I was recently asked to submit an article about partnerships for the Small Business section of Business in Vancouver (BIV) magazine. The article, called Is a partnership the right choice for your business to weather these stormy times?, found in the Small Business section of this month’s issue is reprinted below:

As the economy sags many business owners are starting to think pretty radically about what they can do to preserve and prosper. Some will look for ways to reduce spending or downsize. Others might consider merging with a competitor. And still some wonder about taking on a partner to share the burden. But is a partner the right choice for you? This choice comes at the cost of giving up ownership of the company you worked so hard to build, so be very careful, do your homework and protect yourself.

Even in the best of circumstances, I believe that the first question any entrepreneur should ask themselves is “do I really need a partner to achieve my goals?” There are numerous arguments supporting business partnerships such as cost savings, shared risk, expanded client list, and enhanced services and management skills. But it all comes at the cost of giving up ownership of the company you worked so hard to build, so be very careful, do your homework and protect yourself.

My business partner and I have enjoyed 12 years of business success and our partnership has flourished because we are very different people. There exists minimal overlap between us although we share similar backgrounds, educations, and skills. This is in stark contrast to what we have witnessed over the years as friends have partnered with like-minded or similarly skilled friends, enjoying shared perspectives and core competencies, but ultimately ending in failure. The deep respect and trust that has developed between my partner and I has allowed us to delegate key decisions and tasks to each other. Our open communication allows us to speak freely, even arguing over important issues when necessary. But by challenging and complementing each other, we bring out the best in one other and in our team.

There are numerous steps that any reasonable entrepreneur should take before committing to anything as serious as a partnership.

Be assertive when questioning former clients, employers, employees about the candidate’s claims, background, reputation and abilities to make very sure you found exactly the right person is critical. Hire a good accountant experienced with valuations and complex ownership scenarios. Use a lawyer experienced in mergers and acquisitions to create a legal agreement which outlines the arrangement including a trial period and mechanism for if/when one partner leaves—whether you eventually part on good terms or bad, it’s best to enter a partnership knowing how you can get out. If you do your homework up front, you’ll save yourself a huge headache later.

But before you start to look for a partner, or talk to a corporate lawyer, SWOT yourself. A SWOT analysis is common first step in developing a business strategy, so why not do one on yourself?  If you are honest with yourself, you’ll likely paint a picture of what’s missing in your business and of the type of person you require for a business partner. And make sure you SWOT your potential partner too before committing.

And even if you think you have found the perfect partner, be ready for things to change.

The hard truth is that people change. You may change. What happens in a year or two if your new partner decides they want to do something different and want out? Or maybe you do? Understanding this and being okay with it is a key to business survival and a strong reason to prepare a Share Holders Agreement that protects all parties involved.

We’ve all heard the comparison between business partnerships and marriages. Indeed, like a marriage, a partnership is easy to rush into, but painful and difficult to get out of. Just as a shotgun marriage will likely result in misery down the road, rushing into a partnership can be a costly mistake, ultimately sinking your business instead of saving it. Make sure you’re comfortable with each other before moving in together.

Another hard truth is that partnerships often fail. Things can go sour quickly—regardless of whose fault. An ill-conceived or poorly planned partnership that fails will reflect negatively on all parties involved and possibly lead to business failure. In the lead up to the split, the tension will grow like cancer in the culture of your team and staff may quit to save themselves the anxiety. Clients may lose confidence, and unlike children during a divorce, want nothing to do with either partner and just walk away.

The good news is that the economy will ultimately improve and good times are ahead for those who plan smartly. Ask yourself if your potential new partner, their reputation, their clients, and their working style will still look good once the market recovers. Don’t just opt to partner because you are shoring up for a short- to mid-term storm. Do it because it makes ultimate sense and because your business is more likely to survive to see the good times.

As President of the BC chapter of the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada (GDC), I recently wrote an article on behalf of GDC called How to Use Communication Design to Weather a Recession for Business in Vancouver (BIV) Magazine. The article, which can be found in the special How To Book coming out early 2009, is reproduced below:

In an economic downturn, your business may seek ways to costs while maintaining its competitive edge. By slashing your budget for marketing and communications, however, you may do more harm than good. Instead, consider working with your communication designer to apply strategic, creative thinking to keep your brand message focused on your audience in ways that will not only help you survive the recession but also contribute to your long-term growth.

In fact, many great brands were created during economic turmoil by companies that recognized their customers’ changing needs, seized the moment and innovated, communicating their ways through difficult waters. Here are some approaches that can help.

Focus on your brand
Brand equity is a valuable asset, especially during a slow-down. Critical aspects of brand-building in hard times are differentiation and relevance. Experienced designers put their own assumptions, biases and aesthetic preferences aside in order to identify your unique selling proposition (USP) — what makes you different — and tailor your message to a specific audience in a consistent manner. Identifying your USP helps you use the economic climate to pierce the clutter and seize the attention of potential customers. Leaving a gap in your brand presence lets savvy competitors step in and capitalize as markets improve.

Downturns create a buyer’s market
As your competitors slash their marketing and communications budgets, reallocate your own spending strategically. Media is on sale! While others pull back and disappear from the minds of consumers, you can expand your own exposure without increasing your budget, ultimately grabbing additional market share. That will mean growth, profit and a stronger brand presence once the economy begins to rebound.

Include design early
Creative thinking should be a part of strategic business planning, not tacked on at the end just for aesthetics. Invite your communication designer to the boardroom table. Recognizing that communication design is far more than window dressing allows you to use it to your competitive advantage.

Know yourself
Be really honest with yourself about what your organization is, where you want to go and how you can get there. Experienced communication designers are skilled at helping groups research, identify and analyze their needs in relation to audiences and competitors. They can help you clarify business strengths, weaknesses and opportunities and the impediments you face in meeting your objectives.

You get what you pay for
Be smart in how you conserve and consolidate expenses. As companies downsize, many may let their large agency partners go in favour of smaller, less expensive teams. Make sure any “replacement” team consists of experienced design professionals, not desktop publishers or ill-equipped freelancers who may seem like good deals. Even if you already have a well-defined brand identity, a terrific logo, a graphic standards guide (style guide), and templates or previous samples for reference, make sure you get the most qualified help. Create comprehensive and fair requests for proposals (RFPs) that will identify your best-suited candidate, not the cheapest bidder.

Don’t skip steps
Times like these call for vision and leadership, not shortcuts. Now more than ever, focus on working closely with well-trained experts. Craft clear and comprehensive creative briefs that outline project parameters, goals, timelines and budgets.

Ask for help
Don’t panic or act rashly. It’s tempting to cut back on expenses, but skimping on your strategy, graphic design or production may damage your brand in the long run. The Society of Graphic Designers of Canada (GDC) can help. With its directory of designers across Canada, its effective job board and its numerous resources including a handy RFP tool, the GDC is the smart place to start your search.

Everyone suffers during a recession, but if you understand that good design is good for business, you can save your organization by developing solid relationships with skilled design professionals and actually help strengthen the company’s brand and market position.

If you’re wondering how to use brand and communication design to help your business survive the sagging economy, please contact Industrial Brand soon.

If you are a business owner working on the development and growth of your own company it can be a challenge no matter what industry you are in. This can range from generating more sales, creating or finessing your marketing plan, sourcing manufacturing or creating a new brand for your business. It is your business, your baby, you want to make the right decision and you often question what the right decision or direction is. And, at the end of the day, it’s your bottom line that is affected so you’ll want to make a good decision.

So when Industrial Brand Creative choose to re-brand we knew it was going to be an interesting journey.

There have been challenges–some which we could have predicted and others that came as a surprise. There were also insights into the world of our clients.

Still, we needed to service our clients and run the business and we knew that our re-branding would from time to time be pushed down the priority list. Two years later, it had come to the point where it could not wait any longer. We were still getting great feedback about our website and other promotional materials, but for ourselves the identity we created in 1997 no longer reflected our capabilities and the calibre of work we provide to our clients. It was time to re-brand.

A major advantage was that we knew what we were doing–it’s what we do for our clients with very successful results. We knew all we had to do was to put ourselves through the same branding and design process and we would arrive at the outcome we were looking for.

The first stage was one of Discovery, Analysis, Research, Collaboration and Strategy.

This involved the business owners asking questions that included: Why change? What are we hoping to achieve? How will we know the branding process has been a success? We interviewed clients, staff, vendors and others to discover if what we think about ourselves is the same as what others think of us. Thankfully the results confirmed we were heading in the right direction.

Your brand is aspirational and goal-driven, but as a company you have to bridge the gap between where you are today and your aspirations. Your company has to walk the talk today and everyday. It must look and behave like the kind of company a high calibre client would hire.

The Brand Discovery Session was essential in creating our re-branding process. We dug into every aspect of the company, often facing difficult questions – some which took several months to resolve. We questioned the name of the company, who our target audiences are today and will be in the future, how we will reach them, what our message is and how will it resonate with them. We also looked at how we differentiate ourselves from other design companies and what our core service offering is.

The next phase involved consolidating the knowledge that we’d gleaned from the research and applying it. It involved brainstorming ideas, conceptualizing initial logo concepts, being strategic and making sure everything we did was relevant and aligned with our discoveries during the first phase. It was also during this phase we explored a new tag line. Parting from the old, ‘we’re not wired right’ we wanted something that was honest, concise and gave a better sense of what we are all about. WHERE IDEAS WORK is a statement of not only what goes on within the studio and the people that compose it, but it also says something about the outcomes we deliver.

Business owners can often be too attached to their company to be objective and decisive. The third and final phase saw us starting to whittle down iterations and make final decisions based on the research and strategy from the earlier phases. This foundation made it easier for making clear final decisions.
With the new identity and tagline complete, the next step was to produce all the marketing materials, website and internal documents. At the end of August we rearranged our production schedule for two weeks so the entire Industrial Brand team could focus on doing just this.

We knew from the outset that two weeks was a somewhat optimistic timeframe to complete the myriad of tasks at hand, and in the end it was. But without dedicating that time to the development of our own brand it would probably have continued to get pushed to the bottom of the priority list (below servicing clients). Now we had the momentum we needed to make the final push to completion.

Branding is all-encompassing and there’s a clear distinction between the creation of a new logo versus the formation or re-formation of a brand. Even though we’ve been re-branding for our clients for many years, undertaking our own project has provided us with further insight into client concerns about the process, and the confidence, financial commitment, trust and hard work that is required to create and implement a new brand.

That being said, branding or re-branding is worth it if done well and assuming there’s a sound rationale for it. It will reinvigorate and energize the company, its clients, prospects, staff, vendors and all others associated with it. It’s important to remember that a brand is organic, and grows and changes over time so must be managed. With the successful re-launch of Industrial Brand, we’re excited to watch as people take new notice of our new look and the platform from which we continue to build and grow our business.

I was recently honoured to be invited to sit on an expert panel at a CAPIC event for their Portfolio Series called Your Body of Work: Launching a Creative Vision for your Photography. The event was about how image makers such as photographers and illustrators can best promote themselves using portfolios, websites and marketing initiatives.

The panel was made up of me, Anya Lewise and Cathy Mullaly from Canada Wide, John Edmonds from Grey Vancouver, Tim Hoffpauir from DDB and Chris Peacock from Cossette—all experienced in choosing and working with photographers. We were all asked to consider some key questions which we then later discussed in an open forum, sort of townhall meeting style. The questions plus my notes and thoughts are reproduced here now:

1) Would you prefer to see a portfolio online or in a book?
Online only if it’s done well. Seeing a photographer’s book in person still has merit once the relationship has been initiated, but in person presentations are unrealistic these days. Web is really best to vet candidates once we’re aware of a photographer as we don’t hunt for them online often.

2) Are there certain formats that you would like to see from portfolios?
Any portfolio should be easy to use. Large photos so we can see details (especially ads or if special effects or retouching). While not always appreciated in advertising circles, we’re a big fan of seeing an image in context and the process behind it, so a couple carefully selected case studies that demonstrate the challenge, approach, process and results as well as the role played by the photographer or illustrator can be very useful. Describe how you overcame hurdles or accomplished shots for clients, otherwise they’re just pretty pictures and we’re not sure if you just pulled the trigger or added real value beyond that of technician.

3) What can image makers do with their books to help your decision process of selecting new talent?
This seems a little redundant and obvious after the last question, so I’ll refer back to my answer above. The bottom line really is that an image maker has to impress the heck out of us and that often happens OUTSIDE of their books. We hire people we like, get along with, know how we work and our clients, laugh at our jokes, are flexible and nail it every time. We don’t care how amazing a book is if any of these don’t work, we won’t hire them. Period.

4) How do you prefer to receive portfolios from local talent?
Again, this is a redundant and already answered above: Online first, then in in person. Bear in mind that word of mouth referrals trump portfolios every time.

5) What is your preferred follow up on a portfolio; e-mail, post or a telephone call?
We prefer email, though a really well-written letter via post can be very memorable and effective. Consider the teasing before meeting or reviewing an book. Example: Todd Blevins at Trigger in Calgary told me a story about receiving a blank manila envelope with no return address containing an 8″x10″ art print of a gorgeous shot of a n astronaut without any marketing message, website or logo. Just signed “Hi Todd. Thought of you when I shot this. Enjoy.” This was followed by another a few weeks later—again in a blank envelope. After showing the prints to all the other Art Directors at Trigger, he finally figured out whot eh shooter was and both are framed on his wall. Guess who he’s planning on calling in for his next shoot?

6) How many images do you prefer a book to have?
Like any portfolio really, we think a book should contain 10-20 of their best and most relevant work. An image maker should have dozens or even hundreds of quality examples of their work at the ready, but the ability to customize their book for us depending on what we’ve told them we need or their research on what kind of work we do. Don’t supply too many similar images that may suggest you have only one style.

7) What makes a book stand out for you?
A book that says something about you as a person, your vision and your process—beyond merely the technical proficiency of your work—always gets my attention. When those books also combine an elegant, clean aesthetic, professional tone and ease of use, you have a winner.

Obviously eye-catching images get our attention, so feel free to include some shock value (i.e. nudity, destruction or impossibility) to leave us wet, panting and wanting more.  But if anything is sloppy—i.e. crooked, poorly printed, typos, glue showing, etc—then we’ll assume your work for us will be of the same standard and the relationship will be over before it began.

Remember that many Art Directors are attention deficit and obviously LIKE ART, but avoid highly conceptual “artsy” photos that make you look like a cheeseball stuck in art school—the world really doesn’t need any more photos of cracks in walls, burned out light fixtures or elevator buttons.

8) Do you prefer to see tear sheets or a client list or do you like the work to stand on its own?
Again a little redundant, so I refer to my answer on question two above. As said previously, context is huge, so we like to see the work in situ, so if tear sheets are available, that can be effective. We’re not huge on seeing a photographer or illustrator’s work done specifically for an ad without the rest of the ad.

9) What expectations do you have from local talent in regards to their books?
Why would I want local talent to have any different books than others? A book should show thought, care, professionalism, a strategic use of graphic design, an understanding of the kind of work out there and a clear vision of the kind of work they want to pursue. Show us why we should hire you instead of the next guy, or—god forbid—buy stock photography?

Like any industry, the key is to demonstrate a differential and advantage to choosing you—but as mentioned, that is often not able to be communicated via your book. There is no secret here: hard work, persistence and professionalism pays off in the end.

10) Do innovative or non-standard portfolios catch your eye or do they waste your time?
This can go both ways. We’ve seen a clever approach captivate as easily as annoy a busy talent buyer. We’ve seen some old pros go to great lengths and expense to create very fancy, expensive portfolios which completely detract from the work within. A key is to do your homework and determine ahead of time what kind of approach will work for the person you are selling to and be flexible enough to work within their preferences. Try to balance uniqueness against practicality so the book doesn’t come off gimmicky.

Suggestion: find an elegant vessel to display your work in. Check out Shrapnel Design’s portfolios made right here in Vancouver.

11) What kind of leave behinds do you like?
Something simple, easy to use that shows something beyond what you just showed us. And instead of bringing it with you, send a follow-up with a *well-written* thank you letter. Perhaps offer to take that first job for cheap or free if that’s what it takes to earn their trust. But create something with perceived value, like a frame-ready print, as a way to stay top of mind. Remember that 95% of all leave behinds are destined for the G file.

12) What are some of the things you’d like to see Vancouver image makers doing with their portfolios that makes it more pleasant for you to view?
In this market, being a generalist is useful, but find your passion and shoot the shit out of it until you’re able to position yourself as a specialist in that area. If you love cars, then shoot cars—lots of them. But be warned—you may need to shoot other stuff and have a separate portfolio to pay the bills.

Do your homework first and customize your approach—a generic shotgun blast is a waste of time.

Instead of buying a web template (i.e. Livebooks.com) with limited effectiveness, invest in a professional web designer and put them online in a manner that is fast, easy to sort, navigate, zoom in, etc. Can’t afford one? Swap services with a designer!

Avoid using Flash just because everyone else does (i.e. www.greggerla.com) unless you hire a pro to develop something outstanding (i.e. www.albertwatson.net)—it’s hurting your web presence and search ranking (SEO). We created a very simple Flash website solution for local photographer Sven Boecker that seems to work well for him and is easily updatable.

Remember, more so than the average consumer—inundated daily with a myriad of media, image and talent—buyers are time-strapped, attention-deficit, lovers of art. Appeal to that however you can.

Extra) What did you forget to ask me?
– Answer this question: why choose you? What makes you different? Why do you matter to ME? It’s usually a human choice, not technical or rational.
– Confidence without being an arrogant jerk is attractive. Clients want to feel in good hands.
– Synergy and compatibility often trumps a portfolio, but only for those known to be proficient shooters.
– Being involved in your professional association has numerous obvious advantages, but you won’t find work here—certainly not the work you’re looking for long term. Join the associations of related industries like advertising, marketing, design, etc and attend their events—but DO NOT bring your book and start schmoozing like a cheeseball amateur. Be confident and foster real relationships—earn their trust.
– Find a mentor: a busy photographer who learns to trust you and recommends you when they are forced to turn down work
– Ask for critiques from potential clients or photographers you respect and be willing to receive negative feedback and guidance from those more experienced than you.
- Flickr, Behance, deviantART, Computerlove, etc. are great online sites to post work, but keep professional work separate. At least keep the low res work hard to acquire without coming to you formally.
- Be a polite stalker and use a personal touch via telephone, in person, hand-written notes.
- Be passionate and shoot endlessly. This works for the self-taught, just check out Vancouver’s Kris Krüg—he’s self taught and in high demand because iof his passion and tenacity.
- Word of mouth is far more powerful than web, email and DM.
- Don’t be afraid to name drop. It works. Who else have you shot for?
- Old paradigm: “Cost. Quality. Timing. Pick two.” new paradigm: “Cost. Quality. Timing. I want all three.” Be all three.

Good luck!

When you know the germs are out to get you, inspired product and packaging design can make feverish hand-washing a joy.

I’ll admit it: I’m a germaphobe.

I squirm when in the presence of germs and even talking about bacteria can cause a spat of feverish hand washing. So, you can imagine my love/hate relationship with soap. I have a hard enough time touching faucets or door handles in public restrooms, so slimy soap dishes and stained, gooey pump dispensers are so…<insert heebie jeebie shiver here>… disgusting.

Enter Method Home to save me from this plight.

I was in love the first moment I saw the bowling-pin shaped soap bottle Method design with the help of Karim Rashid. The bold shape and color made the product stand out in a category plagued by sameness, but it was more fun and easier to use with its bottom dispensing system. Later I discovered their refillable foaming hand wash dispensers with their clear, smooth, subtly curved conical shape. I was inspired and since then they’ve been my constant companions, sitting next to my sinks and home and at work.

I love how Method products push boundaries with provocative designs. Their containers always seemed more like sex toys than consumer goods to me. No other consumer product in recent memory became a common topic of conversations around water coolers and in the kitchen at parties when they first arrived on the scene a number of years ago.

Far more than just lollipop plastic soap dispensers, the whole Method line of products excites me. Their philosophy of creating products and packaging that don’t harm the environment make them all the more appealing to me. And their use of mild, natural scents that don’t make you gag is another example of the thought and care put into the design of their products. Their approach to balancing form and function set them apart—almost like objects d’art with their carefully chosen colors, sexy shapes and smart, recyclable materials. Even the minimal use of copy contributes to the simplicity inherent in each of their designs. Like beautiful glass bottles that I can’t bring to myself to throw away and end up in my kitchen, I find myself refilling my Method dispensers with various candy-colored liquid soap. Why recycle bottles when you never throw them out? Brilliant.

Method’s industrial design team, led by Creative Director Josh Handy, has repeatedly incorporated creative thinking into their product designs and each iteration or extension seems as innovative and intelligent as the last. Method is one of those companies that is making design important again—without making it intrusive or pretentious. By employing good design and focussing on products that not only work, but stand out from the crowd, they’ve managed to infiltrate millions of homes—all without the aid of major advertising campaigns mind you. Why should they bother really? When you’re standing in the soap aisle at the market, their beautifully designed products stand out in sharp contrast to their numerous competitors. They’ve managed to make products that make their own demand and deserve the dominant position they’ve earned in the consumer home goods market.

Method Home’s products won’t cure me of my germaphobia, but in my home, the roles of form and function meld together in seamless beauty as I gleefully squirt the next palm-full of foamy soap and wash those evil germs and bacteria away. Ew.

An unstructured list of experiences, pet peeves, and advice surrounding interactive design and development.

Let’s make something clear right now: I’m not a trained web developer.

Nor am I any sort of interactive expert in my opinion. But I have been involved in the design and production of websites for clients for many years. So, I was honoured when my colleague Steve Mynett asked me to give a presentation of my “real world” experiences, pet peeves, and advice surrounding interactive design and development to his web production class.

Once I began asking for input from colleagues and jotting down ideas, I could barely stop the flow of grumbles, observations and tips I wanted to share with these future web designers. Though what resulted may not be anything new for the trained web guru with years of experience, my lecture slides represented a practical list of suggestions and best practices useful to young designers keen on avoiding common interactive pitfalls.

The reality is that at Industrial Brand we’ve made many of these mistakes ourselves over the years. We also changed our minds on many issues as time passed and we gained experience. The following list (in no particular order) is a decent expression of how we approach interactive design and development. We’ll continue to learn and improve our methodology, so this should not be viewed as a static list. Please feel free to comment, disagree or suggest additions to the list.

Start with a brief. If your client can’t compose a simple expression of their goals, objectives, audience, their needs, etc, then how are you going to judge success?

Don’t take their word for it. Clients should be respected and likely know a lot about their products, category and probably even their audience, but they don’t have all the answers. Challenge the paradigm, dig into the problem, do a needs analysis—this is called the discovery process: a critical step in design.

A good coder is always be ready to be hit by a bus. Research, plan, scope, stick to it. Get organized. Consider your naming nomenclature. Make back ups.  [Suggestion: use an online backup system so it’s off site]

Be the audience. If you can’t honestly say you have clarity about who the user base will be, don’t assume. Find out. Go talk to them. Work with your client to develop a persona for the audience and role play user stories. And beyond things like their attitudes and preferences, try to accurate predict their browsing environment and develop with that in mind For example, if standard screen resolution such as 800 x 600 is now down somewhere between 3–6% while 1024 x 768 is about 44%% and 1280 x 1024 is about 33%—why do people still insist on developing for 800 x 600? [stats from w3schools.com]

1024 isn’t 1024 anyway. So you’ve established that the majority of your audience is most likely on a display set to 1280×1024, but bear in mind that not only aren’t all those pixels available to you after you account for all the browser chrome, but who said you have to fill the entire space? How often are you on the web with your browser set to full screen? Consider a standard width of 980 or even as narrow as 960 in case your users have multiple apps open simultaneously. Of course this can also be affected by the grid layout you’ve created for the site—you are using grids, right?

You’re not the audience. Shut up. This isn’t about you. Save that for your own website—although even THAT isn’t about you either. Keep your mouth shut and look for solutions to the client’s and audience’s problems. If it isn’t clear, ask more questions.

Agile development is awesome. The “agile” approach of skipping all the charts, schematics, wireframes, etc and focusing on being flexible, fast and loose and learning constantly as you go can be a terrific approach once you’re an expert. [Recommended reading: 37signals’ book Getting Real]

Agile development is a lie. Well, OK. Not a lie, but be cautious of those who just wing it in favour of careful planning, clear communications and methodologies. Just diving in, launching early, tweaking as you go and flying by the seat of your pants WILL eventually fail you—and may be very costly. And having a well defined process will save you. Example: Nokia mobile advertising.You still need to determine user needs, develop grids and wireframes to produce effective interaction design. Don’t “wing it” or your projects will ultimately fail. [I know, I know, real agile development isn't "winging it", but you get my point here]

Flash rocks. Want animation and an platform-independent and easy-to-code environment for a website? Flash baby!

Flash sucks. Want to make downloads slower, require plugin compatibility, make a site virtually invisible to search engines, render text & windows not resizable, make subpages and permalinks awkward and make the site difficult for the client to maintain or update? Flash baby! NOTE: flash can be very powerful as a component of a site and with dynamic content is improving, just go easy and make sure you chose Flash for a reason, not just because you can. (example: we designed and produced this award-winning website, but  frankly the site is clunky, slow, hard to use and update, doesn’t load half the time and is far too reliant on hacks and feeds)

Avoid intros. If you MUST have an intro, then it should be to say something about the brand message or tell a story. If there is a “skip intro” button, such as on this example, something is almost certainly wrong—although there are exceptions to the rule where an intro can say something about the personality behind a brand or help clarify the services or products offered.

Reduce, reduce, reduce. Please don’t make me say “Less is more.” Oh shit. There, I said it. But remember, as great as simplicity is, sometimes less is too little. Don’t fight for minimalism and start quoting Bauhaus crap if there isn’t a real need for it driven by the audience and brand message. Some sites can be super cluttered and overly complicated, while others can almost seem broken they are so minimalist, while you can achieve ultra simple in a smart way.

Whose server is this, anyway? Get early access to the actual host server and work from there as soon as possible. Don’t get it all dialed in, only to discover the version of PHP or MySQL on their box is different and difficult to change. Confirm the Apache install, how to set up DBs, permissions, where files go, etc.

You will break it. Iterate with a backup plan. Use a development environment, staging environment and live environment. Be ready to fall back if bug fixes cause more bugs. [Suggestion: Use a project management system like REDMINE or TRAC tied to a version control system like SUBVERSION or tracking tasks, bugs and versions.

Resist feature creep. But know it will happen. It’s inevitable. One “simple” change may have a cascade effect. Never assume it’ll be a no brainer and allow adequate time.

Good web takes time. I don’t care if you coded your mom’s blog in four hours or did a whole website in a weekend. They both suck and the kind of web you WANT to be working on takes time. Fight for it and convince your clients to give you time to percolate as well as time to research, plan, organize, document, write good code and TEST.

Test, test, test. For god’s sake, check it on various platforms and browsers. Use your friends as guinea pigs and watch them interact with the site! If you can't test on new and old platforms and various browsers, then at least utilise sites like www.browsercam.com or www.browsershots.com.

Where am I? I wanna go home. Facilitate clear indications of where a user is on a site by adding “breadcrumb trail” navigation or changing the state of nav used to reinforce the button or section selected by the user—you’d be surprised how often this is ignored or unclear. And not everyone knows a logo is the home link! Provide a global home link as a button if possible—at least in the footer as a secondary option for those who don’t figure it out. And avoid “mystery meat” navigation, regardless of how innovative or creative it seems. (example: Duff may be the Ace of Cakes, but his website navigation is baffling)

Dress to the left. Stats show that the majority of web users read top down, left to right—so for god’s sake, don’t hide your logo or vital navigation elements bottom right where it may be cut off or hidden with a smaller browser window.

Boing! Pop! Huh? If pop ups, new windows on click or browser resizes are so great, why do all the latest browsers block them? No pop ups! And I’ll open a link in a new page or make the browser fullscreen if I want, thank you. And please don't hijack my browser. [example: here's a very slick look design studio's website that resizes to fullscreen, completely hijacks the browser and navigation toobar and doesn't dynamically resize if you change the browser window. This is just plain rude.]

Study usability and user experience. Have you read Bill Moggridge’s Designing Interactions yet? Do it today.

Drop the drop downs. If you’ve read Moggridge, you would use JavaScript drop down menus with caution. They can difficult to code, awkward to use and inconsistent across platforms and browsers. Not to mention they jump open and closed, often blocking content beneath them, require tweening to keep from feeling clunky and harsh and when cascading, get impossibly finicky. This article called Sons of Suckerfish has some great guidance how to best create effects like drop downs (among others) in a reliable fashion. [example: the new www.gdc.net is a beautiful website to look at, but the long drop down menus crowded together make the navigation cumbersome and awkward to use]

Extensions make the permalink Ya ya, most servers these days can parse .htm, .html and php correctly, but .htm is “cruft” and makes you look like you’re coding for DOS with its antiquated three character maximum naming convention.

Human don’t read code. Not well anyway. And human-readable URLs (permalinks) are just so much more friendly and easy to reference. [example: a URL like http://www.mydomain.com/option,com_mtree/task,listcats/cat_id,1778/Itemid,35/ would be so much better as http://www.mydomain.com/component/download]

How do I scroll? Scroll bars should look like scroll bars, not fancy new arrows you created or that funky Flash component you dropped in. And internal scroll bars basically suck anyway (sorry Flash lovers). Sometimes a site requires a smart approach to scroll bars, so be smart about it—don’t try to be innovative or take short cuts. It’s just plain annoying and hinders usability.

Footers, like feet, keep things from falling over. Take a queue from our friends at Apple who always design three ways to do anything, and make footers part of your design up front, don’t just tack them on as an after-thought. Simple, unobtrusive footers can be an excellent way to improve navigation in a content-heavy site. I suggest that if you need to include a sitemap (which can be very useful) then your navigation may need to be re-thought.

Colour doesn’t really matter, does it? Yes, it does. Big time. And is one of the most powerful web design tools available—and often screwed up. I won’t bore you with a long rant about colour spaces and the difficulties of predicting accurate colour display online, but I will say this: people perceive colour as vital part of any designed product. The Institute for Color Research reports that “all human beings make a subconscious judgment about an item within 90 seconds of initial viewing and that between 62% and 90% of that assessment is based on color alone.” Heck, recent surveys show that 40% of Amercian car buyers stated they’d change brands if they couldn’t get the colour of their choice. Make sure you understand the emotive power of colour and chose combinations of colours that work [Tip: if using a colour wheel is foreign to you, check out Adobe's Kuler application for a good online tool for picking colour palettes that work]

Show them. Don’t assume clients—or even designers or art directors—will be able to envision what you are talking about: show them. Send proofs in situ so they see it live, online in a browser. [example: www.industrialbrand.com/CLIENTS/yaaway]

Build around real content. Though not always possible, try to avoid using Lorem Ipsum as placeholder text in favour of designing around real content. Using Lorem Ipsum isn’t creating a *real* user experience and may be forgotten, running the risk of launching a website filled with gibberish. Don’t believe me? Here’s a friend’s website that has been live for years with Lorem Ipsum as his bio copy. How hard is it to produce a couple paragraphs of bio copy?

What does that say? Bad font choices, small type or low contrast are common boo boos. Don’t make this mistake—make your text easy to read. If it doesn’t survive the squint test, fix it. And learn the basics of typesetting—they are just as relevant here as they are in print. For example, long line lengths cause eye strain and decrease readability. [example: www.gameaquarium.com - what IS Game Aquarium anyway?]

Web fonts doesn’t mean bad typography. This is probably one of the most common pet peeves among traditionally trained graphic designers who take pride in choosing just the right typeface and using it intelligently to aid the overall message behind a page. Web is not print, but a similarly calculated approach to type, its size, colour, placement, etc., helps establish a hierarchy and order of things—remember that. If you’ve ever read Robert Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style (and you really should), then check out  www.webtypography.net which translates the basic rules of type usage to the web. [example: www.coudal.com uses straight up web safe fonts and clean CSS styling]

I wish I could zoom in. If your site design doesn’t afford room for large images, but products or photos are key communicators, then build in the functionality to enlarge the images so the viewer can take a closer look. And don’t assume the user will know to click—add text like “click to view image”. We often use Lightbox JS, which is a simple, unobtrusive script used to overlay images on the current page. Alternatively, link thumbnail images to larger images, such as we did here on www.davedelibato.com. [example: www.meja.ca required larger images of their projects, so we used Lightbox]

I already have iTunes and YouTube, thanks. I don’t need a website that plays music, thanks. And if you MUST have a video auto-play on the site, set it up to do it on first visit and not repeat visits via cookies. If the site has a mute button or “skip” button, something is likely wrong. [example: www.vfs.com is a media school and the marketing video on the home page auto plays only on the first visit]

Nothing new here. Don’t create sites with a “News” sections if it’s not really needed, your client isn’t committed to keeping it fresh or they aren’t able to update the page. There’s a new thing called CMS, learn how to use one.

Make it work. Old school works. Don’t follow what everyone else is doing and avoid trying to fix what ain’t broke. And don’t try to be an innovator (yet anyway). There are so many variables and technical limitations—be flexible and work within the basics. If you want people to know it’s a link, then use hinted text and make it obvious it’s clickable (i.e coloured & underlined).

Y’all got a big pipe. If you assume everyone has a web connection as fast as yours, you’re a fool. The majority of the world is still on slow connections like dial up. So strive to create tiny website to reduce load time. And use intelligent techniques such as dynamically loading menu/nav items using PHP so you have only one file to update.

Look at sites that suck. Browsing all the wonderful “best of” lists and award-winners is great, but consider looking at BAD websites and learn from them. Web Pages That Suck is a good resource.

Step away from the screen. Get off your computer and consider the problem as a spatial one. Remember your sketch pad? Go get it and draw! Plan on paper. Consider the content and space with client objectives and audience needs in mind.

Wireframes are your friend. All the previous stuff should be obvious to many. If not, you have some work ahead of you. If I had my way I’d make new web design students spend a whole term drawing grids and wireframes for an entire term before letting produce their first line of code. It’s all about usability folks. Web is not just pretty graphics or cool tricks. Your final templates should be pixel-for-pixel swaps for your carefully planned wireframes.

Are you doing an illustration? Then why are you laying out web pages in Adobe Illustrator? We’re striving for precise pixels here folks—use Photoshop or Fireworks. This is so common and always introduces problems.

Web is not print. So don’t create images in CMYK or PMS. Create your Photoshop images in RGB, but be aware that the majority of the web is actually sRGB (only Safari really fully supports RGB), so make sure to switch your Adobe Color Settings to North American Web/Internet and Save for Web & Devices which will ensure that it is in the sRGB colour space.

Backgrounds can be lovely. I disagree that those who claim backgrounds should be unnoticeable. While primarily a framing element behind text and images, I think backgrounds are a powerful way to add tone, emotion and style to a website when used with care and with reserve. Add to that some consistent graphics element from page to page and you can create a “sense of place”. But for god sack, avoid using honkin’ big image backgrounds. [example: Dave Shea, author of CSS Zen Garden, uses subtle background on his website as does Psyop on their site]

Write beautiful code. Lovely code can be a gorgeous thing indeed. And well commented and organized code is much easier to understand and update when you (or someone else) needs to make changes six months later. Here’s a decent overview of What Beautiful HTML Code Looks Like. [example: a local developer partner of ours, Ryan Ilg, is passionate about clean code and it shows in the source code behind his personal website]

Meta my ass. Please remember to add meta tags, description, keywords, page titles, etc and register your sites with search engines. And consider including descriptive page titles. It may not be full-on SEO, but it’s the right thing to do.

Get fast. Learn shortcuts. Find resources and tools. Create a methodology that allows you to differentiate yourself as a fast, accurate and dependable developer. And start collecting code, images, objects, etc so you can quickly solve repeat challenges in future. Start using tools such as the Coda, Firefox’s Web Developer toolbar, Firebug, Color Picker and XScope.

Be compliant. Validate that beautiful code you developed so quickly! W3C’s Markup Validation Service is a fast way to make sure your code will work as expected.

Write goodly. Use simple language and spell check you scallywags! There’s nothing worse—from as branding perspective—than typos and bad grammar. Most good code editors, such as TextMate for example, have built in spell checking.

Are you a web designer or hosting company? Don’t try to do everything—regardless of how tempting it is to get monthly fees for hosting a site. The responsibility will yours to keep the server up and site online, so leave this to the experts.

Respect your employers. Especially if you’re providing coding for a design firm. How do they work? Do they need working files? Are there confidentiality issues? Are you even allowed to take credit for the work you did? Are you allowed to put a credit link on the site or in the source code? Make sure you ask if it isn’t clear in your contract.

The computer screen is already obsolete. Yup. It’s true. And for all you iPhone fanatics it should be obvious to you by now. If you’d like to have a career in the interactive media arts, you have to think mobile and design and develop for “the fourth screen“.

Good web design is simply good design. Bad design is still bad, regardless how sweet the back end is. Remember the “form follows function” lesson?

I think the most important point I can offer in conclusion is that the web today needs good designers more than it does coders. The debate whether classically trained print designers are capable of create good websites seems silly to me, but I think it’s time skilled print designers step up, retool and apply their training to this important medium and help raise the bar. I’m really tired of seeing websites with great functionality and technology behind them, but a clear lack of graphic design or usability thought applied to the interface design. Just like in print design, it behooves us to apply the same careful use of composition, layout, grids, colour, typography, hierarchy, simplicity, etc. to design GOOD websites.

So here’s the challenge: compose your next web project around real content using a carefully structured grid layout, scalable, centred orientation and based on an appropriate screen resolution. Choose web safe colours and type faces that not only aid readability, but work together to express the feeling and tone behind the site, its message and goals as defined by your client brief and research into the problem, industry, competition and audience. Resist using flashy technology in favour of a suitable technology that will actually work toward achieving your clients web needs. Simplify your layout, allow for plenty of whitespace and respect established conventions, presenting a visual hierarchy and navigation system that makes it clear to the user how to interact with the site’s content. And be smart about your production methods and always be ready to be hit by a bus.

Just today I was trying to decide whether to bother entering a few of our recent web projects into the W3 Awards and was in a bit of a fence-sitting position about it.

Over the course of a year we are becoming bombarded by more and more award show calls-for-entries. This wasn’t a bad thing when we were researching what we wanted to do for our Graphex 2008 website, but it can be downright frustrating, time and cash consuming wading through the chaff and determining which shows to enter. Sometimes it’s easy; such as when it’s a very prestigious show with a stellar reputation, a good local/regional show and one with a good track record. Shows with brand name recognition such as Communication Arts, One Show, Lotus Awards, Webbys, Graphex (of course!) etc fall into this category for us. And yes, even these are debatable.

Then there are shows we’ve never heard of, or with questionable materials (I mean, if you can’t design a decent CFE, how are you going to judge our work and by what standards?

Then there’s the consideration of fit. Do I really want to enter a project done for a university into a consumer category? Or, if the show has so many categories that I can find one that’s an exact match for almost any work in any industry, what are they trying to accomplish and how competitive is the show? Are they awarding one winner in each category or the top percentage of entries? Do they charge you more for a recognition certificate or statue? Who are the judges? What sort of work has won in the past? You get my point.

I suppose there are some firms that set aside a decent budget to enter awards as a form of marketing strategy. There are certainly no shortage of clients looking to work for award winning agencies, but that’s not guarantee they are going to get award winning work. Then again, what else can we do with our often limited resources than hand it over to award shows that seem to exist merely as a business to make their producers money? I suggest there are quite a few things we can think of. As long as we can keep a steady roster of clients interested in good, solid, effective and business-objective-oriented work and not simply chase awards at all costs. We love it when these things can coexist of course.

We’ll always enter our best work into the best shows (not throw everything at every show in every category), but personally, we’d rather pay our staff more money, take them out more often or treat our great clients to a nice meal than toss a wad of cash at award shows that exist soley to make money.

What’s your experience, and what shows do you regard as the best? Be great to have a decent list and list some of your experiences here.

After leaving my house in Vancouver at 5AM, flying all day to finally check into our hotel in Boston at 6PM, Mark and I were exhausted. Time to check in, take a nap and then find a good meal. Not only did we arrive at a super swank boutique hotel called The Liberty Hotel, but when we checked in we were greeted with a glass of champagne. Not a bad welcome to Boston. Not only was The Liberty a great hotel (a recently renovated jail… get it… Liberty), but was also one of the finest brand applications I’ve seen. Everything from the names of the in-hotel bar and club (Clink and Alibi) to the “Do Not Disturb” signs (renamed “Solitary”) right down to the last detail of the fine print on the back of the menus; everything echoed the brand. Coming from a designer… that’s some fine work!

The choice of presentation topics at major conferences has always interested me. There were just under 4000 people at the 2008 HOW Design Conference representing an extremely diverse level of skills and interests. As is the case with any conference, I found some presentations that captivated me, and others I walked out of after three minutes. Three sessions stuck out for me and I am looking forward to seeing their influence start to appear in my personal and professional life.

Sunday began with Ilise and Peleg from Marketing Mentor’s workshop on marketing and pricing for designers with some great advice and strategies applicable for both newbies and the most seasoned professional. Lunch was a dynamic and engaging networking lunch with Speed Dating-style time limits on how long everyone could spend speaking with a particular person or group. This truly was the ice-breaker and got the social flow started for us.

Sunday afternoon Mark and I both took part in a session run by Kathy Burton called Can’t We All Just Get Along centered around the DiSC personality assessment. The concept seemed simple, you take a personality test, you get your results back and then you learn how these results tell you more about yourself. Except we talked about the results in a pretty unexpected way. The DiSC profile sets out four character traits, and provides a breakdown of which traits are dominant. The results are designed to give us the tools to better communicate with, manage and interact with people in our lives. Not exactly the stuff blisteringly hot blog posts are made of, but it gave me some tools that I will use on a regular basis from here on out.

Sustainability is an increasingly frequent buzz word and designers, at least Canadian designers, seem to be increasingly interested in it. Eric Karjaluoto has been a leading advocate for sustainability within the Vancouver design community. Tired of having sustainability be an afterthought in the design process, Eric and his firm, smashLAB, developed DesignCanChange.org which is an educational site on sustainability aimed at designers. I have found that the audience for sustainability talks are often made up of the converted and I can include myself in this category. After all, I was the converted right? Recycle, don’t load up on paper samples, I’m doing my part. Right?

Except this presentation shifted my thinking in only an hour. The majority of us have gotten from point A to point B in the sense that most offices have recycling bins and we all use FSC paper. The fact is that getting from point A to point B isn’t good enough and we need to get to point C, or D, or Z. Greenwashing, is fairly rampant in all industries (and political elections of all sorts) and complacency seems to be setting in over the continued pursuit of sustainability. Eric outlined the example of “upselling” a client from 3000 to 5000 direct mail piece because the cost per unit would go down saving the client money in the long run regardless of whether the additional units would be used. Simply recycling is not enough anymore, we need to start to looking for our ways in our industry to reduce the need for recycling. The lasting impact of this presentation was a call to action for all designers to visit DesignCanChange.org and take the pledge about how to to increase sustainability in our practices.

One of the most impactful points that Eric made was that in a society where sustainability is a (seemingly) huge concern and certainly all designers should be aware of it, if not actively practicing it, it wasn’t practiced at this conference. There were no recycling bins anywhere in the conference center. Cans and bottles went in the garbage. On top of that, everywhere you looked paper handouts were being distributed. Now, sure these were printed on FSC Certified paper, and can be recycled when we don’t need them anymore, but that should be considered an antiquated view of what sustainability is. We got a HUGE binder in the registration package and we literally saw people walking out of trade booth exhibits looking like Himalayan Sherpas carrying all their free schwag home—ultimately to throw nearly all of it away. Not only that but people got so much, the FedEx booth was backed up the last day while everyone shipped their stuff home. Is this the best way? Is this sustainable? While I commend HOW for putting on a great conference, this needs to be addressed in upcoming conferences.

Some highlight’s on Monday included Joe Duffy’s “A Designed Life”, an informative presentation on design research by EnSpace’s Jenn and Ken Visocky O’Grady and Andy Epstein’s perspectives and suggestions on how to survive as a designer in a world of words. There were also a number of practical informative sessions for the more inexperienced young designer on planning, communication, management and prepress techniques. The day ended with a “happy hour” which was more like 4000 people standing in line for a free drink, so we bailed and went to an Irish pub across the street (we were in Boston after all).

Tuesday began with an enthused crowd hanging on Charles S. Anderson’s every word in one room, while a more subdued group sat back and enjoyed Debbie Millman coo and coddle Pentagram’s Michael Bierut in the next room. The morning also saw David C. Baker rip through another round of his classically rational (“why didn’t I think of that?”) advice, this time on being a first time manager in a design studio environment. Rob Wallace from Wallace Church presented his thoughts on how designers can quantify design value to business clients, reinforcing the idea that design itself is finally being recognized as a core competency and that good design truly is good business and ultimately drives profit. A particularly popular presentation was given by Wayne Geyer of GeyerCom called “Write More Good: Copywriting for Visual Thinkers” which dove into some simple and easily applicable writing strategies that any designer can apply in his or her own practice.

To end the day Mark and I wanted to check out a presentation on Church Marketing due entirely to a project that we’ve been working on recently but after five minutes it was clear that it wasn’t for us and faced with an early trip to the bar, or check out the session next door, we wandered next door into a presentation that had been getting some good hype all day. Now granted this presentation didn’t have that much to do with design, but it was hands down the most entertaining one that I saw all week long. The presenter was Chad Pregracke speaking about his crusade to clean up rivers that started with the Mississippi 11 years ago and continues to expand to this day. The amazing part was the energy that Chad brought to the stage. The energy and passion was unreal but his sense of humour was off the wall and he talked a mile a minute. His story has been an unparalleled success story so far and I expected the presentation to end with a call to action about how we can get involved with his organization, donate money or spread the word. Quite the opposite; he ended with request to all of us to engage with something that we were passionate about, regardless of what it is. (to see what you missed check out a clip of Chad Pregracke on YouTube from a previous talk).

There were also studio tours, portfolio reviews, breakout sessions, book signings (for the design star f*ckers) networking lunches, happy hour receptions, parties and more. There was also the obligatory giant trade show area filled with booths from the numerous sponsors and the book store where you could easily spend the price of the conference on pretty design books to lug back home. We passed on lugging books around in favour of dinner and drinks with friends and explored Boston’s pubs and live music scene—oh yeah, and drank Bruce Willis’ vodka in his hotel room. (no Bruce wasn’t there!)

A longstanding tradition at design conferences are presenters merely showing pretty slides of their portfolio and telling anecdotes about their career or studio history. Even when organizers ask speakers to avoid this, it tends to frequently happen—as it did at HOW. I recognize it must be terribly difficult to balance speaker topic load and appeal for every attendee, and I heard positive feedback from these portfolio heavy presentations, but it really does seem wasteful and self-congratulatory when a successful designer stands on stage and regales the young and easily influenced with their sexy solutions with little or no explanation of context, rational, explanation of process, or information about the creative brief itself. Many people, like us, traveled great distances to attend HOW, hoping to learn new things and take some lessons back to their own studio practice. If we really wanted to see all the posters designed by a studio over the last 20 years, couldn’t we have viewed them on their website? Now if these lovely images were used as poignant examples of design methodologies or solutions to articulated business problems, then bring it on.

As is often the case when Mark and I travel together, he dragged me out to experience all the nightlife that Boston has to offer and on the last night of the conference, we ended our night with a 7AM breakfast, only to take a quick power-nap and head off to the closing keynote given by Bill Strickland described in the program as a story that will “inspire you as he explains the impact of art on his life and his desire to share with others what art has done for him. He’ll provide tips and strategies for inspiring others—and yourself—to excellence, and offer personal insight into overcoming obstacles and creating your own success.” Now one can’t dispute that Bill’s story is a fantastic one that is inspirational, but there were no tips of strategies given for myself or others. Inspirational? Sure. Relevant? Not a chance. As described in the catalogue with lessons on design leadership we could all take home to apply in our own careers? Nope. Worth the extra effort to attend after an all-nighter with friends? Not a chance.

I’ve returned from events such as these many times and every time I return spent (emotionally, physically and financially!) it’s tiring to absorb as many presentations as we did and it’s draining to meet and get the opportunity to engage and learn from so many inspirational people that I did but it is oh-so unbelievably worth it. There are many five minute conversations that I had and witnessed that had as much influence on me as some of the presentations and that’s the reason why I keep going back. But being inspired by four days away in a foreign city is easy when compared to continuing that inspiration and drive back into your regular life. Four days back into my “regular” life I find myself being snapped back to the norm and need to capture the heightened sense of creativity, drive and inspiration. HOW was just the latest stimulant for me to learn about myself, my profession and my craft; I can’t wait for the next.

Pictures of our time can be viewed online in this group call HOW Design Conference on Flickr.

If I was asked who Stefan Sagmeister was a week ago, I could’ve given a handful of knee-jerk descriptions; he’s a designer, he’s provocative, he’s influential. I could’ve said many things to describe the icon he has become, but I would have failed to mention that he’s human.

“Everybody who is honest is interesting.”

On Friday afternoon, Mark came in with Stefan Sagmeister. Introductions were made, jokes ensued and instantly he blends into the sarcasm of the studio. He even played along with a prank and signed our poster “with a kiss”. He’s well-spoken, he’s curious, he has so many observations, and so many interesting things to say. I don’t know what to think of this man. He seems normal, he seems approachable, and he seems real. And it occurs to me that this is the same designer Mark taught us about in school years ago. He’s right in front of me. The whole time I wonder, “Did you actually etch conference details into your skin?

While the GDC members and the guest of honor were out for dinner, I had been eagerly anticipating the presentation, thanks to our brief encounter. The venue was filled with energy upon arrival. Those lucky enough to get tickets enjoyed drinks and food, while others stood in line hoping to get tickets and stand at the back. Amid all of this, the man everyone is waiting to see slips out, for a smoke, and invited me along. Saying, “I’ll smoke, you don’t have to.”

Our conversations flowed from race, to photography, to children, and to culture. In that brief moment I caught his thoughts on independence, his journeys around the world, and questioning why the Chinese are growing in power. It made it easier to confirm his stance on the design industry in New York, “If you are a designer with a really well-done portfolio, New York is the place to be.” Two cigarettes and a carrot stick later, the show must begin.

After an intro story about sea elephants and blowjobs, Sagmeister captures everyones attention by yelling “Shut the fuck up!” into the mic. He dove into a studio profile: music business design (a music building ‘Casa de Musica’ logo approach), socially responsible design (Pentagon squandering with creative approaches, the pig car train and topsy-turvy bus), and corporate design (a lighting company corporate report using same embossed relief of a flower under many lighting conditions).

At this point I’m building a large interest on seeing these pieces in real life, not on the screen or magazines. If only a Canadian organization can commission a project, I won’t need to fly to Lisbon or New York.

The pace was steady, the audience was enchanted. His energy heightened as the second half approached, Sagmeister switched to his series, “Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far.” To document Sagmeister’s inspirational qualities is a bit of a chore, he truly is someone you have to meet to understand. One of the messages he did refresh for me, was the importance of representing internal reflection in creative ways. It doesn’t take much, just a little time and “schwoopdeeboop,” you might end up with something great.

Before the presentation was over, his books were all sold, and the line up for autographs had begun. There is mystery and hype surrounding Sagmeister, but there are no smoke and mirrors involved in his work. What he does and how he does it has a certain flavour, but when it comes down to it he isn’t a celebrity designer with an attitude, in person, he’s just like anyone else. An equal amount of people support and oppose his work; there are other designers that are provocative and inspiring. Although design used to equal fart, the truth of the matter is that Sagmeister dances on the tightrope between art and design.

The drive to improve and succeed has increasingly lead to professionals in all trades to specify down to minute processes in projects. A photoshop artist will focus entirely on fashion retouching, or an interactive designer will draw boxes and arrows all day long. Along with this professional focus, influences and inspiration can also become focused. Personally I spend the majority of my time in the interactive field and my natural reaction is to draw influences from other interactive work, read interactive books, check my RSS feeds for the latest tips and tricks and go to events and lectures on interactive topics. While a healthy dose of this is natural and absolutely required, I have been trying to spend increasing amounts of my time lately drawing influences and inspiration from fields further removed from my daily workload.

With this in mind, I’ve been enjoying events put on my ACM Siggraph Vancouver recently. Siggraph Vancouver is the local chapter of the Special Interest Group of Computer Graphics of the Association of Computer Graphics. My first experience with them was a lecture on the development of Turok, developed by Vancouver-based Propaganda Games. The presentation featured 7 of the department leads from Propaganda talking about their experiences, processes and challenges in the different stages of game production. Hearing the talks on developing the game play for the different levels, I was surprised as to the
depth of similarities between developing a brand for a client and branding a foreign alien planet. The systems are very similar but the implementations and executions are obviously rather different.

The next event featured Michael Rubin and Dr. Alvy Smith to talk to a sold out theater at the Vancity Theatre on April 16th. Ruben was on a book tour promoting his new book, Droidmaker: George Lucas and the Digital Revolution and Siggraph had brought Dr. Alvy Smith (formally of Pixar, Lucasfilm and others) to round out the presentation. Like virtually every other kid growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, I’ve been a huge fan of Star Wars but have never been aware of any of the stories behind the film.

Rubin opened up the evening with a one hour presentation about the history and importance of Lucasfilm. What overwhelmed me was the amount of information in his talk. Each small topic could have been an entire presentation. He’d throw out stories that ended with “…and what’s how we invented digital audio. So after that we had to….” and you’d be left with a spinning head trying to comprehend how this ranch in the middle of the California dessert was responsible for reshaping many of the film techniques that had previously been accepted as standard. Rubin finely balanced the fine line of giving a compelling lecture that engages the audience, but still left everyone wanting to buy his book.

At the break Rubin was inundated with requests for book signings consequently the break lasted a bit too long. Near the end of the break the buzz was forming for Dr. Alvy Smith to speak. Smith’s presentation seemed to engage the majority of the audience, presumably those already familiar with the Lucasfilm story and it’s major players, but for someone who wasn’t as familiar with the story, the presentation was simply recounting stories from the good ol’ days. Names like Ross Perot and Steve Jobs were interweaved with the history of Lucasfilm, Pixar and much of the cinematographic digital revolution that started in the early 80’s. Ultimately, after 90 minutes, I had to leave early to wander into Yaletown for some late night eats.

The little boy in me has to say that hearing first hand stories from Star Wars and Star Trek was freakkin cool! Beyond the boyish appeal these stories had, I was left with a few lasting impression. Lucasfilm was born in opposition to the old boys club in Hollywood in the 70’s. The studio environment of the previous 50 years had created a tight group of studio executives that we not willing to give young filmmakers (Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola as outlined in Droidmaker) a chance to make movies. Yet as the history post-Lucasfilm was told, it appeared as if there was a new old boys club. All the spinoffs from Lucasfilm and it’s devisions lead to Pixar (which had heavy involvement from Steve Jobs). In a post-Star Wars Hollywood environment, the same names kept on coming up again and again linked with many studios and important films. It’s not necessarily the bad thing that it was in the early 70’s as the proliferation of technology has opened up the independent film genera, but it’s still a few controlling a lot.

Much of legacy of George Lucas has been in the technological advancements that he made. Not being a cinophile, nor having taken any notes, I can’t remember any of the countless examples told by Rubin with enough detail to recount now, but these advancements were born out of necessity and ingenuity. Lucas wanted digital audio, but it didn’t exist, so they made it. The story tells so simply but countless man hours and frustration were sunk into these projects but also that necessity fueled invention.

Siggraph continues to bring in a solid list of events and coming up to celebrate their 5 year anniversary is Visual Futurist: The Art & Life of Syd Mead on May 14th. The presentation will feature a talk by Mead and then a screening of the uncut version of Blade-runner. Our friends over at Siggraph have had tickets on sale for a while and they should be sold out soon!