Lately, bluster, brashness and sheer loudness has become almost synonymous with strength.
This is a false equivalency. Look at metals. Gold is a bright, shiny, attention-getting metal. But when put to the test, it turns out to be quite soft.
Iron, on the other hand, is by comparison, almost inconspicuous and, well, dull. But it’s extremely strong and durable.
In the long run, it’s better to be iron.
If you’re doing something just for the money, you’re probably not passionate about it.
If you’re not passionate about it, it’s likely you won’t stick with it.
If you won’t stick with the one thing, chances are you won’t stick with the next thing.
Do something because you’re passionate about it. Don’t worry about the money (or the accolades, or whatever else) at first. That will come when people see your passion.
I’ve been using Snapchat for a bit now (I don’t consider myself a “rockstar/ninja/guru” by any stretch of the imagination. I’m more of a “casual user”.). The other day I was sending a snap to a specific group of folks, and it occurred to me that there isn’t a way to make this easy.
If you’re using email, or Facebook (just as an example), you can create groups or distribution lists. These groups help make quick work of sending targeted messages and shared info. Within Snapchat, you can either broadcast it to all your followers (by adding it to your Story), or you can use it as a messaging platform and target individual users. I find this a little problematic and inconvenient.
Here’s the thing– you have to select each and every one. Individually. And you have to do this every time you don’t want to share something wth all your followers.
I don’t follow many people, so it’s not a major issue, but for those that have hundreds– even thousands– of followers, the ability to create various groups would be a huge convenience. And I don’t know if this is something they’ve worked on and ditched, or have worked on, or WILL work on in the future. But I think it would be useful.
What do you think?
Let me know in the comments below. Also, are there any features that you might like to see in Snapchat?
(By the way, you can find me on Snapchat @rcarmstrong, or by scanning the Snapcode below!)
Over the years, I’ve found that there is almost direct correlation between the quality of a beverage’s packaging and the quality of the product itself. My thinking (whether right or wrong) has been that any company that takes the care and puts the resources into its packaging is likely doing the same with its product. So, especially when shopping for wine, I keep an eye out on the labels in case there is something new that I may want to try. If I’m not is a shopping mode, I like to look at the labeling. It can be a source of inspiration. Either way, I sometimes snap pics of things that catch my eye and share them in round-ups.
Now, it’s been a while since I’ve done a packaging roundup, but a trip to one of the local supermarkets (with a liquor store on the premises), had me snapping pics of a handful of items that caught my eye, simply because– in my opinion– they’re bucking category conventions.
Please note: This is not an endorsement of any sort for any of the products mentioned here.
With that out of the way…
Kinky Cocktails
“Kinky Cocktails” caught my eye for a couple of reasons– the product name, right off the bat, with its tongue firmly planted in cheek. There’s also their use of color to clue the casual browser on their target customer base. And lastly, the type, again hinting at their target demo.
Juliette Wines
In a sea of beige and white labels with stoic serif type, these bottles provide an eye-catching splash of color on the shelf. There is a femininity to the design that unmistakably tells us who they’re targeting as consumers.
Einstök Ale
Bold illustrations and and a clean layout separate this from the loud, sometimes overdone beer packaging on-shelf. The heavy use of blue could be evocative of Iceland’s flag.
White Aphro
Purple is not a color often seen in beer packaging. so when you do see it. it definitely stands out. Add to that some bold sans serif type, and you’ve got some eye-catching packaging.
Carl Graff
Bold use of Neutraface (truth be told, this typeface is a personal favorite of mine). This goes against the thin, “stuffy”, serif type. Neutra brings contemporary class to the party.
There you have it. Is there any packaging that’s caught your eye? Share it in the comments– and thanks for reading.
I was having a discussion a few weeks ago, and the subject of photography came up. The conversation was about image quality, and how sometimes photos on a smartphone can surpass those from a more professional setup.
Now, frankly, three are probably a myriad of reasons why that can happen.
Rather, what came up during the course of the conversation were my lighting preferences, especially where product photography is concerned. See, when shooting, I prefer to slightly under light objects (not too much, mind you). That way, I feel I have better control in my retouching when I bring the images into Photoshop. Now, I won’t fault anyone if they prefer to light objects more accurately. I’m just saying this is my preference.
And it got me to thinking of “why”. And this thinking led me to the subject of cooking (somehow all roads lead back to food in my world). In short, you can always under season a dish. You can add more salt or pepper until things are seasoned right. But once something gets too salty, it’s hard to “take it back”.
Same thing in photography. You can start with an underlit image and you can adjust it in Photoshop until you feel it’s right, but if you start with a shot that is overexposed or otherwise has too much light… Well, there’s not much you can do to remedy the situation at that point.
I’m not sure where I was going with this, but I guess that’s my advice. Be mindful when lighting, and find what works for you.
Now, could you pass the pepper, please?
The Super Bowl took place this past weekend. It’s something that is typically heavily anticipated, and this year was no exception. Particularly, I thought, because this year was the year of Super Bowl 50. Now, those that know me– and even if you don’t– may not be surprised to know that sports just isn’t my thing. As a geek and a nerd, sports in general are something I’ve avoided my whole life. However, I do understand (in the vernacular of The Big Bang Theory‘s Sheldon Cooper) that there is a social convention surrounding sports, so I try to stay somewhat informed of what’s happening by reading news headlines and the like. The result is that I can carry, at the very least, a “cocktail party” conversation about sports.
All this to say that I’m not an expert on the particulars of football, but that’s not what this post is ultimately about.
Like I mentioned earlier, this past weekend was Super Bowl weekend, so there was a a lot of hoopla and anticipation surrounding it. Every year advertisers trot out EXTREMELY expensive ads– both in the creation and in the placement. The halftime show is also typically a water cooler moment for a lot of people. So with all this I was expecting an out of the ordinary collection of events.
Out of the ordinary we got. But not in the way I expected.
First off, let’s get one thing out of the way. There’s no way to determine ahead of time WHO will be playing (If we could, it would amount to a conspiracy and collusion by a number of parties that would make everyone’s head spin), so I’m not including the actual football played into my observations on SB50. I will say I found the game interesting and was not displeased with seeing the Denver Broncos win. I would have preferred to see the Carolina Panthers come out on top, but that’s just a matter of preference here. The other elements– ads and entertainment– are a whole other thing altogether.
Super Bowl Sunday typically is considered one of those tentpole events, and advertisers in all categories take the opportunity to go out of their way creating attention-grabbing ads. It’s usually the time when the big summer movies drop trailers, beer and auto companies unveil expensive, slickly-produced ads, and (what I like to call) insurgent companies try to break through the noise with attention-grabbing commercials made to get people talking monday morning. If any of these companies are lucky, the talk and buzz around the water cooler is positive. Sometimes, you even get a slew of companies within the same industry competing for attention (remember the dot-boom of the early ’00s?).
Unfortunately, this year really saw little of any of that. I suppose part of it can be attributed to the continuing and increasing power of the online world and our access to information. As far as I’m concerned, there were only 1-2 ads that caught my attention. There was the Doritos “sonogram” ad early on, and whose surprise ending really got me. The other was far more subtle. It was the Audi “astronaut” commercial, which used David Bowie’s “Starman”. Oh yeah, there was the one with Jeff Goldblum and Little Wayne (“Weezy”). Aside from that, there were no other standouts for me. No major new trailers for upcoming summer movies were released. Even Budweiser’s ads were nothing to be excited over. Remember when it was a given there would be a “big” Budweiser Super Bowl ad? This year– nowhere to be found. I’m not sure why, but it was like Madison Avenue decided to phone it in this year.
Here’s where I think the NFL and the Super Bowl powers-that-be really missed an opportunity. It was Super Bowl 50. A milestone moment. Half a century’s worth of entertainment and heritage. The biggest stage on what is arguably the biggest sporting event in the US. The time to bring out the big guns and blow the roof off the joint. Who you gonna call?
Coldplay. Beyonce. Bruno Mars.
Let me be clear. I like all those acts. And on any other year they would have been a fine show– alone or in a any combo. But this was THE 50th. This was the time to go with big names, with big, iconic performers to showcase what this event is all about. A time to even try and bring back past performers, to extend the run time of the halftime show– I’m sure the audience would be ok with it this time. it was a chance to break the bank a little and “do it proper”.
It was a time to go big. And they dropped the ball.
It’s hard to wrap things up, since these are just my observations. I hope that for future milestones organizers will take a bit of a calculated risk and treat the event with the importance it likely deserves, rather than playing it safe and giving the public something that is just “ok”
Give them something to remember, and they’ll remember you for it.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Let’s continue the discussion in the comments.
This bit o’randomness has nothing to do with design, print, web, packaging, business, or anything that’s related to pretty much any profession (I suppose those in the culinary field might say otherwise).
MY SALAD DRESSING
Ingredients:
For one salad, put a couple of drops of honey into a small container. Add 2 teaspoons each of lemon juice and balsamic, and about a tablespoon of oil. Mix or shake to blend/emulsify. Drizzle over your salad.
Note: Measurements are suggested. Feel free to tweak the proportions according to your taste.
So, where did this come from?
Lunch on work days typically consists of a salad I bring from home. Healthy options near work are few and far between, so bringing lunch keeps me out of trouble food-wise, as well as not being terrible for my pocket. 🙂 And, for a while, I was just using either leftover pouches of dressing from Wendy’s, or I would just throw some oil and vinegar together in a small container. Eventually, this got a little boring, so I looked in the cupboard and the fridge to see if there was anything I could add– hot sauce, dried herbs… Something. I gravitated to the honey and the lemon juice, and well, voila.
So, there you have it. If ever you’re stuck with having to make salad dressing, I suppose there are worse choices you could make.
Enjoy!
We live in a world where, today, you can reach someone faster than you might even think (literally!). There are tweets, DMs, IMs, and all sort of social media messaging. There are even more “old school” means of communication– like the phone. And email.
Speaking of email– why is is that people still use “High Priority” when sending email (I know of one person that sends all emails as high priority. We’ll get to that in a moment). If something is of such importance, maybe following up with a call (or preceding the email with a call) might not be a bad idea. It might even give the recipient some context as to why it’s important to the sender.
Of course, there’s also the question of why it’s still put in the email software code. If we’ve “outgrown” the need for labeling things as “high priority” when there are more efficient ways to relay info in really short time windows, then why is this feature still put in, like some vestigial do0dad?
Just a thought.
And while I’m thinking, let’s go back to “all high priority, all the time”. If everything is that important, then everything becomes unimportant, so when there is something that is that important, it’s ignored as just another email. It’s sort of like the story of Peter and the Wolf.
So, as long as software manufacturers feel that this is some useful feature, we’ll be stuck with it. Let’s use it judiciously in the meantime.
I’ve been thinking about writing more, or rather, about the fact that I don’t write more (and I should). I also think– and I’m pretty sure this happens to a lot of us– that good ideas, whether they’re for blog posts, art, whatever– come to us at times when it’s hard to capture them and save it for later. Even with note-collecting apps and stuff.
I also think that a lot of times we operate with a “hope” and “wish” mindset. We wish we had more time for “x”, or we hope that “y” changes, allowing us to effect some change in some part of our lives. Or we spend a lot of energy spinning our wheels, wishing for some improvement in because something isn’t going the way we would like…
And it’s that mindset that I keep coming coming back and re-examining. We expend all this energy trying to figure out how to change things… When sometimes all we need to do is wait. It became clear to me while going to get lunch a few weeks ago.
I typically bring my lunch to work every day but one. On that day, I usually go to one of a handful of places (not a lot of options near work, and half of them are burger joints. Since I don’t eat beef, it sort of narrows my options. But I digress). That day, the forecast called for rain. I stepped out around 1pm, and it was drizzling. I had brought my umbrella in to the office, but had left it at my desk, so I shrugged my shoulders and resigned myself to getting a little rain on me as I walked to the car. I drove out and headed a short distance (barely 1/2 mile, I think). By the time I got there, it was not only raining, but HAIL was coming down. 10 minutes later, after getting lunch, I came out and the sun was shining, and there was not a cloud in the sky.
I thought the rain was crummy enough, and then got hail. When I thought that was as good as it was going to get– the sun came out.
I’m not sure where I was going with the story, but the bottom line is this. Every step of the way I thought it was bad or couldn’t get worse, with no “hope” in sight. But all I had to do was wait 10 minutes.
“Wait a minute”. Sometimes, that’s all we have to do.
“That’s the way the competition is doing it”. “That’s how it’s always been done”.
These are not fully valid reasons for making choices. Sure, there can be times when visual cues or specific language help the consumer make an immediate connection to whatever is being sold. But, more often that not, falling into this type of groupthink and making decisions from that place can be at best a bad idea, and at worst catastrophic. Thinking like this can dilute a message. It can take a standout design and make it generic. It can take the air out of a successful marketing campaign.
Figure out what makes you you, and leverage that. Forget the sheep, and embrace the fabulous unicorn within.