The world is full of prejudices. All designers use Apple Macs is one of them. This was surely true 10 or 15 years ago, but todays designer are well distributed across all platforms. There have been several reasons why Apple Computer where so dominant at that time, but all of the reasons have become obsolete and you can choose yourself if where you want to put your money – into looks or content.

Software

The operating system wars are over – no really – OSX and Windows 7 are equal in functionality and ease of use. They are actually so similar, that one often gets confused where to find specific things when switching from one to another.

Availability of professional and free software for designers on the other hand are actually not the same. Unlike in the early ages Adobe and other developers have switched to PC and Windows as their main platform. Many features (GPU acceleration) and even whole Suites of Programs are PC only.

And if you are a Linux fan, even then you have plenty of open source software your can use and work pretty well.

One of the biggest game changer in this sector is the internet. If you design websites you are used to use “development” tools. And more often than not this tools are easier to find for other platforms than Mac. It’s the “App”-Numbers Game you see on Iphone vs. Android/Symbian/WebOS/Blackberry – but inverted. Hundreds of applications for Mac, thousands for Windows and Linux.

Another big game changer was actually PDF. The designer doesn’t have to use the same Programs and computer platform as the printshop, since PDF has become the standard for sending printable files. It’s a typical example of how a “locked in” environment has been broken by the use of open standards.

Hardware

Apple hardware looks good. I’m not going to deny that. Until last year the apple fans could also claim, that the hardware inside the boxes was always top notch and not more expensive than PCs if you take the same components. I made the calculations myself a few times and it was true. Mac Pro’s used processors and chipsets which you find in serious workstations. Picewise obviously if you compare a Mac Pro with a standard Dell Office PC, the Dell wins – but the performance is not the same.

But here is the news – you don’t need the power of a Mac Pro. Actually most designer (if they are on a Mac) use the Macbooks or iMacs. And even the Dell Computer intended for the use in the office runs Indesign and Photoshop smoothly. The recent office PCs have more performance than a workstation 3 years ago. The possibilities that your computer is waiting for input 90% of the time is high if you are not encoding HD-Video all the time.

So there is for the average designer no need to buy an expensive Mac Workstation to do the work. And if you really need the horsepower? Well than you have another reason to not choose an Apple.

Apple is not upgrading it’s Macintoshes

Normally we have seen that Apple is a Computer and Hardware Manufacturer who does extra stuff to sell more hardware. This is changing and we can see it every day. Apple is focusing on “consumer stuff” and content related stuff.

It’s more about iTunes, iPad and iPhones this days than OS X and Mac Pros. In the past Apple was the first to implement faster processors – now they don’t care. They prefer to release a new tablet instead. Today if you want a serious workstation you get an HP or even a Dell. The lack of new announcements for Macbooks etc. show in my opinion that they stop to offer hardware which runs an relatively open operating system altogether. And sincerely – as professional I will not invest in software and hardware for a platform which future is not certain.

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Swarovski is a well known brand for jewellery around the world. The great marketing idea of applying techniques used for diamonds to glass made the company big and rich. These “techniques” are not only technical but also marketing skills. They sell you low cost glass at a high value by giving it the touch of exclusivity. They sell not only jewellery but also figurines and much much more – from beautiful to awful everything is covered.

Now I for myself don’t care much about the Swarovski hype – I don’t like much of the design and the associated prices – but I respect the marketing effort and how well they constructed their brand over the last 50 years. About 15 years ago they opened their “Kristallwelten” (crystal worlds). A sort of museum with works by famous artists inspired by the crystals. Andrè Heller was the curator of this magical place and everyone was delighted.

I will list now in a few words why this “Kristallwelten” is dismantling the brand of Swarovski:

• It’s expensive – you pay 9.5 Euros (about 13.4 US$ at the time of writing) for getting in. There are 15 tiny rooms with “inspired art”, that’s close to a dollar/room. If a ordinary museum would charge at this prices… and not to forget – this is a marketing stunt, so free entry should be the minimum
• If you are not interested in the “art” you cannot enter the shop directly – you have to pay to get into the shop basically. Ok, you get 2 Euro off you purchase with the ticket.
• The so called art is a hoax – maybe 2 or 3 pieces of this exposition is worth the name of art. I studied art and I can tell the difference. They have a separate room for the “gallery” as they call it – the room with real masterpieces from the Swarovski art collection – see the difference in the naming
• You don’t get any information about the production process or about Swarovski – there is only one room about the jewels itself and this is a little bit frustrating as you go there to learn about Swarovski
• It’s old – 15 years and nearly no addition. You can tell the date of the art pieces and the updated rooms are just fitted with larger screens.
• The shop has not all products on stock. The shop is big and they have nearly all products on display, but not all sizes. The factory is 50 meters away, we are at the heart of the Swarovski production site and they are not able to stock the rings on display in all sizes (and they just do S, M, L and XL – not like the jewellery ring sizes which are 22)
  On the good side I have to admit, that the “crystallized” section, where you can buy single items to combine by yourself are quite neat.
• The prices in the shop are the same all over the world. So if you travel to the Kristallwelten in Austria and you think that the shop nearby the factory is cheaper your wrong. No outlet – no factory sale.

So what is the conclusion – I stumbled out of the Kristallwelten and felt like I’ve been betrayed. The website is actually beautifuler and the respect for the firm was gone. No content for real money and no “magic” and all. Common’ Swarovski – we know it’s a marketing stunt, but don’t take us for fools. Get rid of the entrance fee (or do a full rebate on a purchase) and spice it up with more about the firm.

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In various posts around the web you can find opinions on the new identity of the tv channel SyFy – formerly known as Sci-Fi Channel. While I don’t want to go into the design details I want to express some thoughts why the probably made this change. At first it seems quite unusual to change a well established brand so radically. It seems even more radical as the new name is also a new term that sounds like the old name but doesn’t has the same meaning – it actually has no meaning.

This puzzled at first even me. Science fiction was born over 100 years ago and the abbreviation sci-fi has become wide spread. Everybody knows what sci-fi is and therefore naming a tv channel who broadcasts sci-fi shows should be called sci-fi. But here lies the big problem. The vast majority of people “thinks” the know what sci-fi is all about. Basically science fiction is all about ufo’s and space travel. Science fiction is obviously much more than that and actually most of the movies and shows on tv are some sort of science fiction. How can you break this misinformation of the general public?

There are two ways. One way is to educate the people, but this would cost much more that just do it the way SyFy has done it. They changed the name and claimed that SyFy is the tv channel where you could “imagine more”. The name sound familiar enough to sci-fi fans to recognize the term and is new enough to new viewers to just be a name.

How far SyFy is more than just space crafts and aliens shows the spot – well done and good luck to the “new channel”.

Update: As @Lazarus2000 on Twitter pointed out giving a brand a unique name has another advantage. You can trademark the brand.

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Drawing from some of the most pivotal points in his life, Steve Jobs, chief executive officer and co-founder of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, urged graduates to pursue their dreams and see the opportunities in life’s setbacks — including death itself — at the university’s 114th Commencement on June 12, 2005. Inspiring and worth 15 minutes

I’m happy to announce that this blog made it into the selection of Alltop – Top Design News. I’m in good company with the ususal suspects (Core 77, Cool Hunting, Design Observer, …). BTW: Alltop is one of the lates ventures of Guy Kawasaki (@guykawasaki) and they define themself as “online magazine rack” of popular topics.

Now you can follow my lessons along with the great articles of the other resources. So check them out: Alltop – Top Design News

The recent TV spots from Nike+ is neat, the campaign interesting and it worked for me, somehow. I do running and a lot of other sports actively but I hate watching them on TV. I don’t read the results in the newspaper and I couldn’t care less who will win the Serie A. A friend of mine talked to me about the Nike+ Spot about how much they might have spent for all the stars you can see running. I replied “I didn’t see any stars.” Then I realized – sport stars. I don’t know any of them – ok a few but only in their working dress

In the end the spot doesn’t gain from the athletes – it’s nothing unusual that sportsmen do running. IMHO they could have spent less – the idea would have worked great even without stars.

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Advertising lies all the time – at least this is what most people think. I must admit that I tend to believe them when I see all the rubbish on various home shopping channels or housewife-magazines (no really, this kind of magazines exist). To be honest, advertising doesn’t lie more than the average human in any position and mansion, but I think advertising should not lie.

In many countries “lying” in advertising is strict prohibited and if you check the ads you probably find small clues for the omitted facts or the specific “conditions” to get the praised results. But this is not my point.

When do you reach the point where it is advisable to not advertise at all a product? Is it ok for a Aspirin to advertise its painkilling for sportsmen? I’ve seen an ad in TV where two girls talk after a fitness session. One complains about her aking muscles and other one gives her aspirin. Hmm. Stretching or not overdoing might be the better advice.

As an art director I was more than once presented to advertise products with small to none improvements or benefits when compared to the competitors products. I had obviously to show the product as if it where the best product of the world but I always avoided to push it over the top. I also refused to do advertising for certain products. I will not do advertising for weapons, drugs, cars (if they claim to save nature), the usual stuff – but where do you trace the line?

Is the graphic designer responsible for the products of his client? In my opinion any art director and graphic designer take a part of the responsibility because he helps to deliver the message to the costumers of his client. If you deliver a faulty message or if you do not deliver the truth you take part in the disguise. You as a graphic designer might not spot on first sight that the product doesn’t deliver what it claims but this is not always the excuse – it should come out when you do the briefing.

What do you think about the morale in advertising, where do you trace the line? Your opinions are welcome.

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Sometimes we discover after we finished our education that the job we pursuited doesn’t match our expectations. Sometimes it seems that we are forced to change our job and learn a new one. Is it worth the time and money or should we stick to what we’ve got? I was contacted by Brittany asking me if she (an account manager with a degree) should go back to school to become an art director. Here her mail and my thoughts.

I came across your blog online and it caught me because I have just decided to go back to school for art direction. I graduated with an undergrad degree: Bachelor of Science in Advertising in May 2008.

However, I focused on the business side of things and not the creative. I want to go into art direction but I would like to hear what you have to say about this. My concern: I am about to spend about $xxK on school to do this, as I attend The Illinois Institute of Art-Chicago. I will finish with another bachelors, but in Fine Arts Visual Communications around Dec/Jan. 2011. Can I come out of school and move into the path of art direction right away? Such as assistant art director? What is the typical path people take for this?

I am just scared I won’t be able to pay back these loans. I see that the average starting salary for this path is somewhere around $xxK give or take. I have experience working in large agencies, as I interned during my schooling at Y&R NYC, and McCann Erickson NYC, both in Account Management. I appreciate all of your help and advice.

First things first. It’s no big news that our generation and the future ones will not stick to their job for 40 years as might have our parents. Changes in toady’s business and our goals will make it much more likely that we will have different jobs in our lives. So the more knowledge and capabilities we can get the better. Me myself went to university at 25 changing completely my career to study graphic design – my passion as I discovered quite late since I was a small kid (I never thought that you can actually make a living out of designing newspaper and logos). So it is never to late to change the path and pursuit a new career.

In the specific case of Brittany the change is both radical and not radical at all at the same time. Let me explain. We can see from her email, that she is focused and structured (she has a plan, got the numbers, knows when she will get the second bachelor), this is fine project management, a typical strength of an account manager and something many creative people lack. But the ability of seeing the bigger picture and to organize is a capability an art director must have. I’m speaking of an art director in a medium to big agency – as usual Art directors in such agencies tend to not do much “hardcore” design work anymore but to lead the general direction of a project. But they still need to know what they are talking about.

The mix of the business side of graphic design/advertising and the creative part is teached graphic designers when they do a master degree in art direction – but I’m not sure if the bachelor degree if graphic design will do the same trick to Brittany (as she already knows the business side from her other degree). Maybe from the knowledge side, but I don’t think for the career.

A “freshman” from university will not likely start in a hiaboutgh position. Depending on the “real world” working experience the best I could imagine is junior art director, which in many cases is a nicer name for a graphic designer. This is in fact a waste of the capabilities, but understandable from the viewpoint of an agency.

I would choose a different approach. I would aim for a master degree in art direction directly. A bachelor in advertising should enable Brittany to be admitted and she could learn the more basic creative techniques and graphic design foundation by herself. It was never easier to obtain the basic knowledge for graphic design and the business part of an art director master course should not be much of an hassle, as she has already studied most of it. This will allow her to focus more on the creative part. In the end the master degree will enable her to enter the advertising career at an higher level using her capabilities at her best.

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In the last couple of month I’ve attended to a few workshops related to the new tools we are going to use in our marketing departments. The two main tools I’m talking of is the DAM (digital asset management) and a translation management and approval system based on a indesign workflow (very handy if you manage publications in 32 languages). I know both systems already because I was one of the initiators of the group wide projects and because I tested them before choosing the solutions. This enables me to have quite some notion of “how to do things” with the software. But this does not mean that I already now the fastest way, or the most effective or future proof way to do it.

It’s much like when you learn Photoshop or Indesign. There are many ways to get results, but you might not figure out the best way by yourself. I’ve expected to get from the software vendors some advice, some “best practices” as they are called, what is the most effective way to get your taxonomy (keywords and structures) right and what are good workflows to follow. They should know as they see what theyre clients are doing and what works well and what not. But this was obviously not the case. You get the usual “Every firm has it’s own way to do things.” and “Our system is so flexible that it can be customized and setup to your needs.” This might be true, but if I just match my current workflow I could miss some great improvements or even worse, I discover later on, that if I structured the system or prepared the documents a little bit different in the first place I would get much more out of it. Nobody starts over such a project without a bad need. I hope, that with the spreading of this kind of systems there will be more user groups and tutorials to help firms setup their DAMs, in the meantime I will stick to this subject and bring my experiences.

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But this does not mean that the design is simple. A minimalistic approach uses as few graphical elements as needed to transport the message to the user. No decoration or other distracting elements are added. The message is the protagonist. The graphical elements to focus on the message can be simple shapes, but the result is a rich expirience.

A design that is just “simple” on the other hand does not give you a rich expirience – it gives you the feeling that someting is missing.

If you do a minimalistic design and you get the feeling that something is missing, then you probably (1) didn’t focus enough on the message, (2) the message is too weak or (3) cannot be transported through minimalistic design:

1. To much decoration or complicated layouts can blur your message. Get rid of graphic elements without a function.
2. Weak messages are often the main problem. Minimalistic means reduced to the bones and a message which is blurry and not focused can’t work in this context. Talk again with your copywriter and client if you can get a message with a tighter focus.
3. You cannot transport chaos with a minimalistic approach. Period.

As a conclusion we could say: A minimalistic design uses only graphic elements with function to maximise the message, simple design ignores the message to maximise simplicity.

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