Noisy Decent Graphics

Why I don't like Monocle

Everyone seems to like Monocle, and that's fine. But I don't.

I haven't been so excited about the launch of a magazine for sometime. I was a big fan of the original Wallpaper and Tyler Brulé was due another hit. I rushed out to buy it when it launched and brought into the office under a big fanfare.

And there it sat. Unloved and apart from the obligatory 'new magazine in the office flick through' unopened.

I've tried to think a bit harder than normal about why I don't like Monocle and I reckon I've found 3 reasons.

1. It's not the magazine I wanted.
2. It's a magazine.
3. It's not as good as the website.

1. It's not the magazine I wanted.
But then again no magazine is these days. I've always loved and read lots of magazines. When I was about 12 I used to read Look-In, Smash Hits, Q Magazine, For Him Magazine (when it was called For Him Magazine and every issue looked like a Ralph Lauren catalogue) and Vogue. I've always loved Vogue. 

That stayed broadly the same until just before university when Loaded launched. They launched with a picture of Gary Oldman on the front. Fully clothed. And no fluro anywhere.

From here on and throughout university I read a pretty stereotypical mix of Loaded, FHM, GQ, Esquire and Arena. With the occasional Vogue, Wired, Elle, Elle Decoration and Q thrown in. And of course The Face.

This was in the days when Loaded was brilliant and innovative, when FHM had (some) class and GQ and Arena still had men on the front.

As the 'lad mags' and the 'mens mags' descended into their fluro orange tit and bum hell I began to look for an alternative. Wallpaper fitted the gap nicely.

As I started work I, obviously, began to take the trade mags more seriously, Creative Review, Design Week, Campaign as well as Wallpaper, Elle Decoration, American Esquire (which is very different to UK Esquire), Fast Company and still Vogue and still Q. And of course The Face.

Then one day I got all serious and bought a copy of The Economist.

I loved it. It was simple, it was clever and it explained things in a nice way. It also had a pace about it that I liked. So I subscribed.

I read a left over copy of GQ on the plane the other day. I hated it. It felt so patronising - I was surprised at how angry I got over being told what watch to buy or what coat to wear. Obviously your tastes change as you move through different stages in your life and you don't need to be AC Nielsen to realise that the above list reflects that. Broadly speaking I was reading about my interests.

So what am I interested in now?

Design, Graphic Design, politics, greenish stuff, football (as long as it's warm and I've got a good view), the world (usual stuff like Iraq, the Middle East, Europe), being a Dad, business, running a business, what Google and Apple are up to. Technology (as long as it's the kind of technology that means I don't have to wear a tshirt with a technology logo on it) films (and I mean films, never ever DVD's), art, culture and, well, that will do won't it?

So what magazine covers all of that? None of them do, certainly Monocle doesn't. But the web does.

2. It's a magazine.
Monocle is a magazine, but it feels like a bloody Thompson directory. It weighs a ton.

(Picture borrowed from Russell Davies and then adapted by me, usual stuff applies)

I love the cover(s) and I love the black and white idea. When you open it up, bits of it are well designed. But it's still full of those horrible magazine clichés - zillions of Gucci ads before you get to the index, for example. Remember when Wallpaper used to redesign ads before they would print them?

The size really does put me off. Whereas The Economist feels light and friendly, Monocle feels like I'll get told off if I don't read the whole thing before I buy the next one.

I guess the true continuation of the reading list above is that I now get all the same information from the web. For news (political, financial and world) it's the BBC, for work I still read Creative Review but I prefer the CR Blog, Design Observer and a whole bunch of blogs.

For the odd football story there's the BBC again, but I also now look at nearly all the UK newspapers online everyday. I can also check up on IHT, Chicago Tribune and the NYT online. And so on.

So that's my magazine now. It's called the web.

3. It's not as good as the website.
Monocle has a website, Dan (not that Dan) has being talking about it for a while.

The website is brilliant. Gorgeous. Whereas I hate the ads at the start of the print version, I love the Rolex clocks on the homepage of the website. In fact it's so much better than the magazine that it puts me off buying the magazine.

Let me give you an example. On the front cover of Monocle Issue 1 is a great picture of a man in a helmet. I looked at it loads, but never wondered what it was. From the website I found out that it's a member of the Japanese Air Force.

Since the end of the Second World War the Japanese have only been allowed to have a defensive army, and now 60 years on that's beginning to look a bit out of date. Monocle travelled to Japan and interviewed various members of the Japanese army. I found that out because there was an animated slide show about the article on the website.

I could have read that in the magazine. But I didn't. And that's sort of my point really.

Never a dull moment around here 2

More flag pictures

And even more here.

Great usability or pandering to cultural ignorance?

Absolutely fantastic usability

As much as I love the Tube map, and as much as I'd hold it up as a good example of design, I often worry about how easy it is for tourists to use. That's the kind of thing I worry about.

I saw this on the Metro in Barcelona.

It's brilliant, isn't it? You know exactly where you are and exactly where you're going, no matter what language you speak. Nice and simple, nice and easy.

That's great usability.

"Good advertising is whatever works for this audience today, good design is eternal."

Richard Huntingdon (big cheese planner for WPP) has written a fabulous post about the differences between advertising and design

It's very well written and unusually for blogs and for the marketing industry it's not just a ding dong. It just talks about the differences - not we're better than you etc etc. It's all rather intelligent.

You should take a look and then contribute.

Future Marketing Summit 2007

At the start of the week I was in Romania and at the the end of the week I was in the TUC Centre.

The theme for the Future Marketing Summit this year was Integration and I was speaking on the Design panel. So let's talk about that first.

The panel consisted of me, Tim Ashton from Antidote, Douglas Broadley from Imagination, Mike Bennett from Digit and Lucy Johnston from somewhere I can't remember.

Me saying something worth writing down.

We discussed the growing importance of design in adland and why design is different and why design is important. Mike made a good point that design is very holistic in it's nature and offered up Apple as a good example (ads, stores, packaging, product, interface).

I suggested that design is still about problem solving whereas I don't think that advertising is always is. That didn't go down very well.

I also unleashed my soundbite about the value of design: imagine what would happen to GM's share price if they announced that Jonathan Ive had joined their board as Head of Design - it would go through the roof. That was better received.

We all agreed that design must be brought in earlier in any collaborative process, not added on as decoration at the end. Like all these things we could have discussed it long into the night...

The rest of the conference (summit) was really enjoyable. Lots of very clever people speaking and lots of 'big names' in the audience, in fact if you were a young person starting out in advertising the access to the top dogs was quite amazing. Where else can you walk up to Michael Wall (President of Fallon) or Rory Sutherland (Vice Chairman of Ogilvy) or Steve Henry (needs no introduction)?

I met Beeker and Famous Rob for the first time which was nice. I've met Beeker before but only really briefly. The weird thing about blogging is that they both felt like old friends already - Known Unknowns as Richard might say.

Known Unknowns - Famous Rob getting more famous.

Rob still hasn't got a job, so please give him one now. He's clever, dedicated and refreshingly he often has opinions that aren't the same as everyone else in the blogoplanoshpere. He should get a job based on that alone.

Richard and Russell were also there. Russell sat on a panel and (as you'd expect) caught the mood of the crowd well. Richard chaired a panel and was startlingly brilliant. Not many Chairs bothered with an introduction. Richard did and he even managed to shoehorn his Donald Rumsfeld quote into it. Funny and clever.

Huntingdon quotes Rumsfeld - adland gasps.

The summit kicked off with big Kevin doing his big Sisomo set piece.

I was really expecting this to be awful, it wasn't. It was OK. It was slick. Very slick.

Kevin knows how to work a stage and he knows how to work a PowerPoint. Kevin has the weirdest accent I've ever heard and as Beeker correctly points out he says some bonkers things like, "clients say to me ROI, I say to them Rinky Dink!'. But then if the Global CEO President General in Chief of Saatchi and Saatchi can't say things like that, who can?

I'll glad I saw Sisomo. I was left feeling dazzled by bullshit but I can understand why clients would go mad for Kevin's schtick.

Who else was there?

Mike from Digit was brilliant. You don't get to hear digital people talk enough at these kind of things. My favourite bit was the Sony Erickson camera phone thing. It's lovely to see online moving offline in a clever way. The Persil Dirt Is Good stuff was good too. The hairs on Richard's neck stood on end when someone said Dirt Is Good.

Tim from Antidote was good. The work they're doing is great. I saw the Shell ad they did when I was in Barcelona and I liked the concept a lot. And they are involved with We Are What We Do and the Anna Hindmarch handbag thing. All good stuff you'd liked to be involved with.

Tim from Antidote. Great presentation, terrible slide design.

Criticisms?

As always these things are too long and people speak for too long. By the end of the afternoon you can't help but get serious conference fatigue.

People always ask questions that go, 'hello, this is my cv, this is what I think, do you agree?'. That is not a question. A question is a sentence that ends with a question mark.

Beeker and Famous Rob have more reviews (Beeker here and Rob here). Rob was an official conference blogger and Beeker was semi-official conference blogger so check them out for more.

The summit was one of the dates on my World Tour, which is going well. All venues sold out. I'm back at home now having a few Lemsips and getting ready for Russell's gig on Wednesday and the big finale on Thursday.

D&AD Flag Project

I'm taking part in the D&AD Flag Project. That's Famous Rob holding my flag above.

They've sent the yellow flag to 500 creatives around the world and we have to photograph it and send it back, by April 10th.

This fraught with difficulties, obviously. 500 creatives all competing to take wanky pictures of a flag will lead to a lot of duplication and a lot of professional anxiety. Shall I photograph it on a flag pole? Too obvious. And so on.

I'm not sure what to do with my flag yet, so I've been photographing it anywhere and everywhere I can and uploading them to this Flickr set.

I can't find many people doing it on the web, in fact only one so far. Is anyone else doing it?

Good advice

A lot of blogging talk is quite frankly bollocks.

So it's great to see Richard and David passing on some good, no nonsense, nuts and bolts advice.

Richard has started a series called Uncommon Knowledge. So far we've had the En-Rule, the Combination Rule (which planners will love) and the Matter Rule (which I don't agree with).

And David has followed up with some excellent advice on text and setting type. Good work Gentlemen.

Who Killed Bambi?

At the start of the week I was in Romania, again. Their hospitality and generosity is amazing, so right at the start - thanks.

Kingsley and I popped over to help judge the Filter Design Competition and talk about being a designer, branding, The Design Conspiracy and the Sex Pistols.

So much happened it's hard to know where to start. So we'll start with some pics. More over here on the gorgeous Flickr.

The Filter Design Competition is organised by Oricum. Oricum is Romanian for "any how" and is a brilliant name for a brilliant organisation. They aim to be the most important youth organisation in Eastern Europe within 5 years. I think they'll do it. Easily.

This time we spoke inside here, the National Theatre. They have some cracking venues in Romania.

In the morning we spoke to the ten Filter finalists and gave our humble opinions on their really good work.

Then it was time for the talking. First up was Dave Brown, UK Chairman of Enterprise IG.

Then it was Ben and Kingsley (we've heard all the jokes).

 

We changed our talk the morning of the presentation. We were going to talk about us and how great we are, but that didn't really seem helpful. We'd brought along some before and after branding case studies and we photographed these on the hotel window sil and dropped them into a presentation instead.

We also VPN'd via a rogue wireless network, from the National Theatre so we could add in a video at the last minute. Gotta love that IT.

We talked about getting your first design job (hard), starting an agency, running an agency and doing a design degree. We answered loads of questions. We recorded a one and a half hour Podcast. Which will be uploaded here soon.

We were taken to some amazing bars and restaurants.

As well as being kind and generous, the Oricum guys are clever, passionate, organised and dedicated. There is an energy there that will ensure they succeed. Special thanks to Diana for organising everything.

I've (finally) made it big

You know you've made it big when someone writes a letter to Creative Review slagging you off.

Because Comment Is Free on NDG here's the full letter. Brilliant.

A Disease Not Worth Catching

Re: The Design Disease (March): I’m a designer. I too love my job. Absolutely love it. However, if I ever discover that I have turned into the obsessive, tunnel visioned, design snob that you describe in your article on page 21 of this month’s issue of CR, I will either, a, promptly jump into a bath, slash my wrists to see how my Pantone 7418 mixes with hot water and take photos of it as I slowly turn Pantone 7454, or, failing “a”, continue with my narrow-minded, authoritarian existence whilst drinking crap wine and going to George Michael gigs despite his outrageous taste in typography.

What makes my job so lovely is not only the fact that I get to draw ace pictures all day but also that I can let myself be influenced by all the brilliant things I obsess myself with outside the fickle world of design. It also helps that I get to meet an infinitely diverse array of characters along the way, some of whom, incidentally, did learn to use Photoshop and still astound me with their knowledge of it and the work they produce.

As for the line painter who produced the glorious “GIVEWAY TO PEDESTRIANS” piece [above], I really would like to meet him and take him round to Ben Terrett’s so we can have a bloody good laugh at the man who spent £400 on a set of Taschen books because they look good on his shelf.

PS This is the first time I have ever felt compelled to write to a magazine.

Never a dull moment around here

Training Design Grafic

If you're a young design student from Romania and you're looking for advice about the industry you should probably read this article called, Ten Things They Never Taught Me in Design School from Design Observer in 2004.

Has graphics hit a watershed?

Mike Dempsey (from CDT) made some interesting comments in Design Week t'other day. And it's not every day you get interesting comments in Design Week, so people took note.

He said, "Graphics has hit a watershed, not knowing which way to go from here. With all stylistic trends plundered, is there anywhere to go but backwards?"

Michael Johnson has responded with a really interesting article here. Not just about Mike's comments, but about the design industry in general. The history of the industry, the future of the industry and what it's like to be a practicing designer right now. Well worth a Saturday afternoon read.

Great Brand Stories

What seems like ages ago I won the this book from a competition on davidthedesigner's blog.

I've read it and now it's my time to pass it on.

I didn't really like the book. I've been thinking for a while about why and I think I've nailed it down to two reasons.

1. It isn't written by Innocent.
I couldn't shake the feeling that it would have been better if it had been written by Dan and the team. That's not to say it's badly written, just that the Innocent style is so distinctive and so spot on and now so familiar, I couldn't help wanting it to be written by them. Plus they've written books before and they're good.

2. It isn't written by Sathnam Sanghera.
Sathnam Sanghera is a journalist for the Financial Times. According to the book he turned up at Fruit Towers unannounced one day to see if they really were as nice as they claim to be. Possibly because I'm involved in a business and possibly because the Innocent style of writing is so good (see point one above) I'd like to have seen a book written about the brand from the point of view of a financial journalist.

Anyway. A question. Whoever answers this question correctly will receive the book next. Competition closes Monday night at midnight GMT.

What were Innocent Drinks called before they were called Innocent Drinks? 

Bad for so many reasons

Compostable Packaging Update

I know you're very excited about this, so here's a quick update on the compostable packaging.

It's been about 3 weeks I think. Very exciting isn't it? Note the earwig.

Greein(ish) Printing by Marcus Brown

Ladies and Gentlemen, Marcus Brown surely needs no introduction.

A short while ago he kindly offered to write some more information about 'green printing'. Marcus is a man of many strange and wonderful talents and currently he's a printer, so he knows what he's talking about.

Read what he has to say below. It's very good and very useful.

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Greein(ish) Printing

As Ben quite rightly pointed out commercial printing is pretty much one of the more evil things that we can do to our environment. Almost every step of the printing process, including pre and post press, impacts our environment in a negative way. There are, however, some things that both printers, clients and designers can do the minimise the overall impact and I’ll do my best to outline some of them here. I should point out that I’ve focused heavily on the UK market, so my apologies to the rest of the world.

First of all, I think it’s important that you as designers should recognise that eco-friendly print production is becoming increasingly important for your commercial clients because their consumers expect it of them.

“We spend 17 to 20 Million GBP per annum on print […] We would regard a formal demonstration of some environmental credentials as a base line; probably ISO 14001, or it could be the BPIF scheme” […] “The environmental issue is a hurdle that any printer would need to jump”
Peter Phippen, Managing director, BBC magazines*

“We simply won’t consider any new suppliers unless they have that (ISO 14001) accreditation”
David Shorto, print and paper buyer Greenpeace.*

“All of our printers will be required to conform to our paper purchasing policy”
Sonjeeta Mahapatra, Internal Communication manager, McDonalds.*

*Source: PrintWeek Guide: Environment

Over the years I have met with numerous blue chip companies to discuss their multimillion pound print spends and the eco issue gains importance with every passing month. So if you buy print for your clients get ready for the eco-procurement push. Better still; instigate it.

Good green printers and how to spot the buggers.

There are two printers in the UK that have an outstanding track record for being green. First up is, of course, Beacon Press in East Sussex. It has around 100 different initiatives such as energy reduction (think of the amount of electricity it takes to power a printing plant), water conservation, reduction in the use of chemicals, emissions and waste (I’ll come to this later as this is something that designers can actually help minimise), that have steadily reduced it’s impact on the environment and has become the benchmark for all commercial printers in the UK. Beacon only uses vegetable based inks reduced it’s water consumption by 63% and has policies in place that has reduce it’s overall waste by 84%. And to top it all it’s they are really bloody good at printing.

The second printer is Posthouse Printing (also trades as Big Sky) based in Scotland. It’s situation in the middle of a conservation site for heavens sake so and is the only UK based printing that is powered by, wait for it, wind. They have some excellent tips on their website and it’s well worth a look.

If you’re looking to find a green(ish) printer in your area there are a couple of things that you need to look out for. First up they really should have an EMS (Environmental Management System) which is a written policy outlining how they approach environmental issues. If they don’t have one, or will not give you it don’t use them. Then there are two accreditations that you’ll need to watch out for; ISO 14001 (International Standards Organisation) which is bloody hard to get and the FSC (Forestry Stewardship Council) which promotes forest management (trees – wood – paper). You can’t just get any old printer to print on FSC papers, they must have this accreditation.

You know those horrible print rep’s that turn up when you least expect them trying to flog you print? Here are some questions that you can ask them to see how green they are? How do you manage waste? Do you use waterless printing or vegetable based inks? Do you recycle your litho plates (these are made of aluminium) or crush your ink cans before they’re collected? How much paper do you recycle a month (we recycle 120 tonnes of paper a month)?  If the sales rep can’t answer these questions tell him to bugger off. In fact, my little tip for you is that you ask him these questions before he gets past the foyer. A blank look on his face means that these issues aren’t important to their business and he should take his pots and pans elsewhere.

Another thing you should do is go to the printer and have a good look around. Meet the people working there and make sure they’re happy. I know this sounds silly, but eco-friendly, ISO accredited printers, are usually clean, happy friendly places. Happy people do better work. People who are miserable and high on chemical fumes don’t.

How designers can help.

You can be the greenest printer in the world, but if the designer has come up with a format that doesn’t match the printing press you will impact the environment with waste. Remember we carry off 120 tonnes of waste paper every single month and that’s optimised! Of course it get’s recycled but the truck that picks it up is big, smelly and leaves a big black cloud of diesel dust behind him so we only want him to come when it’s absolutely necessary.

As a designer, you have a responsibility to get to know you printer and his kit, and work together with the printer to come up with the perfect format that creates as little waste as possible. Don’t leave this to your “people who buy print”. You need to do it yourself. You need to get in there, and learn a new craft. Your bespoke design solutions impact the environment more heavily than you will ever know and knowing the printing kit will help you to produce cool work AND be green. It will also increase your margins because it’s more cost effective.

When you start to build a new relationship with a green print supplier it will help both parties if you audit the last twelve months of your total print spend. Look at formats, colours used, special finishes, varnishes, volumes, delivery destinations and substrates and discuss with your printer ways of optimising the things you do.

I think this is actually the most important part of it all. You, as a designer, are as much part of the sustainability picture as the printer is. It’s a partnership and one that both sides have to work on. Because sometimes, design arrogance can lead to massive, stupid, waste.

Hope that helped.

Barcelona vs Real Madrid through the eyes of a graphic designer

I thought it best to put the pics on Flickr. And so here they are.

Pantone handbag

I'd love to tell you about this new Pantone handbag.

It's the perfect gift for someone with the disease.

It sounds like a good idea and it lends itself to good window displays.

I've seen it in real life and I've taken the pictures above but I just can't find out anything about it. Pantone sell their own handbags and German Vogue have an article about the Mango ones, but the translation doesn't really make any sense.

Can anyone shed any light?