providing graphic design, branding, photography and marketing expertise to denver and the world

Quote of the Week:

All solitary dreamers know that they hear differently when they close their eyes.
-Gaston Bachelard

Notes from Notchcode

3.31.2008

Who Works Late?

My guess is: everyone.

Is working late the norm for you, or is it at least expected of you? I only ask because on my Basecamp site I notice a lot of clients--clients with different backgrounds, working in different industries--post responses far outside the normal "9-to-5" working hours. Most of the late--or early--posters are either in non-profit, internet-based, or startup businesses, but even some _governmental_ folks work odd hours.

What is your work schedule like? And do you work those hours because you are expected to, because you are more creative then, or because you get more done? Or is it just insomnia?

For me I simply have more time to do really creative work; I have always been on more of a musician's schedule (due to formative years spent in coffeehouses, sketching, I think) and so there's simply more creativity for design, even photography, late in the evening.

photo: Late Nights by djloche

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3.29.2008

Best Use of GoogleMaps for today


A BBC article touting the European Space Agency's automated cargo transport carrier system, named "Jules Verne", has--buried way down at the bottom of the article--has a map of where the International Space Station and the Jules Verne are over the Earth at any given moment, updated each second. Pretty nifty. The source for the map is here. So, want to know if you can see the ISS over your house? Check out the map and see!

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3.28.2008

"Design is Dead", says Starck. Oh reeeeealllly?

Kottke turned me on to this little bit o' nonsense for the evening:

"I was a producer of materiality and I am ashamed of this fact," Starck told Die Zeit weekly newspaper.

"Everything I designed was unnecessary."


my favorite line is that "design is a dreadful form of expression." Yeah, you're totally right about that, o' design god/huckster. That's why, oh everything people ever made was designed, in one form or another. If you criticize design, you're criticizing a large chunk of civilization's accomplishments (large and, more importantly, small), and the people who made them. 

Seriously, though, I think the point he is trying to make is that there are things more important than a well-made chair (although don't knock a comfy chair). The AFP article closes with him saying that the thing he needs most is the "ability to love." I would posit that any well made thing, whether a product of a designer, writer, artist, or sunday casserole-maker's output, contains love. And if you don't put a little of that in everything you do, you aren't making it as good as it could be.



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3.25.2008

Yeah, Barack has a posse, and I'm on it.

Just in case you were wondering about my ability to win friends and influence people:

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posted at 4:32 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

sign Up Forms Must Die

From A List Apart:
You load a new web service, eager to dive in and start engaging, and what’s the first thing that greets you? A sign-up form. We can do better, says Luke Wroblewski, author of Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks. Via a technique of "gradual engagment," we can get people using and caring about our web services instead of frustrating them (or sending them to a competitor's site) by forcing them to fill out a sign-up form first.

Amen, brother.

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posted at 4:07 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

300 posts? Wah-hoo!

It took a while, but my post rate has been climbing, and the notchcode blog is past 300 posts for your perusal, etc....

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3.21.2008

Maybe the next Notchcode office will look like this

The sexyShack, from LiveModern, via Alex's Shedworker:

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posted at 9:47 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

Simplicity, and Beauty in the "Mundane"


Piper photograph - 2
Originally uploaded by notchcode
A few photographers have said this better than me, but here it is anyway:

Look for the beauty in what is around you, right now. Questing for it elsewhere just makes for a longer trip.

Piper, my four year-old daughter, took this image. With all my training, I couldn't have done better.

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3.20.2008

Why cropping can be bad, and why failure can be good

Two items of linklove for you guys:

Matt Soar: Fail Again, Fail Better, in the Design Observer

"Jonathan Hoefler says, 'Increasingly I think about the work that I do not so much as a directed effort, but as the ability to recognize accidents and interpret them productively. Even failures have their place, since without them there’s no progress: anything that’s truly 'experimental' has to run the risk of failure.'"


Cropping: A Duh Moment, in the Online Photographer
(referencing this amazing image)

"Once you start cropping, why stop? You've entered context-elimination mode; you're engaging in the activity of denying information to the viewer; why not take it a little further, and then a little further than that?"

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3.15.2008

Luck o' the Irish, or good brand extension?


IMG_2317
Originally uploaded by Barack Obama
Whilst other campaigns are having a bit of an identity crisis, Obama's is clearly brand-savvy. Check out the special "O'bama" signs they made up for a St. Patrick's Day parade in Scranton, PA. Props to the branding team (again) for making use of the versatile "O" emblem; this one has, appropriately, a shamrock in place of the rising sun motif.

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3.14.2008

Why typography matters online

This from the archives: a popular little link, short but sweet.

Today's tip: Typography does matter on the web. Really. A List Apart has a nice summary of why. One thing they mention that I've been telling people for about seven years: SHORT PARAGRAPHS GET READ. Oh, and don't capitalize whole words, much less sentences.

My favorite line from the 2001 article:

Cary Grant, that most stylish of British gentlemen, warned: "it takes five hundred small details to make one favorable impression."

This is a typographic truism (and really, a design truism) if I've ever heard one.

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3.13.2008

The new Zeiss Ikon Z1: Me Want

The Online Phoptographer has posted a review of the Leica-like Zeiss Ikon Z1. Ever since Carl came through town with his Leica over his shoulder, I have returned to lusting after small film cameras again. The Z1 is less spendy than a Leica, and according to the review, possibly just as good (don't tell Leica owners that). And if I am going to shoot 35mm film (I already shoot 5x7) why not use some of the best optics in a well-designed camera, too?

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3.11.2008

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain

11 feed readers? Hmmm...not so much. More like 180. Netvibes seems to be incorrectly reporting the number of subscribed readers to this (and many other) blogs. So please feel like you are part of a really big readership, and not just one of my friends. Of course, if you are one of my friends, please feel like you are part of a really big readership as well ;)

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3.08.2008

Way bad branding: Another example of why you need a brand manager

I was rolling around the merchandise stores of the main presidential candidates, Republican and Democrat, and came across this t-shirt from the Hillary Clinton Campaign:


And it reminded me of another bit of political branding I saw all over the backs of large SUVs for the last 4 years or so:




Now, there are a few differences. But not a whole lot. White text on black. Initial used to brand the individual. I know that Clinton's brand managers aren't nearly as on their game as Obama's, but this is a bit beyond comprehension. Political preferences aside, when you are running on a platform that theoretically positions you 180 degrees from the incumbent, you really should have zero visual similarities in your branding with him. Or think about it this way: if Clinton was Pepsi, and Bush was Coke, this is equivalent to using red and white packaging on your cans instead od blue white and red, and deciding that the Coke swoosh would look nice under the words "Pepsi". It doesn't mean that what's inside has necessarily changed, but it sure will have people associating you more with your competition than with your own identity.

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3.07.2008

Songs for this week

Been a bit busy to update this last week. Here's this week's faves:

Got Your Money Ol' Dirty Bastard & Kelis
Happy Day Burning Spear
Playmate MC Solaar
CR-08 M. Antonio (Original) Beto Bertolini
I Was A Landscape In Your Dream Of Montreal
Jackson Hem
L'aigle Ne Chasse Pas Les Mouches MC Solaar
Tumble Down Burning Spear
Purple Haze Groove Armada
WS-11 Stream Beto Bertolini
Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games Of Montreal

Maybe it's politically incorrect to like Ol' Dirty Bastard. But what can I say? It has a beat, and you can dance to it. Even if it's about pimps and hos. I sure ain't listening to it in front of my daughters, though.

Album cover I wish I could take credit for designing: Feist. Nice use of phorography, brings the artist's personality into it, and lends some mystery and romance into the image.

Album cover in most need of a redesign: Burning Spear's Live at Montreaux*. Yeah, I know: it's a live album. That's why it's titled Live at Montreaux, silly designers! No need for the crowd shot. Too bad, actually, because a lot of Mr. Spears' covers are so interesting:


* notice how I didn't use a bold italic there? That should make designers everywhere happy ;)

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posted at 8:10 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

No Sagmeister for me tonight....

...I've had baby duties come up that require me to be at home. But I've sent a note to the AIGA to free up my seat, so at least that means one of you other folks can get into this sold-out event. I'm bummed, especially since Mindy, Andy and the others at AIGA/CO HQ had made it possible for me to attend, but life has other plans sometimes. I'll eat a banana, in Sagmeister's honor at 6 tonight. And contribute this:

What I've Learned:

  • You can never eat too many bananas.

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3.06.2008

Behind the Scenes at the NYT Graphics Department

The New York Times' Graphic Director, Steve Duenes, took reader questions last week. The interview is filled with insights into how the NYT's crack graphic staff creates the award-winning work that appears both online and in print.

And in case you still don't believe that graphic design can change lives, just check out this quote, from Nicholas Kristof, who was relating a story about the impact graphics that were designed to accompany his article on the state of public health in Africa had on one particular individual: Bill Gates. Gates was telling him how, initially, he and his wife were planning on essentially wiring the continent, thinking that this would do the most good in bringing Africa out of poverty. Then he read Kristof's article, and decided funding public health initiatives for clean drinking water, malaria prevention, and the like would have a far greater impact. He continues:

Great! I was really proud of this impact that my worldwide reporting and 3,500-word article had had. But then bill confessed that actually it wasn't the article itself that had grabbed him so much -- it was the graphic. It was just a two column, inside graphic, very simple, listing third world health problems and how many people they kill. but he remembered it after all those years and said that it was the single thing that got him redirected toward public health.

No graphic in human history has saved so many lives in africa and asia.

[emphasis added]



So, what moves the richest couple in the universe to make Africa a healthier place to live? Good graphic design. It doesn't need to be flashy, it doesn't need to be hip. It needs to work: deliver information effectively. This is what I tell my clients, and I swear by it. Effective information delivery--whether it's for marketing, advocacy, or journalism--isn't about clever, hip, new, etc.... It's about presenting everything you need to present, and nothing extra, in a succinct, direct way. It's that simple.

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3.04.2008

Help out a great photographer and get some great art--all at the same time

My good friend Andrew Bale just got a commission to create work for a show at the Espace Ecureuil in Toulouse, France this summer. It's a pretty cool gig: they pay for a fair amount of his travel and his stay while in France. What they don't cover is expenses related to hauling hundreds of rolls of film around the countryside, printing the final images, and so on. Andy is raising money to fund his trip in a novel way: for a limited time, if you send him $185, he'll send you five images from his Europe portfolio, plus another photograph from his upcoming project in France.

Now, even if Andrew weren't my friend, I'd sing the praises of his work. Beautifully-crafted images, sought out in the wilderness, industrial backyards of Pennsylvania, and streets of America, Ireland, Paris and Italy. He and I both print using the lush platinum/palladium contact printing process, and he has also become an expert in digitally-printed archival ink pigment prints too. The images from this Five plus One portfolio consist of the latter.

Usually Andy's images sell for between $125 and $450 each. With this offer, you are getting six images for the cost of one. That's a pretty cool deal, and a great way to jumpstart your collection. Head on over to the portfolio page to see the images, and read more about the project and the artwork. Then buy a set and become a partner in Andrew's latest project.

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