ITAP2: Simple, but different

"I wish I had known that simplicity is the key" Rosy Arnold, D&AD president.

In modern culture, we are bombarded by advertising in all media platforms. These are usually a mixture of both good and bad design, but collectively tend to put off the majority of audience members. With this barrage of complexity, simplicity, as stated, is key in attracting the audience and setting apart from the rest and directly convey the message.

A key to advertising I have recently learnt in lectures, is to aim a campaign on selling a simple truth of the product; Cadbury's "a glass and a half of joy" based on the fact the bars have a glass and a half of milk in them, and chocolate released endorphins that produce joy. By selling a product one one truth, it is preferable to reduce the message down to this one key point and make it fascinating and direct to the audience; Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful.

Award winning designs by Bartle Bogle Hegarty, 1993

As can be seen in the Boddington beer ad campaign here, the element of truth extracted was that this brand has a full and thick creamy head. The reason these designs are so successful is because this one usp has been extracted from the product and built on with a clever use of wit, humour and the unexpected; subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful. 

While this is an incredibly simple design; just displaying the pint of beer with one prop maximum in each layout, it is done in a different and effective way to convey the usp. Without this quirky meaningful addition the usp message, the design would simply display a pint of beer with the creamy head. This shows there is both a good and bad simple. Simplicity is a rare thing and as Leonardo da Vinci once said; "the ultimate sophistication". It is claimed as this because effective simplicity is a difficult thing to create, due to its delicate balance. By having too little the message could be either interpreted as boring, or not successfully communicated at all. Whereas by using too much in the design then it will look busy and confusing. The right balance is where the message is clear but the method in communicating it is different and original.

Since the brand logo is extremely small (as not to distract or add complexity to the simplicity of the design) the colour scheme was carefully chosen. As can be seen, they clearly represent the brand palette of yellow, black and white. These colours immediately bring association without the logo boldly displayed and so further increase the effectiveness in the simplicity. If the logo was also boldly displayed along with perhaps a disproportionately large written catchline 'With the creamiest head' and a man or woman holding the beer then the message would risk being too complex and audience members wouldn't be so intrigued but more patronised.

Simplicity and reduction in design is often used, such as here. Guinness is renowned for its witty advertisements and above is a brilliant example of reductionism to push forward one key point of the product, conveyed in simple yet intriguingly amusing ways; using the pint in place of cool objects. Again, like the Boddington designs earlier, the colour scheme is carefully chosen as the black and white is immediately recognisable as a pint of Guinness, and the icy blue resembles the extra cold. 

Another designer to bare in mind for reductionism is Helmut Krone, as mentioned in a prior post.

ITAP2: Informational Design

Although informational design is not the foremost element of my design preference, it is non the less an important aspect to consider. As it is far from something I am widely knowledgable about, this itap lecture gave me several key figures and principals to bare in mind. A few I found most useful when looking further into their work are;
Grouping information and establishing a visual hierarchy by paying attention to detail, typography, colours, lines, spaces, message, legibility and other such matters.
As for the the inspirational people, I was given a list including

•  David Carson            •  Edward Tufte

•  Neville Brody            •  Richard Saul Wurman

•  Wim Crouwel            •  Erik Spiekermann

•  Rob Waller                •  Paul Mijksenaar

•  David Sless

To begin with, we have some informational design by Edward Tufte; the pioneer and claimed inventor of many common informational layouts such as the pie chart and bar graph. Above is one of his most famous designs portraying Napoleon's march to and from Moscow, showing information such as numbers of deaths and divided divisions in the army. By creating something as visually interesting and accurate as this, Tufte forged a way in displaying large quantities of complex information in an easy to understand and stimulating manner. Although I am unlikely to use styles/methods like this, I find it fascinating and important to understand the past/origin of informational design.

The designs above are by an artist called Paul Butt. These I find beautiful examples of informational display/layout due to the delicate combination balance of vibrant colours showing the stats, to the subtly textures and muted background. This gives a contrast of the tall, slick sans serif fonts along with sharp and crisp lined graph precision with a characteristically aged backing façade. This style aids in making it set apart from mass designed dull 'exel' graphs and makes the information far more visually exciting. The design on the left, to show computer disk space, is in based around a circular layout reminiscent in semiotic style of a CD/hard drive disk. The mixtures of graphs composed in these pieces along with key summations surrounding the main image enables audiences to read specific/individual statistics over the combination.

Nicholas Felton

Informational design though, doesn't have to be 'informational' per-se. While clear visual communication of statistics are extremely useful to the audience, the designs can be reduced to the point that graphs are so simplified and context dependant they can be interpreted as art. By removing numbers and key words, we are left with bold and mathematical patterns.
Some of these following designs are produced by studios such as 'Onformative' based in Berlin who specialise  in visualising data, and 'Accept & Proceed', a London based calendar graph studio. Information and further images on these fascinating and exceptional designs can be found in this link.

http://jessicasvendsen.com/category/information-design/

Accept & Proceed

Onformative

 As far as designer list given in the presentation, I find Erik Spiekermann's videos and philosophies on design absolutely inspiring. This video below is a 14minute talk on typography he did as an informal interview style. Elements such as how he likens the design to music creation is something I can relate to and now see in design, such as the onformative piece above (branching from his original typographical parallels). Not just this, but his strategies on drawing a design like your inspiration, and then drawing from memory days later to create a different looking idea (generating originality and diversion) is also a brilliant strategy I will apply to my work. I find Erik Spiekermann a hugely inspirational speaker on theory, concept and design; not to mention his actual work.

Conclusions and pieces I have found as result of this initially seemingly unimportant (as far as my personal design path is concerned) topic, has brought on some great improvements on my knowledge and view on these aspects of design.

ITAP2: What the font?

Creative Strategies & Visual Language

Creative Strategies;
Lateral Thinking/Idea Generation/The Message

Strategies are a key skill when concerning lateral thinking in idea generation. Since understanding the application of these strategies I have felt a marked improvement in realising how my concept generation comes about/makes them strong. Some of the most useful methods are listed below;

•  Play with words                         •  Mixing and matching
•  Typographical                            •  Comparison before/after
•  Shock value                               •  Repetition/repetition
•  Metaphors                                  •  Exaggeration
•  Changing/contrasting context     •  Signs and symbols

When controlling these strategies though, it is important to bare in mind other importances, as acutely said by Herbert Bayer, 16/03/79;
"The creative process is not performed by the skilled hand alone, but must be a unified process in which the head, heart and hand play a simultaneous role."
In personal summation to this quote, it is important that not only do you go through the motions and blindly follow the strategies; but you must combine the methodology along with some 'illustrative' skill and an appropriate heartfelt message behind it too. This can be correlated into a loop;

The Message;
When I then look into the message, several pieces of graphic design spring to mind. Foremost the famous VW Beetle adverts of 1950 where the message was vital in convincing their audience, set in a strong and contrasting ideal set. The design agency DDB, Doyle Dane Bernbach used lateral thinking to convey this message in a revolutionary way partially using the shock factor. Although these designs seem ordinary by our standards now, they shocked the market in 1950 by both breaking and adhering to rules all advertising agencies used. While maintaining the formulaic layout other agencies used, DDB took a lateral slant by portraying the target audiences' true desires over the propaganda marketed 'dreams' the general public knew they would struggle to reach/maintain.





















While these are influences for the origin of the message and thus possible appropriate route of lateral strategy, these can also be used in deciding which form of media production is best suited for the design.

to persuade/to invite/to engage
DESIGN FOR INVITATION
an offer/service/idea/communication

to inform/to educate/to understand

DESIGN FOR INFORMATION

complex data/information/simple concepts

to express/to debate/to opine

EXPRESSIVE GRAPHICS

emotion/value/ethics/graphic language

Visual Language;

Semiotics/Experimentation/Media/Treatment

When looking into both media and experimentation one piece I found extremely interesting; Logorama created by H5; François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy and Ludovic Houplain, and produced by Autour de Minuit. I especially liked this combination of experimentation and animated media because of its wit and clearly thought out design. Despite this, it didn't overly inspire me in my work but more served as entertainment to me.

On the other hand, there is the 2012 olympic campaign. Concerning experimentation and semiotics, I appreciate and understand the concept/execution behind the video below. While I find the message behind it clear and inspirational in its pro-activity and life generation to the ceremony, I am one of the many who finds the print logo a vulgar design. 

London 2012 / Brand Launch from Universal Everything on Vimeo.