Noisy Decent Graphics

Small is good

Rapha, who I am a big fan of, launched an app a while back. Visually it's gorgeous, some lovely design details. Really beautiful. I particularly love this bit which allows you to set the app to only display images in black and white. I love that.

Which reminds me, there have been a few apps recently that I've liked. They all seem to make a virtue of feeling small.

Instagram, has it's critics. Rightly so as those effects are basically Photoshop filters and we all know how that ended. But I like it. It gives me a nice feed of interesting images from a few people,  I follow 30 people. That feels nice. More friendly. (Don't get me wrong it will NEVER replace my beloved Flickr.)

Then there's Words With Friends which is basically Scrabble. At any one time I may have 8 or so games going on. Words With Friends has a really nice message function that lets you talk to people while playing a game. I said Happy Christmas to more people via that that any social network. It just felt a bit weird, a bit too much, a bit odd, saying Happy New Year etc on Twitter. Maybe.

 

And there's Path. I actually think Path is rubbish. It's a mega stripped back photo sharing app, you can only follow 50 people at one time. It's so stripped back it's frustrating to use. But still, another small feed of stuff. I like the idea of smallness even though I don't like the app. And they've made it deliberately small. It can't get big.

This is all a huge contrast to the Facebook behemoth. That smart listeners will now be suggesting I reduce the number of 'friends' I have on Facebook. And actually Facebook does a decent job of allowing you to have different groups for different things. But it just feels a bit too difficult to start using Facebook that way. I don't think we can put the Genie back into the bottle.

Small feels good. 

And then there's this which isn't an app, but is a wonderful thing made Jason Kottke called Stellar. You see what you’re friends have favourited on Twitter and Flickr and Vimeo and the like. That’s actually really inspiring, it's invite only at the moment and I'm not sure about plans for a bigger launch. Again it feels like another small thing. This has the added effect of a sort of nearness halo. For example I often see things that friends have favourited by other people I know, but don't necessarily follow. This leads me over there and brings them nearer to me.

Stellar highlights things I might like from my near networks. I like it a lot.

Actually, I've always liked small.

Nike Grid 2

The second Nike Grid started last night and runs for two weeks.

You may remember I was Creative Director on the first one with w+k, I thought I'd written about it on here, but I can't find the post. To save time there's a quick overview written by Doug E Fresh. The second one is bigger and bolder and has been aided by Dan Hon joining the team at w+k. So we've plundered his gamification skillz to make the gameplay better and to allow new ways of playing such as team play.

We haven't started from scratch with the look and feel. We built a really strong identity last time and we were keen to evolve that and to make something that still feels like it could go further for Grid 3 and grid 4 (should they happen etc). Last time we kept it to one colour plus black and white, this time we've added more colours, partly to make it feel bigger, partly to help with visualising team play.

 

Also new this time is the involvement of Stamen. They have worked with us to created a map, using Open Street Map and some awesome data viz stuff which will go live throughout the game. Here's the first of several videos we'll be using to tell different stories throughout the game.

We're using Facebook as a way of logging in, I don't have much to add to this expect that it reinforces my increasing affection for Facebook. I'm starting from a low base, but Facebook increasingly is The Internet for people and the fact that it lets 'them' do all the stuff 'we' do on Twitter, Flickr and Foursquare in one place is a Good Thing. OK, maybe not a Good Thing, but a Thing.

This project seems to be a lovely mix of several things that feel very current. It's a game, but it's not just a game bolted on to a brand. The game is integral to the brands heritage - running. It's got lots of Post Digital thinking, we're not using tech for the sake of it, we're using it to amplify the experience. It utilises Magnificent Bits Of Infrastructure that are lying around (I've worked on another project that does that too, heh) this time in the form of phoneboxes.

It would be wrong of me to talk about stats this early into the game, but as with last time the depth of engagement people have with this is insane.

And there's lots of interesting stuff happening on Twitter and Facebook.

As ever, I'm a very small part of a big team of talented, dedicated people working night and day to pull this off. And not just at w+k, at Nike, AKQA and MindShare.

As I said, Nike Grid is on for two weeks and started yesterday. So there's still time to sign up and get running.

 

It's Nice That 4

I was at the launch of It's Nice That 4 last night.

Alex and Will did a sort of 'live magazine' where contributors explained their stuff fomr the magazine in short presentations. It worked very well, interesting evening. You should buy a copy.

But I want to talk about colours.

The colours they photograph these magazines on are fantastic. Sure, it's a pretty simple concept, yellow on green. But THAT yellow with THAT green. Awesome.

THAT pink, THAT green, THAT yellow, THAT blue. Really sharp colours that ping out. Every single time. Picking the exact colour, that's a reall skill. A simple thing that makes the world of difference.

 

 

The evil banks, Tory scum and that posh twat

 

I keep noticing these Cycle Hire things. And yesterday I saw Boris cycling home. These are both good things.

This Cycle Hire scheme is a good thing. A very good thing. I know there are haterz, I know the scheme isn't perfect. I know it's sponsored by a bank (and I know you hate them) and I know it was introduced by a Tory mayor (and I know you hate them) but it's still a good thing. Not perfect. But good. It's the kind of thing you would see abroad and then come home and rave about. But it's not abroad it's in our very own London.

 

This signs are good. Not perfect, but better than not having them. They've done a decent job on the design. They make a lot more sense than most You Are wHere? maps. Likewise, to have a mayor that cycles to work is a good thing. Might be the only good thing about Boris (I know you all hate him) but I'd rather he cycled than he didn't. Just as I'd rather Barclays sponsored the blue cycle lanes than we didn't have them at all.

It's not perfect, but neither is life.

Profound, I know.

Rapha Cafe

I took a little detour this morning and popped into the Rapha Cafe. I'm really glad I did, it was gorgeous. Beautiful understated, comprehensive design that you don't see that often anymore.

Those of you familiar with the Rapha brand won't be disappointed. Lovely stuff.

There's even a picture of our dear friend Patrick Syms.

Hurry up and visit. It's only temporary and closes at the end of July. More pictures on The Flickr.

Two days Guardian

A few weeks ago Phil made Today's Guardian.

Completely unofficial but made with the Guardian's Open Platform it shows all the articles from today’s issue of the Guardian one 'page' at a time, like the physical newspaper. It does nothing else, just that. As Phil says, "Hopefully it’s as easy to browse through today’s newspaper as it would be with the print edition." (Read more about it here.)

I thought it would be interesting to compare a day's newspaper with Phil's site. Purely a visual comparison. And a glanceable visual comparison at that. What does it feel like to flick through both things? Let's have a look.

What do we learn from that?

The thing that strikes me the most are the ads. You really see what a large portion of the newspaper they are. I miss them on Phil's site. I miss the big splashes of colour. That's an odd thing to say. Phil's site does carry ads served by The Guardian, but they are banner ads and the like. And obviously I am advertising-friendly, but they seem to give the paper a sort of rhythm that's missing from the site. Which reminds me of a time a few years ago when a newspaper designer told me it was sometimes easier to design a page with ads on as it gave you somewhere to begin. It took away the blank canvas fear of an empty page.

I doubt if anyone else misses them though.

Branding

I really like this.

 

It's really simple. It reminds me of that famous story (can't remember which book it's from) where the guy starts putting his initials on his buckets and that the first instance of branding.

Anyway, let's not ruin it by over analysing. It's good. Well done Kelloggs.

It's Next Week That

Next week Alex and Will have asked me to be a guest blogger over on It's Nice That.

All I have to do is review one piece of work each day. I thought I'd ask you if there was any work you'd like me to review? Anything you've seen recently that you'd like to talk about?

I thought I might start with this.

I like this. I have no idea why.

I like those Supertelly ads you see kicking around for Sky. Not the full ad with the robot arms, I hate that one, but the simple one that's just colour and type.

I was hoping to post about it with a short description of why I like them. But I can't really work out why I like them. So I'm going to blog about it as very rough notes. Maybe we can work it out together.

 

1. I'm a designer. I'm a sucker for colour. We all are. Normally I hate those 3D glass effect logos, but the Sky one is well done and they use it effectively. And those colours so nice.

2. That song. Oh my Lord that song. So creamy and so rich. So gorgeous.

3. Something about the media dictating the creative in a good way that doesn't sound as shit as that. There's something in the sheer completeness of the execution that makes me think this is the bit leading the campaign.

What do I mean by that? Lots of screens are starting to appear, but they're not really tellys, they're more like animated posters. It's very rare to see any creative that's been adapted well for that format and that's probably the problem, they all feature creative that's been adapted for the format. These almost feel like they were designed with animated posters in mind.

Short little bits of moving image that work as 10 second idents after Sky News, work as silent posters on the Tube and work as 60 second ads on the TV at home.

 

And still looks good as a web page background. Yes, something like that.

4. Supertelly. A brilliant expression. Supertelly, you can imagine people saying that in pubs and cafes across the land.

Colour, sound, thoroughness, those alone are not recognised reasons for liking something. But who cares about that?

Noticings

Seeing as none of you liked the Newspaper Club logo I'd like to show one you will like.

 

Noticings is a casual Flickr game built by RIG's very own Tom Taylor and BERG's Tom Armitage. It's a game about learning to look at the world around you. You take a picture, upload it to Flickr, tag it with noticings, geotag it and you're in.

 

Noticings' rules are always in flux, but for example you get 10 points for noticing something and 70 for noticing something every day for a week. There are other short lived rules, so one week you may get x2 for noticing something that is lost or something that is red.

There's a score table, but it's weekly, so new players can very easily get to the top of the league.

 

Anyway. Seeing as it's a game on Flickr I thought the logo ought to be pink and blue. And seeing as Flickr is more blue than pink i thought we'd flip that. And then crucially the 'o' in the name gave me the chance to put a little eye in there which becomes the Noticings icon.

 

Seeing as Noticings is a game played on your mobile phone and on the web this is more important than the logo. It's certainly used more. Here's the Twitter stream,

 

the App Store,

  

 

the App icon,

 

the laptop stickers,

 
the favicon (etc, etc)

 

and in possibly the best moment of my career so far the Flickr machine tag.

 
Yes! Something I designed made it into the official Flickr code!

Look how small that Flickr machine tag icon is. Teeny tiny. And yet the symbol still works as a logo and as a cheeky little eye. I'm pretty pleased with that.

You can play noticings here, you can follow them on Twitter here and you can buy the app here. It's worth getting the app just for the ability to upload photos with the correct geo tag from your iPhone.

D&AD Annual 2009

And now it's time for annual review of the D&AD Annual.

This year's book has been design by Peter Saville. Or rather, art directed by Peter Saville and designed by Luke Sanders (who I think works for WMH).

That really is all you need to know about the design of the book; Peter Saville.

Looks great - difficult to use.

These little info graphics are particularly gorgeous.

 

 

 

Each section is covered by an extended page that's on slightly thicker stock and folds in to wrap around a section.

 

 
 

Neat idea you might think? Certainly looks cool from the outside. But when you're reading the book and you move on to another section it does this.

 

Which is annoying. I'm sure the pages will soften over time and it's not so annoying it would stop you reading the book. But still, it's a book in a book format that didn't really need messing around with. Seeing that those section dividers add very little I don't see the point of them. Like I said, annoying and classic Saville.

The rest of the book follows the standard design we've grown used to.

There's some great work inside, but there's very little stuff that stands out. Actually I remember very little of the work when flicking through the book. That has nothing to do with Saville, or D&AD or the judges, that's a quiet year.

The book is well worth having though. It's a fascinating record of the year's work. And the standard is very high, as always. At the moment the only way to get the Peter Saville designed version is to sign up as a member. You should do that. You can do that here.

If you don't fancy membership you will soon be able to buy the same book, designed by Jeremy Leslie and printed by Taschen for about £30. That's a very good idea and a very good deal and I'm sure it won't have silly section dividers either. We'll announce that when it gets released.

I've picked out some stuff that caught my eye below. It's very hard to credit everyone involved, so I haven't. Apologies for that. Seriously, it's hard to credit everyone on a blog and yet I ought to really. Sorry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See also: 2006 Annual, 2007 Annual, 2008 Annual (n/a).

What does this app do?

Iain was eulogised about this app on his blog, but let's talk about that image up there.

That one image describes perfectly and quickly, without words and with the uppermost efficiency, exactly what that app does. If you've ever worked 'on' an app you'll know how hard that is.

Brilliant stuff.

The Second World War

I don't often put my own work on here but this one is a bit special.

It's an ad to promote The Guardian's seven part series on The Second World War. I did it at w+k a few weeks ago with Rob Burleigh as the copywriter.

There's a TV ad and some digital stuff too, but it looks great as a big piece of print.

In defence of the 2012 logo, 2 years on

It's just over 2 years since the London 2012 Olympic logo was launched to such derision.

Being a prominent design blogger I wrote about it back then. I've just reread that post and I agree with everything I said. Which is reassuring.

Actually I think I agree even more. I like the logo even more.

The chief argument from the loverz at the time was that it would grow on you as it was used in different applications. That it was so ahead of it's time, everyone would catch up by 2012.

Has it grown on you? Honestly?

We haven't really seen it used in a big way yet, there are still 3 years to go before the Olympics, but we have seen graphic design work creeping out of LOGOC HQ so now seems like a good time to stop and take a look and see how we all feel about.

The best piece of work by miles is this fantastic map by Stamen.

Without question the best piece of graphic design and the best use of the branding to have emerged so far. Vibrant and exciting but still easy to navigate. Lovely.

To take one small detail, look how they've used those shapes in the water of the map above. That's a sensible design decision, but it's also exciting and different. I hope this is how the branding was intended to be used when it was conceived.

 

This is some digitally eventy work from Matt and the guys at Universal Everything. Nice isn't it? EXCITING.

Some of you are getting a bit scared now because we haven't seen an Helvetica yet. Look again, there was some on that Stamen map.

This is the main LOGOC website. A pretty standard corporate affair in terms of content. Looks good though.

The colours are nice. They are lively. All that stuff above seems to have a fast moving pace about it which is good and appropriate. It doesn't look like clarity has been scarificed for style.

Managing this brand must be very difficult. Bureacracy and vested interests at every turn, so it's even more impressive that they manage to eeak exciting graphics out.

Not everything is rosy though. Take a look at this hideous beast.

That's breath takingly bad. Just stick the logo over there by the swimmers head it'll be alright. Incredibly insensitive and ill thought out. Terrible.

But to me the success of this logo will be how it's used by non roster approved LOGOC people. If it's a great logo even the fake shirt sellers will make it look good.

Or the press. That up there looks good to me. Obviously it's not gonna win any design awards, but it looks exciting. The colours are good - and those colours have been forced on the Telegraph by the attitude of the brand. That's a good thing.

 

I like it. I like it more. What do you think?

Sometimes I love this profession

  

And then there are these things of exquisite beauty by Alan Clarke. Wonderfully evocative. Bright, fun, exciting. Simple and yet complex. The kind of thing you'd buy and stick on the wall.

Graphic design at it's best. Lovely.

I think Alan is a recent graduate, but I may be wrong. Sadly these posters are only speculative and not actually for the 2012 Olympics. But if someone from Tfl or LOGOC is reading you should give him a call, right now. (Or maybe tomorrow, after the holiday.)

The Art of Penguin Science Fiction

I've just had an email from James Pardey who sent me a link to his wonderful website. The Art of Penguin Science Fiction.

Rather than me witter on for ages, let us hand the microphone to James who will witter on for a bit about this fab project.

"The purpose of the website is to complement a series of articles I've written for the Penguin Collector's Society on the history and cover art of science fiction published by Penguin Books from 1935 to 1977.
 
The website is primarily intended to be a visual experience (there are over 150 Penguin sf covers, which Penguin has granted me a licence to use) with the articles going into more detail about the sf itself, and the connections between sf and twentieth-century art (abstraction, surrealism, Pop, etc.) which is my main area of interest. This linkage between sf and modern art will also be the subject of some talks and further articles in newspapers and magazines that I am now planning.

My main area of interest is the linkage between modern science fiction - by which I mean Jules Verne and H G Wells onwards - and twentieth-century art (abstraction, surrealism, Pop, etc.).
 
Where Penguin comes into this is that in the 1960s they launched an sf series with covers by the great Germano Facetti. But instead of using pictures of aliens, rocketships, and bug-eyed monsters, Facetti chose reproductions of paintings by Max Ernst, Paul Klee, Yves Tanguy, Joan Miro and Rene Magritte to name a few. Why? Well, each painting was carefully chosen to tie in with some aspect of the novel, and it is these connections that form the heart of the website and the articles that I've written to accompany it. The articles are being published by the Penguin Collectors' Society (last December and two more due this year) but the articles and website only go so far.

There is more to explore, such as the links between J G Ballard and surrealism, Jules Verne and the Belgian surrealist Paul Delvaux, Delvaux and Ballard, etc., etc. I am therefore planning to examine this in some talks and further articles for newspapers and magazines. Incidentally, instead of starting in the 1960s I decided that both the website and articles should start at the beginning, when Penguin was founded in 1935.

I did this in order to tell "the whole story" since the early orange-and-white banded covers of Penguin books have since become regarded as design classics and, to many people, miniature works of art in their own right. And after the sf series in the 1960s, the influence of Pop Art and Op Art can be seen in the later Penguin sf covers by Alan Aldridge and Franco Grignani, while those by David Pelham have also achieved iconic status. Facetti was no stranger to sf either, as he appeared in La Jetee, a seminal art-house sf movie by the French New-Wave director Chris Marker."

What Brands Can Learn from Euronews

I always assume you lot read all the same blogs as me. Which is very wrong, I shouldn't do that.

The fabulous debate about retiring the black and white logo is fascinating and ongoing. Following on from that Michael Johnson has highlighted this truly awful single colour rebrand.

At first, I thought that was a printing error and something had been left out of the circle. But no, that white circle is their logo. Really.

That's shockingly bad, isn't it?

You should go and look at Michael's post and then look at the hilarious comments on Brand New's review of the logo and then wonder what brands can learn from all of this.

A lovely thing I saw today

I saw this too, which is lovely. By the nice people at Love.

A very modern dilemma

You may not be aware, but recently there's been a bit of a rebranding scandal in the world of domestic heating.

Since 1970 there has been an organisation in the UK called CORGI or the Council for Registered Gas Installers. Very quickly, for our overseas readers, this organisation operates the registration scheme for gas installers in the UK. If you're getting a gas boiler fitted or serviced you must only use CORGI registered engineers.

So you can check the validity of your local gas engineer Corgi have a neat little orange shield logo. Obviously the logo has undergone several face lifts over the years, but basically it looks like this.

You see it on ID cards, on letterheads, on vans and on uniforms. In fact, it's reputed to have a recognition rate of 93%. That seems a bit steep to me, but I'm sure it's still a very high number.

Last year the Government decided to put the contract for gas installer registrations out to tender. Presumably to save money, as Governments do. And Corgi didn't win. Capita won, the people who run the Congestion Charge.

After the celebrations were over and all the champagne corks had been popped, someone from Capita rang someone at Corgi and asked if they could have the logo. You can imagine how that conversation went, but to save you the trouble I've mocked up a version. Like the tabloids do.

Capita "Good morning, Capita here. We're just won that gas safety contract from you. I'm just ringing to ask if we can have a copy of the logo. One of the designers told me to ask for an Eepeess, but I've no idea what that means, so a jpeg will do. Needs to be in colour. Something like a word file would be better though, as we're going to print it."

Corgi "Sorry. We own that little shield, it's called branding and it's our intellectual property. You can't have it."

Capita "Oh. Can't we just have the one off your website?"

Corgi "I'm calling the lawyers..."

Anyway. You get the picture. Corgi won't let Capita or the Government use their logo. The one that has been going for 39 years and has a 93% recognition rate. They own that you see, even though it's always been a scheme associated with the Government. When the Government put the contract out to pitch, you'd have thought they would have considered that, wouldn't you?

So Capita have had to create their own brand. It's called the 'Gas Safety Register' and it looks like this.

Looks like everyone has learned something as the new "Gas Safe Register" brand is owned by the Health and Safety Executive, but is on loan to Capita for the duration of its contract.

Ann Robinson, director of public awareness at Gas Safe Register has said "This is not like Marathon changing to Snickers, because ours is a campaigning brand. Our aim is to support registered engineers throughout the changeover and beyond. We will make sure your customers know CORGI gas registration is gone and Gas Safe Register is the official stamp for gas safety".

To make sure that happens the Government has set Capita  a target to achieve "an 'unprompted' public awareness percentage rate of 40% by October 2009." Ahhh, our old friend 'unprompted' public awareness. Watch out for people spontaneously shouting, "Gas Safety Register! It's a bloomin' yellow triangle!" over the next few months.

40% by October this year. Feels pretty small compared to that 93% doesn't it?

This whole episode raises several issues.

1. That yellow triangle thing is fucking horrible. It almost looks like a spoof logo. I presume it's been designed to fit on the corner of a boiler or something, but it represents a huge opportunity missed. That yellow looks like a web safe yellow not a brand colour and the type relationships are very odd. I know which logo I'd rather sew onto my overalls.

2. To me this debacle demonstrates the value of branding far better than any Interbrand ranking. As UK White Goods say, "The total cost of the HSE's rebranding exercise was not disclosed." but what's the value of that little orange shield to the Government? What's the value if there's an accident? The whole Corgi thing started after the explosions in Ronan Point in 1968.

3. Welcome to Intellectual Property 2009. Corgi may well have been better off selling the shield to Capita. Maybe they tried. The Government would have been better off owning the shield in the first place. Probably no one cared in 1970. Intellectual Property is a minefield and no agency has a decent grip on it. Certainly no design agency.

A cautionary tale in many ways.

Hat tip to Charles The Plumber who first alerted me to this.

Watermarks

Lovely, lovely project in Bristol called Watermarks. Needs little explanation, ticks a lot of boxes. Very simple. Very good. Cheers drive.