Interactive Starry Night
Greek artist, Petros Vrellis converted Vincent van Gogh’s “Starry Night” into swirling animation and interactivity.
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10 posts categorized "creative"
Feb 20, 2012
Greek artist, Petros Vrellis converted Vincent van Gogh’s “Starry Night” into swirling animation and interactivity.
Feb 08, 2012
Inform & Entertain
Using design to communicate information through infographics.
Francesco Franchi: On Visual Storytelling and New Languages in Journalism from Gestalten on Vimeo.
Jan 03, 2012
Skewing Truth With Design
Dartmouth College Political Scientists recently released a report saying that infographics might be the best way to alter peoples beliefs about a particular subject. More specifically, they were looking at two items, 1. "people tend to resist unwelcome information", and 2. "whether graphical corrections may be more effective than text" at changing peoples minds. What they found: "Graphical corrections are also found to successfully reduce incorrect beliefs among potentially resistant subjects and to perform better than an equivalent textual correction."
Well, duh! Designers have known this for decades. This is how we get you to buy a coke, think Target clothes are cool and convince you to buy a product you don't need. Design is a visual solution to deliver information. However, when that information is handled poorly or in a misleading manner it becomes propaganda.
Bloomberg's Businessweek created a nice example of how easy it is to visually skew non-related data to mislead consumers into false conclusions. These are pretty funny but they do illustrate a real truth of how design could transform into propaganda.
One of my favorite books dealing with this issue is by Edward R Tufte. In The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Tufte deals extensively with the propensity of designers to unknowingly (or knowingly) skew data when compiling it visually. Trying to make data fun or decorative lends itself to creating propaganda if the information is not properly cared for and treated with great respect.
Tufte goes into great detail along with real world examples of how data should be treated and displayed to attain the most unbiased positions possible. An obvious must read for anyone creating infographics, but more importantly a must read for anyone who is interested in being able to recognize false information and disseminate the truth.
Obviously people look at graphics before digging into text. We are visual creatures. The old example was a newspaper - have you ever read the entire thing, or just flipped through to find something interesting? Now its, do you read all the text on all the websites you visit - or just look for something interesting and then dig in? Why does a book have a fancy cover and not simply the first page of text from the book?
A better study for Dartmouth might have been to calculate the percentage of false information that is communicated through misleading graphics instead of trying to decide if design works.
Well, duh! Designers have known this for decades. This is how we get you to buy a coke, think Target clothes are cool and convince you to buy a product you don't need. Design is a visual solution to deliver information. However, when that information is handled poorly or in a misleading manner it becomes propaganda.
Bloomberg's Businessweek created a nice example of how easy it is to visually skew non-related data to mislead consumers into false conclusions. These are pretty funny but they do illustrate a real truth of how design could transform into propaganda.
One of my favorite books dealing with this issue is by Edward R Tufte. In The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Tufte deals extensively with the propensity of designers to unknowingly (or knowingly) skew data when compiling it visually. Trying to make data fun or decorative lends itself to creating propaganda if the information is not properly cared for and treated with great respect.
Tufte goes into great detail along with real world examples of how data should be treated and displayed to attain the most unbiased positions possible. An obvious must read for anyone creating infographics, but more importantly a must read for anyone who is interested in being able to recognize false information and disseminate the truth.
Obviously people look at graphics before digging into text. We are visual creatures. The old example was a newspaper - have you ever read the entire thing, or just flipped through to find something interesting? Now its, do you read all the text on all the websites you visit - or just look for something interesting and then dig in? Why does a book have a fancy cover and not simply the first page of text from the book?
A better study for Dartmouth might have been to calculate the percentage of false information that is communicated through misleading graphics instead of trying to decide if design works.
Dec 29, 2011
Product Design
Good short on Product Design by PBS Arts...
Sep 14, 2011
Before Info Graphics Were Trendy…
Back in 2005, I designed AT&T's Mass Marketing Creative Process for both Online Marketing and Direct Mail. The purpose was to keep our team on track and ensure consistent check points for quality control. We printed these out large scale and hung them in conference rooms for reference.
In retrospect, I would have changed some things. However, considering the time period and level of granularity I won't be too harsh on myself. I believe at one point this made a guest appearance in Comm Arts. Full size version here.
In retrospect, I would have changed some things. However, considering the time period and level of granularity I won't be too harsh on myself. I believe at one point this made a guest appearance in Comm Arts. Full size version here.
Jul 26, 2011
Sans-Serif For President?!?
With the upcoming election just 16 months away, the public is about to be littered with poorly designed political posters and propaganda from Local and State Government to the GOP Presidential candidates and then the final showdown.
I decided to take a look back through the last 13 election cycles, beginning with Kennedy's campaign in 1960. Spanning the course of over 50 years, these campaigns existed through a tremendous time of technological growth - yet overall it seems that there has been little to no growth design wise. While there are seemingly endless variations of each design for a single campaign, this article will attempt to review the most generic versions of the winners. I omitted a few evaluations that I did like Stacked names vs. Side-by-side, All caps vs. Mixed Case, Justified Alignment vs. Offset, Slogan vs. No Slogan and many other obscure analysis points - with the hope of not making this thing overwhelming.
While there are some interesting similarities here I would not be an advocate of actually using this as a design guideline unless you wanted to create, as I mentioned, a very "boring" poster. It would be nice to see some innovation in this space.
Obviously a campaign actually #winning is not based solely on signage design. However, as with any brand I believe that to the degree at which professionalism is exhibited there is at the very minimum a subconscious impact - just as any product branding would have. With so many other factors at play in a campaign; policy debates, voting records, current issues and events - a cohesively designed campaign would only be necessary checkbox of done correctly. We saw Obama's campaign dominate in this space in the last cycle - probably as the first candidate who's campaign actually understood branding and how it should extend across all efforts, especially through social media.
A polar opposite of this would be the 1988 Dukakis-Bentsen campaign featuring blue text on top of a flag… If a student or employee of mine in all seriousness showed me a design like this I would fail or fire them. Also, I love that the 2000 Gore-Liberman showcased the iconic dot com "Swoosh" - classy.
As one last bonus I couldn't help but tossing in this poster from the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign. While it might make a fun t-shirt I can't imagine who actually thought this was good bumper sticker design. Unless I know sign language, I would have no idea who this sticker was for - and that is assuming I always carry binoculars in my car to read bumper stickers with tiny, detailed line art.
Perhaps once I have a substancial number of 2012 campaign posters I will post them and do a little analysis/prediction for fun based on their design alone.
I decided to take a look back through the last 13 election cycles, beginning with Kennedy's campaign in 1960. Spanning the course of over 50 years, these campaigns existed through a tremendous time of technological growth - yet overall it seems that there has been little to no growth design wise. While there are seemingly endless variations of each design for a single campaign, this article will attempt to review the most generic versions of the winners. I omitted a few evaluations that I did like Stacked names vs. Side-by-side, All caps vs. Mixed Case, Justified Alignment vs. Offset, Slogan vs. No Slogan and many other obscure analysis points - with the hope of not making this thing overwhelming.
While there are some interesting similarities here I would not be an advocate of actually using this as a design guideline unless you wanted to create, as I mentioned, a very "boring" poster. It would be nice to see some innovation in this space.
Obviously a campaign actually #winning is not based solely on signage design. However, as with any brand I believe that to the degree at which professionalism is exhibited there is at the very minimum a subconscious impact - just as any product branding would have. With so many other factors at play in a campaign; policy debates, voting records, current issues and events - a cohesively designed campaign would only be necessary checkbox of done correctly. We saw Obama's campaign dominate in this space in the last cycle - probably as the first candidate who's campaign actually understood branding and how it should extend across all efforts, especially through social media.
A polar opposite of this would be the 1988 Dukakis-Bentsen campaign featuring blue text on top of a flag… If a student or employee of mine in all seriousness showed me a design like this I would fail or fire them. Also, I love that the 2000 Gore-Liberman showcased the iconic dot com "Swoosh" - classy.
As one last bonus I couldn't help but tossing in this poster from the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign. While it might make a fun t-shirt I can't imagine who actually thought this was good bumper sticker design. Unless I know sign language, I would have no idea who this sticker was for - and that is assuming I always carry binoculars in my car to read bumper stickers with tiny, detailed line art.
Perhaps once I have a substancial number of 2012 campaign posters I will post them and do a little analysis/prediction for fun based on their design alone.
Jul 11, 2011
Jun 13, 2011
Art Night in Dallas
Saturday evening we visited two openings in town. The first stop was Bob Poe's exhibition "Line and Substance" at Ross Akard Gallery. Mr. Poe's new work was divided into two collections and he was also rendering live sketches of a burlesque model.
The first focused on highly textural backgrounds made from found objects (ranging from footballs to computer keyboards), then washed in solid colors to create a seamless background effect. Different figures were painted directly on the surface of the canvas, looking almost cut out of the found objects.
Pictured above:
Paradise Chucked
Mixed Media on Canvas
$4800, available at Ross Akard Gallery
Bob Poe's second collection was composed by layering vibrant gesture drawings of miscellaneous nude body parts in oil crayon and acrylic paint on canvas.
Pictured above:
Sleeping and Bleeping
Oil Crayon & Acrylic on Canvas
$1,600, available at Ross Akard Gallery
The second stop on the tour was the closing reception for artist Carmen Menza's exhibition "Shed Some Light" at the Belmont Hotel in Oak Cliff. Menza also performed with her band later that evening on the patio overlooking the downtown Dallas skyline.
Her new abstract works in oil on canvas were presented in a large variety of sizes - some with red dots on the placards indicating they were sold. The pieces had a nice layer of texture, some very bold and others more muted.
Pictured above:
Beautiful World
40 x 60"
Oil on Canvas, available via CarmenMenza.com
The exhibit ended with Menza's band on the patio playing a variety of original music.
Pictured above:
Carmen Menza & her band
The first focused on highly textural backgrounds made from found objects (ranging from footballs to computer keyboards), then washed in solid colors to create a seamless background effect. Different figures were painted directly on the surface of the canvas, looking almost cut out of the found objects.
Pictured above:
Paradise Chucked
Mixed Media on Canvas
$4800, available at Ross Akard Gallery
Bob Poe's second collection was composed by layering vibrant gesture drawings of miscellaneous nude body parts in oil crayon and acrylic paint on canvas.
Pictured above:
Sleeping and Bleeping
Oil Crayon & Acrylic on Canvas
$1,600, available at Ross Akard Gallery
The second stop on the tour was the closing reception for artist Carmen Menza's exhibition "Shed Some Light" at the Belmont Hotel in Oak Cliff. Menza also performed with her band later that evening on the patio overlooking the downtown Dallas skyline.
Her new abstract works in oil on canvas were presented in a large variety of sizes - some with red dots on the placards indicating they were sold. The pieces had a nice layer of texture, some very bold and others more muted.
Pictured above:
Beautiful World
40 x 60"
Oil on Canvas, available via CarmenMenza.com
The exhibit ended with Menza's band on the patio playing a variety of original music.
Pictured above:
Carmen Menza & her band
Jun 10, 2011
Usability at the Pump
For a commodity that gets so much of my money, it seems little (if any) thought or planning has gone into the research of customers interacting at the gas pump.
With every new station it seems there is an entirely different payment system and process. The order in which you select a grade of petrol, the random chance of being asking for your zip code or the unpredictable inquiry about whether or not I want a car wash - when all I really want is the gas to begin flowing.
My personal favorite of poor customer experience would be the "Do you want a receipt?" prompt. This turns into a trick question and seems to be handled differently at every pump. Generally it will say something like, "Would you like a receipt?", then below it have a "Yes" and a "No" next to side buttons that you would think correspond to those choices… But not always! There is actually a tiny button on the the manual keypad that says "Yes Receipt" and one that says "No" in mouse print.
It reminds me of an occasion when I wanted a delicious Snickers bar from a vending machine. Below my treat that was being held hostage in a giant cork screw it said, "D14". I put in my money.. I press "D", then I press "1", and before I can hit the "4" the machine starts cranking and a pack of gum falls down to the chute. Perhaps I should have known that there was actually a "14" button and all of my years interacting with a base-10 keypad were just nonsense.
With the amount of money consumers spend at the pump every day, it would be nice to invest the tiniest portion of that into making it a bit easier to take my money from me. Here is a very simple idea to start with.
1. Create a mobile app. Not one that just has a store locator and nothing else. Create a free, useful app for your chain of gas stations that doesn't suck.
2. Allow the "bump". Once I have set up a secure account I should be able to simply bump my device on a pump console to pay. (Some stations have a plan you can join and carry an extra key fob with you for this - but what is the point of that really? I get that its on my keys and I should notice it and go there, but once its on there with every other place that thinks its a good marketing idea it just becomes a clump of garbage I carry with me and never look at.)
3. Integrate cool tools. Track me when, where and how much fuel I have bought over time. Add in mileage tracking that would normally be a paid app. Tell me if my car is being efficient and green and all that trendy stuff. Ask me for my mileage when I am waiting on my tank to fill up - or tell me I can buy a hot dog on a rotating machine just inside the door. Give me the ability to email all my records to myself or my accountant.
4. Send push notifications. If you know how often I buy gas, and if you prompt me to enter my mileage - it wouldn't take much to figure out when to send me a push notification to "bump" in the next 24 hours for a discount on the gallon. You could even notify me if I am near a station when you think I am getting close to the "E".
5. Time savings. Make it easy and quick. If you did all of this really well and it could save me time as a customer (instead of searching for the "Yes Receipt" button) - then perhaps you really would have the beginning of a loyalty program that could work. I don't really want to go into the whole reason why social media integration could also work here, but I could at least tell my friends, "Josh has gas" on my fb profile for fun.
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After reading my post my friend Christine told me she had gas too. So much so that she felt the need to snap a photo at the time and then create this little animated gif of the experience and send it to me. Thanks Christine!
With every new station it seems there is an entirely different payment system and process. The order in which you select a grade of petrol, the random chance of being asking for your zip code or the unpredictable inquiry about whether or not I want a car wash - when all I really want is the gas to begin flowing.
My personal favorite of poor customer experience would be the "Do you want a receipt?" prompt. This turns into a trick question and seems to be handled differently at every pump. Generally it will say something like, "Would you like a receipt?", then below it have a "Yes" and a "No" next to side buttons that you would think correspond to those choices… But not always! There is actually a tiny button on the the manual keypad that says "Yes Receipt" and one that says "No" in mouse print.
It reminds me of an occasion when I wanted a delicious Snickers bar from a vending machine. Below my treat that was being held hostage in a giant cork screw it said, "D14". I put in my money.. I press "D", then I press "1", and before I can hit the "4" the machine starts cranking and a pack of gum falls down to the chute. Perhaps I should have known that there was actually a "14" button and all of my years interacting with a base-10 keypad were just nonsense.
With the amount of money consumers spend at the pump every day, it would be nice to invest the tiniest portion of that into making it a bit easier to take my money from me. Here is a very simple idea to start with.
1. Create a mobile app. Not one that just has a store locator and nothing else. Create a free, useful app for your chain of gas stations that doesn't suck.
2. Allow the "bump". Once I have set up a secure account I should be able to simply bump my device on a pump console to pay. (Some stations have a plan you can join and carry an extra key fob with you for this - but what is the point of that really? I get that its on my keys and I should notice it and go there, but once its on there with every other place that thinks its a good marketing idea it just becomes a clump of garbage I carry with me and never look at.)
3. Integrate cool tools. Track me when, where and how much fuel I have bought over time. Add in mileage tracking that would normally be a paid app. Tell me if my car is being efficient and green and all that trendy stuff. Ask me for my mileage when I am waiting on my tank to fill up - or tell me I can buy a hot dog on a rotating machine just inside the door. Give me the ability to email all my records to myself or my accountant.
4. Send push notifications. If you know how often I buy gas, and if you prompt me to enter my mileage - it wouldn't take much to figure out when to send me a push notification to "bump" in the next 24 hours for a discount on the gallon. You could even notify me if I am near a station when you think I am getting close to the "E".
5. Time savings. Make it easy and quick. If you did all of this really well and it could save me time as a customer (instead of searching for the "Yes Receipt" button) - then perhaps you really would have the beginning of a loyalty program that could work. I don't really want to go into the whole reason why social media integration could also work here, but I could at least tell my friends, "Josh has gas" on my fb profile for fun.
--------------------
After reading my post my friend Christine told me she had gas too. So much so that she felt the need to snap a photo at the time and then create this little animated gif of the experience and send it to me. Thanks Christine!
Jun 03, 2011
Creativity in Business
The word "creative" is an all encompassing term of what we do and how we interact, both personally and in business.
Companies live and die by these primary principles which are all rooted in creativity:
1. The funding necessary to create a product or service
2. The value and quality of the good or service created
3. The effectiveness of marketing the product
4. The experience a consumer has when interacting with the product
5. The likelihood of a consumer to recommend the product to others.
All of these variables are dependent on "creative". Will investor/board presentations effectively communicate the business goals? How will the product or service be designed and built? How will the product be marketed and advertised to consumers in a multitude of ways? What will the actual experience a consumer has with the product be? How likely will consumers be to share it with others? And how will the process be repeated to make continual improvements?
Design & creativity is intrinsic in the core of any business. Often though a business's drive for revenue can usurps this necessity, and lead the company to failure if it is not acted on by an outside force. This is why "fresh blood" is brought in and new thought-leadership is required. The customer is still king, and the product or service still exists for them - more so now than ever as every company and product is discussed and shared instantly with both positive and negative results.
If a product or service remains consumer focused, it will succeed. This is often why new leadership is needed at a company, or the leadership that exists should be continually focused on building a better product - not just a better profit. The profit and product are eqully dependent on one another.
A example of this is Apple Computers and Microsoft. The once tiny Apple facing the giant continually focused on the customer and innovative products while Microsoft focused on profits. Now we view Apple as one of the most successful, innovative and design-centric companies ever and continue to see Microsoft lose ground.
"Creative" is essential to having a successful business. A holistic design-centric approach can be the differentiating factor in ultimate success or ultimate failure.
Companies live and die by these primary principles which are all rooted in creativity:
1. The funding necessary to create a product or service
2. The value and quality of the good or service created
3. The effectiveness of marketing the product
4. The experience a consumer has when interacting with the product
5. The likelihood of a consumer to recommend the product to others.
All of these variables are dependent on "creative". Will investor/board presentations effectively communicate the business goals? How will the product or service be designed and built? How will the product be marketed and advertised to consumers in a multitude of ways? What will the actual experience a consumer has with the product be? How likely will consumers be to share it with others? And how will the process be repeated to make continual improvements?
Design & creativity is intrinsic in the core of any business. Often though a business's drive for revenue can usurps this necessity, and lead the company to failure if it is not acted on by an outside force. This is why "fresh blood" is brought in and new thought-leadership is required. The customer is still king, and the product or service still exists for them - more so now than ever as every company and product is discussed and shared instantly with both positive and negative results.
If a product or service remains consumer focused, it will succeed. This is often why new leadership is needed at a company, or the leadership that exists should be continually focused on building a better product - not just a better profit. The profit and product are eqully dependent on one another.
A example of this is Apple Computers and Microsoft. The once tiny Apple facing the giant continually focused on the customer and innovative products while Microsoft focused on profits. Now we view Apple as one of the most successful, innovative and design-centric companies ever and continue to see Microsoft lose ground.
"Creative" is essential to having a successful business. A holistic design-centric approach can be the differentiating factor in ultimate success or ultimate failure.
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