Graphic designers spill their career secrets in infographics
EVERY PROFESSION IS PRONE to the occasional bout of navel gazing, and graphic design is no exception. Proof: a new book from publishers GraphicDesign& called Graphic Designers Surveyed is an in-depth look at the profession. Graphic designers Lucienne Roberts and Rebecca Wright enlisted the help of sociologist Nikandre Kopcke to help them craft a survey that would probe respondents for their experiences as designers, and how they really feel about their profession.
There were questions about education, income, and the differences between men and women in the field. Some, like the ones featured in the gallery above, probed more deeply than others. Others, like what’s your favorite Pantone color, were more silly. In total, nearly 2,000 designers from the US and UK responded, creating a decent chunk of data that design studio Lucienne Roberts+ used to craft a book full of infographics, while data designer Stefanie Posavec (of the Dear Data project) worked on some of the more complex data visualizations.
The findings aren’t science, exactly. The survey was distributed through graphic design websites, and the respondents were self-selecting, which gives the whole thing an inherent bias towards the young, web-savvy set. Regardless, it’s a creative book that provides some real insight on where the industry stands today.
Some key takeaways:
Graphic design is young: 85% of respondents were under 40
Surprise! Men make more than women: In the UK men were six times as likely to earn more than £60k /year.
It’s a bit of a boys’ club: 48% of women thought that graphic design had a masculine culture
Graphic designers work hard: 58% work more than 40 hours a week, and 78% say they worked more hours than they were paid for.
It’s not great money: On average graphic designers made less than their partners and worked longer hours.
But people in the industry are generally pretty happy: 55% said they’re happy with their career, but 85% would recommend graphic design as a profession to a friend.
New Contenders Join Mozilla’s Grand Experiment in Logo Design
MOZILLA IS ON the prowl for a new logo, and now has four new contenders. They include a serif-ed play on http urls, a fireworks-like set of cogs, a flame, and an abstracted dinosaur face, with the “o” in Mozilla for an eye.
These designs represent the third stage of a four-part process that started in June. That’s when the open-source software company announced it would conduct its rebranding in public, online. Branding almost always happens behind closed doors, but Mozilla wanted a more inclusive approach. So it hired London firm Johnson Banks and asked its designers to publish its various unfinished ideas for the new logo online, where commenters could weigh in on the designs.
By inviting feedback from the public, Mozilla hopes to preempt the circus of criticism that usually follows a logo refresh. “Honestly, in today’s world, more than 50 percent of people usually say they hate new logos,” said creative director Tim Murray, when we spoke to him last month. “We thought: Well, let’s give people a chance to participate earlier on.”
It seems Mozilla is really listening. Since last month, it’s trimmed and refined its original seven concepts to these four new ones. In a blog post, Murray acknowledges the public’s confusion over certain complicated logos, and its affection for dinosaur-themed ones. At a glance, it would also appear that between public feedback and internal review, Mozilla is now targeting a simpler, flatter logo for its final look.
If you agree with that, let Mozilla and friends know. If you don’t agree, then definitely say so. Seriously, they want you to.
John Maeda on What Really Matters in the World of Design
LAST YEAR AT South by Southwest, John Maeda, a design partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, presented his inaugural Design in Tech report. In a slideshow modeled after Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends reports, he showed that design has indeed become integral to the business of technology. Figures like 27 (the number of designer-founded companies acquired by giants like Google and Facebook), and $13 billion (last year’s valuation for Airbnb, a company founded by designers), helped make Maeda’s case.
Maeda presented his second Design in Tech report Monday, again at SXSW. In his wide-lens look at the industry, Maeda doubled down on his original thesis: That big businesses want, need, and will pay for design. He supported his argument with data on mergers and acquisitions: This year, he counted 42 design firms that have been acquired since 2004. Roughly half of those transactions happened in the last year, and Accenture, Deloitte, and IBM—not companies you’d traditionally associate with design—were the main purchasers. “I’ve been arguing for a while that the Fortune 500 companies, they’re interested in design but don’t know how to get it,” Maeda tells WIRED. “The easiest way is through a consulting service. McKinsey, Accenture, or whatever. Consulting firms, in order to build capacity for this demand, have been doing so by acquiring design companies, because they can’t grow them in house.”
But this year’s Design in Tech report is more than a 2015 redux. Not to give away the ending, but Maeda closes on a slide highlighting the “Three Kinds of Design” currently at play. There’s design (“classical design”), business (“design thinking”), and technology (“computational design”). The last two have to do with creating products with empathy for the customer, and keeping pace with current paradigms in technology, respectively. They also tend to have more reach. Where classic design might impact a million active users, design thinking and computational design stand to affect hundreds of millions. What’s more, classic design projects tend to be finite; whether it’s a building or a page layout, once they’re built, they’re done. In business or technology design, the product is always evolving. “The three categories above are co-dependent,” Maeda notes on the slide. But it’s the last two categories—the ones linked to business and technology—that are growing most rapidly.
On the business side of things, design thinking has become an invaluable tool for companies looking to empathize with (and capitalize on) underserved markets. Take Bevel, former Foursquare executive Tristan Walker’s haircare and shaving line designed specifically for men with coarse and curly hair. Or Progyny, a digital platform for fertility health and information about IVF treatment and egg-freezing options. These companies aren’t as well-known as, say, Snapchat, but they’re deploying well-designed systems that cater to underserved markets. These companies, Maeda says, are ones that have established trust and spurred “social transformation.”
Speaking of Snapchat, Maeda singles it out when spotlighting the reach and rapid evolution of computational design. Snapchat clearly recognizes its core appeal, and offers it to users quickly and seamlessly; rather than ask you to swipe or push a button to access your phone’s camera, it opens by dropping you right into the app’s hallmark function. At the same time, the company is nimble and relentless in its pursuit of novel features (consider the success of speed overlays, geofilters, and selfie lenses). These invisible, ever-evolving experiences are what make Snapchat work.
When big companies ask for design, these are the kinds of results they’re likely hoping for. Maeda points out that, while corporate interest in design is certainly a good thing, there’s a supply and demand problem. When consulting companies set out to boost their design chops, they’re not necessarily looking for classically trained graphic artists, architects, or industrial designers. More often than not, they’re looking for people who can work on more esoteric tasks, such as designing culture, or designing systems—areas of study that have yet to be incorporated into business school curriculums. But “there’s a gap between what tech needs and what the programs are creating,” Maeda says. “Business schools can’t move as fast, so students are making design clubs in their schools.” Last year’s report celebrated the proliferation of student-led design clubs at MBA programs like Harvard, Wharton, and Stanford; it seemed like a harbinger of more sophisticated design education. This year, it reads like evidence that business schools are falling behind.
Maeda doesn’t provide any solutions to the supply and demand problem, but his report is still a useful tool for looking at the state of the design industry, whole-cloth. There are plenty of other nuggets worth perusing—Maeda spends time applauding Google, for becoming an examplar of computational design philosophy, and lists design thinking books for aspiring autodidacts—but the changing role of the designer is the report’s the main takeaway. The creative minds who break the mold of what we’ve long considered to be a designer—the architect, the suit-maker, the graphic designer—are poised to shape big businesses the most.
Graphic Design Experts Weigh In on Pandora's New Logo: 'Dynamic' Redesign or 'Skin-Deep' Fix?
"It’s just trying to please too many people."
On Wednesday, Pandora unveiled its newly redesigned logo. In a blog post on the site announcing the change, Tony Calzaretta, VP Creative Services, wrote, "We’ve been with you for years. We’ve adapted to your musical tastes, served up your favorites, and surprised you with unexpected discoveries." So, the post continued, in celebration of the "milestone" that is Pandora Plus -- the new subscription-based option with no ads, unlimited skips and offline listening -- "we’re unveiling a new brand to enhance your Pandora experience and help bring your music to life."
Notwithstanding the substantial improvements in the service itself, how does that new logo stack up? Well, graphic design experts who spoke with Billboard all echoed similar sentiments: It doesn't really do much to propel the streaming radio service forward. Armin Vit, editor of the corporate and brand identity blog Brand New and principal of graphic design firm Under Consideration, penned a review of the new logos, in which he described both the wordmark and monogram as simple and "easy to embrace," if a bit bland and generic.
"It’s not offensive, it’s easy to reproduce, it looks good because it’s so simple and clean, so it’s kind of like a recurring trap," Vit tells Billboard. "It's not a bad trap, it’s just something clients fall into because it looks so effortless." He added that it works well on the end of the designers, too, in that it's both easy to create and easy to sell to a client, as there is a certain comfort that comes with a simple design solution, and he says such logos can often be sold as "a good pair of jeans" because they go well with anything.
John Caserta, department head of graphic design at Rhode Island School of Design, agrees. "In the landscape of music brands, it just doesn’t seem particularly innovative," he says. He adds the redesign isn't particularly in line with the extent of the improvements in the service "because it certainly doesn’t have the weight of some massive overhaul."
Both the new Pandora Plus platform and the new logo arrive less than 12 months after Spotify revealed its own redesign back in summer 2015, which Caserta says isn't uncommon. He says if you look through hundreds of company logos, there will be noticeable trends in certain fields, using the example that once Kmart redesigned, Walmart followed suit 12 months later. "You’ll realize, 'OK, somebody clearly reacted to somebody else,'" he says. Within the music industry in particular, he says, there's so much competition surrounding software, licensing, exclusives and price points that the logo is far from the biggest factor. However, it should still encapsulate and represent a unified and unique vision -- which is where Pandora's redesigned logo falls short.
Both Caserta and Vit point to the visual accompaniment for the new P monogram -- a 30-second clip of flashing colors and concert footage set to electronic beats -- as being reminiscent of the early MTV logo, in the sense that its ever-changing and easily adaptable.
Pandora claims the variations in which the P can exist "embraces the dynamic range of sound and color, visualizing the energy and emotion that artists pour into the creation of music, and that we feel as listeners." The Pandora blog post also placed a heavy burden on the new logo's shoulders, stating it will serve as a "portal into the unique and diverse range of music you love" -- a goal Vit says is too wide-reaching.
"This P can be everything for everyone and it can represent any kind of music genre," he says. "So it’s an easy way of adding visual diversity so that anyone can identify with it and feel that their tastes are being catered to in one way or another." However, he adds, it doesn't make a bold statement. "I think that that’s where this falls short: It’s just trying to please too many people without really having a unique statement."
This is most likely why the space in the P is filled in, he says, which created "one big shape" and allows for more creative freedom since it can be filled in and/or laid over various backgrounds. Such endless adaptability proves to be too much here, though, which is why Vit says Spotify's redesign was generally more successful, since it built a consistent visual language, while Pandora's redesign is more of a free-for-all.
"This is the right time and the right amount of change for Pandora," says Sam Becker, executive creative director, New York, for design agency Brand Union. "Unfortunately, the whole thing feels skin-deep."
TFI Envision Drives Diesel Engine Specific Positioning
Standard Motor Products, a manufacturer, distributor and marketer of replacement parts for motor vehicles, reached out to TFI Envision to develop the packaging and advertising for their BWD Diesel Fuel Injectors new product launch. The trilingual automotive car parts packaging needed to quickly communicate that it was a Diesel engine specific product. Using the BWD red brand color as a background and metallic silvers of the product photography, a green band – symbolic for diesel fuel– was introduced for contrast.
In addition, TFI Envision developed an awareness campaign for the introduction of the new product launch via a digital animated ad campaign. Utilizing the packaging graphics and colors as the base, key copy points define the positioning by fading in and out of animation, ending with TFI-developed declaration – “Diesel Done Right.” Explains Roy Barker, TFI Envision Strategy and Content Director: “Adding an element of motion inside a typically static ad is not only more engaging for the viewer, it will intrigue the viewer and make them want to learn more. The campaign is currently running in many of the automotive aftermarket industry’s online publications and e-newsletters.
Reemerging as a more general consumer brand, including the upcoming release of the new Ektra Smartphone, Kodak has reinstated its iconic logo – with a typographic and identity update by New York-based studio Work-Order. Opting to bring back an iteration of the “K”, the logo returns to a variation of the red and yellow mark originally used during the 1970s and 1980s.
Unlike the old logos, which saw the word “Kodak” positioned horizontally, it is now written vertically. Packaging is intended to have a minimalist aesthetic. Kodak’s vice president of global brand and creative, Danielle Atkins, says part of the inspiration behind the redesign was looking back at the heritage of the brand as well as “weaving” the vision of Kodak’s founder George Eastman back into the brand.” Adds Work-Order partner Keira Alexandra: “We wanted to let the logo be new again.”
Maps are magical. Every graphic, like every story, has a point of view, and New York is rife with mapmaking possibilities, thick with mythology, and glutted with history. You Are Here: NYC – Mapping The Soul of the Cityassembles some two hundred maps charting every inch and facet of the five boroughs, depicting New Yorks of past and present, and a city that never was.
Among the maps, several by well-known graphic designers like Paula Scher, are The Highline (pictured above), A Nightclub Map of Harlem, Wonders of New York, the Ghostbusters subway map, a rejected proposal of ornate topiaries illustrates a Central Park that might have been, and many more. This sequel to the best-selling You Are Here is available at Amazon as of November 1, and includes original essays by Maria Popova, Bob Mankoff, Sarah Boxer, and Rebecca Cooper, among others. Katharine Harmon, an expert on the topic of maps in art and art in maps, is the editor and the publisher is Princeton Architectural Press.
