“A key point of failure in today’s global design landscape lies precisely in the jargon — we need to invent new ways of writing, talking and thinking about concepts of “humanitarian design”; we need new language that doesn’t homogenize entire cultures, new vocabulary that better reflects the intricate lace of the world’s biocultural and psychosocial diversity as a drawing board for design.” Maria Popova on The Language of Design Imperialism. Insightful.

Briefly and to the point (& video): Olympic Pictograms Through the Ages.

“Lindstrom suggests that too much messaging on a product’s packaging can actually prevent a sale. Logos and words can engage the rational mind, causing people to actually think harder about making a purchase. It’s a counter-intuitive notion, but then think about the effectiveness of the quiet logos on a bottle of POM Wonderful pomegranate juice, or a Method product, or the entire Apple product line up.” The Myth of the Rational Buyer: How Too Much Thinking Can Hurt Your Brand

“Design beautiful experiences, not beautiful artifacts. Stop asking “what” and start asking “why”. Start with experience, end with experience. Genius will fail, wisdom will succeed. Become wise. Keep it simple. From design thinking to dynamic thinking. Let iteration direct your process: Work more rapidly, change more frequently. Have fun. Adapt your process to your design goals, not the other way around. Preserve the experience, not your own competency.” The Experience Imperative: A Manifesto for Industrial Designers by Ken Fry.
Plus: “Experience design is not a remedy that turns products into miracles that everybody likes. It will help you speaking more efficiently to your target group. To that end products needs to be simplified. The simpler the product the more character it has, the more likely it is to be rejected or accepted by a group of customers. To that end you need to know your customers and you need to test your designs with your customers.” iA: Can Expierience be designed?

“Designers care. This is not always a good thing, and can, in fact, be annoying. Designers obsess so much about their work that it’s a wonder they ever let any finished project out the door. And they’re just as tough on everyone else’s work.” I feel excused now;). For other equally accurate features read: Four Things I’ve Learned About Designers by Warren Berger.

“As a client, your job isn’t to be innovative. Your job is to foster innovation. Big difference.” Seth Godin on how to be a great client. Worth taking into account;)

“The majority of environmental organisations and businesses are represented by a mass of visual clichés: A leaf, a water drop, a globe, a happy tree. Many can’t think beyond the obvious associations and it means they can’t stand out from the crowd. Their brand’s consistently use language and visuals that represent the ‘category’ of sustainability. By using common signifiers that belong to this ‘category’ they fail to differentiate their brand and/or engage a new, wider audience.” Tom Crabtree (Design Assembly): Not easy being green.

“We’ve recently finished a redesign of The Balvenie whisky, which involved working with a lot of great UK craftsmen to make sure the design embodied the respect that the company holds for it’s own craftsmen that make the whisky. Because the distillery was set up in 1892, we also wanted the design to be a true reflection of late 19th Century archival documents so it was important that each element of the design was limited by the printing processes of that period.”
I rarely post links on specific design projects, but this one is just exquisite: Balveline Whiskey by Here Design.

Apparently Pawel Tkaczyk patted me on the back in his post. I’ve immediately felt obliged to share such a list myself. So here it is: my personal pantheon of the greats I’ve had privilege to meet in my professional life.

Andrzej Tomaszewski. The Typographer.
[pronounced as: Andrzej Tomaszewski point THE Typographer (capital T!) point].
To say that his designs are elegant, flawless, or impeccable, would be an understatement. I suppose that there’s a level of perfection and elegance, that can be only described by the word: virtuosity. I had the pleasure of meeting him during last year’s KrakTypo, and was literally blown away by his vast knowledge and commitment to share it.

Lukasz Dziedzic, type designer.
In essence, Lukasz is like lowercase “g” from Helga: slightly eccentric & rebellious, eminently agile and above all incredibly enchanting. Every single font he designs has this intangible feature commonly described (for lack of a better word) as coolness. He just told me that he’d rather be vanishingly-gray than portrayed, so I’ll keep it short: when I grow up, I hope I’ll draw at least a single glyph like he does.

Marcin Wolny, co-owner of Studio Otwarte, a graphic designer himself.
I doubt I’d be where I am today if not for the immense creative freedom and autonomy I’d received while working at SO. No matter how strong the dissent or how heated the discussion had been, as long as I could reasonably justify a concept and its execution, I had his full support, even if personally he would not agree. The most important lesson I’ve learned from him: when leading a design team, your role is to water rather than weed.

Last but definitely not least:

Karina Wieczorek, inspirer.
Karina is not a designer (although she’s got much to do with design in her job). We’ve known each other inside out for years now, so rather than elaborate on what a great friend she has been, I’ll quote her colophon: “Glenn Gould once said “The purpose of art is not the momentary ejection of adrenaline, but rather the lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.” I have no ambition of being an artist, but I find the feeling, which is a cross between curiosity, joy and surprise to be the best inspiration and antidepressant.” She’s been my first reviewer and her visual intuition has prevented me from sheer ugliness several times. And one of the most joyful and inspiring of people I’ve ever met.

Passionate Curiosity, Imagination, Objectivity & Self Awareness, Crisp Communication, Effective Storytelling, Flawless Execution, Business Acumen, Global Awareness, Context & Talent. Ken Musgrave’s top ten strengths that graduating designers–or any designers, for that matter–should bulk up on: 10 Skills Designers Need to Succeed Now .

The science of Shopping by Paco Underhill

A store has 3 distinct aspects: design (the premises), merchandising (whatever you put in it) and operations (whatever employees do). They’re closely intertwined, interrelated and interdependent, so changing one of them will affect the other two as well. Their correlations are thoroughly covered in Paco Underhill’s analysis of an evolving shopping culture. It’s one of these books that in addition to substantial advice on customers’ tastes and habits is able to entertain us with witty anecdotes and gripping details.
The book has been incredibly well summarized by Malcolm Gladwell in his New Yorker article: The Science of Shopping, so instead of writing a mere ersatz of Gladwell’s review (which definitely is a must-read), I’ll focus on the book’s guidelines for designers. [continue reading]

A list of common but not that obvious mistakes in logo design

I’ve been recently commissioned to review a logo for a beauty product. The what do you think question. The logo itself was well crafted and will probably prove successful, but it got me thinking about general rules for logo design. The technical aspects are well covered (e.g. here or here), but there are a few guidelines that exceed the obvious “it has to be legible and memorable”. So, here’s my list of common, but not that obvious at first glance, mistakes in logo design:

1. Cliché logos
   Undoubtedly clichés communicate. Usually they provide straight-forward symbols easily understood by all. They facilitate the communication process and therefore are quite common. The problem is distinctiveness: there are around thousand of logos with a tree (highlighting heritage), leaves (nature) or a globe (we’re global). The design idea does not have to be unique in the history of graphic design (which is highly unlikely), but it has to be distinctive in a particular marketplace.
   Every industry has its fig leaf, concealing the designer’s lack of original idea, so make sure you find one before the designing work. And if you, unfortunately, happen to exploit a cliché, make sure it is executed with a superb design.
   [Sidenote: the same applies to so-called generic shapes: a star, a heart, a circle et cetera: no matter how much effort is put to make them look distinctive, there are millions of other versions of the same shape.]

[continue reading]