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Commonly Uncommon


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I'm not a big shopper. In fact, malls still give me the heebie-jeebies, even many years after I was subjected to them by my parents who wanted me to get jeans, shirts, shoes, etc. for the new school year. Oh, and around Christmas, to buy gifts. Each week I recycle countless catalogs at home and wonder how my name could be on so many marketer's lists. And, true enough, I can only be talked into a shopping trip if there's a promise of a good cup of coffee in the mix.

Now how does a guy like me open, consistently, every single email that Uncommon Goods sends me? 

One, is that they've got me pegged. They know I like:

  • Eco stuff
  • Clever write ups for items
  • Product artist bios that feel genuine
  • User reviews of items
  • Useless lore such as, "What is the origin of happy hour?"
  • Products with a sense of humor that are not singing fish

And just when I thought there was no more to love, they started a YouGoods product design challenge, opening the door to inventors and Designers who believe they're sitting on The Next Big Thing. The pitches had to have a clear ide of the end product, tell a good story, and be unique, eco-friendly, and economical to produce. The winner gets a $1,500 prize and a chance to showcase their design at Makerfaire NYC.

You've got to love a company that gives background info on (and sells) ingenious inventions such as a tire that helps kids learn to ride a bike, kitchen tools that don't need a spoon rest, and a filter that fits right inside your water bottle.

If Designer-name dropping companies like Ikea and Target are any indicators, it looks like we may just be living in The Decade of the Designer.

(Photo by uzbeckistan)

A Helping Hand, or Text

helpButton.jpgOne aspect of customer service that should be on every website is the Help Text.  And it should be easy to understand and to use.  I've tried the Help section on a certain search engine and found myself ready to toss my laptop off the balcony and into oncoming traffic because the help prompts locked me into a never-ending loop of "not quite what I was looking for".  To make things worse, they didn't offer an easy way to contact them with queries; everything had to go through their click-button, automated help system.

Lyle Mullican, in an article on A List Apart, offers some insight, tips and best practices for developing user-friendly help text.  Take a look: Good Help is Hard to Find.

Image from St. Johns County Virtual School

Creatives to the Rescue!

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Here's a great idea - talented (and clever) Illustrator Kelly Light has banded together Illustrators both famous and not so well known, to help the animals harmed by the BP Oil Spill.

Kudos to her for donating all her time to do this, too. It looks like a ton of work.

Here's the concept: Kelly posts sketchcards and the first person to send her an email saying they'll buy it gets it. Then all the money (as the artists donate their time and talent to the cause)
goes to The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies and The International Bird Rescue Research Center.

The cards are usually $10, but she's doing something interesting for July by having a Great American Illustrator month and offering sketchcards for a $50 donation. Artists featured include Mo WillemsStephen Silver, Jarrett Krosoczka, and Stephen Marchesi.

As a fundraiser, this hits all the right marks, wouldn't you say?

All the info and art is at the Ripple blog.


(Seagull painting by Anne Kelley)

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It's like a Designer's CMYK dream come true. A hotel owned by and inspired by Pantone: the Pantone Hotel.

From the hotel's site: "Impeccably designed by Michel Penneman and Oliver Hannaert, The PANTONE HOTEL, Brussels showcases the color of emotion with a distinctive hue on each colorous guest floor. From vivid to subdued, for business or leisure, our unique boutique hotel perfectly suits your savvy palette and colorful imagination."

Yes, 7 floors of Pantone heaven. Or hell. Depending, I guess on your love/hate of the hue assigned to your floor.

Wait - they've taken care of that, too:

"Guests enjoy state-of-the-art accommodations, distinctively chosen at reception to compliment their mood."

I guess you tell them how you're feeling and they'll assign you. It's a bit like color therapy, I think. Room assignments look a bit like this:

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Admittedly, I would have a tough time, after a wretched flight to Belgium, telling a complete stranger at the front desk know that I'm feeling "Vibrant, Intense". (I don't see anything on the color pallet that indicates, "Cranky, Irritated".)

I'm guessing either Pantone is going to have to work out how to assign those people who've just spent 3 hours going through customs or maybe just figure that deep down maybe everyone is "Fresh, Eager" and "Cheerful, Warm", depending on which floors have immediately availability.

Still, you have to give them points for coming up with the concept. Is there a Designer who doesn't want to go to this hotel?






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It's here! Our annual Salary Survey we do with AIGA is up as of today.

And just so you don't think the whole thing, in light of the current economy, is all doom and gloom, the survey "found designers were indeed affected by the weakened economy--especially those who had been working for corporations or advertising agencies, many of which reduced staff and outsourced design work to freelancers during the economic downturn. However, the good news is that nearly a third of respondents to AIGA's Confidence Survey of Design Leaders believe they will be more likely to hire new designers in this quarter than last."

There's also some encouraging words from AIGA Executive Director Richard Grefé: "Individual designers can increase their value through consistent training and professional development that allows them to move up in the range of responsibilities they assume. This is not unique to design--continuous learning is critical for all professionals in a rapidly evolving business environment. But by applying design thinking skills in solving clients' more complex strategic problems, designers create even greater value for clients--warranting greater compensation."

The interface and layout for the survey are all really nice - so when you have the time, grab a cup of coffee, tea, or Monster-type beverage, and have a look see!

11 Steps to Better Networking for the Graphic Designer

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Just a quick one, from our last newsletter:

There's always room for improvement, and when it comes to networking, it takes more than handing out your business cards or signing up on a social networking site.

Forgraphicdesignersonly.com shares 11 great tips that Graphic Designers can use to become better networkers.

(Photo by Josh Oakes)

Are You Quirky?

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You know the feeling. You're in an elevator, or standing in line at the pharmacy, or waiting for the bus and BANG! it hits you. The million dollar idea! Shoes for cats. Video ads in elevators. Hot Starbucks coffee delivered to your door every morning.

I know I'm not reaching here. You've had the idea.

Then you thought, "I'll make millions!"

Then, "Or just be more broke than I already am."

You probably thought the latter then went to work, which is pretty wise.

But here's a weird thing. What if there was a company that let you submit your product ideas (say a traveling mug that carries two types of liquid for your morning commute) and had someone else do the "heavy lifting", i.e., draw the designs, run it by a focus group, deal with retailers to put it on shelves.

Well, someone came up with the concept and is running with it.

It's a "social development company" called Quirky. You sign up with them for $99 and post your brilliant idea on their site. Have the other members vote on that week's best idea. If yours wins, they create it and put it on shelves in a couple months' time. Then you get cash from the sales of your product.

Of course there's a lot of legal mumbo jumbo in there. But you get the idea.

Wacky? Yes. Quirky. Definitely. Workable? Got me.

Certainly worth seeing how it all shakes out.

Details over at the Quirky site.


(Photo by x-ray delta one)



Design Do Gooder

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So you're a Designer working for a corporation that makes other Designers drool when you mention their name. Or are a successful freelance Designer with a handful of good, well-paying clients.

But you keep saying to yourself, "Is this all there is?"

That thought was exactly what was simmering in Interactive Designer and Design Instructor Jon Kolko's brain when he saw former students who had great careers, but craved more meaning in their work.

So Kolko is opening Austin Center for Design, which "will focus solely on solving social problems while making a career path in humanitarian design financially viable", according to Design Observer.

The school is loosely based on Denmark's KAOSPilot program (an interesting site to look at in an of itself).

The Center's site touts that students will be focused on problems related to:

* Homelessness and transient housing solutions
* Healthcare access, affordability, and comprehension
* Nutrition, personal wellness, and consumption
* Education and job placement
* Poverty, as a general state of being
* Sustainability and environmental impact 

The one-year program is based out of Austin, TX and is, according to the site, "ideal for designers, artists and technologists with 2-5 years experience doing professional work, or for more seasoned professionals looking to change the trajectory of their careers."

If you're interested - they're accepting application for 2010-2011 academic year.

And if you go, let me know if they're picky about what you bring to eat in the lunchroom. Because I was wondering.

Animation in an Older Style

I love traditional animation and what masters like Ray Harryhausen, Hayao Miyazaki and the folks at Disney bring to the table. Nowadays, though, when someone discusses animation, the focus leans toward CGI (computer-generated imagery). Nothing wrong with that, especially when looking at many of the recent films and what they've contributed to the field of animation: special effects from Avatar to District 9 and anything of the full-length features from Pixar.

Does that mean the hand-painted cells or time-consuming stop motion graphics are going to soon become things of the past? I hope not, especially when I see something as mind-blowing as this stop-motion video for the techno-electronic song Grindin' by Nobody Beats the Drum. Amazing what can be done with some painted wood blocks and a little imagination.

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For me, one of the interesting things about design has always been how changing seemingly small items can have amazingly large results.

And I'm not talking about a 24% rise in sales because someone decided to make the logo bigger.

More about huge cost savings (and environmental savings) when there's a Designer clever enough to rethink a product's packaging.

Over at the GreenerComputing blog, Claudia Girrbach visited with several members of Cisco's supply chain team, who are working on an environmentally sound packaging program. In the pilot program alone, which only focuses on a few of their high volume products, promises to yield $24 million in annual savings.

She goes on to say, "...by focusing on packaging material content, volume and transport container efficiency, the company will save on materials and transportation costs as well."

When you're talking numbers like that, you can pretty much guarantee that your senior management might listen up, even if you're "just" a Designer working down in Creative.

In the article, Claudia outlines her three best practices for a product's packaging diet: Eliminate, Right Size, and Sustain.

Cisco was kind enough to provide a PDF outlining their process.

It makes me proud to own a Cisco phone, I tell you!


(Photo by Steve Keys)

  

Authors

Events

AMA Webinar: Social Media Marketing to Women: What Every Brand Needs to Know

15 September 2010

n this informative webinar, Pontiflex, the industry’s leading email and social acquisition platform, and Leapfrog Interactive, an award winning digital agency, team up to share exclusive insi...

ThinkLA: AIEF Charity Golf Day

14 September 2010

Charity golf tournament benefitting the Advertising Industry Emergency Fund (AIEF), along with other programs of thinkLA.

Since 1972, AIEF has granted over $2 million in emergency money to ...

AMA Identity Imperative: Boston

13 September 2010

This two-day course will quickly review the basics and then delve deeply into the critical issues of internal branding, generating buy-in, qualitative and quantitative research, positioning stateme...

The WAA Seattle Web Analytics Symposium

13 September 2010

The WAA Seattle Web Analytics Symposium will bring together web analytics and business professionals from throughout the Northwest for a day of learning, professional development and networking.

AIA/LA Design Awards 2010

10 September 2010

Annual exhibit of all the submissions for Awards competition. Opening event on September 10 will include a Round Table discussion and reception.

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