Noisy Decent Graphics

Simple, getting simpler

Sarah, Head of Content at GDS, sent me this the other day. You should read it, it's good.

"There's not much here. Just words. And you're reading them. We've become obsessed with fancy designs, responsive layouts, and scripts that do magical things."

Go read it.

 

At GDS we've always been about making things simpler but there seems to be an increased focus on that at the moment.

What do I mean by simple?

Think about the time you used the web and you just wanted to know the football score. You didn't want any flashy animations or videos, or any innovative UI, you just wanted information - fast.

Or the time you needed to know the opening times of a restaurant, or the postcode of that office you were on the way to. Think about when you used a cashpoint and you just wanted £20. You didn't want to check your balance, or print a receipt or win tickets to the World Cup. You just wanted £20.

That's what I mean by simple.

(I know that's not easy to achieve, which is why the principle is Do the hard work to make it simple.)

More on this later.

Talent spotters

Illustrations by Amber Anderson, I think. Photo by Rachael Steven, I think.

It's impossible getting to all the student shows. Creative Review have a good thing called Talent Spotters where people send in reviews of student shows. There isn't a tag to group them all but there a few here, here, here and here. There are lots more. It's a good idea. Once again proving that CR are doing analogue and digital in complimentary ways.

One of the top 5 most impressive people we know

GDS is about more than design

We’ve won some design awards recently which is very flattering and has meant lots of people want to write about design at GDS, which is also flattering.

The downside is that I get lots of emails asking the same questions.

GDS is about much, much more than design. Design is a key part (and my bit) but it’s just one part of what we’re doing.

As an organisation we have a very open culture, the boss has a phrase, “publish don’t send” and so in the spirit of that I've published some links to the basic facts about GDS.

Firstly, I would read my colleague Russell’s blog post about GDS. That sets out the basics http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/2013/04/the-unit-of-delivery.html

Secondly, you should watch this video the Guardian made last week. That gives you a glimpse inside GDS and has interviews with our Minister, Francis Maude and the boss, Mike Bracken. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/video/2013/jun/13/geeks-opened-up-government-video

Then if you need hard numbers check out these links:

Digital Strategy

Digital Efficiency report

Transactions Explorer

The Digital by Default Service manual

Martha Lane Fox's report 

The GDS blog

Our design principles which Tim O'Reilly compared to Apple's human interface guidlines in the 80s

And of course, the product, GOV.UK

UPDATES:

Here's a list of all of the 25 exemplar services we are transforming and how they're progressing

Watch this video of Mike's talk at the Code for America Summit October 2013.

Good interview with Mike on the NPR blog.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek cover story on Healthcare.gov "The British learned from their mistakes. The disaster empowered Francis Maude, the minister for the cabinet office, to bring in technologist Mike Bracken to overhaul how the British government did IT. Today, gov.uk is something of a wonder."

New York Times OpEd by Clay Johnson and Harper Reed, "we need to create our own Government Digital Service."

Mike Bracken's reading list "Reading the digital revolution" 

 

All you need to know about branding

Well, it will get you most of the way at any rate.

 

It's a great city

We cycled around London the other night. 100k loop from Crystal Palace to Alexandra Palace and back again.

Timehop told me that we did the same last year and I tweeted how wonderful London is. Russell just blogged, "Whoever you are, wherever you've been, London has beautiful corners you haven't seen."

It's a great city. I am fortunate to live here.

 

Alan Fletcher archive

In case you haven't seen it, an online archive of Alan Fletcher's work has gone live. It's a lovely thing and a rich resource of picture and writing by friends and collaboraters.

alanfletcherarchive.com

 

 

Beano brand guidelines

Brand guidelines are usually rubbish. Too long, too complicated, a hindrance when they should be a help. (that's why we wrote Design Principles and then the Service Design Manual.)

But these are different. These are brilliant. Particularly the alphabet.

Full story here, full guidelines as a PDF here.

 

 

Tropicana seems to be advertising its Tube ads on Facebook

More red on red art direction

Why?

One theory is that it looks OK on screen but the designers aren't thinking about the low fidelity printing on the 48 sheet.

Previously.

 

No Email Day

Last Thursday was No Email Day in ERG, the bit of the Cabinet Office GDS sits in. It's easy to mock such an initiative, but I thought it was great.

There is too much email in your life.

Whenever email goes down, or there's a powercut like there was when I was still at w+k, people are delighted to have the chance to stop emailing and get back to working. Here's what Neil wrote during the famous powercuts of 2010.

"It's amazing just how much extra time you have when there's no email."

 

It's easy to romanticise this too, clearly no email at all would be a massive pain in the arse. But less would be good. And mostly the problem is because we tend to use email as a task list rather than a messaging service. We should stop doing that.

Luckily GDS is already pretty light on email, there's certainly less than anywhere else I've worked. This is partly becuase the boss encourages us to "publish not send" and partly because we believe in sticking stuff on the wall.

Last Thursday I set an auto reply to say I wasn't looking at email all day and to call or come and find me instead. Worked a treat. I'm going to do it again this week. Maybe it will become A Thing and we'll all start to look at Thursdays differently, and more importantly start to use Thursdays differently.

 

Work for Bloomberg BusinessWeek

ATT: THE WORLD'S ILLUSTRATORS/ARTISTS/DESIGN GRADUATES we're looking for new blood-mail your work to [email protected] (pls RT)

— Richard Turley (@Mr_Turley) April 29, 2013

Previously.

 

I *may* have been guilty of saying "make it like Google" in the past

I am grateful I work with smart people, who take the right approach to solving problems.

Really Decent Books are looking for new illustrators

A friend of mine has started a publishing company concentrating on books for kids. Or as they say,

"We produce books for babies, toddlers and children about the things we love – learning, stories and, most importantly, fun! We believe in a thing called quality – in making books that last longer. We integrate innovative design and editorial to create high-quality illustrated books. We make books we love and believe in."

They are looking for new illustrators and I thought some of you might be interested, if you are contact Phil direct - phil dot dauncey at reallydecentbooks.co.uk

 

GOV.UK wins D&AD nomination

We've been nominated for a pencil in the Writing for Design / Websites & Digital Design category of D&AD.

Have judged a few times, I know how rigorous the process is and how bloody hard it is to win one. Fingers crossed.

 

"Britain’s world class design talent standing out on the global stage"

On Tuesday night GOV.UK won Design of the Year. Which is pretty incredible. I've written about it on the GDS blog and you can see lots of the press coverage here, including an article from the Daily Mail which calls the website boring.com and Gizmodo who've redesigned the site as they imagine the Daily Mail would like it too look.

And here's what the Prime Minister had to say, "I am delighted that the GOV.UK website has won the Design of The Year award in 2013. This government is committed to being the most transparent in the world. For the first time, people can find out what’s happening inside government, all in one place, and in a clear and consistent format. It is just another example of Britain’s world class design talent standing out on the global stage; in this case helping to enhance the modern relationship between the public and government."

There is still a lot of work to do. As the boss would say - onwards!

Newspaper Club samples

Want to print a newspaper with Newspaper Club? Not sure? Not sure which size? Not sure what the print quality is like? Not sure how the colours turn out?

Request a sample.

Small post in praise of the Hailo logo

I've not used the service in anger, but lots of people tell me it's very good.

I want to talk about the logo for a little bit. 

It's great, isn't it? Simple, fun, tonally right. Works well on apps, on the side of cabs, on leaflets. The form does a reasonable job of describing the function. It even has a touch of humour about it.

I walked past a Hailo driver office today. That looked good too. There even looked like there was a place to get your cab washed out the back.

All good. Bigger brands could learn from this small one.

(The blog is worth a read too.)

 

It's going well

Making a newspaper with the kids this Easter.

Lichtenstein at the Tate Modern

Obviously it's brilliant. Really good. New and old stuff, but all the blockbusters you'd want to see. Lots of paintings, value for money. Not too cramped. Some sketches.

Go. But make sure you book.