Sat nav generation, symbols and interface

As satellite navigation systems are becoming cheaper and therefore everyone is buying them up, it's interesting to stop and consider what this is doing to our driving experience along with the whole idea of user interaction whilst driving.

We tend to trust machines to work the way they are intended. Even more so do we trust computers! Ah yes, the summum of intelligent design, conceived to make out lives easier which is exactly what sat nav does, doesn't it? Well mostly yes it can alleviate the stress of navigating alone whilst driving (or even the stress of being navigated by a nitwit with a map sat next to you!) but occasionally sat nav goes wrong. Furthermore it seems to be sucking out all of our sense of direction by relying on these machines too much. Worse than this it can lead to annoying and inappropriate shortcuts like the one which has led to a cottage being driven into 15 times in the last year by lorries who have blindly followed the sat nav instructions.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7588566.stm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1583776/Satnav-takes-Earl's-daughter-to-wrong-Stamford-Bridge.html

Design, camouflage, dinosaurs and exams.

One of the main functions of visual perception is to detect objects in the environment as either a potential mate, predator or perhaps lunch (Scientific American p18. V Ramachandran, D Rogers-Ramachandran). So determining what is not part of the scenery has been vital in the past in order for us to pass on our genes to our lucky predecessors. What use is it in modern life though? I'm not in the habit of popping out to the high street to bag a mammoth or flee from roaming tyrannosaurus rexs (!) on my way home from work.

What's the use of it now in getting our food or our mate then? Well in design terms it means that when we engage with visual communication we tend to see contrasted items much better. It jumps out at us as we say to ourselves, "Woah...is that a dinosaur?!". Use your head, designers!

No point using low contrast text on designs...

When I was doing my O levels the dreaded exam papers were black text on yellow paper. Oh boy did that strike fear in our hearts. We only had to glimpse a registration plate to give us the shivers! Apparently though this is the best contrast for legibility. So I guess we should thank the exam board for making it like this!

If you need some tools to ensure your website text has sufficient contrast for good legibility check out this article which gives some web tools to use.

What is YouTube for?

Check this out to get an anthropological take...(thanks to DB for highlighting this)

'An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube' by Michael Wesch

Identity...

Interesting presentation here on Identity! (Thanks Phil) The style of presentation is great too...

Check out the nervous compere though in his geeky shirt :)

Follow up presentation here

Slutbucks?

It's amazing what people can read into symbols isn't it? For example we all know that certain images are meant to be ambiguos. Take for example my wife and my mother-in-law. Actually please don't take them too far as Im rather attached to both of them...

Here we can see a cleverly designed visual pun.

On the other hand the new Starbucks logo is, well, just ok...I mean nothing special, but if you are a particular sort of Christian it seems that the following (on left) is offensive!

This article says that a US Christian group hs said the logo's character has her legs "spread like a prostitute... ".

Interestingly the founder of Starbucks has said of the logo (in general terms) "bare-breasted and Rubenesque; [it] was supposed to be as seductive as coffee itself".

It's true that the tails are spread but it would never occur to me that this mermaid's tails were sexually enticing me. What a load of old rubbish!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7427105.stm

Are your Hands giving the right impression?

This is why creating the right look and feel for businesses is important...

"Fidgety, ink-stained and with nails bitten to the quick, Gordon Brown's hands are fast becoming a visible symbol of the pressures he is under."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7402803.stm

Responsible design 1

It was a fine April morning and my little one and I decided to go for a stroll, fulfilling her burning desire to go to a playground ("pingownd daddy, pingownd!). We stopped briefly to post a letter and I was left aghast at the state of British design. It's something I've noticed many times before and always tutted at, but this jarring image stopped me in my tracks today. Maybe it was the juxtaposition of a beautiful spring morning with the visual house of horrors I saw before me. What was this horror of horrors? None other than our great British pillar box.

WHAT? I hear you gasp. He's crazy. This is an iconic design! Almost as iconic as the red Gilbert Scott designed telephone box. WHAT ARE YOU THINKING LITTLEFAIR? Well, I shall explain. The beautiful Georgian pillar box is not that which is offending my sensibilities but rather the monstrosity welded to the side of it. Is this the height of well integrated British design? Don't get me wrong- I'm no pre-raphaelite revivalist who swans around in a smoking jacket bemoaning the good old days when a pint of beer cost 2d and everything was SO much better when things were made of wood. No. We need to embrace modernity and our ever evolving lives and find interesting and innovative ways of moving forward. And sticking a big red box on the side of a (probably) antique piece of (functional but attractive) street furniture is not the way forward!

I have sympathy for the posties. They do a good job and they're probably not paid a great deal. Our postie is a family man who does his job and later in the day I see him with his kids doing dad stuff. So I don't want to burden his round- of course he should have a secure place to leave some of his deliveries so as not to be weighed down. But can you imagine the design brief conversation before this was implemented?

Big wig: "We need some storage areas to integrate onto existing pillar boxes for posties. Let's have a look a the designs"

Designer (mechanical, no doubt): "Well. I've come up with this box. It has a lock and we simply weld it to the side of the post boxes."

BW: " Hmm, yes I like it. How much does it cost? What are your fees?"

D: " Oh a lot less than an industrial designer's. All that marketing bullshit - you don't need that"

BW: "Yes you're right but, somehow this box on the side....it needs something else. What do you think?"

D: "Hmmm. How about if I add a radius along the top edge. Give it like an arched roof"

BW: "Will it add cost?"

D: "no, no."

BW "...... Yeah. I like. I like. Implement this and make 25,000 units. Well done. We also need some stand alone boxes to set up. Make them grey and ugly"

Ug.

I guess these boxes need to look fairly industrial so as not to attract attention of thugs and vandals, but really........What have they done to our heritage. This is my (and yours) cultural inheritance that they are tampering with! (I know they probably own these boxes and can probably do what they like with them. But aren't they listed? Should they be? This link tells how they are protected by English heritage)

These people have a design responsibility. If you pay in the design stage for a bit of creative thinking rather, chances are you'll come up with a great looking integrated design which may not cost as much as the off the shelf monstrosity. Designers also have a responsibility to solve the problem fully. That's what designers do- they look at problems and try and find solutions. If they are working with an enlightened client then a full range of ideas can be explored and market tested to see if this is the real deal: the right design solution. But the designer also has to advise on this process. Often clients can't comprehend the long term (and sometimes strategic) value of design input at the beginning of the project and may need to be convinced. The designer has a responsibility too- it's not just the penny pinching client. I've been put under immense budgetary limits in the past and this only makes me more resolved to think about the problem fully in order to come up with a solution within the full design brief: aesthetic, functional and financial.

What's in a name?

A lot is in a name really. Ask Iona Knipl, winner of the New York Times Worst Bad Name contest. Read here how she used to hate her name at school, but now finds it "neat".

I also had a bad time at school because I had the longest name in letters in my primary class. I remember being given a long thin piece of coloured card with my name neatly spelled out by the teacher and told to copy it, letter by letter. I was the last in the class to achieve it!

Throughout senior school it was a real drag of a name too, but I have come to love my unusual name, even though you'd blanch at some of the spellings I've had! Once people understand my name, it's unforgettable, or at least instantly recognisable. Yes, I like my name. It doesn't define me as names did when they were first given hundreds of years ago. I'm not that small and not too pretty! But in some ways I am now defined by my name and how I had to deal with it growing up.

In this light I can see how Sir Terence Conran is miffed that some other company is going global with a chain of companies in his name. When I was considering a name for my venture a good friend and colleague who happens to be a specialist in company acquisitions warned me of using my name as a trading name, the argument goes thus: you get known, build up your company to the point where it's not just you on your own anymore, but a board responsible to shareholders. It's at this point that you are no longer in sole charge of your named company. Nor, in that context, your name. You could be ousted by from the board, retire, resign. But your name goes on in the guise of the company. Just like Sir Conran.

Mystified by branding? It's all in the cup of tea

Are you mystified by branding? Fed up of people talking about how their logos talk about their "core values"? Don't know a logotype from a logomark? Well, to be honest you don't really need to know about these things to give a good impression of your company. It's all about the cup of tea...

A brand isn't your logo. The amount of times I've had clients call me in for meetings and let me know in a very matter of fact way that they'd like me to design a brand for them. I get excited. An enlightened client! But it soon transpires that what they want is a 'logo' redesign. Usually in isolation to all other communications in their arsenal. Well that's no brand I'm afraid. The brand can be found in the gut reaction your key stakeholders have about you and your company. It goes way beyond the logo. Sure the logo needs to toe the line and reflect your company's values but it's more than this. It's about getting all the visual language correct, right across the board. You get it right and you can get the brand to work for you- to achieve results for you as it reinforces this gut feel.

And yes, it starts with the cup of tea...

When I visit a client's company (or a suppliers) I'm greeted at the reception and perhaps offered a cup of tea. All of your questions about this company can be found in this cup of tea. But I'm not talking about tasseomancy!

If I were given a chipped mug, or a posh china tea cup and saucer, or an Elvis mug-I (or you, I'm guessing) would immediately start to make judgments about this company. Is it rich, poor, flippant, conservative, young and dynamic.... We may be WRONG about these assumptions, but we can't help making them. When we meet people for the first time we make judgements about what type of person they are based on their face, their voice, their accent, their clothes, their hair, their movements, their body language. All in an instance. And we usually stick with these ideas, rightly or wrongly! That's why first impressions last and why, if you work at it, you can help get some ideas quickly into the head of the client/key partner/supplier.

As humans we know about body language and in a similar way we are quite sensitive to the visual language used in communications design: which type is used, the colour, the tone of voice in literature. All of these things add up in our minds and create an impression of a company. We just can't help it!

Check out this company's website and compare it with this one and this one. Three very different approaches to the same problem: "flogging plumbing stuff" (I use this language deliberately-none of the companies did, right? Because using those particular words give an instant feel. This effect works similarly in a visual way too.) Each may be 'right' in its own way- it really depends on how they've done their homework and if each site gives the right type of client for them a nice warm fuzzy feeling. Try it with your friends' company sites...!

And this doesn't stop at the logo or corporate stationery, it should permeate the whole organisation: how the building is lit, the colour of the walls, the carpet, how the phone is answered, which hold music is used. These all build to make an impression and cerate an idea of the sort of company it is. And most importantly is the first impression: it's the way the receptionist greets you, how they treat you, if they are friendly or not, and of course, how that cuppa looks.

Got it?

How Ebay changed our online habits....

As featured in http://www.business550.com

Culture Jamming

Culture Jamming

Seen on Regent Street, Cambridge.

Internet Art

http://www.newrafael.com/
http://www.stupidforum.com/ http://www.dazeddigital.com/projects/digital50/article.aspx?a=530
http://jacksonpollock.org/

Qashqai

Why do I like the Nissan Qashqai?

Argh! I can't get it out of my head. "Oh! Look there's one. Hmm. Nice!"

It's exactly the sort of car I shouldn't like: SUV type car (although it seems that this is a crossover of sorts, as according to this article it has little more than a Ford Focus footprint on the road!), it's name is taken from a nomadic tribe implying all sorts of off-road antics which I just don't associate with my urban driving (nor do I want to!-described as “Urban Nomad” style. Honestly!), but....

"Oh yes, there's the funny skateboarding Qashqai advert. Hmm. Nice!"

I think I worry too much. Global warming. Fuel crisis. Economy downturn. Rising bills. Plus I'm attracted to a car which I *shouldn't be*! So I'm not going to worry. I think the marketing-design of Nissan have done a good job.

Damn them!

Creative Spirit

Listening to the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning I took interest in the "...and finally" piece discussing the name of the new Russian president, Medvedev a tricky one for our English mouths to get around apparently.

What interested me most was the process by which we, as a nation, decide to pronounce foreign words. It has always been a great mystery to me why we don't just say a foreign place name how it seems in English. We don't for instance say "Par-ee" for Paris. We pronounce it: Par-is. No problem there is there? Well no, but the expert from the pronunciation unit of the BBC maintains that policy is to keep older forms such as Paris the way we say it, but for names we encounter now we have to make an effort to form the correct localised pronunciation. Radio announcers don't have to sound exactly like a native speaker as the BBC is broadcasting to primarily a British audience. Which makes me wonder why we go to all this bother? The market for the BBC is British- can't we say it the way it seems? I tried out the words on the pronunciation unit's page without looking at the explanation and I made a pretty good job of it. The main errors I made were of stress not phonetics. John Sergeant, who was also contributing to the show, made the point that the French refer to Mrs Thatcher as "Szatsher". The French know who they are talking about and an English person listening probably would too (despite having a little giggle). Famously London is Londres and Edinburgh the improbable Edimbourgh (said Edimboor)... So why do we do it?

I feel it's to do with a mis-guided feeling of not wanting to offend. A desire to make sure everyone is ok. "Everyone ok, got everything you need? Cup of tea anyone?". Driving a car in England is a pleasure compared to many other European countries, but if you don't obey the unwritten rules of the road of being courteous then you incur the wrath of the English driver: they snub you! Or try and block you out. Why? Because you didn't follow the rules!

Interestingly I also find Britain to be one of the most creative places I have lived and worked. Creative in terms of risk taking: let's push boundaries, analyse deeply in order to find a solution and really "think laterally". I've been in many technology brainstorms where ideas flow freely and creatively without inhibition, where there are no rules to knock you back if you say something a bit outlandish or creative. This, I feel is where the true nature of the Brit lies. A free, creative spirit- not the stuffy bowler topped business man who spends half his time wondering how to say Medvedev .

If you wear a bowler hat then follow this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ru-DmitryMedvedev.ogg

Adding a poll to a website

A client has asked me to quickly add a poll to their website (which means no time to pull in a programmer!). Quick googling has come up with:
http://www.internationalvoting.com/

This gives an editable poll which can be easily inserted into HTML. It's advert free, but is hosted on the international voting website. Quick and Dirty....

Google- thank you!

Still no word from the Real Shaving Company

Still no word from the real shaving company! Has been at least a week since I sent the letter first class. I'll make a note to call them this week. I sent it to the marketing manager thinking she or he may be interested in the idea of the mismatch between the design and messages portrayed on the packaging and the real deal of using the product.

They're probably busy.

_____________________
Update 15-02-08, 16.22: Rang the number on the packaging: no answer (I let it ring about 15 times). Checked the website: same deal.
_____________________

The symbolism of the sword!

I'm reading a book about signs and symbols. This is an are which fascinates me. For me it's linked to the development of communication and written language. How did we develop writing systems which were pictographic, or a picture of say a cow... to the written letters forming the word cow! Interestingly the letter 'a' which derives from the Hebrew aleph for bull doesn't feature in the word cow or bull! Anyway- I digress...

My eye alighted rather on the article in the book regarding swords!

Swords which stand for power and virilty with their phallic form. He who holds the sword upright and threatens is to be feared! Perhaps I'm over-egging the virile element of a sword. After all, I'm not quite sure what other form a sword could take, other than phallic! There are some Bronoze Age Celtic swords which were 'leaf' shaped, but all in all it's a big metal stick with a pointy end :-)

Interestingly the sword is used when honouring Knights to bestow honour and authority but the book also says the sword can be seen as a symbol of purification. I wonder whether warriors of old thought of their swords as a purifier-cleaving the enemy in two to 'purify' them! Maybe. Maybe not....

The sword is often a violent symbol of death and power.

Japanese swordsmen do have, however, a slightly different take on this called Satsu Jin Ken / Katsu Jin Ken, or life-taking sword / life-giving sword. When the sword is applied without discipline it is destructive or Satsu Jin Ken but with experience and ability the master of the sword can resolve matters without the drawing of the sword, or by the re-sheathing of the sword to show an intention of peace. This is Katsu Jin Ken. Iaido is in fact a non-combatative mental discipline as much as it a physical one. Iaido is the art of drawing the sword but futhermore can be seen as "the way of mental presence and immediate reaction"(ref: wikipedia), thus we see the handling of the sword in a thoroughly peaceful way for the personal development of the practitioner.

Life taking and life giving sword.

Beyond the logo: building the customer experience

Most of my clients, I have to admit, don't know what a brand is. Well who does!? It's a recognisable logo, right? So please design me a brand.

The difficulty is telling the client that they're wrong. And to be honest they mostly don't want to hear. Building a brand is about taking care of your customers and projecting the right values about your product or service in whatever you do as a business.

I'll be interested to see how my sore little problem turns out in terms of customer experience. Let me shed some light on this for you...

I love shaving! It's bizarre, I know. I think I prefer to pamper myself rather than the act of shaving off skin and hair from my face. In any case I fell for this beautifully packaged and messaged shaving gel: Real Shaving Company. It promised me "anti-razor burn" , "professional formula" for "sensitive skin"!

"This clear gel provides an invisible coating to give incredible slip for against the grain shave with no burning or redness and allows you to see where you're shaving." (Their words not mine)

Oh yeah baby! I'm getting it! This is for me! Total connection with this product- GIMME more! So I shelled out near enough 5 quid for this professional product which promised me no burn or redness. YESSSSSSS!

But I've been having a few problems with it. It doesn't seem to give me the clean results I anticipated from the values the packaging portrayed, nor the details written on the side. Quite sore, no smooth shaving experience, quite painful: tugging at the beard and LOTS of redness...But hey, I persevered with it thinking maybe I wasn't exactly following the instructions. I tend to leave my beard a long time before cutting and it gets quite thick. Maybe that was it. I cut the gel some slack huh!?

But this time, I did everything to the letter. Result:

AAAAAGH!

New razor, washed face, towel dry, shave along grain of beard at first, pulling skin taut to help the shave.

Look at the state of my poor face :-(

But I'm not here to moan about the gel really. I'm telling you about my brand dissatisfaction: my expectations (which were reinforced by the packaging and the website) were not met. In fact if anything all it's achieved is negative brand experience.... up to now!

But let's see how they respond to a letter I'll send them. After all I feel the product has let me down (at the least) and possibly even misled me! Painfully!

So I want to see if the Real Shaving Company can re-establish some of its values with me by its response. How will they react to my complaint? Let's see.... I'll post a letter soon to their Peterborough address. Can a brand be re-built in the customer's mind?

A suivre.....

Adding value through design

This report published by the Design Council recently, picks up on a thread I was writing about earlier: that marketing and design are inextricably linked through business performance.

In fact this report goes further to say that the more investment in design (actually those that "use designers") that the company makes into its product or service, the better return it will have. Yup. What designers have always known: design helps sell products, it's not about tarting it up. In fact it amazes me the amount of times I'm asked to tart up something from a purely aesthetic point of view.

What this report doesn't address (can it ever?) is whether the design has to be necessarily good or bad! Obviously the design needs to address to the core client audience, otherwise nobody will be engaged. But I've worked for clients who are Venture Capital funded and these guys are tight! Ducks don't come anywhere near it. And they're not extremely wealthy for no reason! I'm sure being canny with their money on a small as well as large scale is one way of getting rich. Frequently, though, Venture Capitalists want as much as they can get out of you for as little money as possible. But this is not my gripe: this is the way of the modern economy, n'est ce pas. My gripe is with those VCs who see design as a non-integrated part of the business and marketing process. They plug designers into the "selling" process as and when they need them. I argue that placing a manager of design (or design marketing, marketing design, I'm not fussed) with a full emphasis on the design as well as marketing would be a much more powerful proposition and give them a better return on their investment! As proved by the Design Council report above. Design should be a continuous process managed along the way : constantly looking a the product or service and thinking about how to better serve the client or customer. This is design. Thinking is design. It's an integrated thinking, marketing, design, finance approach. (I used to think it was about drawing pretty pictures. )

Still. There'll always be the client who knocks you hard on price saying: "But a colleague of mine got his website designed for £50 and a bag of Tudor crisps". Well my friend I can say but one thing. Adios.

Giles Gilbert Scott, Cambridge University Library and the need for tea and biscuits!

Yesterday I went to see the Cambridge University Library for the first time. Well close up for the first time anyway, as you can see "this magnificent erection" (words attributed to Neville Chamberlain upon the opening of the library) from pretty much all over Cambridge. In fact you can see it from the M11!

The reason I went to the library was to see the latest exhibition there called, Through the Whole Island, Excursions in Great Britain. The (rather small) exhibition room was showing some very interesting pieces of writing and etchings of people's journey's around the British Isles. Of particular interest, I thought, was a handwritten piece from Charles Darwin. Well worth a visit.




The library building was designed by Giles Gilbert Scott. Having known this I was interested and intrigued to see this building close up as I knew of Scott from his impressive Liverpool Cathedral and more mundanely the telephone box which probably made his name famous in quiz nights throughout the UK!

What I wasn't prepared for though was that the building would take my breath away (or at least evoke an audible WOW!). This strong and sturdy temple of learning reaches up and touches the clouds! The windows allowing the exterior viewer to see the books almost saying: "I have a serious, didactic role and am protector of knowledge!". Wonderful also were the details such as the hand rails leading up the well proportioned stair way to the main revolving door.

It seemed like a style on it's own: it has been said that Scott's work fused the classical with the modern creating this new functional style. It was certainly impressive! The only thing it needed really was a tea lady offering biscuits and tea! I was gasping after the cycle over there in the wind!

I do feel obliged to comment on rather a sad note though: that in researching the library on the internet it seems that The University of Cambridge's Brand Manager failed in their task to portray some of these wonderful qualities to the website! A bloody awful mess of a website greeted me which you can see here: http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/


This does not say keeper of knowledge, or didactic mentor nor indeed "this magnificent erection". Sadly it looked like somebody had put a lot of different elements into a bag, shook it about a bit and thrown them onto the screen. And as I dig around the general Cambridge University site I realise that the mess wasn't confined to the library!

Wikipedia boasts: "The University of Cambridge (often Cambridge University), located in Cambridge, England, is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world and has a reputation as one of the world's most prestigious universities." See how the University main website utterly fails to convey this: http://www.cam.ac.uk/. Staggering. Really staggering that this amazing University has for an internet presence what looks like a site that has been knocked together by a programmer over the weekend!

There are no reinforcements of brand values either in textures, colours, or layout of the pages. The navigation is basic. It seems fairly usable and it's Google ranking is certainly sky high (9/10) but it seems no thought has gone into portraying the University values. Easy to criticise isn't it? Well, here is an example (in Cambridge) of how it could have been done better: The Fitzwilliam Museum. No comment, just compare and contrast...

Then again, maybe they want to attract geeky programmers who work over the weekend.....