A small reminder of why we need to care about design.

I think, as designers, we have moments where we truly feel good about our profession. We contribute to beauty within our culture. We help product and consumer find each other. We create excitement and fun. At times, we can even feel like we've positively contributed to the world in which we live.

Then we run into something awful and grotesque and disheartening. Something that makes us want to bury our heads in the sand or pull a King Lear. For me, that moment came this past weekend while traveling in my car.

Some may say that there isn't much to be caught up about in this photo. Some might not give the back of this truck a second look. But, for me…on this day…this is what made me frustrated with the world of advertising and design.


The first thing that bothered me was the logo. There are probably worse typographic blunders out there, but this one has a number of things to make my blood boil.

First, the dropped 'J.' Drop caps can be beautiful and eye-catching in editorial design, as it gives your eye a place to start reading an article, and very often it can fit in with the layout of an editorial spread.

This is not an editorial spread. This logo has three words and an abbreviation. I know where to start reading. Your typeface is 400 points tall. I also don't find your "tuck the blue bar behind the letter J" trick all that amazing. It certainly isn't reason enough to offset the 'J' with that much weight.

Now let's attack the problem of letter-spacing. It seems that this company would prefer to be known as "Je a d." This is better known in some circles as jihad…not a term with which you want your company confused.

This logo represents your company. I can only assume you don't care too much about your brand, because you used Microsoft Publisher to create your logo.

Lastly, let's just kill this idea of using a company's logo in the middle of a sentence. It's not a word, it's a mark. If you want to say that this truck is on it's way to another satisfied "jihad" customer, then say it. Don't interrupt the sentence with your huge-ass logo, and leave the poor word 'customer' on it's own, fighting to be seen.

Do you remember those children books that use pictures instead of words, so that kids can feel like they are reading? That's what you're doing here. Your interrupting the sentence with an image. I am driving a car. I can read. Don't insult me.

And there's another thing. Why are you distracting my driving with all of this reading? Are you trying to get me in an accident, so that I need your auto parts?

Oh, the humanity!

So, what about you? Share a moment when all the design world seemed ot fall apart before you.

Flexibility vs. Simplicity

Apple and EMI made their big announcement yesterday about DRM-free music and premium downloads. It certainly is a big deal, as those who care a lot about technology and music, have been fighting for a wider range of DRM-free music for a long time.

The announcement is really wonderful and begins the slippery-slope of DRM changes that consumers have been demanding. There are a few things that haven't been discussed in the Q&A session that I found interesting.

First, EMI's CEO, Eric Nicoli, made the statement that EMI had known about Steve Job's feelings about DRM far before his well-known open letter about DRM. It seems that this letter was more of a rebuttal to attacks on Apple's iPod and iTunes in Europe than an attack on the music companies. It was as if Jobs was letting the nay-sayers know that he has been in favor of DRM-free music all along, but it was the music companies holding everyone back. Kind of like saying, "I told the big boys already, but their not listening, so stop blaming me and my company." Passing the buck a bit.

Anyway, the really interesting comment to me was from Steve Jobs on choices (Timestamp 41:02): "Life is a balance between total freedom and simplicity. We try to strike the local maximums… where we can give people what they tell us… and what we think they want… and yet keep it very simple."

I connected to this statement, because it Jobs articulates the struggle of design very well. As designers you want to create something that will satisfy the consumer's problem (i.e. I want to buy music easily and securely form the Internet), be flexible (i.e. I want to buy only one song, or a song at a better quality, or without dirty words), and yet keep it simple (integrate the store within the player, make backing-up the music integrated, and give me album artwork automatically, etc.).

To me companies like Microsoft and Sony have always been scoring really high in the total freedom category. Their products can be "modded" and third-party applications abound for them. They allow a person to do virtually anything related to their products.

Companies like Apple and Google have done well with simplicity. Here's one white page with a dialog box, one image, and two buttons. Apple for years had only a one-button mouse ship with it's computers.

To me the race is now on for that balance that Jobs mentions. Google's front page is actually a bit more complex now, including a personalized home page, and customizable widgets. Apple has embraced a mouse with four buttons and a click-wheel. Microsoft is simplifying it's interface to resemble the more user friendly OS X.

Google's Adwords is a terrific example of the two extremes of simplicity and freedom. There are two ways to use Google's Adwords: a Starter Edition and a Standard Edition. The Starter Edition is on the simplicity side of the extreme and the Standard Edition is all about Freedom. Starter has one campaign, one defined area, one set of keywords, etc. Standard has the ability to create multiple campaigns over many specific areas with various keywords. It includes analytics and reports. You have a virtually infinite array of choices.

Jumping from a Starter Edition to a Standard Edition is overwhelming, and I wish now that I could jump back for my NJ Mac Help campaigns. If you have ever "graduated" from Starter to Standard like me, then you perhaps know what I mean. There is no middle ground for Adwords.

Apple, I think has been doing a great job of opening itself up to more flexibility, while still safeguarding it's simplicity. Boot camp, the Intel switch, iTunes/iPods working with PC's: these were all flexibility moves. So, as we see Apple become more balanced or hit those "local maximums," I wonder how many people will seek to reap their benefits.

Through sleet, snow, freezing rain… may the force be with you.

The United States Postal Service has got into the act of consumer feedback by asking Americans to vote for their favorite stamp choice in the new Star Wars stamp collection. There are many great choices and nice designs, but my vote went to the incomparable Boba Fett, whose look alone will ensure your letter's delivery. Other favorites were Chewbacca (of course), Storm Troopers, and the classic Princess Leia/R2-D2 moment.

Perhaps the coolest part of the relationship between Star Wars and the USPS is the creation of R2-D2 mailboxes to be scattered across the country. What a perfect idea… the mailbox is already shaped similarly to R2-D2, so they just overlaid R2-D2's likeness, and wha-la! Now R2 can delivery your message safely, just like he did for Lea and so many other characters. Plus, he knows a bunch of languages. That should help with international deliveries. It'd be interesting to see if the USPS gets any letters addressed to characters on Star Wars planets like Tatooine.

And just in case you don't have an R2-D2 mailbox near you, you can make your own with this PDF. Way cool!

Let's go shopping!

Recently, I have found a few interesting items online that seem very cool, but I just can't afford to buy right now. Figuring that you might have the same interest, yet more available cash flow, I post these sites for your shopping pleasure:

Perpetual Kid - which directed me to this (pictured above)

Mighty Goods - which directed me to this cool item.

Suck UK - another doormat, which looks eerily similar to the work of John Langdon (you don't know him now, but you know him if you read Angels & Demons)

The Interstate System... simplified.

Chris Yates has a created a pretty cool map of the US Interstate System… as a subway map.

I just thought this was a nice example of how looking at an ordinary subject in a different, ordinary way creates an interesting solution. It doesn't help you figure out precise turns from San Antonio to Minneapolis, but it'll tell you what roads you'll be on for most of the time.

Thanks, as always, to BoingBoing.

Apple changes the world again

Steve Jobs, in today's keynote speech, alluded to Apple's ability to change the way we do things. They certainly did it with the Mac in 1984. They did it with the iPod. And will this next endeavor, did they do it again?

It's an iPod, it's a phone, it's a web browser... but is it revolutionary? I hope so, because everyone has been talking it up so much... without ever knowing what it really was. With touch screen technology, it seems versatile enough to grow and be copied and be wanted... badly. Seems like all the ingredients that helped the last two revolutionary devices.

The really nice thing was making the technology work with something we already have... fingers. No need to keep track of your stylus or key in with tiny buttons. No, instead use fingers and gestures.

When I was at school at the University of Delaware, there was a Computer Engineering professor who was working on exactly this technology. He wanted to make a keyboard without keys. One where cutting and pasting was like gesturing a grab and a drop. The coolest part was how he had figured out how to identify each finger, so that an index + middle finger touch was different than a index and pinky finger touch.

I'm not sure if this professor's work ties in at all with the Apple iPhone, but it sure seems like it's similar.

As I hear more and more about this phone I am stoked! It's running OS X! It's got a 2 megapixel camera! It's really so much more... a new way to call people.

Holy shit... it's just getting cooler.

NJ is Broken

Specifically the road system here in the Garden State is broken. As one of the state's newest residents I've noted a few things about this place that have started to get under my skin. Hopefully, divulging these things here will allow me to move past them and begin to try to find those other wonderful things about this state that makes natives swoon for it (besides gas prices, and the fact that you don't have to pump it yourself).

First up is a handicap parking spot in front of my building.


Now, I'm no handicapped person, but if I was, I think I might be better off in a regular parking spot than this joke of a space. As my friend Chris put it, "That handicapped parking spot is handicapped."

Next we have a sign that exists only a few hundred feet from that parking spot. When you look at it this way, it doesn't make any sense.


Take a good look in the distance and you'll notice that the roadway doesn't turn, nor have a diagonal intersection upcoming.

Come at the same sign from the other direction and you'll see:


Oh! A road that makes a 90 degree left hand turn, with a diagonal driveway at it's elbow!

Someone neglected to tell the maker of this sign, that the information only pertained to one flow of traffic (image #2). Thus, it is broken.

Broken point of transportation #3:

A traffic circle was just created where there should simply be a light or a stop sign. From this photo, can you tell what you are supposed to do if you want to go left at this intersection?


The funny thing here, is that this is thought to be an improvement over the previous traffic pattern, which would force the driver to make a right turn, go around a jug handle, and make a left hand turn at a stop light... instead of just making a left hand turn at this intersection.

This traffic circle (and most circles in NJ) are a problem, because people do not know how to drive in them. There is a need to yield to the traffic in the circle, yet most NJ drivers do not abide by that. It also creates a situation of constant merging and exiting, which in my mind, is a bigger potential for an accident than an ordinary four-way intersection.

New Jersey has a lot of people, and equally as many cars. So, it is not easy to thwart the problem of traffic in any area of the state. The DOT here is approaching the problem the wrong way, however. Drivers get frustrated by the inability to make left hand turns on major roads and the constant use of jug handles and exits on state roads. Roadways that are intended to keep traffic flowing, instead make the entire trip longer.

In my opinion, NJ would benefit from more local roads, making it easier for locals to use their own back-roads to avoid major highways, center turn lanes (instead of medians), and conventional traffic lights, with left hand turn lanes that allow for more driver understanding.

More traffic lights would also allow for shorter open stretches of multi-lane highways which encourages drag racing and speeding. Center turn lanes would also allow for emergency personnel to make U-turns and left hand turns more efficiently when needed, shortening their trips, and getting them to an accident scene, hospital, or speeding car more efficiently.

Fhew... okay, I'm done. For now.

Alan Fletcher (1931-2006)

Design's heart has skipped a beat.

Alan Fletcher passed away on September 21, 2006. He passed on almost three years from the day that links myself, a good friend - Karla, the Raven Press at the University of Delaware, and Alan Fletcher. I had the good fortune of meeting the founder of Pentagram while studying abroad in the summer of 2003.

It's sad that we sometimes only chose to look back and celebrate someone's life once they pass, but that is what I did upon hearing the news. I looked for the journal I kept that summer. In it I found a small paragraph of thought from the day that we sat on Alan's floor.



It seems that simplicity was what I took away from the visit. Alan Fletcher seemed to work from a blank canvas and add only what was needed. There was no fluff or decoration. The message was communicated by the least means necessary, and by doing so surprised the audience with minimalistic intelligence. His work was always smart that way.

I also recall Alan being rather unable to elaborate on his abilities. Like masters of all crafts, he seemed to make it all look effortless. Asking him to describe the way he worked was like asking Tiger Woods what his hands were doing mid-swing. I imagine that you think about it, practice it, improve it, but when you're at the height of your game, there is no direct thought, only action.

Alan was rather open to us, despite his stature. He was the equivalent of a pop idol for many of us. When given the choice between meeting Bono or Alan Fletcher that day, I dare say that many of us would have chosen to see Alan. Despite this, he sat and entertained our questions and musings without any arrogance or sense of privilege. He either chose to ignore his place in the design world, or trivialized it to the point of ultimate humility.

One of Alan Fletcher's book shelves, which speaks volumes to his humble nature.

What I will recall most is the deed that Alan Fletcher agreed to do, on the part of the students that summer. He allowed us to commission him to create a mark for a fledgling letterpress studio, back across the pond, at the University of Delaware. The press had been the pet project of two university professors, Ray Nichols and Bill Deering. It was their hope to pass along the idea to students that "type has weight." Alan certainly understood this, and when asked if he would create a logo for the press he not only agreed, but he delivered an piece that was as perfect as perfect could be for that task.

The mark he created was a hand-drawn blob (if you will), with penned beak, an eye formed from a small circular sticker and a hand drawn asterisk, finished with two fledgling lines of legs. The playfulness of the construction, the simplicity of the design, and the youth of the raven itself embodied everything that Raven Press was at that point. To say that our professors were pleased when we surprised them with the design would be a vast understatement.

What Alan had done was show his incredible generosity through the most important means - design. Many know him for the ways he contributed to the world of design in very public and popular ways. I will always remember him for the generosity he showed to a group of aspiring creatives, who hoped to soak up a fraction of his greatness that day.

Thank you Alan. You will be missed.

Why it matters

Sometimes I think about design and wonder why it really matters. A lot of people in the business of design say it matters all the time, and I generally believe that, but I don't think that the rest of the world buys into it. A bet a bunch of people would say that money matters. I bet another bunch would say that people matter. Both camps are right, but the nice thing about design mattering is that it helps satisfy both camps.

You see, two weeks ago, I had to get on a flight to Indiana. This flight was very important to me, as it would enable me to be there with the rest of my family as we put my grandfather to rest.

I woke up very early on the morning of Thursday, August 10th, ready to fly. My flight was leaving Laguardia at 8:00 am that morning and I arrived at 6:30 am.

That same morning I heard of the terror threats in England, and how the airports were going to be increasing security. I thought this would slow me down a bit, but I was getting there earlier than the woman had suggested to me the day before (when no security level was raised and the world was as normal as a post 9/11 world can be).

I checked in for my flight and found my way to a line for security... one that wrapped around the terminal, went outside and doubled up there. The speed at which this line was moving was less than encouraging, but I stayed in it, thinking that most travelers were trying to get somewhere important as well, and that if I could make it through the "normal" way, that would be best.

So, I waited and waited. I met a nice family from Oregon who told me about their son's service in Iraq and it all ironically made me think that all this wait was worth something.

Two individuals would wisk thorugh the security line shouting flight times. "7:30! If you're scheduled to leave at 7:30, follow me!"

Around ten minutes until 8 I asked the nice family to hold my place in line, so I could inquire about any flight delays and ensure that I would make it to my gate. The airport's electronic boards were showing flights leaving as scheduled and on time. Naturally this worried me, as I still had (in my estimates) another hour to wait in line.

I went to the airline counter and there were four people helping more people check-in, but none were able to tell me if flights were leaving on time or who I could speak with to answer that question. One woman got mad at me because I asked her to clarify. She clearly had lost her patience and was demonstrating that to me. Needless to say, it didn't make me feel any more comfortable.

Off duty security representatives were bombarded on their breaks, asked by nervous and confused passengers what they should do. The response of the workers was that they couldn't help because they were on break.

On duty security workers were only able to tell people to follow a singular line around the terminal until they found the end of it.

One worker for another airline could be heard telling people that they were holding flights, and that they wouldn't take off without their passengers. This made sense to me, because it makes little sense to fly an empty plane.

Comforted, I went back into line.

When I heard my flights time called, I rushed forward with an airline representative to another line. This one was long too, but it's length was contained to the terminal. Surely this one would get me through in enough time to get to the plane.

I waited another 45 minutes to get to the security gate. There I went through the steps I had done just the week before, taking off my shoes and belt, unpacking my laptop, and emptying my pockets. I was accepted through the metal detector and collected my things. The process was exactly the same. Nothing had changed, except about an hour before I had dumped any liquids in my carry-on.

When I walked into the terminal it was like I had entered a new dimension. It was quiet and rather empty. A few people were milling about the restaurant and shops. In all there were maybe a hundred people in sight, compared to the hundreds that packed the other side of the terminal.

I ran towards my gate and the plane had gone. They said they had held it, but I still had missed it. There was no turning it around. No magic to get my person to Indianapolis in the next few hours.

The airline representative at the gate was frustrated, because her computer wasn't accepting her count for the now departed flight. I was soon joined by several other passengers who were in my same camp.

She went around to us, asking each of us what we wanted to do: take the next direct flight or a connecting flight through Detroit (noting that Detroit might be backed up too). I told her I didn't know what to do, because I didn't know which way would get me there faster. She seemed upset, and frustrated said "Where are you trying to go?"

I started to cry and said, "My grandfather's funeral."

I think she meant "what city," but that's the place where I needed to go. Suddenly her face grew understanding and she asked me to wait a minute. She finished helping the other passengers and then came over to me.

She told me to take the connecting flight as it had the best chance of getting me there with some time. So, I immediately boarded a flight, only to have it wait for other passengers who were undoubtedly waiting in the same line I had been waiting in just minutes earlier.

The flight eventually took off and we landed in Detroit, after my connecting flight had left. There was no way for me to get on that plane. No way for me to get to Indianapolis until the next one.

I got on it, too tired of being upset, to be upset.

I arrived in Indianapolis at 3:00 pm or so. I rented a car and drove the hour and a half to the funeral home. When I arrived they were packing up the pictures and mementos that symbolized my grandfathers life. When I got to the grave site, the dirt was freshly covering the spot where he lay. I said good bye.

It's all a pretty sad story. As I recount it, I am able to very easily fall into the emotion of the day. There was frustration and anger. Disbelief and exhaustion.

Looking back on it now, perhaps two weeks removed it makes me think about design.

I heard a radio program on NPR about how the new terminal at Indianapolis Airport was being designed to be flexible. It would have no permanent interior walls.

The space could be changed and modified to adapt to the changing needs of the airport. Laguardia had no such plan at its inception. There was no such plan, even after 9/11.

There was no signage or loudspeaker to help you find your way. None of those tension barriers to make lines, nor people to construct or manage the lines. There was no liaison between the people checking those in passengers in at the baggage and check and those at the gate. There was no way to call out individual passengers to move through the line so as to make their flight. No way to identify persons who might have a priority in their travel plans (i.e a family emergency, a doctor en route to surgery, etc.). The electronic boards wrongly went through the schedule of flights as if they had left, when they really hadn't.

The airport seemed very good at how to declare a state of emergency, but not very good at how to handle it. The airlines had poor communication with the security officials and vice versa. The employees had an inflexible "my job, not my job" philosophy. Ultimately, it could have been solved by better design of communication systems, line management, prioritization, flexibility of design and space, and foresight.

There are those who will say that the entire situation was handled well and it was a crisis averted. What I experienced that day, however, was a complete breakdown of control and an ability to adapt to a situation.

Why does good design matter? Because it could have had a hand to play in the events of that day to make the whole situation more effective, and perhaps this passenger would not have missed such an important event. When I think of the emotional strife that good design might have prevented, it makes me believe it's worth the emphasis.

Design by numb3rs

On the tele this morning, I saw a promo for a new television show on ABC called, The Nine. The title treatment of the show utilizes a design element where a number is used as a letter. In this case, a horizontally reflected 9 replaces the letter 'e'. It's a design element that I have seen before, most notably in the movie posters for Seven.

So this morning, I got to thinking... how many other designs utilize the number in design of a title, name, or logo? Thanks to the Internet, I present to you some design by numbers.



























Well, that's what I found, given an hour of searching. My favorite use of typography is in the Eight Days a Week album cover. Not only is it the right typeface, but the 8 is perfectly integrated, and there is nothing more beautiful than the interaction between the 'h' and the 'd' in the design.

There must be some better examples out there, so I'd be interested if anyone has anything else to add to the list. If so, shoot me an e-mail, and I'll add it to the list.