Noisy Decent Graphics

Review of 2010 part 1

Time for some reviews of the year then.

First up a boring, self indulgent one about me. Then over the weekend a much more interesting one consisting of links from my delicious.

2010. It's been a good year.

As Newspaper Club we won the Design Museum's Design of the Year award for Graphics. That's a nice award to win as you don't enter yourself your peers nominate you. And it's from the Design Museum too. Very chuffed to win that. 

 Newspaper Club also made it into the D&AD Annual and we picked up a British Interactive Media Association award, a special award no less, for Technical Achievement. Full credit must go to Tom Taylor for that one.

Newspaper Club has had a fantastic year. We've taken a Christmas joke and turned it into a business with a six figure turnover, staff and actual customers. We've navigated software, usability, financial and fulfillment issues. 

We were even in Time magazine.

But most importantly we've made an actual product and put that into the world. We've shipped. And as Tom says, "You’ve either shipped, or you haven’t". We have and the vast amount of stuff we've learned along the way will ensure the next project is a thousand times easier. And there will be another project.

One of the most exciting things I've worked on this year has to be Nike Grid, which claimed the 3rd best digital campaign and the 6th best poster in Campaign's Review of the year.

You've all read about that before, but it's nice to be involved with a project that's a realisation of stuff people are talking about in many different sectors. Digital, maps, mobile, real time data, the city, visualisation - all that. It's a real collaborative project too and on the second version I got to work with Stamen, which I'd been wanting to do for a long time. Hopefully that project will grow next year.

 I also continued to work with w+k on the Guardian and Observer account. We relaunched the Observer with much success in a difficult market.

I think this is my favourite Guardian campaign of the year.

 

One of the more surprising and pleasing things of the year was the success of BRIG which turned out exactly how we planned without us planning anything.

Way back we had this idea of a space where all the interesting people we know could work together formally or informally. You know like all those Tech Shed Co-Working places in America, but less aggressive. And that's sort of happened. And like Russell says we don't do enough stuff together. Yet.

Look how happy these people are. Believe it or not, these people are working.

But looking at BERG's Flickr stream the other day it struck me all the brilliant things that have happened in that building in the nine short months we've been in there.

You will all be familar with Dentsu and BERG's lovely Making Future Magic video. Lots of that was shot in and around the BRIG (obviously as BERG are based there).

James, who was the start of dConstruct partly made his Iraqipedia books in the BRIG. Seems like ages ago now, but they were tantalisingly left on his desk for ages before his talk.

The brilliant Pseudos were always around. Newspaper Club is based there. And Chris, Phil, James, James and Leila and various visitors from all over the world drop in.

It all that was one Agency we'd be off to some fancy foreign land to win Something Of The Year.

But it feels good that our building, the BRIG, is becoming part of the fabric of a very interesting time.

It's also worth mentioning other things we've worked on - Dextr, Starling and Radio Roundabout. All exciting projects that I enjoyed working on and you'll be hearing more about next year.

And that's kind of it. Some great stuff up there. Exciting stuff. But there's a niggling feeling at the back of my mind. Frustration. Anger even. Stuff I've wanted to achieve that hasn't been achieved yet. Stuff that's nearly working, but not quite yet. Gotta fix that in 2011.

And if you fancy a laugh.

 

Closed for August

My good friend Paul, who used to be a Brand Manager for a product in the Chilled Foods aisle, is trying to revive that trend where you announce on your blog when you're going to be away. I'm happy to help. As is now traditional NDG will be closed for the whole of August.

Due to the global economic downturn we won't be having a Guest Blogger this summer. Cut backs.

We will return in September refreshed and bursting with all the latest design industry gossip, in depth analysis and kerning news. Until then, keep it between the navigational beacons.

 

Bloggers Drinks - an update

I'm really sorry I'm going to have to cancel Blogging Drinks.

Actually, what I mean is that I can't make blogging drinks anymore. But that's no reason for it not to go ahead. Several people have expressed an interest. So if you'd like to organise that in the comments, feel free.

How many helveticas does it take to get to the moon?

I don't know about you but my favourite measurement is the moonandback. The distance to the moon is 385,000,000,000 mm.

The size of an unkerned piece of normal cut Helvetica at 100pt is 136.23 mm.

Therefore it would take 2,826,206,643.42 helveticas to get to the moon.

Bloggers Drinks Thursday 29th July

In the evening, somewhere out East. All welcome. The more nutters the merrier.

2. Identity and branding

We've already mentioned the EU Organic logo competition, what else caught our eye in the murky world of identity and branding?

Early on Creative Review featured Mr Chicken. He's the chap who designs all the Fried Chicken logos in London. Amazing stuff.

  

Coke continued their branding resurgence with these great summer special edition cans. Big corporations listen up: THIS IS HOW YOU DO BRANDING.

 

Michael Bierut tweaked the Guitar Hero logo. There's an element of 'you couldn't make that up' isn't there? Looks great though.

  

Another example of 'how to do branding' from a designer at the top of his game. I could easily have mentioned The Oak Room or continued work for MAD.

 
London went a bit logo mad including the dreadful experience of trying to create a Brand for London. When will they learn, the city doesn't want or need a logo. Michael Johnson has a good round up here.

 
Of much more importance to London, the Olympic icons were launched. Just as I really like the 2012 logo (sorry David) I really like these icons. Actually, I don't really like the black and white ones, but I love the colour ones and I really like the way it links in with the tube lines thing. Colourful, interesting, different. Exciting. Well done Someone.

 

 

I designed the Newspaper Club logo which you all hated and the Noticings logo which you all loved. (Actually lots of people love that one, not just you lot.)

 

And then right at the end of the year, because we all know heavy metal bands have the best logos we asked Christophe Szpajdel to design the new logo for RIG.

12 Posts of Christmas - 1. The Funnies

I've been a bit slow with the 12 Posts of Christmas. I know, I know, please stop emailing in. All back on track now. First up, The Funnies.

Right at the start of the year were these Poster Hacks which made me smile.

  

Then the EU started a competition to create "a fresh new logo for organic products". The winner got €6,000. And now, a year later you can vote from a shortlist of three.

The Sun blocked Bob Crow's driveway with a bus so he could see how it felt not being able to get to work. TechCrunch wrote about Newspaper Club and called the blog "hilariously frank".

WW2 propaganda posters got reworked with a modern twist.

  

Pete Dungey's Alan Keys. Student project of the year.

  

Stephen Fry gave a speech at Lords and demonstrates how to be brilliant, funny, warm and touching about nothing much. Brilliant and hilarious.

“Now, many of you will be wondering by what right I presume to stand and speak in front of this assembly of all that is high and fine and grand and noble and talented in the world of cricket, and to speak too in this very temple of all that is historic, majestic and ever so slightly preposterous and silly in that world? I certainly can’t lay claim to any great cricketing achievements. I can’t bat, I can’t field, I bowl off the wrong foot. That sounds like a euphemism for something else, doesn’t it? “They say he bowls off the wrong foot, know what I mean? He enters stage left. Let me put it this way, he poles from the Cambridge end of the punt.”

Graeme and Paul in Romania, or rather, in Romanian. The Michael Jackson Pantone swatches.

Never got enough plug sockets? Make a whole wall of them.

  

Planner Russell Davies invents the term "gleeful emo collapsism" and Corporate Blogger of the Year, Neil Christie rates Campaign's digital efforts.

You must read this APG paper written by a monkey. And you must read CampbellLaceBeta discovering Skype. Both very funny for different reasons.

Boris wades into the missing Thames debacle via Twitter and Kraft launch a Vegemite product called iSnack2.0. Seriously.

Everyone's parents were awesome.

And Hey Jude, the info graphic.

  

Sorry for not crediting everyone, it would simply take too long. I have included full instead. Hope that's OK.

12 Posts of Christmas

 

On Wednesday there will be twelve working days left until Christmas Day. Therefore, without any regard for tradition, the Noisy Decent Graphics editorial team have put together a little blog series called 12 Posts of Christmas. There will be reviews of work from 2009, personal highlights, the best links, quotes, funny bits, free mince pies, Last Christmas on repeat and maybe a whole section on Rory Sutherland.

12 Posts of Christmas - starts Wednesday, finishes Christmas Eve.

The Hidden Park - iPhone game

Yesterday we went to the South Bank to try out The Hidden Park, an iPhone game.
[website] [iTunes]

It's an ambitious game that uses the iPhone's GPS, the camera and the speaker  to create a sort of ARGish geo-cachingish mash up for families. You pick a park, head down there with the kids and run around solving clues and puzzles and trying to find the magical creatures.

I am not a gamer at all. (Apart from the iPhone) I have never owned any games console. The last time I played a computer game was Guitar Hero at Christmas and before that I have absolutely no idea.

But I have an iPhone and I have kids so I'm probably a good test case.

It's very hard to review this game for two reasons; firstly it's not as good as you're imagining it is and secondly that's because the technology is a weeny bit clunky for the full experience. I'll try a review and hopefully you'll see what I mean.

OK, first up, you choose a park. In London you can pick Kensington Gardens or the South Bank. That's a disappointment right there, in your head you imagined you could play it in any park didn't you? When you think about it, it's obvious that you have to play in a pre-determined place as the game play uses the features of the park, but that's a good example of the perception and the reality not matching up.

Anyway. You start the game. Trutton rings you up. This is brilliant, it looks and feels just like a real phone call and the kids identified with that straight away. Trutton gives you some instructions and off you go.

Most of the time the maps were pretty accurate, but a few times they weren't.

We weren't in the middle of the Thames. It says waiting for GPS Accuracy, but I waited a long time and it still didn't get the location. This is a technology/reality problem that's only occurs because kids are involved. They want the map to be right straight away and they don't understand waiting.

When the map works, it's ace. It picks up where you are and triggers the next chapter. There are little puzzles to solve along the way, simple ones that give you a great big rewarding 'well done'.

But best of all is the camera link up. The game tells you to point your camera at specific things in the park and then brings the screen to life with little characters.

It does this really well, the graphics are fab and animated nicely. The kids loved this bit.

The story is a bit weak and (obviously) it sometimes over relies on the iPhone's attributes. But my main complaint is that there's too much walking. We started off by the London Eye, then we headed over to the BFI, then back to the Eye and then across to the National Theatre, back to the BFI and then finishing at Gabriel's Wharf. That's a lot of walking with small children. Especially in a busy tourist location.

The best bit as far as the kids were concerned were these brilliant little photos created by standing in exactly the right spot.

They are pretty awesome. Especially as you (or the child not in the picture) can watch the creatures walk on to the screen.

In summary, it's not perfect but I think it's unreasonable to expect it to be. It appears (to me) to be at the forefront of a potentially massive market. It has the basics right, it looks great, it's fun, it's simple and it makes good use of the iPhone. It's sufficiently parent and sufficiently child.

It seems to make sense in an emerging post-digital world. It takes something you can't do on a screen (going outside and run round a park) and merges it with something you can't do with twigs or paper (animate creatures over pictures etc). But also it takes the best bits of those worlds, going to the park is a good fun thing and gps and camera etc uses the best of the iPhone. That's smart and importantly it doesn't feel forced or false. Throw in gaming on the top and you've got a very interesting mix.

We had a great time playing and I would play it again. For £3.99 you can't really complain.

I'm not interested in games, but this sort of thing could easily get me hooked.

12cm / 4.72 in - personal snowmatics

I wasn't going to do a snow post, but everyone else is doing one, so you know.

Most people have had a fun day enhanced by Flickr and Twitter and the like. Which is good.

I invented a system of Personal Snowmatics, mainly to let my Dad know how much snow was up here. So it was nice to see Mum and Dad joining in via their Flickr account. Remember their contribution to the saucers debate?

Flickr 366

Today is the last day of my Flickr 366. The end of taking one picture every day. I've only missed 8 days, which I'm pretty impressed with. After the jump, here's a short list of things I've learned.

1. It's hard
Remembering to do it is hard enough, but finding something to take a picture of is harder. Where possible I tried to include people. But sometimes you spend a day somewhere where people don't want you taking pictures.

2. It's creative
Even though it's forced it's still a creative act. You still have to think about composition and the like. It's a good discipline and I'd say it's worth trying this if you're a creative.

3. Sometimes there's a long time between 2 days.
7am in one country on Monday and 11pm in another on Tuesday, sometimes that can be 48 hours apart.

4. Camera everywhere = good
Obvious but true.

5. Series work well
That repetition thing. It works every time.

6. I missed less than I thought I would
Only 8, which is pretty good.

7. It's the best diary I've ever had
It's incredibly easy to remember where you were and what you were doing when there's a simple (dated) photographic record.

I'm glad it's over though. And I'm ready to try a new thing. 2009 - a sketch every day.

New Words 2008

During 2008 I bookmarked new words I learned under the tag newwords using delicious. To save you the trouble of hopping over there I've listed them all below. Note, some of them aren't new words, but rather words I've always been unsure of the meaning of and decided to clear up. You should try this, I recommend it.

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

unbidden - "Not invited, asked, or requested; unasked - ie unbidden guests."

insensate - Lacking sense or the power to reason

MacGuffin - A MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin) is a plot device that motivates the characters or advances the story, but the details of which are of little or no importance otherwise.

Meijin - Brilliant Man

equanimity - "The quality of being calm and even-tempered; composure."

Skeuomorph - "Skeuomorph is a term used in the history of architecture, design, and archaeology. It refers to a derivative object which retains ornamental design cues to structure that was necessary in the original." Brilliant! And it mentions Stonehenge!

Pinyin - Pinyin, more formally Hanyu pinyin, is the most common Standard Mandarin romanisation system in use.

mensch - "A person having admirable characteristics, such as fortitude and firmness of purpose" via Beeker

St Totteringham's Day - "St Totteringham's Day is the day when Arsenal fans celebrate the fact that Tottenham can no longer catch Arsenal in the League"

impetuous - "Characterized by sudden and forceful energy or emotion; impulsive and passionate."

ameliorate - "to make or become better, more bearable, or more satisfactory"

Diegesis - the (fictional) world in which the situations and events narrated occur

discomgoogolation - "Feel stressed if you can't get online? You could have 'discomgoogolation'. Psychologists studying the high stress levels caused by internet dependency have dubbed the phenomenon 'discomgoogolation' '' - I have this!

loquacious - Very talkative, garrulous, given to conversation. (A bit like me, maybe.)

grawlix - A string of typographical symbols used (especially in comic strips) to represent an obscenity or swear word.

chrysalid - Relating to or resembling a chrysalis.

Cerulean - Cerulean may be applied to a range of colors from deep blue, sky-blue, bright blue or azure color through greenish blue colors.

Rhizotron - A rhizotron is a clear-walled chamber through which one can observe roots as they grow.

micturate - To urinate.

Otaku - is a Japanese term used to refer to people with obsessive interests, particularly anime and manga.

scatological - Meaning: offensive to accepted standards of decency. Not to be confused with the other definition of scatological which is literally "offensive to accepted standards of decency".

salience - The importance of a political issue, or issue dimension. The quality or condition of being salient.

cybergenic - able to surf, blog, IM and twitter their way into the hearts of activist netizens

disemvowled - as in "bkkeepr is a disemvowled version of book-keeper"

dizygotic - Derived from two separately fertilized eggs. Used especially of fraternal twins.

brackish - Having a somewhat salty taste, especially from containing a mixture of seawater and fresh water.

Epicanthic - An epicanthal fold, epicanthic fold, or epicanthus is a skin fold of the upper eyelid (from the nose to the inner side of the eyebrow) covering the inner corner (medial canthus) of the eye.

Psephology - (from Greek psephos, 'pebble', which the Greeks used as ballots) is the statistical analysis of elections.

Tensegrity - Tensegrity is a portmanteau of tensional integrity. It refers to the integrity of structures as being based in a synergy between balanced tension and compression components.

meretricious - Attracting attention in a vulgar manner.

Portland

I'll be in Portland, Oregon at the end of November and I wondered if anyone fancied meeting up for a coffee? Is there a coffee morning in Portland?

Maybe we can start a Portland Beersphere? Leave comment or email me.

D&AD 45 Years Exhibition Book

Anyone want this? I don't.

I don't mean that to sound ungrateful. It's a very nice thing. It's just that it'll sit on the shelf and you know, just sit there. Doing nothing. Adding no value to the world. So I thought someone might be able to give it a better home.

Errr, you can't read that, sorry.

It's designed by Build (I bet you lot love Build, don't you?) and it features all the text from the excellent D&AD exhibition. It's all the Presidents talking about their favourite piece of work from their year. Very good.

So pop over to the FAQ's, find my email address (think of that as an initiation test) and send me your address. First address I get - gets the book. Simple. Bosh. Break it down.

UPDATE: Competition closed. It's going to Matthew in North Yorkshire.

Life In The Muddle

Not graphic design related at all, but I know that lots of you would like to know that Life In The Middle is back.

GIS Professional

More exciting publishing news.

I've very flattered to announce that my map post has been published by GIS Professional magazine. It's a good magazine, you should subscribe. For those of you who don't know GIS is an abbreviation for geographic information system. So GIS Professional means hard core map people. And they liked my post. Good eh?

Whilst we're on the subject - sometimes people email me and ask if they can use something I've written, in a dissertation or a magazine. As I say in the FAQ's basically the answer is yes as long as it's not for commercial use and you credit me.

If you score first you will win.

I meant to turn this into a data visualisation infomatics piss take thing. But I didn't.

You know on the football commentary they keep saying things like "the first goal is so important" and "the first goal was always going to prove crucial". Over Euro 2008 the BBC kept loads and loads of stats.

From that we can conclusively state that if you score first you are more likely to win. In fact out of 34 games 22 of them were won by the team that scored first.

Help Required

Says it all really. That picture has not been Photoshopped in any way. My camera is fucked. Every picture has this funky effect on it. Not good. Can anyone help me get to the bottom of the problem?

I've got a Samsung NV10 which I love, and it's about 2 years old. There's nothing wrong with the lens as the video bit works fine. I haven't got a new memory card or anything, it just suddenly started doing this one day. It's driving me a little bit mad. Can anyone help?

Graphic Design Pub Quiz

I was on a winning pub quiz team the other day. That doesn't happen very often.

Picture by abroomhe, used with thanks, usual stuff applies.

I was on holiday in Yorkshire and we stumbled upon the quiz night at the local pub. Before the quiz started my companions and I all picked our specialist categories. My wife (who got 47 of our 52 correct answers) chose science as she has a Masters from Imperial. One of our friends chose history as she has a degree in the subject and has worked at some of London's most famous museums. The third team member chose music which was handy as he owns more albums than anyone I know and is one of those bizarre people who still buy CD's.

For my specialist subject I chose British and American Graphic Design from 1975 onwards.

You won't be surprised to know that very few graphic design questions came up. Actually there were none. There was one colour question, which I claimed as mine; which colour did Smarties introduce in 1988?

But it got me thinking, what sort of graphic design questions would you ask at a pub quiz? Sure, you could easily have a 'who designed this logo' picture round but what about the other 70 questions?

You couldn't ask 'what is kerning' as pub quiz questions have short, often one word answers.

I guess you could ask things like 'which year was the D&AD founded' and 'which type of printing is commonly used to print stamps'.

What other questions would you ask?

Month 8

Can you guess what the song is? Found via Russell who found it via Dan.

You're probably not aware but there's a team of around 42 (plus interns) working on Noisy Decent Graphics these days. It's time we all had some well deserved rest. So apart from the excellent Summer Of Design Books reviews (more on that later) that's it until Monday September 1st, when we shall be back.

Same Bat channel, same Bat place, same Bat fonts.

Meanwhile keep the Summer of Design Books reviews coming in, they'll still go live in August. They're always really popular and I love reading them. Find out how to post one here and someone from the team will approve them as quickly as possible.