Category Archives: graphic design

graphic design is a critical element in successful communications strategy

interactive wow factor squared

We claim to dabble in webology, but sites like uber designer Marc Ecko’s fresh new interactive wonderment compels us to kneel down and kiss the hem of URL guru WDDG’s robe. Those cats are sooo good.

WDDG. Stands for World Domination Design Group. If you’re gonna’ talk the talk, you’d better be able to serve up some nifty code. And Bob’s your uncle, their product absolutely screams Master of the Universe.

As digital technology and technique really begin to merge we see the outlines of a new communications paradigm. If the early days of the web were about reproducing print pages onscreen and adding a few frills, design firms like WDDG are clearly the mapmakers as to how corporate communications will be projected in the future.

Indeed, Ecko’s retail sites are an education in extending brand management while maintaining individuality.

The raw ingredients – visual art, sound and copy – don’t change. But how they relate, and how they’re presented, are the keys to effectiveness. Contextual experience, anyone?

the weird art of not so subliminality

Notwithstanding the excellence of the Shark helmet itself, corporate marketing to North America follows a different metric than that followed by Coke. Or Yugo, for that matter.

We’re not going to beat the French up for this particular instance of bizarre imagery, not when that country is head and shoulders above us in using perkily great topless billboards to sell what you got.

But whoever’s behind this latest in a series of just plain goofy juxtapositions needs a hard shove out the door. (When they added a Canadian distributor a few years back, the event was accompanied by umbrella booth girls clad in, wedding dresses, followed by print ads as something slightly less sophisticated than The Club for cars.)

Now it seems as though “Protect Your Crotch!” is all that’s missing from the wordless lips of Mr. Crash Test Dummy and his androgenous package sidekick. The cruel irony here is that suddenly the universal refrain uttered by women everywhere – that all men think with their appendage – may, in fact, be the real inspiration behind this messy message.

creative insight – how’d they do that?

Steve Bauer takes readers behind the scenes for an in-depth look at how Polaris’ Victory division served up the revolutionary Vision in the August 11 issue of PowerSports Business.

The article features interviews with lead designers Greg Brew and Michael Song as Bauer breaks down the importance design and focus feedback played in creating Victory’s bold stroke in the touring market segment.

Obviously Polaris had the resources to mount the effort, but the takeaway here is why they’ve succeeded in launching a truly breakthrough product that goes far beyond slapping new graphics on familiar styling and calling the result fresh.

Recommended reading for a variety of reasons – team goals, administrative encouragement, marketing insight, breakthrough styling and creative freedom.

can you spell y – m – c – a?

Blame it on Florida’s exquisite bureaucracy, of course, and the fashionistas lurking in the Department of Transportation. Who knew they could be so stylish and yet so clueless? I’m all for improving the visibility of bikers, but at the same time reserve the right to maintain a little dignity.

Midnight Cowboy’s the only thing that comes to mind when I saw the state’s latest genius approach to reducing bike fatalities. Somewhere in Tallahassee, there’s a career desk jockey who’s life’s work is to make day-glo chaps a requirement for a two-wheeled endorsement. Ride safe, little Hulksters.

messing with icons – sometimes it’s necessary

Hello! What’s this? Decades of caramel colored soda showing through green glass is out, aluminum bottles with ultra-fresh graphics is in. Or at least alongside, for now.

Design firm Turner Duckworth’s responsible for the who’d have guessed red sells best brand makeover that just won the Cannes Best Design Gold Lion Award.

When it comes to brand projection – and it does – the perennial member of the world’s most identifiable top ten brands list shows it’s not afraid to throw the dice. We can just see this combo as an end capper that draws crowds in the wire cage locked horns battle for soda surpremcy.

echoes of the past

the blue fish sushi delivers high energy asian cuisine

Was the time when any restaurateur worthy of his salt wrapped the dining experience around a book of matches. Like miniature billboards, these relics of a time when smokers accompanied their meals with between rounds cigarettes and end of the evening cigars have pretty much died out as a marketing tool – too many negatives.

I quit smoking in ’96 and haven’t looked back since, but last weekend I came across this nostalgic collectable while exploring a new restaurant, The Blue Fish Sushi, in Boca Raton.

I grabbed one of the colorful mementos on the way out with the idea of adding it to my small, packed away collection of dusty keepsakes from another era. Matchbooks were a fine example of the graphic designer’s art and it struck me as ironic that even though the heyday of this particular vehicle’s come and gone, a new need for small format graphics has taken its place: the cell phone.

xerox’s newest logo generates half-buzz

xerox launches contemporary new looknew look replaces this old look

News this week that Xerox picked Omnicom group Interbrand to develop a fresh interpretation (left) of their somewhat stodgy all caps rendering that’s been in use since, well, since ’04. Nuts and bolts include the following: cost unknown, but they didn’t use a part-time freelancer who moonlights at the community college; rollout to take 18 months; applications range from biz cards to equipment badging. Stated goal is a rebranding (here’s my take on the process) from a copier company to communications omnipotence – or something close. Oooo-kay.
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like a snowball in a blizzard

when good ideas go wrong - there’s usually a reason

In my time I’ve made my share of photo mistakes, and they’ve usually been the result of bad lighting decisions. So I couldn’t help but notice this manufacturer’s attempt to illustrate the product in a natural setting, the usual goal of product publicity. Unless the product features camouflage and the setting is the deep woods.

Photographers like to complain about the difficulty of certain setups as “being like” taking a picure of a lump of coal in a mineshaft. Or a snowball in a blizzard. Or, more common, of that newly polished piece of billet. In this case the result isn’t fatal, but for one obvious reason it falls short of being an eyestopper.

The lack of separation of product from background directs the eye to the model, not the product. Next time try some portable location lighting or prepare to spend a few hours in Photoshop to knock the background down a bit and open up the product.