I don’t typically post book reviews here but I really wanted to let people know about a book that I picked up at the HOW Conference this summer. Graphic Design Referenced comes from Bryony Gomez-Palacio and Armin Vit of Under Consideration (a great resource in itself).

The book first piqued my interest because of the numerous case studies throughout the latter section of the book. Without much time to look through the rest of the book thoroughly I purchased it and shipped it back to my office with a few other books from the conference. I hadn’t really opened it up until this week while I was researching a new campaign but I quickly realized that it was far more useful than I’d first thought.

Graphic Design Referenced calls itself “A Visual Guide to the Language, Applications, and History of Graphic Design” and starts out almost like a textbook. I don’t mean that in a bad way, this is the way design textbooks should be written. Among the subjects discussed are typography, print production and grid structure. The information is so well organized with so many examples that it really makes everything easy to understand and easy to remember.

The design samples and case studies continue on through the remainder of the book. In the final “Practice” section, there are numerous examples of logo design, brochure design, poster design, publication design and so on. Not only does the book provide great inspiration for future projects but the back stories provided on each one really give a lot of insight into the thoughts behinds the designs.

The massive amount of information in this book could almost be overwhelming but the authors and designers did a great job of structuring everything so it feels manageable.

There are a ton of books out there on graphic design and it can be tough to decide where to spend you’re hard-earned money. I love this book because of the great content but also because I feel like I really got a lot for my $50. If you’re a designer, design student or have an interest in advertising and marketing I would highly recommend this book.

Home Retail Group – Reporting outside of the box from SAS on Vimeo.

I came across this video on the Fast Company website today. It’s a pretty interesting take on the idea of annual report design.

Too often annual reports can be beautiful pieces with lots of time and effort put into them but in the end not many people notice them. So what if instead of a printed book the report was a stop-motion video? That’s what SAS, a UK branding firm, did for Home Retail Group. I’m guessing that quite a few more people have seen this video than would have seen a printed report.

Yesterday I noticed a tweet from Chris Brogan telling designers that he had just put a logo design contest up on a popular crowdsourcing website. If you’ve heard me discuss crowdsourcing then you know I’m not a fan so I sent a quick reply letting him know that most reputable designers are against this type of design “contest.”

Considering that Chris has over 135,000 followers on Twitter I thought that would be the last I heard of the issue. I was pleasantly surprised when Chris replied back asking me why. I responded with a link to NO!SPEC and a quick summary of my point of view that, “designers deserve to get paid for work they do and businesses deserve full attention from their designer.”

It was clear from his discussion with me and others on Twitter that Chris was attempting to educate himself. He also asked if anyone had written any blog posts on the issue and said he might link to some in a future post of his. I happily sent him links to the two posts I’d made about crowdsourcing graphic design last year.

Soon Chris had a blog post up about his project and the strong reactions he’d been getting from Twitter, he also linked to one of my posts. There has been a great discussion in the comments on his blog about crowdsourcing benefits and why it might hurt designers and businesses. I’d recommend taking a few minutes to read his post and his decision to pursue a $300 logo over the $20,000 logo he had previously had done.

Of course I made my opinion clear although I don’t particularly expect it to change many minds. What I do appreciate is someone taking the time to educate themselves and others about both sides of the debate. It’s understandable that a business might just see crowdsourcing as a way to get a cheap logo but hopefully discussions like these will educate those people so that at the very least they are aware of what they are asking of designers.

I’m excited to announce that Adam Lee Design has won two ADDY Awards from the Inland Empire Ad Club. The awards were announced at the Ad Club Gala celebration on the 12th. We won a Silver award for our annual report design for Loma Linda University Medical Center. I posted a short blog post on this design a few weeks ago. We also won a Bronze award for a brochure design that we did for San Gabriel Valley Medical Center. This piece isn’t in our portfolio yet but I will try to post a few images later.

This was my first time attending the Gala and I left feeling very inspired. There is a lot of great work coming out of the Inland Empire. Congrats to all of the other winners.

I recently experienced a great example of customer service on Twitter. It started when I complained about my web-hosting company (Earthlink) and mentioned that I was switching to Bluehost.

@basketsbybonnie responded to this post saying that she had been having problems with Earthlink as well and that she was considering moving her hosting to Network Solutions. Within a couple of hours both Bluehost and Network Solutions had responded to our discussion. Bluehost dropped in to say hi and Network Solutions also offered help if it was needed.

As much as I’d like to say that everyone should hire a graphic designer for any and all visual projects, there are times when it’s not necessary or simply not in the budget. For those times, I’ve compiled a list of basic design rules that can help anyone improve their design projects. As with most rules there are appropriate times to break them, however, most projects will be improved if these rules are followed.

Fonts — People love fonts. They love to cram as many different, unique fonts into their designs as possible. The problem is that this can overwhelm the reader. So what fonts should you choose? Believe it or not, it’s typically not the crazy, unique fonts that many are tempted to use when designing. Simple, tasteful fonts will make your design easier to read and help keep clutter to a minimum. Novelty fonts have their place but it’s typically a safer bet to stick to the classics.It’s far better to pick one or two fonts for the entire design.
*Bonus Tip — Choosing a serif font for large blocks of text will make your copy easier to read. The little “legs” on serif letters actually help guide the readers eye along and ease strain. (learn about serifs here)

Emphasis — Too often people want to emphasize everything. The problem is that if everything is emphasized then nothing is really emphasized. Picture a flyer that has all of the text in bold bright colors. What will stand out? Nothing and the reader will most likely be overwhelmed by all of the “screaming”. It’s far better to choose a headline and a few key points that stand out from the rest.
*Bonus Tip — Don’t use all caps. Words are much harder to read when written in all caps because all of the letters are the same height. Size, color and bold fonts are all ways to draw attention without hurting readability.

White Space — White space is simply an area on the page that has nothing in it. This is a tough one for a lot of people. When we see an empty space we naturally want to fill it. The problem is that our eyes need to “breathe” or else we begin to feel overwhelmed. A good way to avoid overwhelming your reader is to make sure that there are places on the page with no information. That’s right, nothing. Leave large margins inside the edge of the page, leave space between the lines of copy and don’t run your text and photos right up against each other. We’re all overwhelmed with too much information. Give your readers a little break and you’ll increase comprehension and interest.
*Bonus Tip — White space doesn’t have to be white. The term white space simply refers to areas that are devoid of information or strong design elements.

Colors — No matter what else is on the page, your color choices will set the mood. Color is often the first impression that the reader will get, even if they aren’t actually thinking about the colors. Your color palette should emphasize the message and fit the mood of the piece. For example, if you’re creating an ad for a law firm you’ll want to use colors that inspire confidence, not the same bright pastel colors you might see in an ad aimed at kids.
*Bonus Tip — There are lots of websites that can help you develop your own color palettes or use ones that others have created. My favorite is kuler from Adobe.

These tips may not make up for a design degree but hopefully they’ll help you out the next time you’re putting together a new project (or you could just call me).

A poster at a bus stop in Hamburg, Germany actually changes when people look at it. The poster, which is a domestic abuse awareness ad from Amnesty International, uses eye tracking to determine when someone is looking at it. What first appears as a photo of a man striking a woman changes (after a short delay) to a photo of a happy couple when it detects that someone is looking.

People have speculated that this ad was created primarily to win an award, which it did (Silver Award at the Cannes Lions 2009 Outdoor) since it has only been installed at one location. With that said, it’s been getting a lot of publicity and it’s reach has clearly extended beyond the lone bus stop in Hamburg.

I love seeing technology used so effectively to convey this point. What do you think? Do you know of other examples that effectively use new technology?

After being contacted by a potential new client, and before we meet with them we develop and outline our initial thoughts, impressions and feelings about the new client. We’ll learn all we can from printed collateral, Google and social media searches and word of mouth, the standard ways in which a potential customer might learn about the company. This early process can be as valuable as what we learn from the client because we’re coming at it from the same point of view as most customers.

Before we speak with the new client about their company and goals, we think it’s valuable to learn what we can without that inside information. This lets us think like a customer. This process allows us to form opinions about the client’s product and brand and then later see how those opinions match up with their intended brand and goals. Ideally our initial impression will be similar to what the client is intending but occasionally there can be a disparity. In these cases we’ll work with the client to determine how we can bring the perceived brand more in line with branding goals.

What do you think? Have you spent time evaluating your brand from the point of view of the customer? What value do you think that could bring?

We just finished updating our portfolio with work for the University of Redlands School of Business. We’ve been working with them for over a year and it’s been a great process.

The University of Redlands is a well-respected institution here in the Inland Empire. With 8 locations across Southern California, the School of Business helps students, particularly working adults, obtain degrees.

When the School of Business first approached me, they felt that the design of their marketing material was outdated and didn’t adequately portray their focus on sustainability. They wanted to completely redesign everything for the school. After thoroughly discussing their goals and plans for the school and their communication pieces we went to work on our research. We took a look at what the competition was doing, we toured the campus and we spoke to current students.

When the research phase was complete, we set out to create design comps that would be effective in reaching the School of Business audience while conveying their message. All of the ideas were well-received by the school leadership and in the end they decided to go with the look shown in the portfolio.They felt this design best conveyed their focus on sustainability with the use of clean white space and organic lines and colors.

With the design chosen, we set out to implement this look throughout all of their communication pieces. This included multiple brochures, program information sheets, posters, flyers, print advertising and web advertising. The results have been well-received and effective. Transferring all communications into the new look continues to be an exciting process as we work out ways to apply the design to new materials. One of the great things about working with the School of Business has been their commitment to consistency throughout the new campaign. This consistency has helped brand the school and increase effectiveness.

Take a look at the work and let us know what you think, or contact us if you think we may be able to help you.

The topic of crowdsourcing graphic design is a much-discussed topic these days. It’s typically maligned by designers and applauded by those small business owners with very small marketing budgets.

When crowdsourcing first came to the design world, we designers argued that our work was being devalued by this process and that the people paying for the work were not actually receiving quality design. Both valid arguments, if I do say so myself, but somewhat intangible and not convincing enough to change many people’s minds.

Recently a more convincing argument has come up with regard to the originality of the designs that are being submitted to these contests. It seems that with increasing regularity, designers are pawning off the work of others in order to win the contests on various crowdsourcing sites. Given the anonymity the internet provides, the low likelihood of getting caught, and the fact that the designer most likely won’t get paid in the end anyway, this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.

The practice of stealing artwork is a huge problem for the graphic designer that originally created the work as well as the person who thinks they paid for an original logo. This type of thefts opens up the door to lawsuits from all sides.

I really recommend reading this post from thelogofactory.com. It’s a fascinating write-up of the several instances where work has been stolen for use in a graphic design contest. Although I’m not sure if this article or others like it have persuaded anyone to steer clear of design contests, I hope it encourages people to take a closer look at the practice and realize that it may not be worth the money they’re saving.