Another cameo by M.I.A.'s Web site

I found this article in ID magazine, a design industry trade magazine that my roommate subscribes to (and is awesome) about a trend in web design with designers choosing deliberately tacky, 'old-school' designs. From an artistic perspective, I kind of dig the so-ugly-it's-amazing element to the site's, but from a communications one, it's a bit trickier, I think. Although I noticed that the MIA Web site was actually surprisingly navigable considering all the crap going on, it was still far from user-friendly, which begs the question of how edgy can a Web site be while still getting your message to viewers?

http://www.id-mag.com/article/BacktotheFuture

Site navigation

I found a site that has a bunch of navigation shemes. Thought it might be helpful

site mock-up

Hey guys

Quick question: Katie said we should use Illustrator when doing our site mock-up for tomorrow, right?

Hope everyone's having a delightful evening!

Web site inspiration

I found this Web site when brainstorming ideas for my own. It shows some picks for the top 10 Web sites in the world. They seem to agree with Katy in design ideas because their number one choice is apple. Check it out!

10 best designed Web sites in the world

Annual Reports, UW Style

UW-Madison's annual report from 2006-2007. It seems pretty basic to me -- the color scheme is something the university has been doing online for awhile, with the red and gold, and the layout is relatively unimaginative (Where are the pictures going to be? My guess is right-aligned) I also don't really get the blue font with the red and gold accents -- it seems like a strange departure from a familiar color scheme. I like the use of bolding throughout the body text, though.

http://www.chancellor.wisc.edu/AR2007/about.html

A side note: The picture of the Theta Chi fraternity on page 16 is one I dug up for a University Communications story from the archives. If you can ever make it in there, the archives at Steenbock have some of the coolest historical photos. Just boxes and boxes of history tucked away in one of the more obscure libraries on campus.

OMG, does it really get worse than this?

Alright friends, brace yourselves for this one. This gives the "World's Worst Website" a serious run for its money. It's the unfortunate mistake of M.I.A., a UK hip hop group. I defy anyone to maneuver past the homepage, let alone attempt to find any relevant information. WARNING: do not stay on it for too long. I don't want anybody to seizure or suffer from a brain aneurysm on my behalf.

http://www.miauk.com/

Just a quick note

The third button on the posting menu, a green dot with a chain link, will create hyperlinks so people can go directly to a site instead of having to copy and past the link. That may also solve some of the formatting issues people have been having with links that extend past their posting box.

Best Band Logos

Here is a fun little link to the best logos of all time (some of which I considered when creating my band logo for this class):
http://www.spinner.com/2008/02/15/best-band-logos-no-25/

Ethics and Photo Editing

Check out these two images from the two Detroit papers' sites (click to link to site). Both have text stories about the possible suicide of a news anchor that read pretty much the same. But the photo editing choice of deciding to run her promotional headshot vs. her police mugshot changes the way the story plays on the page.
Which would you have run?

NYT infographic

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/02/23/movies/20080223_REVENUE_GRAPHIC.html

I found this infographic to be really interesting as it shows movie revenues over the years. Although it looks complicated at first, the instructions on how to understand the graphic make it much easier to comprehend. I thought this was an interesting way to show industry trends over time.

Logo Redesigns

I found this interesting site about best and worst logo redesigns. Some of these logos included big names such as at&t, KFC, etc. I just thought it was interesting that I didn't even realize that some of these logos were actually redesigned at all!

http://www.aclevercookie.com/the-best-and-worst-logo-remakes-of-the-century/

Awesome logo

I was at Houlihan's this weekend with my mom, and I saw a centerpiece promoting VH1's Save the Music program (they're donating all profits from their delicious mini-desserts to the program, so you can feel good about ordering three... I did), and I noticed that Save the Music has a really neat logo design, so I thought I'd put it up here.

Transfering Logo to InDesign

I know we may have discussed this in class but does anyone know the best way to use an Illustrator logo in InDesign? I have just been copying and pasting it, but I've noticed it looks all jagged. I changed the view to the highest quality, and it still occurs. If the solution is photoshop, how do you take just your illustrator logo and make it into a jpeg of the correct size?

Thanks,
Clare

You've taken us to the moon, now take us through your website

For whatever random reason, I was looking at the NASA website (http://www.nasa.gov) just now and was struck by some of the navigational faux paus we discussed in class. First off, there are three navigational options that would confuse anyone (even a rocket scientist). Secondly, NASA misjudges common human reasoning that says web designers put the most important information on the homepage. Most of the homepage material seems like the more entertainment-based stuff, which doesn't seem appropriate for a branch of the US Government.

PS If you ever want to remember what bad sites look like, google "(insert state here) department of education." These are some real threats to human reasoning.

Interactive Name Trends

Here is a cool example of interactive. Drawing from the UW census bureau you can get do a real time review of the 1000 most popular names since the tracking started in the 1890's. It shows a line chart of how the name has ranked over the century. I'm not making it sound that cool but it is! Go see!

http://www.babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html

Web design examples

This site shows lots of different of Web design examples. It was created by people trying to lure print graphic designers to the Web. Each page uses the exact same content but has different design layouts.

You can click on the links to the right to view different layouts. It has some bad ideas but a lot of good ones as well.

www.csszengarden.com

Cows are important too

http://www.designobserver.com/archives/031854.html

I found this story while browsing Gawker this afternoon. It discusses the importance of cover design for all magazines—even dairy trade magazines.

lecture links

WP street racing: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2008/02/16/GA2008021602416.html

everyblock: http://www.everyblock.com/

newsweek wildfires: http://www.newsweek.com/id/61516

nyt data project: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2007/11/25/nyregion/20071125_DNAI_FEATURE.html

liberians in minnesota: http://www.startribune.com/local/11608761.html

cost of cashmere: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/chi-china-cashmere-flash,0,3780800.flash

ethics and design

this is a great piece on ethical considerations in developing breaking-news infographics that also applies to multimedia.

Text as art

I just thought I'd share this blog post about the recent trend in text as art. I remember learning about this concept in a design fundamentals class-- just one more reason to get good at typography!
Here's the link:
http://www.designspongeonline.com/2008/02/mini-trend-numbers-and-letters.html

Photoshop Podcast

I found a resource that can help keep your Photoshop skills sharp. It's a videocast (podcast with video) called "Photoshop Wednesdays." Each week they give a mini tutorial (less than 5 minutes) on some aspect of Photoshop, one tool or one concept. The video portion is a follow-along of the computer screen, like what we see in class. And it's free!

You can find it by doing a search in the iTunes store for Photoshop Wednesdays. (Actually, if you just search for Photoshop you'll find lots of podcasts, but I can't vouch for those.) If you don't use iTunes, I think you can also subscribe at the website of the people who produce the podcast at oneminutetip.com. Enjoy!

InDesign Color Format

I'm working on a file and I suspect I may have accidentally made it RGB rather than CMYK. But I can't remember how to:
a) Check on that or
b) Change it if I need to.

If you know, please tell me!

White Paper on White Space

The following excerpt is from a new e-newsletter I get on marketing topics. This one is on the subject of white space in design. I downloaded the white paper that they reference and found the study and an interesting discussion of the social history of white space as visual rhetoric. Thought I’d share.

(From "Get to the Point" an e-newsletter from Marketing Profs.com)
---------------------------------------------------------------

How Saying the Least May Achieve the Most

Clearly the things you say and show in an ad can convey something about your product. But how about what you don't say or show?

A study has revealed that ads containing considerable white space lead customers to perceive the advertised product as more prestigious, sophisticated, trustworthy, higher in product quality and leadership, and lower in risk than the same ad without white space.

Researchers note that these associations hark back to the minimalist movement, a reaction against artwork perceived as deceptive or full of illusion. In advertising, the less-is-more approach to graphics is a response to the text-heavy, authoritative, "scientific" or "information"-type ads of the early to mid-20th century—examples of which include, for instance, extolling the digestive benefits of smoking Camels or drinking Schlitz beer. The removal of excessive imagery and language makes the information in the ad appear more truthful, and makes the advertiser appear as if it has nothing to hide.

The Po!nt: If you are trying to create a sophisticated and trustworthy brand image, consider saying less—not more—in the ads you create.

Source: "How Nothing Became Something: White Space, Rhetoric, History, and Meaning" John W. Pracejus, G. Douglas Olsen, and Thomas C. O'Guinn. Journal of Consumer Research, 2006. Click here for a PDF of the report.

how google got its logo

There is a really interesting piece on wired.com about how google got its now-famous logo, with the evolution of different types and designs and the story behind them.

This was the first version of Google's logo:










Who knows what the world would be like if they had gone with this:

Hillary can't resist Axe

Thought this new ad campaign by Axe brought up a lot of issues... just to name a couple: a cheap shot at the only female candidate in the race and the very obvious alteration of a photo.

http://jezebel.com/355158/scent-of-a-woman

There's also another ad where the Obama pin is replaced with a McCain one. Axe smells good, but not that good.

Illustrator document into Indesign

Hey guys,

I didn't have a chance to ask in class today but I thought maybe someone would know why I can't open my logo in InDesign without it being really weird looking with jaggy edges and some parts of the logo not even visible. I tried copy and pasting it, opening it in InDesign, dragging it in, etc. Maybe I'm not doing it right??

Software aids

Hey all,

After today's Photoshop training there seemed to be a lot that there wasn't time to cover, so I figured I would give a plug to my job...

I work for group in DoIT called Software Training for Students(STS). We teach courses in various software such as Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver, etc. If you want to know more you can take the classes, but something that may be of even more use, you can download the manuals for our classes as well as practice files from the STS Web site. www.wisc.edu/sts

You can then keep them around for later reference. Before I graduate I am going to make sure I download all of them to a CD just in case I ever need them.

Some of the topics such as layer masks and some of the image retouching tools that we were not able to cover can be found in the Photoshop 2 and 3 classes.

Politics and Site Design

A 202er led me to a great piece today, comparing the Obama and Clinton campaign sites to the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" campaign. What do you think of it?

too easy to be hard

I'm working on my stationary package on a library computor, but when i open a new documnent, it asks for measurments in picas. i don't see anywhere to switch it. this is too easy a question to be hard, but i'm stuck

Tech logos

Check out this post I got from an alum. Covers the evolution of tech company logos. You might also get some ideas for revising your identities.

Get rid of parts!?

Ok, I'm pretty sure we learned this today in class, but how do i get rid of a section of my image that i don't want...?

Jezebel link

Here's the link to the Faith Hill coverage on Jezebel.

Maxim's Print People

After learning of the importance of a a crew of good print people, I realized that Maxim's print people either suck big time or got layyyzayyy.

How much trouble can a print company get in for messing something up this badly? How often does such a disgrace go unnoticed?

The pages' edges weren't cut straight and the headings were cut off on a lot of the pages. You can even see the CMYK color guide thing at the bottom of the pages!

Nicely done Superbowl ad

While I was busy procrastinating and watching Superbowl ads online, I came across this one for the new Yukon hybrid SUV.

http://creativity-online.com/work/view?seed=zaEcZCHr&playlist=428

I think this one really stuck out from the crowd because it is so simple and the images, while really only combinations of black lines, help greatly in getting the message across. Even though the design is abstract, you know the story behind the man who is continuously pushing pebbles up a hill and so you understand what they're getting at without them having to come right out and say it.

I thought it was really effective.

Package Printing

Since we have begun our discussion on printing, I've noticed that food packaging (wrappers for granola bars, containers of butter, for example) always have all the colors (CMYK) used on the package printed in circles or squares beside one another somewhere on the packaging. Why is this?

Ads too obscene?

As I was reading through some news Web site I came across this gem.
http://hamptonroads.com/node/452689

Apparently a Abercrombie & Fitch store had two in store displays confiscated by police and the manager was given a citation for obscenity for the displays.

I guess that answers some questions talked about in J-School classes concerning whether or not ads are becoming too sexually charged.