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Uncategorized

A rose by any other name would still smell of money

A musing for a Wednesday morning:

I’m sure by now a lot of you have seen the news about the renaming agreement for the Staples Center into the “Crypto.com Arena”. Here’s a link to the story from the AP. While the renaming itself is nothing new (this happens every once in a while with major venues), it did make me think of a few things:
First, the company. I’m fairly sure AT LEAST 75% (I might go as high as 90%) of the people that saw this on their morning TV news had no idea who this company is. And, other than what I reasonably presume is their area of business (cryptocurrency), I know nothing of them. I’m going to go out on a limb and say most of you don’t, either.
This was followed by a question and a wondering. I wonder how many people went “crypto what?” and followed it up with an online search or a visit to the dot com. I have a cursory familiarity with cryptocurrency– or “crypto”, if you’re into that brevity thing, so I didn’t feel like I needed to go search– for now. But a lot of people out there, I imagine, do not. I would love to see the statistics and numbers on search results on this. Bet it brought a nice chunk of traffic to their site. Guess you could call that money well spent.
This is supposed to be a 20-year deal. And, with deals like this, there is lots of money involved, a lot of moving parts, etc. But, given that crypto is such a new and volatile space, I wonder if and how long it may be until we’re back here with yet another renaming. It reminds me of a similar story from a number of years ago whose details escape me at the moment.

Categories
advice design setup and organization

Vectors, rasters, and files– oh my!

If you’re providing die lines to a customer (or another designer), please observe the following. The person receiving the file will definitely appreciate it.

  • Create your die line or art at 100% whenever possible. If it’s a vector file there’s really no reason NOT to (someone once used the phrase “vectors are free” when talking about the file space they take up). It’s not like the file will be enormous.
  • If, for some reason, you can’t create it at 100%, create it scaled down (for example, 25%, 50%).
  • ESPECIALLY if it’s scaled, make sure you indicate the scale either in the file itself, or the file name. Better yet, do it on both.


Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

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Uncategorized

The importance of being Urgent (or the Urgency of being Important)

The idea of “things” (decisions, actions, work) falling into one of two broad categories– either important, or urgent– isn’t something new. I was reminded of it recently while listening to “3 Point Perspective”. “3 Point Perspective” is a podcast hosted by professional illustrators Will Terry, Jake Parker, and Lee White (you can listen to it here or wherever you listen to podcasts).

We need to be more mindful about discerning what things in our lives are urgent or important. If they’re urgent, we should probably tackle them sooner rather than later. If they’re important, we should prioritize them and devote the appropriate energy to them.

If they’re neither, then we should also give them the appropriate time and energy.

I encourage all of us to stop spinning our wheels and take a few moments as we go about our work and lives to try and sort out the urgent, the important, the both, and the neither.

Categories
advice life randomness

Circling in place

Sometimes, when I’m working on a design on screen, I get to a point where I find myself running in circles, with progress or a solution anywhere in sight. It’s only when I stop, grab a piece of paper and a pencil, that a solution might present itself. Now, it may not be the solution, but it gets things moving, and that’s a start.

When we find our lives spinning in circles, it might not be a bad idea to grab that paper and pencil and see what happens.

Wishing you all a very happy holiday season and an awesome 2020!

Categories
branding marketing opinion

Yogurt packaging is not black & white

A you’re probably aware by now, I make my living as a packaging designer. As such, I’m constantly looking at stuff. Whether it’s the art and information on a cereal box, or how IKEA products are so efficiently packed in those otherwise plain brown cartons. It’s all part of what we, as consumers, experience when we seek out and buy this– stuff.

I’m also the primary food shopper in my family, so I’m in the supermarket on a regular basis. And, whenever I’m out and about shopping, I  have a habit of looking at the product that’s on the shelves. I’m sure a lot of people do that– maybe not in as conscious a way as designers but they do it. And after a while, whether you’re aware or not, you start to see patterns. Color selections. packaging shapes, wording.

Next time you’re in the store, take a look at the soda aisle. What color is the house brand’s cola? What about their ginger ale? Now look at the name brands. What color are they? It sure isn’t a coincidence.

But I digress

Carbonated drinks aren’t what made me think of this. It was yogurt. Walk past the yogurt case in the store and– with a couple of exceptions (I’m looking at you, Activia)– they will most likely look like this:

Dannon blueberry yogurt packYoplait strawberry yogurt pack

In short, lots of white, with accents of the brand/line colors. Oh, and the hero shot of the fruit or flavor inside. Even the upscale/gourmet brands follow these conventions.

So, when I saw this last week, it made me stop.

Stop the presses– who is that?

This is a new offering from Yoplait. I think it’s called “YQ by Yoplait”, and a couple of things became evident:

  • It’s positioned as a more premium offering. Muted tones hint at more sophistication.They don’t feel the need to be bold and screamy with their colors.
  •  I’m not their desired demographic. The colors and overall design have a more feminine feel. They’re clearly targeting women with this product, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they roll out tv ads reinforcing this.
  • This ain’t your everyday type of yogurt. A gray cup? Off the top of my head, I cannot think of any other yogurt brand that has executed in such a way.

We’re still talking about yogurt?

I didn’t pick up any (though I might this week, just out of curiosity, demographics be damned!), but at first glance, this type of category disruption was certainly effective, and it made me consciously think about why.

  • It got me to stop and look at the product. This is the first step and indicator of an effective pack design. Cutting through the noise (in this case, quite literally “white noise”) and getting the attention of the consumer.
  • It created curiosity in sampling the product. I may not buy one today. I may not buy one next month. But one of these days I just might go “hmmm”… and pick one or two up.
  • It got me talking about it. Do I even need to explain this one?

These are 3 things to always keep in mind when designing a new pack. We may not always be successful in achieving these (for a number of different reasons), but we certainly need to try.

Now, I have to start thinking about that grocery list…

 

 

 

Categories
opinion randomness technology

Rise of the Machine | Random Thought for July 6, 2018

When’s the last time you were asked to remember someone’s phone number? What about basic directions to get somewhere? I got to thinking about that this morning after listening to a replay on a radio show where they were taking calls on weird and crazy things that have happened as a result of wonky navigation app directions.

Old(ish), but not a fogey

I’m a Gen X’er. I’m in my 40s, so I’m part of this last “analog” population. I’ve seen the explosion of computer use. The transition from LPs and video tapes to CDs and DVDs, and now streaming. I remember having to carry loose change if I needed to call home while I was out. My dad had maps in his glove compartment, and I would help navigate on long car rides. I also needed to remember those numbers I wanted to call, or, I suppose, write them down in an address book. Come to think of it, when’s the last time you HAD an address book. The last one I bought was over 20 years ago (I’m sure I have it in a box somewhere).

I still have a stack of scraps of paper with usernames and passwords that I mean to transfer to a notebook (I just can’t bring myself to use one of those password managers). There’s a core set of websites I visit daily, and I key in login info by hand. Not only is it good mental exercise, but it’s also a way to not be dependent on technology.

This doesn’t mean I’m some sort of tech-averse luddite (I know someone like that, and believe me, I DO NOT want to be that type of person). My smartphone is my go-to piece of tech that is with me pretty much everywhere. I love my DVR. Spotify is basically my source for music discovery. I’m comfortable in that world. I embrace it.

the takeaway

And that’s it– sure, technology can, and does, make our lives easier. But it shouldn’t be at the expense of losing what, for lack of a better metaphor, is part of what makes us human.

Categories
marketing opinion Uncategorized

Marketing, money, and time | Random Thought for May 30, 2018

I was listening to the radio on the drive to work this morning, and there was talk about a pilot program in Sacramento where digital automobile license plates are being made available.

(link to the article on The Sacramento Bee here).

It got me thinking… Let’s presume this program gets rolled out statewide. How long will it take until someone— marketers, maybe even the State of California– figures out a way to monetize this via advertising?

I’m not implying that it’s a bad thing one way or the other. But it is something to think about.

Categories
design opinion randomness

Do androids dream of obsolete men? | Random Thought for January 9, 2018

The title, for those unfamiliar, is a combination of the title for the novel “Do Andoids Dream of Electric Sheep” and the Twilight Zone episode “The Obsolete Man”.

I was listening to a piece on NPR about the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) out in Las Vegas. The conversation revolved a lot around automation. And it got me thinking…

We can automate a lot of things– manufacturing processes, data analysis, transportation (well, we’re collectively working on that). So what else is there? Can design be automated? As a community of designers, we argue often that design is ultimately about problem-solving and communicating. So, if we’re talking about finding the best solution, then conceivably you can establish a set of rules and parameters to reach the best possible solution.

And if we continue distilling the argument, we could reach the conclusion that design, being about solving problems, can be broken down into a set of algorithms and rules. And if we’re able to do that, what does that do to– and for– designers? Do we then become utterly obsolete? What does that do to design itself? What does an automated design look like?

And if we’re able to do that– what’s next?

I don’t pretend to have the answers to any of this. But listening to the conversation on the radio gave me pause and made me think about what, professionally, things might look like 5, 10, 20 years down the road.

Something to think about.

Categories
branding opinion randomness Uncategorized

To buck (conventions) or not

Sundays are usually a supermarket run for me, and, aside from getting out of the house for a bit, it’s an opportunity to walk around, explore and examine packaging and products on the shelves.

This week, as I was finishing up, I walked down the aisle containing feminine hygiene products (I think it’s also where the hand soaps are placed, since that’s something I was picking up). As I walked down the aisle, I caught these out of the corner of my eye:

Veeda-tampons-boxes
Packaging for Veeda tampons

I saw these and stopped, because they were unlike anything else that was in the aisle.

And that’s the point. So often we talk about the need to either follow design conventions established by the market leader, whether in iconography, typography, or color usage (notice, for example, that most colas are in red cans, following color standards established by Coca-Cola). On the other hand, there’s the opposite– the opportunity to lay stake to a segment of the market by differentiating from the rest of the pack. But a lot of times both approaches can miss the mark, either because of an overzealous approach to differentiating, or as a result of timidity and being afraid to actually be different.

So I found the Veeda packaging to be refreshing. To me, it managed to accomplish both. It stuck closely to some of the conventions, while steering away from others. The look and feel of the typography definitely has an air of femininity to it. The use of a simplified plant illustration, the 3-color palette on kraft stock– a stark departure from the glossy, varnished, high-contrast color palettes that have become commonplace, suggests an earthier, planet-friendly product.

Note: I checked out their website, and I found that affordable, planet-friendly products are an essential part of their story.

So, I say to the folks at Veeda– good job! You’ve managed to walk the line between common and uncommon, and made it look effective.

Categories
life opinion

The shortest path isn’t always

They say the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.

But sometimes the shortest distance isn’t the most efficient. And sometimes, the most efficient is not the most effective.

People constantly look for the shortest path, when what they need to be looking for is the most effective.