There are beautiful portfolio sites out there in the web and I wanted to redo my portfolio site because like most of the websites of designers my site was:
Quite out of date
Not very compelling any more
The reasons because my site was like this are easy to find. If you are a busy designer you mostly don’t have time to update your site. In the last years I started a blog and used twitter to engage with my audience, so the time for the portfolio is even smaller. Maintaining a portfolio site is not as easy and there are many big sites where you can upload your portfolio. The question was, what should I do. …click here to continue…
Not many TV commercials try to break new visual grounds. Partly because the big budget campaigns tend to stay on the safe side. They have to be “different” but common enough to not frighten the audience.
In the last few years we have seen some fine photography experimenting with the look of miniatures, but the new tv spot from german Telecom uses a mix of animated miniatures as stage and actors and life actors. The spot aired only in Germany is integrated into a environmental campaign.
Very nice, I want to see more of this creative spots in the future.
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.
Serj asked me in a mail if I could list some books about graphic design theory. The amount of books on the market is astounding these days and I understand that surfing through the internet, with its wast resources, tutorials and inspirational site, its good to have the foundation to build on. Most of the theoretical stuff is normally taught in design schools and most of the books I will recommend are used in this context. …click here to continue…
I have found today this video about a typical interview of a focus group in the stone age. First watch the video, then read my comments.
Ok, it’s a campaign of DraftFCB – an advertising holding. It’s ment against clients, who seem to be too stupid to understand the great idea. But this is the classic view of a creative department towards clients. The client doesn’t get it – but its the right solution for him.
Now you as a creative, an art director or agency have to ask yourself three questions:
Did I miss the point, misunderstand the briefing or my research on the market was wrong?
Do I have the right solution, but in the execution I’ve gone too far? Do only “creatives” get it this way?
Did I get it right, but my presentation was so weak, that the idea did not come across?
If you respond to any of this questions with yes, go ahead and start over.
If you fail on the first question you propably didn’t do a rebriefing.
If you fail on the second you probably applied too high standards on the “receiver” end – assuming that you understand the meaning does not imply that your client or his clients will get it. If you present to a focus group ask yourself if the focus group is the correct one.
If you didn’t present well you killed your idea by yourself.
And to switch sides another time If you are really sure about your idea and you client will not buy it, then try to sell it to its competitor. They will probably don’t buy it either, unless you tell him, that its competitor didn’t want it and if he takes it he will differentiate himself.
I stumbled across this advertising for a custom gift card producer. First watch it, then I tell you why I like it so much.
I like this spot, because it shows you what you can do with the product rather then braging about the technical aspects. To use the 3D-Card to show a before and after is not very creative (is ment to do that), but to tell a story where the twist is caused by the features the card has is very clever.
One small flaw is in the spot. How did the postman know that he is the right person? There was no stamp and no address on the back?
You want something more efficient than brain storming? The results of brain storming are not satisfying? You want alternatives where you can get great results with the least effort. Guerilla fighters are known for having a great impact without huge investments in humans or weaponry. I translated this concept into my guerilla alternatives to brain storming. …click here to continue…
People getting to work in the creative business often don’t are aware of how many times they must come up with an idea for a project. No matter how big or small a job is there is some creativity involved. Most people think that creativity is some magical thing that creative people have, and others don’t – the ideas come naturally from somewhere inside of their mind. But how can anyone relay on something magical to do business. And how can you avoid having a stall? Here some insights and tips. …click here to continue…
Brainstorming is the best known creativity tool, but still is one with the poorest result. Just because everybody uses it, doesn’t mean that anybody is doing it the right way. Even if you look around the web you will find no good source on how to get great results through Brainstorming. So let’s bring down some of the myths in order to use the tool the right way and get better results.
Sometimes it's hard to get connected with your copywriter
We have seen in the last lesson, that a copywriter is important and necessary to get good copy text and headlines. Working together with a copywriter on the other hand is sometimes harder. Here a few tips on how to get in sync with the copywriter. …click here to continue…
What is the job of an art director anyway. How is it like? And how to learn to do the things the right way in real life. I will present you here some insights and some tutorials about becomming an art director, not just a graphic designer. Tips & Tricks you won't learn in any school and normally you will have to figure them out yourself. So go ahead and start your lessons.
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If you are really sure about your idea and you client will not buy it, then try to sell it to its competitor. They will probably don’t buy it either, unless you tell him, that its competitor didn’t want it and if he takes it he will differentiate himself.
