Does every business benefit from design? Think of your favorite hole-in-the-wall BBQ joint, or the local bakery down the block. Each time you go there, do you find yourself mentally re-designing their logo? Have you decided that the one thing keeping your favorite Thai food place from becoming a national chain is a new identity system and a modest media buy? (more…)

For my first guest post, I thought I would indulge myself with a topic that’s been haunting me for the last month or so – the nature of design and what I feel is its inherent (and necessary) idealism.

I’m sitting in an airport, having just dropped off my son, Harry, at Wesleyan University, where he’s about to start his first year of college. I can’t help but be mindful of beginnings and endings and
change. (more…)

Renee Rupcich is the assistant art director of Men’s Vogue. Though her career has focused on graphic design and publishing (she was also senior designer at fashion/design magazine Surface), she also studied photography and worked as an assistant in photography studios in San Francisco. Lately Renee has cultivated an interest in handcrafts and knitting as well as in socially and environmentally responsible design, and she contributes to the online community DESIGN 21: Social Design Network. (more…)

Since it’s Friday, and because New York Fashion Week starts a week from today, we’re going to bring a little glamour into today’s post and take a look at the redesign of Interview magazine. Andy Warhol’s old pop culture bible has gotten a facelift recently by Fabien Baron, fashion’s absolutely most fabulous graphic designer, whose spare and elegant aesthetic has packaged beautiful blockbusters from CK perfume bottles to Madonna’s ‘Sex’ book. (more…)

Design is a commodity

A few years back I attended a design management seminar in San Francisco. The seminar was held on a refurbished ferry-boat docked at Pier 3 and featured a notable design speaker. The view of the bay was fantastic, and the information presented at the session was compelling. But as I look back, the most remarkable thing about that seminar was lunch.

I had the good fortune to be seated at the same table as the speaker. Others at the table included business owners and designers from a wide variety of areas, all looking to harness the power of design. Our conversation ran the gamut from design leadership, research, ethnography and our own personal design war stories. I tried to think of an insightful question to ask the speaker, but the best I could come up with was, “So, do you have any designers on your staff?” Jeez, could I have asked a more banal question? But his answer left me speechless. “No.” he responded off-handedly, “Design is a commodity.” (more…)

John Bielenberg specializes in ‘thinking wrong”. This basically means thinking differently. And thinking in plural. Bielenberg believes that bringing a lot of like and unlike minds together to spout out irrepressible thoughts opens the possibilities for revolutionary ideas. “I find the traditional design studio approach - where you only discuss a project in-house with whoever happens to work there and then claim to have come up with the best possible solution- somewhat arrogant,” he says. (more…)

Google is currently building its new marketing unit, Google Creative Lab, which will promote the Google brand and products. The company is busy setting up offices in New York, San Francisco and London, with more to come in the future, probably. Since the Creative Lab is still in its developing stage it’s kind of hard to get a concrete explanation of what they’re all about. It’s only really possible to know what they want to become. Here’s a quick overview pulled from the company’s job listings: “The Google Creative Lab is a small team that strives to re-think marketing across every kind of media - currently existing or not, with Google as its sole client. Our job is to manage the Google brand, find new ways to communicate the company’s innovations, intentions and ideals, and do work of which we can all be immensely proud.” (more…)

The following post is the third part of an ongoing conversation between guest authors Rick Bennett and Andy Polaine, friends and partners in Omnium – a research group of academics, designers, artists, programmers and writers who work collaboratively (and from different countries) to explore the potential the Internet allows for what they term – online collaborative creativity (OCC). We asked Rick and Andy to explore the topic of online collaboration through a collaborative online conversation. Stay tuned over the next few weeks (or months?) as this unique meeting of minds unfolds:

ANDY: Rick, your thoughts about design education and its relevance (or lack of) to the contemporary world of design practice is spot on, though I feel this isn’t limited to design, but to the whole notion of what we consider successful higher education institutions. This is an issue that goes right back to schooling and I feel there’s a real resonance here in the way we think about the social, cultural and environmental issues that face us. (more…)

My neighborhood features dozens of examples of information design: notes to the mail service team. Residents create hand- and computer- generated notes to articulate the specifics of home architecture (“mail slot is in the alley on the left”), what to do if no one answers (“please leave mail at 2020 east pratt”), and how to make sure that someone answers (“bell is broken. Please yell.”) (more…)

Poster by Milton Glaser

Design and politics have been on my mind lately (see yesterday’s post) and apparently, I’m not alone. Eastern Michigan University Gallery has invited some of today’s most illustrious design stars to show posters that that speak out on current political and social issues.

The exhibition is (as you may have guessed) timed to coincide with the run-up to the presidential election and runs from August 27 through October 9, with the opening reception on September 10. It includes designers that hail from the United States, Great Britain, Greece, Holland, Iran, Israel, and Turkey. The range of poster media include screen printing, stencil, digital, and offset lithography. Copies of posters will be available for purchase with proceeds going to a charity. (more…)