FastCo redesigns test drive it on the article ‘Designers who found startups‘

If you haven’t read this Creative Review article already, you should. What you get for a $42 logo. 

A year in review of typefaces for 2011

The internet, at this time in history, is the greatest client assignment of all time. It’s offering you a blank check and asking you to come up with something fascinating and useful that it can embrace en masse, to the benefit of everyone.
—Ben Pieratt, Svpply
Read the full ALA Article. 

1919-1949 Polish graphic design.

Adobe has launched proto app for touch devices, starting with Android release only.

10 New Year’s resolutions for designers | Feature | .net magazine

The Restart Page – Free unlimited rebooting experience from vintage operating systems

Band posters redesigned Swiss style. swissted.com

Goodbye 2011, this is what the hype was all about.

Back to the future past. Siri Bluetooth hack

It’s actually quite nice, not so convinced on the use. Decide for yourself.

What we googled

Ridiculous?

List out now.

Julia Hoffmann writes about MoMA & the benefits of handling a brand in-house.

Authentic jobs have created a solid app for creative jobs. > Authentic Jobs

Where it all started.

Nice little project on taking brands back to the basics.
Minimalist effect in the maximalist market on the Behance Network 

Video interview with Khoi on THE GRID.

The perfect present for the graphic design Boss. Bodoni Girl

Looks some what interesting, layer vault.

Apple Insider has a early beta preview of the new interface. 

Khoi Vinh recently released Mixel a scrapbook application for iPad. It’s a free download but requires a Facebook account for login.

A interview with Debbie Millman on her new book Brand Thinking. Debbie is the president of the AIGA. Read at idsgn.

Showcase of DesignUnit studio

10,000 feet of Graphic Design, at the Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center.

via today & tomorrow

Caution contains infographic.

Ex Apple employees create Nest – A learning Thermostat. The ‘About’ page is really well done.

The Occupied Times of London. At CR

A whole bunch of designers are pissed at Moleskine, fair enough.

7 Things (Pentagram Partner) Michael Bierut loves about design.
1. Incredibly Short [Design] Briefs
When Robert Stern became the head of Yale School of Architecture, there was panic in the halls that a new reign of fusty neoclassicism dawned. Instead, when commissioning Bierut to work on a new identity for the school, Stern simply said “I just want to surprise people.” The result: an identity which never uses the same typeface twice. The only consistency, said Bierut, is “lack of consistency.” Bold, memorable, clever

Full article at Thought you should see this.

Speaker line up has been announced for 2012 along with the ability to purchase tickets.

Beta5 has some nice new branding.  (via SeeSaw )

Brave new site for Darling Agency NYC

A siri duet.

Yet another font game. cheeseorfont.com

Project Neon iPhone app that allows fellow neon fans to locate some of NYC’s finest signs for themselves.

More at Creative Review.

Give it a shot.

This project shows what a font would look like if it consisted of all typefaces installed on my system. Every character from a to z is drawn using every single font with a low opacity. In total there are over 900 typefaces in my library. I didn’t exclude the ugly ones.

Moritz Resl / Average Font

Paris-based designer charlie nghiem has reinterpreted the user interface of the digital camera. Getting rid of buttons all together, a stacked cylinder composed of several rotating parts allows users to choose their settings. when a section is spun, a corresponding line appears on the screen. All the functions are the same, however, accessing it is made simple. the column is also ergonomic, taking into consideration the movement and positioning of the fingers and hands.

Design Boom

Not sure how practical these are but you can see it sitting in your bag right. Field Folio for iPad

Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Of course thats a quote from Steve Jobs a computer engineer and industrialist at Apple.  Our misfit and rebel this week is Janine Wareham, a talented artist and illustrator who produced the cover of The Drum magazine for Streamtime this week – a UK publication with the latest in creative marketing and media. Last year Janine also produced a 3.5m wide artwork for Streamtime at a creative conference in her home town of Auckland and we have a video of that being created over here on a page dedicated to Janine’s work.

Every week for as long as we feel like it, we will randomly pick a company that’s called through to our support team and hook them up with an office shout – a few beers and wines for the team on a friday afternoon… Nothing says “hey we appreciate you” like beer…

This week the “Streamtime-beer-and-wine-because-you-deserve-it-friday-shout” goes to Daren and his team at Ashcroft Creative Design in Cheshire, UK.

To all our other clients – keep calling us if you need anything or want extra training, or just want to know helpful hints on Streamtime – because you never know – you may be our next weekly winner.  All our support contact details are here on our website and we operate around the clock support from our London, Manchester, Ghent, Sydney and Christchurch based offices.

I feel okay about having no idea what this is… 

Nasa Graphics Standards Manual.

I was recently talking to a fellow studio owner about changes in our industry. I said that we were finding more and more clients wanting strategic marketing advice along with their design. He retorted that he had set up a marketing arm to offer this type of service specifically.

The fact is we are now all marketers.

In 2009 McKinsey&Company staffers David Court, Dave Elzinga, Susan Mulder, and Ole Jørgen Vetvik, released the results of research conducted with more than 20,000 customers across five industries and three continents. Their research showed that the buying process is now collaborative and this makes it difficult to influence customers if relying solely on one-way, push advertising.

This may mean that design studios must not only recognise that everyone is responsible for marketing but also impose some kind of accountability on all studio members. In essence, studios need to become marketing vehicles. The new business development/account service will look different: there will be a greater distribution of existing marketing tasks to other other parts of the studio. This is in part necessary because our clients are now sourcing services in a different way; they have become empowered consumers.

Empowered consumers

Our potential clients now outreach for information, services and products. Marketing used to be driven by companies; “pushed” on consumers through traditional advertising, direct marketing, sponsorships, and other channels. At each point marketers would attempt to sway their decisions.

In today’s decision journey, consumer-driven marketing is increasingly important as customers seize control of the process and actively “pull” information helpful to them.

The McKinsey research found that “two-thirds of the touch points during the active-evaluation phase involve consumer-driven marketing activities, such as Internet reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family, as well as in-store interactions and recollections of past experiences. A third of the touch points involve company-driven marketing. Traditional marketing remains important, but the change in the way consumers make decisions means that marketers must move aggressively beyond purely push-style communication and learn to influence consumer-driven touch points, such as word-of-mouth and Internet information sites.”

For design studios this means turning all employees into marketers who have the potential to develop word of mouth referrals and ‘sell’ our services.

Article republished with permission from dmzine

Tribal DDB studio. Made from 35% felt.

Our team had a great night last night in Melbourne at the annual Desktop Create Awards.  You can see all of the winners here but we’d like to make special mention to our clients who picked up 1/4 of the awards given out on the night – well done guys!!!

IDENTITY/BRANDING

Winner: Mentally Friendly
mentallyfriendly.com
CATC Design School Branding
Client: Think Education Group

ILLUSTRATION

Winner: Naughtyfish Design
naughtyfish.com.au
Moonlight Cinema Season 2010/11 Illustrations
Client: Moonlight Cinema

PACKAGING

Highly Commended: Voice
voicedesign.net
Longview Vineyard Wines Magnums
Client: Longview Vineyard Wines

PRINT COMMERCIAL

Winner: Principle Design
principledesign.com.au
Birds Australia Annual Report
Client: Birds Australia

Highly Commended: Boccalatte
boccalatte.com
Point
Client: Performance Space

SUSTAINABILITY

Winner: Principle Design
principledesign.com.au

Highly Commended: Boheem
boheem.com.au

TYPOGRAPHY

Highly Commended: Büro North
buronorth.com
Myer
Client: Bligh Voller Neild (BVN)