management?

5.    Responding to a brief
Please explain your strategic approach in terms of responding to a brief.

6.    Capacity and capacity planning
What procedures do you have in place for capacity planning and dealing with capacity issues?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

What do you think of that?

Chalk Outlined Shadows At Night

Here's a lovely set of photographs from Michael Neff. Chalk outlines around shadows. Lovely. Really good. Just sat there waiting to get ripped off by an ad agency...

 

At last! The Design Police!

Very funny. Read more at Iain's place.

Nice Type

Some lovely type over on Christian Robert-Tissot's site. There's some crap as well, but most of it, like these the picture above, is great.

I'd love to do some big type like that.

Rodchenko Quotes

I've just found some quotes from the Rodchenko exhibition that I jotted down when I was there. Here they are.

Rodchenko's maxim was "Our duty is to experiment". Isn't that cool? Imagine if in your job description it said, "Your duty is to experiment". Rodchenko pushed boundaries precisely because he kept on experimenting.

Here's another one, "Enough depicting, time to build". God, I love this. "Enough depicting, time to build". I feel like getting a tshirt done with this on for meetings. After 20 minutes I could stand up and grandly declare, "Enough depicting, time to build".

How many good ideas die of over "depicting". Too much talking no enough doing. You know that bit in the middle of a conversation when people say, "That's it. Do that." But then they keep on talking for days. Let's just stop at the "That's it. Do that" bit.

As my old boss used to say, "The work doesn't get any better the longer it sits around, old son".

Good agency website shock

I love this.

Now, there are probably people who hate it. That's fine. I like it and this is my playground with my rules.

Instead of building the usual wank agency website Modernista! have utilised the tools of web 2.0.  So the work is shown through Flickr.

Easy to use, easy to find, easy to access, easy to comment on, easy to bookmark, easy to share. good, good, good.

The About Us page utilises Wikipedia.

The best way to get what I'm on about is to take a look at the site.

Found via this month's issue of Creative Review which is also The Annual issue and very good. In the shops now.

Not sure about the jeans Michael...

But this is how you get a D&AD pencil.