Thought & Theory

Creating logos is a series of exercises in simplifying things down to one idea or concept. Just like designing interfaces, you drill down and remove the excess until the core concepts shine through.

The real design comes through in the process stages. Its the 4 rounds of wading through the bad ideas until you find the right one. Its the holding back and trying not to throw everything and the kitchen sink into the mark. Complex is easy, simplicity is always the thing we have to strive for.

Small Creative Brief

So to start off let’s take a look at what POPSignal is:

POPSignal parties are aimed at bringing together the local tech community in a fun and informal environment. There is no format, presentations, or speeches. However, there is always a free open bar, free food, music, fun activities from sponsors (see below), and great conversation.

So the logo we were creating had to evoke these three things:

1) Tech (specifically the 2.0 world)
This aspect was almost too easy considering the name. The RSS Signal is probably one of the most recognizable shapes in the whole 2.0 world so it was a no-brainer to try and reference that in the mark. I absolutely hate needless gradients and reflections, so I at least knew I would stray away from that overused garbage.

2) Fun
I couldn’t use Helvetica, Trade Gotchic or Gotham on this one (my tried and true favorites). I had to use something that was a little more playful. I started by searching through Font Explorer for some slick rounded sans-serif type and came across a couple solid ones that could be modified slightly to fit my needs. The “POP” part of the letter-form naturally was a focus because of the sound it makes when you say it.

3) Playfully Smart
I needed some type of solution that wasn’t too literal but had some kind of small visual twist that made you appreciate the logo more after you experienced it more than once. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I wasn’t influenced by the FedEx logo on this one. It needed to feel like a smart logo, if that makes any sense.

Round 1

Armed with a basic creative brief, I began the process of wading through the crap. These were the first (read: presentable) ideas I had for the project. Not too bad overall, but they were safe and sure enough Brian (our client) found a logo that pretty much looked exactly the same as my first set. Safe is what 95% of the population is going to think of so after some more discussion with the client we came up with this:

Round 2

Warmer. Closer. Almost there.

Brian and Jay came up with the idea to start integrating two sets of signals to differentiate the logo. At first, I’ll have to admit I didn’t like the idea because it added complexity to the logo. But a couple Red Bulls later, I finally came up with the negative space variation on the right. I found a way to strip away the some of the visual noise of the first one and incorporate that small visual trick I mentioned earlier. Now the “O” became the center of the signal defined by the negative space of the signals and the P’s. It had a personality now, it was almost there.

Round 3

Taking that last variation and cleaning up the kerning, letter forms and spacing we finally came up with the final logo being used today. I ditched the overlapping O into the P’s because it was overkill for the idea. Color was a showdown between RSS Orange and 2.0 style Magenta and the Magenta won. Brian felt like it “Popped” more which makes sense considering our requirements for the brand.

All in all…

This was a fun logo to work with. Brian is always a great client and it always feels like a partnership when working with him, not a designer/client deal. Logo came out great and it’ll be even better when I get to see it all over the place on May 15th at the actual event. See you guys in Boston next month.

It’s that time of year again. Where all the young ones have stayed up for 7 nights straight and combed through their work a thousand times over. I’ll be heading over to the University’s of Florida’s Portfolio Review on Monday to go check out the work. The level of work is always amazing so I can’t wait to see what they come up with this year.

Also, definitely take a second to check out Beau Bergeron’s work. He’s been in contact with me over the past couple of months and his stuff is killer. Definitely going to represent the program right when he gets out into the field.

Elections are branding exercises.

Candidates want to you to feel a specific way about them from the smallest casual interaction with a logo to the full on displays of campaign rallies. They’re shaping every little experience you have with them almost to an obsessive point.

Design is meant to communicate the true virtues of anything in a simple, visually captivating manner. While all of the candidates have at least a decent visual presence, no one has truly understood what design could do like Obama.

At first I really thought his message of “change” was super generic. What the hell does change really mean? But what I realized after time is that Obama and his campaign truly understand the benefits of great design and communication. He’s distilled what the American people want down to one word and one message. We all want a change of leadership. We all realize that this nation (yes, this nation. you guys elected Bush twice remember.) made a lot of mistakes these past 8 years. He understands that people are rarely inspired by platform discussions and will rarely research candidates beyond what their spouse, drinking buddy or spin-crazy TV show has told them. The vast majority of voters will vote based on impressions and not logic.

And that’s when design plays the biggest role. You have to make sure that each and every single eligible voter understands what you represent in one word or simple fragment of an idea. He’s the Apple of the candidates. Its one simple brand concept beautifully executed.

Full Disclosure: I’m actually for Ron Paul but I’ll be voting for Obama this year if he wins the Democratic nod today. Luckily his platform is actually pretty impressive and while I don’t agree with everything he runs on, I do agree with most of the important issues.

Article Reviewing Candidate’s Design Presence in the Times Union

When you are the site of coveted internet awards, your website should reflect that prestige. Right now, there is a little bit of clip art, mixed with non browser compliant code and some left/right alignment gone a wee-bit too far.

I am not advocating adding gradients, rounded corners and reflections by any means. I just think that an award website dedicated to a certain genre should reflect that genre. Blogs are the largest forms of self expression on the internet. People spend hours trying to customize a template, wrangle in a style sheet and even write their own blog code from scratch.

The bloggies website does not equally reflect the sites it is giving awards to. I understand that the awards aren’t always given to the most well designed websites, but a high percentage of the websites up for the awards have some pretty great design.

It would be great to see some love given to the bloggies. Here are a couple examples of awards sites that the bloggies should think of taking a look at:

My favorite of the group, the Webby Awards:

Grammy’s, solid design and a great reflection of the award:

Definitely nothing to write home about, but at least the Screen Actors Guild Awards site is making a concerted effort:

ESPY’s. Yes I know ESPN has a ton of money and resources, but it doesn’t take either of those things to create good design:

Very surprising to me - a site that the bloggies should NOT follow is the Emmys:

So what do you say bloggies? Maybe go for a little “funksex” (thanks B4) style design? Something to really encapsolate what it means to have free speech, solid design and the ability to show off your individualism/creativity?

By the way, everyone vote for /Film (best entertainment weblog)!

Don’t get me wrong; there were a lot of pretty sites this year. Hordes of one-page portfolio sites biting various KDU designers with retina-burning work. A collection of shiny, gradient-filled, 2.0 goodness from almost every app under the sun. But if you looked closely and got beyond the designs that burned the brightest, you’d find the designs that will continue to burn for years to come.

They represent a delicate balance of aesthetics and usability. Some sites ride that balance differently because of their target audience, but all of them found a sweet spot between form and function.

5. Newstoday

Newstoday

While design portals like Pixel Surgeon and Lounge 72 have joined the dead-pool this year, Newstoday has taken the time to reinvent itself. They’ve ditched the 4-column layout for a more editorial feel and more importantly added a lot of little details to make the site more usable and unique (still no RSS feed, but no one’s perfect).

In particular, the discussion board system is not a cluster fuck of hard-to-read threads anymore. It has transformed into an organized, simple-to-use system with cool innovations like dog-earning posts and separating threads into their own dialogue containers. The extremely cynical and snarky attitude remains as far as dialogue goes, but at least its easier than ever to post something that will wreck some kid’s day.

4. Virb

Virb

From the people who brought you Pure Volume, Virb jumped in the social-networking pool this year with an incredible design and probably one of the most intuitive profile layout systems available today. It actually allowed you to edit your profile in a logical manner instead of the wondrous Myspace system that we all struggled through.

And that’s really the best way to describe Virb – It’s what Myspace should’ve been.

The typography and grid for everything is incredibly balanced and has a great sense of vertical-rhythm to it. Not an easy feat considering all the constraints social networks face in the build process. Hopefully Virb keeps that high level of excellence as it goes through their redesign sometime in 2008.

3. A Brief Message

A Brief Message

In a sea of CSS and Photoshop tutorial sites, Khoi Vinh and Liz Danzico created a site that managed to spark some really interesting and intelligent dialogue in the design community. While other sites like Design Observer often accomplish the same goal, I found a certain charm to the simplicity of A Brief Message. Essays are limited to only 200 words so the natural verbose nature of designers is curtailed to a concise simple point.

2. Google Analytics

Google Analytics

Rounding out the supremely utilitarian of the bunch, Google Analytics became one of the most dramatic examples of what a brilliant user experience designer could do to even the driest of subjects, a statistics application. Tufte would be proud.

Google Analytics finally completed their merge with Measure Maps this year but more importantly added Jeffrey Veen to their design team. While the previous incarnation was great mainly because it was free, the new version outshines a lot of paid versions of analytical software because of the new robust features and stellar design. If you want to study the idea of visual hierarchy and data visualization I suggest you sit down and take notes because there was only one other site this year that I thought could come close.

1. CNN

CNN

CNN became the benchmark for news portals in 2007. The standard by which other beautiful redesigns like MSNBC and others will be compared to for years to come.

Although it might not pop up on your favorite CSS Gallery Site, its beauty resides in its subtle nature and details. Beautiful grid and typography. Brilliant design for breaking news and news summary features. Intelligent interface choices and great layout-variations for sections like CNN Politics. The list could honestly go on forever.

So when people ask questions like “where is web design’s canonical designs?”, I can say that CNN has is going to be one of the designs. Over time, it will hold its place with other shining examples of design like New York’s Subway map, or Rand’s IBM logo, etc.

Honorable Mentions

I Am Always Hungry
Facebook
AIGA
Color Lovers