HOW Design Live: Day Three

SUNDAY, JUNE 26, 2011. Cheap Type Tricks with Allan Haley. Graphic design is expensive! Haley was absolutely right about that. When it comes to photography, illustration, die-cuts, printing, etcetera, type tricks are a cheap way to create expensive-looking graphics. Some advice from Mr. Haley:

• “Super-size type.” Play with the size of the type, stroke weight, arrangement. Go big! Look closely at the type and what’s available in the font. Use the fonts that are designed to go big. 
• “Play with punctuation.” Turn it on it’s side, replace a letter with punctuation, use punctuation in unexpected places. 
• “Amaze with initials.” A great way to capture the reader’s attention and draw the eye in to the start of the copy. Can be an initial cap or it can be an echo of initials. Be careful of legibility! 
• “Encourage engagement with engaging typographic tricks.” Invent a game: flip, omit, stack, reverse. Play with the type to reflect the meaning of the message. 
• “Clever crops.” Type interacting with photos or content can begin to tell the story before the reader even begins to read the story. 
• “Double-duty type.” Using type to illustrate or enhance photos in unexpected ways. Create entire faces or focus on parts of photos. 

As an aside, we took a look at “Brian Lawton makes a face.” An assignment for a conference whose theme was ‘monkey business’ and happening in 2008. He was stuck conceptually, left the office and when he returned, approached his desk from a different angle and saw something new in his sketches. He ended up with the ‘eight’ on it’s side over the ‘zero’ creating a monkey’s face. Nice touch.

• “Make a memory.” Underline the message. Ensure action. Build brand. You can make a shape, create your own alphabet, and be provocative. Form a shape from the type, contain the shape in a silhouette, etc. Differentiate! 
• “Use odd fonts.” Or no font at all. Build a message from objects that are particular to the brand and photograph them. 
• “Make your own alphabet.” Create a memory. A font doesn’t need to be a sophisticated, infinitely rendered and kerned masterpiece. It needs to work for the message. Hand-created type might do the trick. 
• “Be provocative.” When possible, be clever, but temper with purpose.

Incidentally, I'm doing what I can at work to push the typographic boundaries. Organizations can easily put themselves in a rut by insisting that the brand identity is this particular type, set in this particular manner. As we learned earlier, brand isn't identity! In this session, the case was clearly made that audiences were savvy enough to be engaged by type without becoming confused. Have faith!

Design Strategy with Rochelle Seltzer. What it is, why it matters, and how to do it. Ms. Seltzer opened by musing about the web site 99designs.com (competitive, spec design work you might not get paid for) and what it means. She shared this quote from a design acquaintance: “I wouldn’t wash a car if I MIGHT get paid.”

In order to use strategy, well, strategically, plenty of up-front work needs to be done. What is the company’s positioning? If they don’t know, help them figure it out. Interview people from the top to the bottom of the company and pinpoint where they are and where they want to be. Develop an information-gathering process, put the intelligence to work. Interview people, analyze current print materials, and communication channels. This groundwork will help the client understand where the design is coming from as well as their own business’s operations. Be sure to tie recommendations to business objectives. Design to reflect the results. Synthesize all the information down to simply define the client’s profile. Consider “strategy” as a separate cost from “design” deliverables (this will define costs better). Gather intelligence, identify business problems, and develop the strategy to execute against those objectives. Determine the creative deliverables, channels, visual cues, etc. Everyone signs off! Strategy should be a part of every engagement, it may not be extensive, but it should be there. Follow up with metrics. Surveys, interviews, sales, web hits, and more are ways to measure success.

With strategy in-hand, refer to it at all stages of development! (Best. Advice. Ever.)