What Committees Do

Our friend at Graphicology is redesigning the flags of the United States on his blog. This post gives a brief and interesting history on the Arkansas flag. He shows how this...

Became this...

Someone needed to add a fourth star so one group wouldn't be offended. And, of course, the name of the state had to be prominent in case couldn't figure out which state the flag belonged to. It's pretty amusing to see that we're not the only ones who've had clients giving their suggestions and mandates to clutter up clean design.

Threadless by Jake Nickell

I have a book recommendation for you:


Threadless.com might be the perfect example of how to launch a dot-com company in the post dot-com bust era. It was founded on a simple idea and a strong community—the idea of an “ongoing t-shirt design competition” in which the winning designs, selected by the community, would be produced. It also allows for community input—people can comment on submissions, make suggestions for improvement, etc. And the profits are shared between the company and the winning designers.

This book tells that story, from the early days in which the founders of Threadless were just a couple of design students, through the current state of the company, with a global following, 80 employees and a bricks and mortar store. But as Seth Godin puts it in his short description of Threadless, “This is not about t-shirts.” To him, it’s about an attitude, “about being willing to fail and relishing the idea of being different…If you page through this book, you’ll see example after example of love, art and joy…but not a lot of fear.”

In addition to capturing the Threadless history and philosophy, the book is a retrospective of some of the best designs, along with stories behind those. And this is where I find the most inspiration—flipping through and seeing all of the brilliant concepts.

I have an assignment that I like to give students in my advertising class once they have figured out how to do ads: Now make a t-shirt for your brand. Because beyond conveying a message, a t-shirt has to be something that people want to wear. Something they love enough to want to wear as a part of what identifies them. That’s a hard thing to do. But page after page in this book, I see dozens of examples of t-shirt designs that make me laugh, smile, or that I’d like to wear. And that’s inspiring.

New take on an old theme

This image was found here. A while back we featured a similar post here. We used triangles. But you get the idea.

We all gotta learn something

I was just flipping through the Communication Arts first ever Typography Annual and came across this quote from one of the judges:

"We need to teach designers to be better readers. Once they respect the text, they'll want to set it well."

- Stephen Coles

I buy that. Here's my open question to you readers: What do copywriters need to do to better respect design and art direction?

"Constantly Being Out There"

Last week, I got to work with a musician who was at RISD about the same time Shepard Fairey was there. He said he remembered Fairey printing his Andre the Giant stickers and bringing boxes of them to the small concerts he loved attending. He’d give them to the band or to their road manager for free, provided they take them on their tour with them. That’s why, after a few years, with no paid advertising, these little stickers made by some design school kid in Providence began to appear all over the country.

I was in portfolio school the first time I heard about Fairey. It fact, I don’t even think I heard about him. What I heard was, “There’s this guy who makes these Andre the Giant stickers and gives them away for free. They’re pretty cool. Look, there’s one on the back of that stop sign over there.”

Years later, he’s the guy who designed the first presidential portrait to be purchased by the United States National Portrait Gallery before the President had been sworn into office.

What this former schoolmate of Fairey's told me was this: “I honestly don’t know if ‘Andre the Giant has a Posse’ is a great concept or not. It could be brilliant. It could be absurd. Maybe both, I don’t know. What I do know is that never quitting, and constantly being out there can make all the difference.”

Guide to Internet Memes

Another example of how design makes an onslaught of data digestible.

Via: Online University

The Wrong Idea

T.26 has some nice fonts. About once a month or so they send me an email with some of their latest creations. I'm a writer, but I appreciate nice typography.

I just received an email about SketchType, which they boast "makes it easy to incorporate the texture of hand-drawn lettering into any project without ever picking up a pencil."

I find this a little ridiculous, and I hope you do to. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing with passion. And that means picking up a pencil. Use these fonts as inspiration. But do not use these fonts.

Please aspire to be art directors and not just ad directors.

  

How To Succeed in Portfolio School

Poster by Matt Jones. Available here.

15 Minutes with Milton Glaser

What strikes me about this piece is how willing Glaser is to experiment. And I'm willing to bet his process is very similar to yours. There are some real gems in this piece, including:

"One day I woke up and I said, 'Well suppose that's not true.'"

"Fear of embarrassment drives me as much as any ambition."

"If you don't believe in your work, who else is going to believe in it?"

Great Article You Should Read

If you have any doubt as to how our industry is changing in good and exciting ways (or even if you don't have any doubt), you should read this article on CP+B.

Marcel Wanders Flunks Out

The October issue of Fast Company featured a profile on designer, Marcel Wanders, founder of Moooi. Pretty fascinating guy.

When he was 17 he was admitted to the Netherland’s most prestigious design school, the Design Academy Eindhoven. And after his first year, he flunked out. As Fast Company writes, “It was a fall from grace from which a lesser ego might have never recovered. But Wanders was determined. He vowed that for every assignment [once he enrolled in a smaller school for jewelers and craftspeople], he’d double the work – one version the teacher would like and one reflecting his own interpretation of the project.”

Now he’s one of the most celebrated designers in the world, and claims, “This is not because I’m talented. It’s because I push hard, and I never, ever give up.”

Unless you've flunked out, too, you probably have a better start to your career than Marcel Wanders did. So what are you doing do stay on top?