Design Matters: Packaging is a how-to package design book, (the third in the Design Matters series), slated for release in July 2008. The book was authored and designed by Capsule, a Minneapolis design firm, and published by Rockport Publishers. Capsule and Rockport are currently accepting submissions for publication. Visit site for submission guidelines, as well as book details and publisher info.

This is a time sensitive project.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: April 13, 2007

DETAILS

Alex Wipperfurth, brand marketing consultant and accessory to hijack.

Alex Wipperfurth is a San-Francisco-based marketing consultant who traffics in radical ideas. Through his agency Plan B, Wipperfurth has elevated grassroots marketing into something of an artform. Brands as diverse as Napster, Dr Marten’s, Pabst Blue Ribbon, and Barbie have all benefited from Wipperfurth’s methodology, which often times flies in the face of big budget, mass media, focus group tested marketing. Wipperfurth creates a cult following for most of his brands through a creative, low-budget, person-to-person strategy that "seeds" the product with a target audience of trend-setters. The customer in effect "hijacks" the brand, sparking an authentic buzz that makes the brand cool.

Prior to the release of his new book Brand Hijack, we interviewsed Alex about what his ideas mean for visual designers. After all, marketers and designers do face the same challenges: How do we reach our target audience without placing an ad on Fox? How do we make a design "cool" without trying too hard?

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Digital designers take note: Coca-Cola is the latest mega-product to move away from TV and into digital media as the advertising vehicle of choice. Calling upon an ad agency known for their new-media savvy and offbeat style, they’ve launched an ad campaign for their new calorie-free “Coke Zero.” Comprised of email campaigns, web banner ads, and video clips placed on file-sharing sites such as Kazaa and Limewire, as well as YouTube and cokezero.com, the campaign takes a wry jab at Coca-Cola’s gargantuan corporate status by suggesting that the executives at the original Coke brand want to sue Coke Zero over “taste infringement”…

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This week, I’ve been trading e-mails with Peleg Top, a designer in Los Angeles. I first met Peleg ages ago at a HOW Conference, and over the years we’ve become friends. Peleg was telling me that, after pondering the things he really loves to do—cooking, photography, music—he realized that he was spending absolutely zero time on any of them. So he recently took a major step toward his longtime goal of becoming a chef: He enrolled in The Kitchen Academy in Los Angeles, and he’s started a blog about his experience (http://www.thetopkitchen.com). All this while he continues to run his successful design studio. That’s right: He goes to culinary school at 6:00 a.m., and by noon is at his drawing board. I asked him how he does it, and he sent me this article: How to Become an Early Riser about getting up early … really early. Is there anything you love doing so much that you’d gratefully get up at the crack of dawn?

An ad concept does not exist to win awards, or to set trends, or to break rules. It exists to solve a problem. That’s the challenge of commercial creativity.

The glory part is that if you solve the problem in an unexpected way, you sometimes achieve those other objectives too. But, you have to solve the problem. And, to do that, it helps to start with a good creative brief.

Here’s the form I’ve used as a starting point for 20+ years. I like that it’s short, yet comprehensive enough to suggest other avenues of exploration. I’ve tweaked it many times over the years, so feel free to modify, copy, and use it as you please.

CREATIVE WORKSHEET PDF

I don’t mean personal validation, though to many that’s important too. What I’m referring to is validating your web sites’. Besides having the personal satisfaction of writing well-formed code, it also offers the end-user some benefits.

Benefits of Validation
• A valid web site loads faster because the browser doesn’t have to correct errors.
• A valid web site offers accessibility to disabled visitors.
• A valid web site is cross-browser compatible.
• Finally, a valid web site is better for search engine optimization.

Clients are getting the message about search engine optimization and because clients are learning about SEO they may ask that a web site validate. Even though they may not know what it entails they do know the benefits and as a web designer you should be able to say, “Yes, I can create a valid web site.”

A new restaurant, La Familia, just opened in our community. It’s not upscale, by any means, so although they’ve put some effort in making it look nice, they’ve not been able to go all-out with decor, design, promotion, and so on. I was especially struck by the menu, featuring a decorative font that was popular maybe 10 years ago. At first I rolled my eyes (to myself, of course) at this cliched and ineffective use of typography. But then I recognized it for what it was, a fashion decision, not a design decision. There’s the half-life of fashion in action; the font is increasingly unappealing as time marches on, but for the fringes it still symbolizes what it once may have meant to designers - fun, fresh, optimistic. Good design may be timeless, but practical applications show us that fashion, even out-of-fashion, may be the economically viable alternative.

See the full version of the menu

I’ve always been a fan of Sessions’ classes because they can help many aspiring designers make that jump into the industry with guided lessons from real design professionals. So once you’ve broken ground into the design world you’ll need to start thinking about how the business side of the industry works. One of the most important things that you’ll need to determine for the projects you take on as a freelancer, or as a principal in a design studio, is “when is a project good for me to take on”. The following blog post is an excerpt from a worksheet I have put together, which helps me determine whether a project will be good for me financially, professionally, and emotionally. One thing to note, these questions should be answered before you write a proposal, typically at the new business meeting or initial phone conversation.

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One of the most important things designers can do, whether fresh out-of-school or a battle-worn veteran of design, is to ask “WHY?” Why did they select that color? Why did that ad grab my attention? Why do they use that typeface? Why did they crop it so close? Why didn’t they crop it closer? I could ask 100 questions like that and not touch a fraction of the question designers need to ask. The real learning experience kicks in when you supply the answers to those questions. It is not important whether your answer is right or wrong — the continual quest for answers is what adds to your tool-box of ideas and concepts.

You pass a billboard with a huge illustration and kicky headline — you ask why. You answer with the best reason your education and background can muster. Two years later a client appears at your doorstep with a billboard project. You immediately say: “Ah, I think what will work best for you is a huge illustration and a kicky headline like. . . ”

Of course, you get the picture. But see if you can answer why.

Amid the pile of layouts on my desk today for the next issue of HOW (http://www.howdesign.com), I found the feature article about Matthew Sporzynski that we’re working on. Let’s see: how to describe Sporzynski? He calls himself a “cardboard couturier,” but that’s deceptively simple. He creates dimensional objects in paper—eye-poppingly realistic, amazingly detailed, gorgeously crafted. A Parsons grad living and working in New York City, he’s honed a highly specialized business creating these paper scenes, most notably for Real Simple magazine. In the article, Sporzynski talks about how a childhood love of origami paper led to a fulfilling and productive creative career. Most designers I know have similar tales: a youth spent drawing, painting, photographing led—inevitably—to a career in some creative profession or another. Regardless of Sporzynski’s path, his work is stunning. Check it out. (Photo via Real Simple magazine)