Suite Smell of Success

Fri 3 Oct 200301:52 AM

Just a tip of the hat to Adobe for the packaging of their soon-to-be-released Adobe Creative Suite, which bundles and not-so-cleverly rebrands the software giant’s flagship applications by appending a “CS” to each. This new creative strategy finally, finally does away with the cheesey-ass Photoshop eye logo and the Illustrator Venus logo, both long-standing icons that grew tired long ago. These new designs are sophisticated and attractive, and they kinda sorta help Adobe catch up with modern software packaging trends kicked off four or five years ago by Neville Brody for Macromedia. Better late than never.

Veer Have All the Good Stock Photos Gone?

Tue 30 Sep 200310:02 PM

Over the past few years, I’ve seen lots of stock agencies try to take a decidedly editorial approach to the creative strategy of their catalogs, mostly in an attempt to ingratiate their beautifully produced compendiums of pictures-looking-for-a-purpose into designers’s hearts. Nonstock and Photonica, notably, have produced some lavishly and slavishly designed tomes, but beyond the novelty of their approach, I always found them somewhat hollow; the design trickery that laid out their pages never seemed to be able to mask the emptiness of most of the photography they showcased, or if it did, any true creativity was spread too thin over too many pages. These books were generally as thick and heavy as a textbook, and the guilt of tree-killing, more than the books’ inherent usefulness, was probably what kept so many of them from getting pitched the minute they arrived.

Night of the Living Intern

Wed 24 Sep 200301:11 AM

Three of my partners at Behavior are due to make a huge pitch for a new project to our biggest client tomorrow morning. To do my part, I played the part of the production lackey this evening. This entailed not even typing a single paragraph of the proposal nor laying out a single spread in the elaborate leave-behind book they prepared for the client.

Rather, my duties included making a run to two paper stores, two art supply stores and a visit to Staples, printing six copies of the 50-page document on our rather leisurely-paced color printer, trimming all the copies down to the custom size we had determined for the book, collating the pages, assembling the pages in the uncommon binder we purchased to house them, and affixing tab dividers to mark the eight sections in each book.

I’ve done manual work from time to time since starting Behavior, but rarely to this extent. I’m not complaining, though — in fact, despite its physically laborious demands, I found a kind of meditative quality in the whole endeavor. If nothing else, it was a semi-pleasant flashback to the days when I was an intern and even my first few years as a professional, so-called ‘junior designer,’ when fully half of every working day must have been spent cutting, trimming and affixing things to be given to people. After ten years (yikes!) in the business — including two as an owner in an independent design business — there’s a kind of irony in that, right?

That Lovin’ Feelin’

Mon 8 Sep 200301:47 AM

In spite of the beautiful weather, I spent a lot of this weekend indoors, seated in front of my computer. Since we moved into this new apartment, it was the first full weekend that I’ve had complete use of my workspace, thanks to the wireless networking that I did a week ago. I’ve been working on a new project, a Web site for a new client, that’s driven entirely by a series of Movable Type weblogs.

A good chunk of my Saturday was spent sketching out the site with a paper and pen, trying to get my head around a clear method for interweaving at least three and possibly as many as six separate weblogs into a single, seamless site. The hardest part was figuring out a clear, concise method of visually representing the relationships between each; it was a fun challenge, and I think I was able to bite off a good chunk of it pretty successfully by the time I called it quits earlier today. Inside of thirty-six hours, I had a reasonably robust prototype up and running, and many of the major conceptual and technical challenges had been sorted out.

It made me think that I miss this part of Web design, the part that’s intensely personal, where a single person can take an idea from paper to Web in just a matter of days. This immediacy was the quality that originally drew me away from print design and to the Web, when I found that my ideas could be rendered online without interference or obstacles. It’s nice to be intermittently reminded of this original seduction; each time it happens, I rediscover at least a little, well-preserved part of my tarnished passion for this business.

Abstract Expression

Tue 5 Aug 200301:58 AM

After a decade of working as a designer, I’m not sure that I’ve done much more than refine my ability to make things presentable in anticipation of a sale — I’m the rag full of spit and polish that buffs a showroom car. I’m not putting that down as a way for making a living, as lots of the smartest people I know have dedicated themselves to much the same thing… but in my darker moments, when I’m indulging my inner Holden Caufield, I wonder if 21st Century American society amounts to nothing more than a roomful of salesmen all trying to sell things to one another.

The Skillz to Design the Billz

Wed 30 Jul 200303:35 PM

There was a stack of bills waiting for me on my desk at Behavior when I returned to work on Monday. It’s pretty amazing how quickly bills will accumulate even for a small business, and I wrote literally eighteen checks before the day was out. Paying vendors and utilities has been my responsibility since last fall, when we rented our office space and the monthly expenses started really racking up. In my dealings with countless of these statements, I’ve been keeping mental notes on the usability of invoices, what makes them easy to understand and easy to pay. Following is a sketch of an ‘ideal’ paper-based invoice.

Email Your President in Several Easy Steps

Fri 18 Jul 200301:41 AM

The Big Business of Little Icons

Fri 11 Jul 200312:52 AM

If you’ve used Windows XP, MSN Messenger, AOL 6.0 or a host of other programs, you’ve already been exposed to the exquisite work of The Iconfactory. This small group of iconographers has spiritually led, if not dominated, the business of designing icons for the past several years. They’ve demonstrated again and again that they’re more than just talented icon artists; they’re also savvy marketers. Their latest venture, StockIcons.com, is another example of their gift for expanding the market and mindshare of computer iconography.

The Power of the Press

Thu 10 Jul 200309:27 PM

Behavior is printing a special-purpose marketing piece for which we need only about 50 copies. Taking this to a traditional offset printer — the old school kind, with huge, dangerous, finger-eating mechanical presses, unionized staff brimming with arcane printing knowledge, and storerooms full of noxious chemicals — would have made absolutely no economic sense. We also priced this out with one of the new breed of printers, the kind that straddle the line between traditional shops and digital service bureaus, and even that quote was pricier than we’d anticipated.

Food for Thought

Thu 3 Jul 200301:52 AM

Someone I was talking to over the weekend was saying that he felt that design is currently “over-supplied,” meaning, I guess, that in this market there is an overabundance of available design services, talent and studios. I started thinking about what that meant, really, and I have a feeling that a lot of thinking and postulation about the design business relies too heavily on the idea that design is basically the same as a service business — like say McKinsey — or a product business — like say Nike.

But I’ve started thinking — and this theory is still less than a week old, and I have yet to properly flesh it out — that design is most like the restaurant industry, which is a multibillion dollar business, and which allows for the co-existence of multiple levels of success, from mass-market chains to speciality boutiques. The more I think about it, the more I like this model, because the restaurant business is highly varied, is not a zero sum game, and everybody needs to eat, just like everybody needs design.

About

Subtraction.com

Khoi Vinh’s Web site

Category Archives: Design

Suite Smell of Success

Veer Have All the Good Stock Photos Gone?

Night of the Living Intern

That Lovin’ Feelin’

Abstract Expression

The Skillz to Design the Billz

Email Your President in Several Easy Steps

The Big Business of Little Icons

The Power of the Press

Food for Thought

Khoi Vinh’s Web site