The Better Idea Portfolio

My teenage daughter is living a dream life.  Well, to me at least.  Last semester she took a communications course that included CAD design and the final project was to design a new product, create a company name, a logo and an ad for it, and make her new product animate in situ.  All this at 16!  To think that at 16 I sat in my room with pencil crayons, India ink and a clock radio to “design”.  She sits at my Mac with its 24 inch screen listening to iTunes and creating ads in InDesign.  Of course to her, this is homework.  While she appreciates that it’s not solving quadratic equations, it’s still her whisking about at 11:30 at night whining about why the color printer is not faithfully reproducing the radical orange logo she created.

When I read the assignment, it irked me that the teacher insisted on 12 point font and suggested they create things in Publisher.  But that aside, she’s learning some amazing skills that I waited until my mid twenties to learn and when I started, desktop design was just starting.  So wow, this is pretty great that our public education system is churning out some fantastic courses that teach kids there’s more to design than clip art and Comic Sans.  Math is important even in design and you can always challenge the rules (I told her not to use 12 point type).

By the way, her product was an iPod charger that charges 4 iPods at once and features a video screen, 5 sided speaker system and color organ LED lights- by Sonic Boom.  Sounds pretty cool actually.

If you need some inspiration, visit Smashing Magazine’s web site.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/

Great tips, trends, free stuff such as icons and wallpapers are all here.  They feature design from all over the world.  I like to change my desktop wallpaper often and I always find something interesting here.

When starting a new project, sometimes I just surf around looking for something to jump-start the process.  A photo, an illustration or even a font can evoke a new idea.

Check out some web designs from Lithuania, including this home page from Konkura.  So much rich texture in this imagery.

The 2016 Olympic Games have 4 bid cities: Madrid, Chicago, Rio and Tokyo.  I recently saw a post on Designer-Daily showing the logos for each candidate city.  The one that really stood out for me was from Madrid, designed by Joaquin Malle.

What makes the logo wonderful:

The hand is inviting. Often times, Olympic city logos feel like they are about them and not about us.  The hand is universal. It says people; whether they are athletes, hosts or the audience. The “M” shape cutout in the hand says Madrid in a friendly, free-form way.

The colours are meaningful. Incorporating the 5 Olympic ring colours is done brilliantly here with bold versions and additional tints for interest.  The association of Spanish culture with strong colours is underscored here and feels festive and fun.

It also works in one color. It would seem tough to make this logo work with colour playing such an important role, but because the hand’s shape with stylized M is distinctive, it still works in white knock-out and one colour.

Maybe Pepsi should have hired the young and talented Joaquin. He seems to get logo design that’s friendly, universal and fun.

As a client you’re the boss.  Designers will present you their concepts and work-in-progress for your approval.  Yes, they hope you love everything and don’t want to change a thing. But of course, that’s not always the case.  So how can you give feedback in a way that gets you as close to perfect as [...]

Hotels need good web sites.  Web sites show people what the property looks like and require good functionality for reservation systems and special offers.   Kimpton Hotels has a great site including the home page:
What Makes This Home Page Great:

The main image area is large and inviting.  It rotates through a series of compelling seasonal images, [...]

I just renegotiated my cable TV bundle. Turns out my “bundle” included all kinds of filler – channels I never watch, a magazine I never read and a separate I.P. address for my internet that is now an extraneous carryover from the pre-dynamic IP era.  All this filler = $40/month of absolute waste, but marketed [...]

When we start work for a new client, we are often provided existing materials and sometimes are asked for our critique from a design standpoint.  Here are 3 tips to help you assess for good graphic design.
Elements are aligned on a grid

Good design uses an underlying grid of lines in order to align various elements [...]

Changing a logo can be a big decision with monumental consequences.  Just ask Pepsi about their Tropicana brand (it didn’t go so well).  But there are lots of smaller brands that will benefit from a “redo” without so much on the line.
A number of years ago, we worked on a brand of vegetable plants.  The [...]

Politics is perhaps the most heavily marketed sector in the world.  Without tangible product, the audience hears the promises of the brand, the attacks against the brand from the competition and the constant hum of pundits functioning as the influencers. Right now, the two major U.S. political brands are in a marketing battle over healthcare [...]

Typically the acquisition cost of a customer far exceeds the cost to keep a customer.  Yet many companies continue to invest primarily in gaining sales through advertising and other outreach. When you make the sale, you have this incredible opportunity to build a relationship with your customer for future sales and advocacy of your brand [...]