[studiofunctioninc-blog]

Capital offence

Posted by Frank Maidens

Like it or not, typography is a major part of our daily experience. Even people living more 'disconnected' lifestyles still encounter typography on bags of flour and that copy of Leviathan resting on the nightstand.

For those of us living south of Hwy 7, our daily routines are inundated with messages both printed and digital. I would even suggest that typography plays a larger role in many of our lives than sports, music, or food.

“Crazy crazy” an old friend of mine would say.

So if words and written messages are so central to our waking life, why do so few people understand the rules that govern their appearance? Most of us have been groomed to consume information our whole lives.. that much is obvious. But we now live in a world where the act of content creation has been radically democratized. More people than ever before are taking responsibility for the production of their own content; the gap between consumers and creators is closing rapidly.

This paradigm shift is fantastic for the dissemination and evolution of thought, but we humans face a difficult hurdle as more 'design' is born by the minds and hands of people with no training.

To simplify, let's forget about the intricacies of layout design for a moment and apply our focus to the rules which govern the selection and deployment of letters. Even in this isolated province of the design universe, the edicts are extensive.. certainly not captivating material for a student body already acclimatized to instant gratification. Moreover, there are millions of different methods and tools available to contemporary content creators, so it's hard to publish a single how-to that's going to be applicable for everyone.

But surely there must be a way to help stanch the bleeding? If not a comprehensive guide, then at least a basic map to lead us away from the perils of typographic ignorance. Please consider (and share!) our list of typography's four capital offences:

4) Thou shalt not use a crappy typeface

I know what you're thinking: "But Frank, how do I know if a typeface is crappy or not?" It's a fair question. Here's what you can do to find out.. when selecting a typeface to use in a design piece, look at it and ask yourself: "Is this a decent typeface?" If you're < 80% sure, DON'T USE IT – it's probably crappy.

Other notable characteristics of crap type include:

any font that is made up of pictures of little people in various poses

any font that incorporates cartoon splatters, or other non-typographic elements

any font that would look good on a Manborg poster

any font that lacks a good consistency of width, or consistency of stroke weight (you have to look close)

any font that does no come from a reputable source – avoid sites like http://toiletfonts.com

3) Thou shalt not apply gratuitous effects

People who decorate type with superfluous gradients, outlines, and other demonstrations of general tastelessness are all unknowingly part of a villainous cult of ignorant losers.

Like junkies, bored with life and looking for their next fix of 'infotainment' or hucksters who believe their audience appreciates graphics smattered with bells and whistles – purveyors of text decoration are guilty of molesting the visual landscape with their dirty, kitschy fingers, and should be shamed accordingly.

I can't put this more simply – typography itself is gorgeous, word pictures are captivating, these things don't need your shitty chrome effects to be successful. Want proof? Look at the multitude of successful visual design composed before home computers were the norm.

One of the most important things for a content creator or fledgling designer to learn is an appreciation for the power and effectiveness of simple systems.

Letters, words, sentences, and messages are already flush with details – they don't need more layers of information getting in the way of communication. Instead look to other means of creating visual interest that play into the hands of good typography: contrast & hierarchy, alignment & structure, type pairing & colour. A design that uses these fundamentals well has no need for lens flares, garish drop shadows, or anything else from Adobe's grubby bag of tricks.

2) Thou shalt not compromise the word picture

The act of reading English – be it a word, sentence, or paragraph – doesn't usually occur one letter at a time.. humans are more efficient than that. Truth is, we see thousands of words over the course of our lives, and learn to recognize most of them at a glance. Consider how you are reading each of these written words right now – scanning the sentence, you're most likely hopping from one word to the next, recognizing each group of letters as a "word picture" and moving on.

These word pictures are the foundation of our English reading experience and typography goes to great lengths to ensure they are easy for us to scan. Balanced word pictures that have an equal space between letters makes recognizing and reading those words almost effortless.

So if letters have been designed to join forces and make word pictures, why then would anyone want to deviate from that Voltron-like state of awesomeness? In a word: naïveté.

Stacking letters is for dummies Designed to help the eye travel left-to-right, letters are meant to be set in a horizontal context. That's just how they work. Stacking letters effectively shatters the word picture and creates a new totem pole of awkwardness for someone to try and decipher. It's not pretty, it's not comfortable, it's not how letters were designed.. you wouldn't use a lawn mower to make a salad, would you? Do your business (and the rest of the world) a favour and just rotate your type!

Don't make image/word hybrids We see examples of this everywhere. Clearly some people think that 'graphic design' is equivalent to swapping a letter out for a picture of something.. IDIOTS! What did I just say? Successful communication is about facilitating comfortable, effortless reading. By disrupting a word picture with a picture of something, you're making it harder for me to read. Find some other way to visually connect your words with an image or icon that doesn't make me feel like someone parked a school bus in my living room.

Kern your type At the most basic level, good word pictures are created by good kerning – an equal amount of perceived visual space between the letters of a word. If nothing else, your display text should be kerned. Your logo should be kerned. Do this and your text will sing! Messages will ring clearly. Do it not and your messages turn sour and cumbersome. Sour messages mean less engagements, less sales, less interest, less respect.

1) Thou shalt not distort letterforms

This is certainly the most serious offence when it comes to using type in design. People do it constantly, but perhaps that's only because they've never been told otherwise. Like drinking antifreeze in your garage when no one else is home – it's nothing to be proud of.

Most typefaces (most of the good ones at least) were designed by people who have dedicated their lives to the science and craft of type design. There is more heritage and history under the surface of our letters than there are holes in the moon.

Typographers are master craftspeople who create gorgeous work that the rest of us are lucky to even be allowed to install on our machines – so here's a tip: you're not going to make those letters better by stretching or distorting them. Letterforms rely on specific geometry and delicate line work. Bending, squishing, warping, or skewing type to fit in some awkward space is literally taking a dump on the cumulative hard work of some very talented people. Trust me, you aren't special enough to do that.

What if your type doesn't fit in that small, awkward space? MAKE THE TYPE SMALLER. Or choose a different, more condensed typeface (there's heaps of them). I dunno, maybe redesign the piece so there are no awkward spaces?

Do something creative or divergent to solve the problem while simultaneously honouring the craft of those who came before you.

-

The fundamentals of typography and the principles of good visual design must not be ignored. Nor should a shitty piece of design be tolerated because the content producer hasn't benefitted from education or an average does of common sense. Just because "it's hard" or "it takes a long time" to make a successful design doesn't mean you should abandon all of the positive things a well-crafted message provides.

Even a basic investment of effort to create a thoughtful piece of design that incorporates typographic principles will have a positive impact:

your piece won't contribute to the already staggering cesspool of visual pollution

good typographic choices reflect positively on you as a business or a person

the work will delight your viewers with something legible and comfortable

perhaps most importantly, you'll create an effective piece of communication that actually solves a problem, leading to good relationships and repeat business

You can do it, but it takes effort. For the sake of everyone, please find the time to do it properly.

[studiofunctioninc-blog]

A (long) line in the sand

Posted by Frank Maidens

Reading is not a natural ability for us humans; it’s something we have to learn, and takes years of practice to develop any real proficiency. Actually, it’s pretty amazing that we can do it at all, especially considering most of us learn to do it with multiple, often very dissimilar languages.

Over the 3200-ish year history of our phonetic alphabet people have developed certain techniques to assist with the demanding nature of reading. We’ve standardized letterforms to provide consistency and familiarity. We've crafted and refined the shapes of letters to facilitate a smooth left-to-right motion for the eyes. We’ve even developed a system to equalize the perceived space between letterforms in a word to produce idillic “word pictures” for optimal legibility and recall.

There’s so much history, craft, and technique when it comes to letters and the act of arranging them on the page that you can study it for years and still only scratch the surface.

More than meets the eye

Contrary to what many people believe, typography doesn’t stop at the shapes of letters or the spacing of word pictures. These micro-level details are but one of the many layers contained in the practice. Words need to be strung together in a row to form sentences, and this is where a lot of would-be designers fall right off the face of the earth. Welcome to paragraph text setting: the crust of bread no one wants to eat.. left in the bag after all the good stuff is gone.

Reading is a strenuous activity for people, even those who consider themselves good at it. It takes focus and effort to move your eyes over a sentence, capture the meaning of words, and find your way back to the next line once you hit the end. The longer the sentence, the longer its “line length.”

A multitude of studies have been conducted to determine the optimal lengths of a line. According to superhuman Robert Bringhurst, “Anything from 45 to 75 characters is widely regarded as a satisfactory length of line for a single-column page set in a serifed text face in a text size. The 66-character line (counting both letters and spaces) is widely regarded as ideal.”

The point is, comfortable line length is not touchy-feely, it’s a measurable thing, a repeated observation and essential to the sensitivities of anyone purporting to be a visual designer.

Responding to the needs of the user

So why is the web smattered with long, awkward lines of text? Why do we see terrible line lengths everywhere, even on sites that otherwise appear to be well-designed?

My assumption is that people are thinking programatically first – dumping content into some pre-fab framework or grid system with no special consideration given to paragraph setting. They never step back to consider how the text actually feels.

Or perhaps more accurately, the people responsible for creating these pages can’t feel the awkwardness of the text because they’re amateur visual designers with a limited understanding of typographic principles.

This insensitivity and reliance on cold systems for layout design is the scourge of the responsive web.

Most unicorns are faking it

I like to think that at the tender age of 32 I’ve finally learned enough about typography that I can use it methodically and creatively.. but just barely.

I can also see deep enough into the corners of this craft to understand I’m no where near mastery. There are more typographic stones unturned than I have years left on this planet, I’m sure.

So this is why I get frustrated when I see people branding themselves as ‘designers’ when they clearly have not benefitted from even a basic education or apprenticeship.

Let me put it this way: I can stick together a website if I have to. I know a little more about HTML & CSS than the average butter-churning luddite. But when it comes to knowing enough about these languages to code with any sort of true efficiency, I fail. This is why I DON'T CALL MYSELF A DEVELOPER – that would be disrespectful to my peers, and misleading to my clients.

Visual design is also a language. There are some portions of it that are interpretive, flexible, expressive – but there are also other areas governed by cold hard science. People have limits, those limits are observable, so we make rules in design to ensure comfortable, successful communication.

Ignorance of these rules is not an excuse. Calling yourself a designer after going live with a line length of 200 characters is embarrassing for you, unfair for your client, and painful for the rest of us.

[studiofunctioninc-blog]

Street signage: you're doing it wrong

Posted by Frank Maidens

Good street signage is important for any business. Anyone who tells you differently is either lying, or is dumb enough to already have a piece of crap design hanging over their front door.

Unlike the fickle, perpetually malleable nature of websites, a printed piece of street signage is markedly less capricious. Any piece of graphic design will ultimately become a representation of your shop, dealership, service parlour, etc.. but signage has the tendency to stick around for months, years, decades – often unchanged. It becomes a fixture in the physical landscape, so best take the time to get it right at the outset.

Good signage is like a good tie; it should punctuate an otherwise desirable facade. It says something about the character of your business. For example, "this is my livelihood, and I care about it." Or perhaps, "I'm smart enough to hire a professional to design my signage, because it makes me, and my business look legit."

Sadly, good signs generally go unnoticed. They just feel right, so no one gets stuck in the eye. Good signs encourage an audience of unfamiliar folk to come in and say hello.. or in other cases, serve as the pleasant reminder that "this is the place" and welcomes that all-important repeat business.

But what happens when signage goes wrong, or is trusted to the hands and sensibilities of someone who doesn't understand the basic scope of human taste? Let's have a look for our latest instalment of what not to do in visual communication design:

All in a name

Step 1 for any sign: pick a good name. Something memorable, cute maybe. Something that you'll be proud to call your own. My advice, try not to associate your business with terrorism, government conspiracies, or the fiery deaths of thousands of innocent people. Just doesn't sit right, ya know?

Even if the name of this store was supposed to be "911 Milk" (read: nine-one-one), is "emergency milk" the corner of the market you really want to aim for? Without the benefit of more neighbourhood research, I'd say that "leisurely milk" would probably be a better bet..

Raw deals

This one gets me every time. Whoever thought that some camp slaughterhouse font was the best choice for a raw fish restaurant needs to take a step back and imagine the connotations. Am I supposed to feel like I'm eating in a chainsaw-powered zombie apocalypse movie? ..or did some kid make this sign with a supersoaker filled with the blood of all you can eat fish heads?

Also, what's with matching the shitty splatter typeface with a would-be classy picture of sashimi? Such an obvious disconnect.. no wonder Viv and I have never eaten here.

Try to be timeless

I wish I knew how these letters were actually made – they're like magic to me. Flying in the face of everything I know about letterform design and the history of typography, this jazzy purple word-blast kicks my education and sensitivities both right in the teeth. Looking deeper I'm reminded that the universe is a fine balance of chaos and order, and that even the biggest stars eventually crumble in on themselves, shattering the event horizon with swirling black orbs of mystery. No seriously, this is one trippy piece, I'm glad I wasn't driving when I saw it.

Notice how the purple bg starts low in the 'H' and ends up almost spilling over the 'G' – captivating! Observe how the charming curves of 'Lê Thúy' are completely at odds with the rigid sharpness of the central text – such discord! Consider how you feel when you see the TEL number has no meaningful alignment with the MOLE REMOVAL text, or any other text above it – the very definition of insensitivity!

I feel my life is simultaneously better and worse for having seen this particular specimen. let's carry on..

I Mother Africa

Here's a great example of misplaced priorities. Is that really the best place for the silhouette of Mother Africa? Conceptually, I suppose it makes sense, right in the middle of fucking everything.. but hey man, I'm try to read here! Even the island of Madagascar makes me see 'R. Certainly not ideal for at-a-glance viewing.

There's an easy lesson with this one: respect the reading experience. Give words and phrases the required space so that the message is legible. Otherwise all the delight goes out the window, and the only thing left is frustration, and one less customer.

All dressed up and no where to go

There's a special place in atheist hell for pieces of trash design like this; it's a truly offending package. Take a close look. First of all, the sign uses a script font with superfluous graphic effects.. which is the visual equivalent of putting a chrome bow-tie on a dirty pirate. Secondly, it's not tracked properly, so the scripty strokes look like broken arm bones that have been poorly set by a drunk/disgruntled triage nurse (notice the 'as' combination). Lastly, the black text is fighting for its life to be legible on that portion of dark blue background. A big city nightmare that makes me thankful I never have to "envíos de dinero."

So bad it hurts

At the very least, street signage should be readable. Mind-bending purple jazzy text is better than whispy white bullshit that takes me 40 seconds to decipher.

This sign also reminds me of the fundamental importance of successful type pairings. Type should be paired for either visual harmony, or historical accuracy. Sadly, I see neither here. What's worse is the terrible choice of colours for the letters in 'Nails Spa'. What visionary thought these colours would look good on a thick red background? This photo barely does it justice, these colours IRL made me want to puke my guts. Also, why is 'Spa' all in blue? Did they run out of the other ugly colours? Combined with the utilitarian 'Tel' line, this shining piece of shit design is the high water mark of poor choices on Bloor Street West.

Shotgun Sushi

Look carefully at this example and tell me how many different looking things you see. It's like this sign was made exclusively from items in the TTC's Lost & Found bin. NOTHING MATCHES. What is that tree, and why is it important? Is that Curlz, or did someone create a shitty version of Curlz and then forget it on the subway? Who or what is MAZZ, and should I know what that is?

The complete lack of consistency and cohesion here is dumbfounding. It doesn't make any sense to even talk about bad alignment and positioning because even if this sign had some decent structure the composing pieces would still mismatch for failure. What's worse is the vinyl text SUSHI on the window below IN ANOTHER FONT, just incase your eyes weren't confused enough from the first dose above. What a joke. A sad, unintentional joke.

- Some people say that "done is better than perfect" but those are mostly startup people that don't appreciate what good design can actually accomplish.

This kind of accelerated rush to market has always frustrated me. Web-based MVPs are one thing, but when it comes to the more tangible/permanent nature of street signage, people need to slow the fuck down.

Done is better than perfect, sure.. but IMO, perfect (or really good) is always better than embarrassingly bad.

[studiofunctioninc-blog]

Fall Round-up – submitted by you!

Posted by Vivian Hui

It always fills us when joy when our readers send examples of bad design our way. We've been tagged in facebook posts, emailed and texted bad posters, and had bad designs tweeted at us – these are all wonderful things.

It means that this blog is actually encouraging people (designers and non-designers alike) to notice visual designs in the world around them, and instead of letting them disappear without a trace, they stop to contemplate and document them.

Specimen 1, menu submitted by Conor

In a similar vein to the post that started it all, Conor recently sent us this menu with terribly pixelated type for a joint in Bolton named Ume Sushi. Apparently the food was fantastic, but no doubt tainted by the jagged type that greets every patron upon arrival. Janky non-vector type like this is basically the designer's equivalent to seeing an ant trap next to your table while you're eating; it's not going to hurt you, but it ruins your appetite a little. Best guess for what went wrong? The type was probably rasterized in a Photoshop file, then the genius owner decided to make it bigger (never heard that before…) which distorted the letterform edges. Unforgivable!

Specimen 2, html email submitted by Beth

It's undeniable that Urban Outfitters has some pretty questionable business practices and a knack for constant controversy. Maybe it's part of their corporate culture to incite rage and disgust from their audience, which would help explain this horrible email you receive when you abandon your shopping cart.

The fucking shadowed Hobo type paired with awkward pastel/outlined shapes on a tiny brick background makes this whole email feel like a Saved by the Bell throwback done by someone in Excel. It makes my mouth feel like I just ate an entire sack of Rockets.

Specimen 3, signage submitted by Adam

What the hell happened here? How is it possible that this specimen exists? How come no one along the line (the designer, their coworker or boss, the printer) stopped and used their eyes to notice the extreme off-centredness? The text is jammed so far to the right that it makes the sign look Photoshopped, like it used to say:

The Wright Brothers Penis Pavilion With Sexy Exhibits & Phallic Auditorium

What a waste of Clarendon.

Specimen 4, poster submitted by Nicole

Let's take a look at our 'designed in Word' checklist. Does it use Impact? Check. Multiple, strange alignments, weights, and styles of type? Check (left, right, centre, bold, italic, and bold italic oh my). Bad clipart-style stolen artwork? Oh yea. Three-dimensional extruded and fish-eye lens type? You betcha. All these things add up to a quaint, kitschy poster for movie night in the park…. but wait, is that a TIFF logo in the corner? Is this event somehow related to the Toronto International Film Festival, the prestigious event that is "second only to Cannes…"?!

Is this real life? I'm not sure who approved this event, but I imagine this b&w poster "designed" in Word and printed off someone's home inkjet is probably the last thing that TIFF imagined they'd be associated with. It is so small potatoes that it's cute, except that when legitimate brands are associated with such mediocrity, it can bring everything down. Let's just hope that a tourist in town for TIFF didn't catch sight of this poster and tell all their friends back home about what a joke the festival was.

Specimen 5, vehicle signage submitted by Mike

The title of Frank's old post regarding truck vinyl was “What the fuck does that even say?” and I feel like that would be also totally appropriate for this fine specimen spotted by Mike. It's like a terrible alien Japanese–Russian hybrid font with messed up letterforms that are completely at odds with one another. Why round the stem/arm of the F, but curse the J to look like a square bracket? Why crush the leg of the R, along with all our hopes and dreams? Why does the E look like a pair of sideways boobs?! Designs like this shouldn't be allowed on the road, for fear of causing distracted driving accidents on the highway. Thank god for the url at the bottom telling us this piece of shit actually says “FujiTire” – now I can sleep at night.

Thank you to our readers for sending us these steaming design nuggets, keep em coming!

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[studiofunctioninc-blog]

Trouble in paradise

Posted by Vivian Hui

Look around you: on your desk, the nearest bus shelter ad, in your bathroom… I'm sure that it won't be hard to find an instance of Gotham somewhere close by. For the past ten years, Gotham has been the designer's bff (best font friend). It's hard not to get close to Gotham – he's sophisticated but unpretentious, sturdy yet refined, honest and accessible.

The rise of a typeface

A long time ago (2000) in a galaxy far far away (New York City)… armed with a brief from GQ magazine for a "masculine, new, and fresh" typeface, designer Tobias Frere-Jones looked to old NY signage to create a quintessentially American sans serif. Gotham worked for GQ, the 9/11 memorial, and in 2008 it was the perfect choice for Obama's campaign. Since then, the popularity of Gotham has reached heights which Frere-Jones likely never imagined.

So what's the problem?

Gotham is a total dreamboat – a versatile typeface that is a pleasure to use. Without being able to articulate why, clients almost always gravitate towards a Gotham-based design concept if given the choice. In so many diverse situations, it just feels right, which I guess is why it ends up on everything from Twitter, to movie posters, to mouthwash.

The ubiquity of Gotham isn't the problem – it's a wonderful typeface, so use it if it suits the brief. The problem is that the popularity of Gotham means that more people have access to it (likely through illegal means) and are committing type sins previously reserved for likes of Arial, Papyrus, and the dreaded Hobo. Gotham has unfortunately turned into the new default face, being manually stretched+squeezed, showing up unkerned, and paired with shitty clip art. Because it has been used everywhere for years, often set carelessly or for hyper generic applications, the allure and specialness of Gotham has worn off, whether the viewer is conscious of it or not. It has become so overused that it has sadly lost a lot of its distinction.

Keep calm and Gotham on

Don't avoid using Gotham because it's everywhere – like I said, it's a great typeface and if it's the right one for the job, use it. With great power comes great responsibility… Do your part to maintain its integrity and try to enhance its beauty. Make it your goal to find interesting ways to pair it, set it, and customize it to be your own, growing the visual language surrounding those beautiful geometric letterforms. And for frak's sake, don't manually condense it, EVER… it comes in like 30 condensed and narrow weights, what monster would do this?!

[studiofunctioninc-blog]

Choose your own perception

Posted by Frank Maidens

Tangent alert! We will soon return to our regularly scheduled programming... in the mean time, here’s a continuation of the thoughts presented by the last post concerning objectivity:

We can describe the role of the designer, at the most primary level, as a solver of problems. If not for the problem (aka design challenge), the act of designing evaporates into a cloud of meaningless decoration. No self-respecting designer would ever relish an association with the act of decorating.

To solve problems with novelty and effectiveness requires the designer to have an open mind. An open mind establishes the foundation for divergent thinking – allowing the problem solver to work creatively within a strict set of constraints, sometimes going so far as to redefine the problem to develop a truly valuable solution.

One of the greatest challenges we face as designers comes by way of the limitations we unknowingly subscribe to via our choice of language. Some authors and linguists name the verb “to be” as the main culprit. I tend to agree. English speakers everywhere lean on this verb all too often. As a result, a widespread culture of passive, objective thinking has taken deep root. I find it very difficult to circumvent this dependancy (just take a look through all of the other rants in this blog). But as designers in pursuit of more creative states of mind, circumvent it we must.

Consider this quote from Alfred Korzybski’s, Science and Sanity:

“To achieve adjustment and sanity and the conditions that follow from them, we must study the structural characteristics of this world first and, then only, build languages of similar structure, instead of habitually ascribing to the world the primitive structure of our language.”

-

I believe words are responsible for defining our experiences. Words bundle our memories, thoughts, and ideas into communicable, digestible packages. Words give shape to outlooks and attitudes.

Why then, with so much importance draped on the shoulders of the words we use, do we chose to project the rigid limitations of is-based vocabulary?

Consider the following statements – let’s see if we can highlight some of the detrimental effects of the verb “to be”, and appreciate the opportunity we have to construct a different perspective of the world through language:

Example 1: “iPhones are the best!”

Stop for a moment to consider the power and misleading nature of this statement. We all have a lifetime of training to use English in this way (casually firing out statements that describe a supposed objective truth) and we seldom think about the actual implications of using this kind of language.

I find it difficult to penetrate the vagueness of the statement. Does it refer to your personal feelings? ...or the feelings of Middle-class tech-savvy people living in North America? ... or does it refer to the preferences of everyone, everywhere? In failing to state a source of your information (ie. your personal feelings, a preference survey, etc.) you tell me nothing about where this information is coming from. Instead, you unleash a muttering of potent objectivity that suggests no other opinions can exist.

Try this approach next time: “Compared to my experience with other smartphones, I think the iPhone 5S sets the highest bar for comfort and usability.”

Notice how this revised (is-less) approach frames the statement around your point of view, expressing your thoughts to the audience through your own subjective interpretation. This approach to language encourages us to think of the world not in absolute terms, but always through the experience of the observer. Doing this makes it harder to make inflammatory statements (I *am right, you *are wrong) as it reminds the listener that the we can only share our opinion. After all, other people may, and probably do, feel quite differently!

We should avoid language that attempts to say what truly *is, and instead use language to describe only what we feel, think, remember, or believe. People who rely on is-based objective statements open themselves up to a laziness of thought and seldom experience the benefits of considering a situation or ‘fact’ from multiple vantages.

Example 2: “The design is great, but there’s no way to implement it on the home page.”

Most likely you’ve said or heard something like this before. People continuously face the temptation to use convenient language like this to draw hasty conclusions, but *is there really no way to make it work? *Is the problem unsolvable?

By using different language we can paint an alternate picture of the situation: “The design meets our criteria for success, but we don’t currently see any way to implement it on the home page.”

Notice how subjectivity plays a leading role in the statement. It reveals the true nature of the situation – one where other solutions may exist beyond what the team is currently capable of executing. It suggests that other people could be called on to help. It also suggests the team could solve the problem at a later time, perhaps with the complement of new information or techniques.

The original statement denies these types of questions and considerations. It stifles the opportunity for other answers and discourages divergent thinking.

By making general statements like “there is no way to solve that problem” we paint the world with absolute terms, discouraging ourselves from looking at all the options available to us.

Example 3: “Red is the most effective colour to use in the logo.”

Says who? Again, this statement doesn’t tell the audience (probably your client) much of the underlaying thinking or reasoning that lead to the decision. Vivian and I constantly reference the approved creative brief and other research to facilitate successful design presentations.

How about this as an alternate statement: “Our case studies have shown that 84% of the target demographic believe red is the most meaningful, impactful colour for the logo.” …or, if no focus group was used: “We chose red for the design of the logo because we believe it most directly supports the objectives outlined by the creative brief.”

Illustrating your research and letting it drive your statements demonstrates that your thinking is founded in something relevant, rather than some artistic whim.

In the first revised example, the ‘subjective observer’ is your focus group research, and the responsibility falls to you to communicate its findings and observations.

-

“[English without the use of the verb ‘to be’] fosters a worldview in which the user perceives situations as changeable rather than static. And in which verbal formulations derived from experience indicate possibilities rather than certainties.”

E. W. Kellogg III and D. David Bourland, Jr. Working With E-Prime: Some Practical Notes

Objective absolutism represents a kind of language laziness, and a corrosive force in our quest to become more agile thinkers and better problem solvers.

By recognizing the power we have to shape our perception of the world by choosing the words we use to more accurately define and express our experience, we open ourselves to the myriad possibilities of a truly malleable universe. I encourage you to embrace the constant opportunity to design your own experience through language!

[studiofunctioninc-blog]

The fallacy of objective design

Posted by Frank Maidens

I’m not sure if I mentioned this before, but Vivian and I are teaching an intro to design fundamentals course this fall at HackerYou. We’ve spent a big part of the summer researching, reflecting, distilling, and authoring curriculum. I feel like it’s really galvanized many of our personal definitions of design and the design process, which feels immensely satisfying.

One piece that stood out to me during a previous research blitz was a film called “Design Is One” – essentially a biography of Lella and Massimo Vignelli, an inspirational wife/husband duo who have been credited with many design-based feats, including introducing Helvetica to the design vernacular in America. They are no doubt a powerhouse couple, charmingly represented by a film experience that makes you feel bad about the empty bowl of ice-cream softly heaving on your tank top covered belly.

A segment of the film however, stood out to me for non-inspirational reasons and I’ve been mulling over how to to present it to you in some manner of relevant argument. It has to deal with a particular interview Massimo gives from his kitchen where he describes the design of a coffee cup and simultaneously tips his hand to a deeper personal philosophy of the role/nature of design.

Check out the clip on (US) Netflix, at 31′45″ – or if you don’t shell out the $8/month, allow me to type out the main bit for you here:

“In Europe, we never fill up the cup all the way, you know, we call it a demitasse for that reason. The Americans, they fill up the cup all the way, you know, and so when the coffee was reaching here [top handle gutter] – ffffshhrt – it was finding a nice gutter to go down, and finding a nice flat surface to go all the way, and would end up on the table cloth… with a great scandal for the user. ”

“They would complain: ‘Eh! You gave me a cup with a hole!’ So they start to complain, and to the point where Heller decided to close the thing [top gap]. Now what I don’t understand is, why do you complain? I mean, can’t you just understand not to fill up all the way? I mean, or is it asking too much to be civilized? You know? Perhaps that is the point. Maybe I was asking too much.. and eventually we had to give up, to the taste of the vulgars.”

-

Does anyone else feel weird about any of that? I sure did. This section of the film totally blindsided me, and not in a good way. My heart sank as I thought to myself: “Oh god, am I a terrible designer because I think the great Massimo Vignelli just mumbled a crock of shit?”

Here’s the gist: I think Massimo was upset because he believes in a universal (objective) design language. A voice so pure that all sentient humans have no choice but to feel its beauty and understand its function. This aspiration is present in all of his work – from product design to visual communication design – and he is frustrated in this clip because vulgar, provincial, uncultured Yankee rednecks were using his cup “incorrectly.”

But that’s just it – how can you get mad at one group of people for not being familiar with the way another culture drinks coffee on the other side of the fucking planet? Beyond that, who is to say that the demitasse is the “most cultured” or “most polite” way to pour and enjoy a cup of hot bean juice? Who’s responsible for prescribing those sweeping definitions – Rich people? Old people? Baby Jesus? Last time I checked, there was no absolute ‘right’ way to make and drink a cup of coffee. People do it differently all over the place.. in Japan, coffee comes in a can so you can have it on the train.

I don’t believe that design should strive to be objective, because nothing (including design) can truly be objective – it’s just not possible.

The objective world is always perceived through the senses and interpretations of the subject (human, machine, or otherwise). Because of this ever-present subjective lens, pure objectivity is not accessible to us (creepy, eh!). There will always be a layer of interpretation for information to pass though. Every object, or experience, or interaction is wrapped by the various structures we all have to label/define things and assign meaning.

Think about it: each of us has our own personal collection of memories, cultural associations, values, and preferences – so how can we expect all people to respond the same way to a single piece of design, especially if one set of users lives halfway across the world in the Republic of Rand McNally? Just because one group of people have a different set of interpretations or preferences doesn’t render them inferior.

For design to be successful it must acknowledge and embrace the insurmountable nature of subjectivity. This means, in practical terms, that to successfully communicate the designer must have fluency in the audience’s language of experience, and know how to build messages (or objects, or interactions) that resonate meaningfully within that audience’s existing vocabulary and definition of the world.

Subjective design acknowledges that there is no universal “right” answer, and that we should stop looking for one. It means that the right answer is always directly related to the needs of the audience, and that the better we can define that audience, the greater our ability to design something for them that will be understood how we intend it to be.

-

So stop making coffee cups for “everyone” and then throwing a fit when some people use those cups to build sand castles, or whatever. Try hard not to think someone is inferior to you just because they squat to poo, or put ice in their whisky.

Most importantly, don’t be afraid to define an ultra-specific audience for your communications. Look closely at the fabric of their experiences and expectations, leverage research and hone your skills of intuition. Speak simply and directly with a carefully chosen language and you’ll have less reasons to be frustrated when someone films your biography.

[studiofunctioninc-blog]

No plugins for common sense

Posted by Frank Maidens

Photoshop has been around for along time. The first iteration I recall having installed on my PC tower in high school was version 5.

Not CS5 mind you, the straight up original go-around version 5. I remember this because the icon sat in the “creative” section of my desktop, next to the Macromedia Director and Extreme 3D shortcuts. I also used to drive my tower to school in the front seat of an Astro van so I could play Command & Conquer at lunch. Fun times.

Fast forward to good ol’ 2014 and Photoshop has evolved three or four times over. Once upon a time the text tool would open a pop-up input box before the text would appear in the layout. Also, people were completely addicted to lens flares. Nowadays, you can remove whole chunks of a busy image and the software uses NASA-driven A.I. technology to fill in the gaps. Some of the camera raw smart filtering is also incredibly powerful.

All of this leads me to the point: you can have the best tool in the world sitting on your desktop, complete with all the shiny bells and mind-melting whistles – but what Adobe cannot deliver, in any of their core programs or software updates, is that little bit of common visual sense.

You know, that voice that says: “Hey buddy, that thing you're doing right there.. looks totally dumb. Stop, step back, and think about how dumb that looks.” If Adobe ever manages to bottle good design sense, I’m afraid I might need to buy a house in Nova Scotia and retire early.

What am I talking about? Take a look at the image above. Notice how each drink is well styled, looks tasty, has a pleasing combination of colours.. and, oh yeah, showcases three products that don't subscribe to the same vanishing point.

The image has clearly been Photoshopped together, which by itself is no great, or unique sin.. but when the source images being use have no sensical spatial relationship to each other, the final result is an obvious fail.

Like a shitty renaissance painting or a failed piece of architecture, this street sign looks wonky, off-putting, fraudulent, amateur.

Which is too bad because otherwise they were on to something – clear messaging, attractive-looking products, just the right amount of branding.

Allow me to take a stab at what you’re thinking: “But Frank, what if my client insists that the poster include all three products, and we don’t have a shot of them all together?!” Fair question. It’s never an easy situation to be put in. Clients don’t want to spend more money than necessary, different products are released at different times and are seldom photographed together. You don’t want to rock the boat and push back on bad direction. All of this is completely understandable.

If you’re asked to put an image together, and realize your assets don’t really make sense – allow me to suggest the following to keep in your back pocket for next time:

Ask to setup a new photoshoot

These things take time and money, yes – but there is an army of hungry, talented photographers and food stylists in our great city. With a little digging, you might be surprised to learn how affordable it can be.

The result would be smart, intentional resources that will look great for this summer season, and the following years to come. It’s also a way to elevate the brand through high quality visual assets – important if you’re trying to convince someone to come in for $4 cold bean juice on ice.

Change the art direction

You were asked to show three products – make the case for why that will look stupid and propose you show one product. Argue that you can make the product photography larger. Argue that you alleviate the paradox of choice and simplify the message for the viewer.

Change the design

Better yet, show the client why this approach would work better. Do some additional comps and make it easier for them to make the right choice. Never be afraid to save the client from themselves. Some of the time, they haven’t really thought through their own ideas. Most clients are not visual thinkers, or even fully visually literate. It’s not their job to be – it’s ours. Some of the best clients we have appreciate being educated, and the relationship is stronger as a result.

Be smart with Photoshop

So you tried your best and Captain Aroma still insists on showing three products and will not approve a new photoshoot. What else can you do? Walk out on their stupid face? Sure, but that's not always practical. Instead, why not try to use Photoshop to amplify the power of your brain.

Get the highest res images you can. Arrange them in the layout. Take note of the trouble maker products and distort their icy butts until they look like they’re living in the same universe. It might not work, but who knows until you try!? The end result may not be absolutely perfect, but it might look good enough for assholes like me to keep their phone in their pocket and keep walking.

-

There was once a time in my life, surely ever designer’s life, when this sort of detail was no big deal. I was working on a cosmeceuticals brand, stacking and combining products willy-nilly, when a creative director confronted the error of my ways. I felt like I knew it deep down, I just didn’t want to rock the boat with the client.

I feel in the end however, I was doing more harm than good – especially for clients that require a certain level of quality and sensibility in their visuals to maintain a premium demeanour.

Since then I’ve smartened up. I’ve become much more scathing when critiquing my work with product photography, and am less reluctant to educate and collaborate with clients to ensure we’re developing the right visual material.

[studiofunctioninc-blog]

Building castles on the sand

Posted by Frank Maidens

Checking my spam folder is one of those bi-monthly chores that's as important as it is annoying: important because every so often I'll discover a legitimate email that's for some reason landed itself in the oubliette and is in need of rescue.. annoying because my spam folder is a tangible reminder that the internet is essentially a swirling cesspool of ads, scams, and boner medicine.

A famous bald guy once said: "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Indeed! When life sends you daily doses of electronic lemons, why not break off a piece and make lemon pie?

The feature for today's dismemberment comes by way of an emailer from a Canadian staffing company called SRA. I'm not sure what SRA stands for, but they attached an incendiary pdf to one of their spam-blasts that made my hands quake with rage. It is nothing short of woefully disastrous, and a potent example of horrendous layout design. Surely the examination of its intricacies will reveal some very important lessons to keep in mind when composing our own layout designs. Here goes:

Structure is critical

A old buddy of mine was once heard to remark: "Never use your tongue to stop a fan, never build a castle on the sand." That's what I see here, an entire layout shambled together on a compromised foundation of poor column structure and shitty alignments.

The entry point for our examination of structure in this example comes by-way of the 3x3 grid of coloured rectangles in the centre of the page.

Because of the strong geometry and tight gutters between boxes, my eye can easily recognize the grid here. This establishes my expectation for structure as my eye starts to wander to some of the other content areas.

Here's the problem though – look up from the three columns of coloured rectangles to the three columns of text above. Notice how the three columns of text have almost no relationship to structure established by the rectangles? BLASPHEMOUS! They look terrible! Having variable widths and a structural disconnect with the obvious grid below, the text columns resonate with ignorance.

Deeper consideration leads me to realize the "designer" likely changed the individual text column widths so that each paragraph would occupy a fixed height of 6x lines. NEVER DO THIS. Unless of course you're OK with your marketing material inflicting symptoms of schizophrenia.

Delight is in the details

Moving away from the obvious problems with the 3-column grid, I start to notice a myriad of other minor alignment issues. Take the large all-caps text at the top of the page for example.. floating awkwardly, not quite centred, but certainly not aligned with anything, it hangs in a state of levitated confusion.

Look also at the left edge of the page – find the SRA "logo" and work your way down the left margin.. notice how none of those text elements are comfortably aligned with the left edge of the coloured rectangles below? This has to be a joke! I actually think it's harder to nudge all of these text elements so they don't align. If you're trying to tell me your company is discerning when it comes to UI/UX Design and "Quality Assurance" professionals, how about walking the fucking walk. Prove to me – through design – that you have what it takes to recognize a talented individual that's the right fit for my problem.

Structure and alignment are one of the first things we feel when looking at a layout, but ironically one of the last things we actually see.

The result of good structure is a general feeling of comfort, intentionality, and savviness. We are attracted to things that look smart. When the structure is ill-composed however, most people experience feelings of uncertainty and discord. Certainly not the kind of impression you want to make as a business, especially when you're trying to sell something via unsolicited correspondence.

If this layout were a house, I would have guessed it was built by stray cats, or blind people with no hands. If this layout was your birthday cake, I would laugh at your misfortune and steal a present on my out of your shitty condo party room.

Crap icons + stock images = suicide

Or at least, if I was ever going to kill myself, that's how I'd do it.

Look at the icon for Web Development. Now look at the icon for Quality Assurance. Compare that to the icon for Cloud Computing.. see where I'm going with this? IN WHAT UNIVERSE DO THESE ICONS BELONG TOGETHER?! Maybe in one of those personal hells as seen in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (Part II).. definitely not in any sort of successful design paradigm.

Showcasing a collection of uninspiring icons is one of the fastest ways to encourage someone to disengage with your content. We've written about icons at length, so I'll save my breath here a bit.. the point is, icons are not words; they operate on a different level than written copy. Icons are pictures of great potency – and when those pictures are at odds with each other visually, or sloppily rendered, the results are super-distracting and tells me you don't know shit from shinola. It also proves that you either A) can't recognize nice things, or B) don't like nice things.

Ask yourself, would I get excited to hand over professional responsibility to someone who doesn't like nice things?

Would I trust you to hire someone for detail-based work based on this steaming pile of pdf refuse? In case you still need help: The answer is no, 1000 times no.

-

A small part of me wants to set up a meeting with these guys, just to get a closer look at the inside of their operation. I feel like it's too easy to get a hate on based solely on my experience with their marketing collateral.. maybe there are some really talented, attentive, knowledgable people working at SRA. Maybe they each have an outstanding commitment to customer service, and finding the right person to help solve my problem. Maybe they'd even send me a holiday card.

Problem is, no matter how talented, or awesome, or nice they may be, I'm never going to find out because I'm never going to give them a call. For anything.

That's the power and tragedy of visual communication. It personifies whole operations. It hijacks first impressions. It's a proxy that lays the foundation for sustained, profitable business relationships – or not.

Structure, alignment, the quality of graphic elements, colour, type selection – all this design stuff sounds pretty frou-frou until you realize that if these elements are executed poorly, no one will want anything to do with you.

[studiofunctioninc-blog]

Hall of Shame, vol 2

Posted by Frank Maidens

I never thought I would ever think or say this, but after three very exciting weeks of televised soccer, I'm finding the time between these last few matches practically unbearable.

Presumably this is what being addicted to crack feels like – when your brain gets so used to daily doses of riveting entertainment, the gaps in between become insufferable.

So I'll turn my attention to some bad logos.. that should help ease the pain right? Here's a collection of some of the worst offenders we've seen recently:

    5. Trebas Institute

Here's a time capsule from the early 2000's (most likely), and a shining example of what not to do with brand icon design.

I'm not sure who's actually at fault here, the designer or the client. Judging from the quality of the rendering, I'd say the designer on this project was probably a competent individual. The type is well kerned, there is deft handling of the (dreaded) french version of the school's name.. even some of the icon details suggest to me this person cared about visual execution enough to ensure that straight lines transitioned nicely into curved lines, etc.

Problem is: execution alone does not a good logo make.

A logo is an opportunity for magic, for poetry. In the physical world, alchemy is a farce – but in the realm of visual communication we have the power to describe one idea through the presentation of something else completely. It's called metaphor, and it’s one of the keys to truly impactful visual communication.

What is the metaphor you see here with Trebas? A motherfucking CD ROM. Wow.

“But but!” you say, “What about the film strip, and the treble clef?”. Good question. IS THAT A FUCKING METAPHOR? NO! It's a literal illustration of various forms of media. In icon form. Great.

This is what makes me think the client played a large part in the final expression of this wasted opportunity. Designers are trained to use metaphors. They understand the power of storytelling, and shy away from the redundant. Some clients, on the other hand, can sometimes insist on playing a larger role in the design process. They have an obvious idea and want their idea to be realized, regardless of how conceptually vapid it may be.

The problem with that situation is, you're not actually paying for design. You're hiring someone to be a graphic artist.. to be your Adobe fingers. The result is something flat, obvious, and powerfully forgettable. A lesson in what not to do.

    4. Royal Ontario Museum

Next we have a rather unexpected candidate, this confused little mark for the ROM's 100th anniversary.

Like most pieces of disappointing design, this ROM mark initially looks like something successful. It's bold, simple – but look for a bit longer.. focus your gaze. Can you feel it eroding into a heap of dissonant geometry? Right there, it's the edge of the O that sets off a chain reaction.. and then you notice the M, actually seeing it for the first time. A broken heap of angles and curves, you wonder how you never noticed it before!

Yes, like the building itself, this logo has the illusion of something interesting – but after sustained consideration you realize it's just a well styled collection of weird angles.

Interesting that such a major piece of our city's cultural foundation can be so devoid of truly functional beauty, both in its tangible form, and its graphical representation.

What's worse in this particular case is not just the OM characters, but the needlessly insensitive post-production addition of the number 100. Here's a tip: if you ever want to really embarrass yourself, go ahead and adulterate your logos with little markers signifying milestone events. There's really no quicker, better way to insult your own work. It's essentially admitting that all of your previous efforts mean nothing, and that logos are cute little things we can keep cramming shit into.

    3. Rock Bottom

Ok, now we're getting to the good stuff. Maybe I should have started with the low-hanging fruit, but no matter, here it is: Rock Bottom.

There is certainly an art to choosing the right name for your business. It's a difficult decision, and one you'll presumably have to live with for a long long time. So maybe for Rock Bottom Underpinning dot Com, literally every other name was taken? Maybe this is a joint venture between Peter Rock, and Jamie Bottom? Maybe the proprietors of this business don't give a fuck about what asshole internet trolls think about the name of their business. Whatever the case, these guys got my attention.

The logo, or "lockup" as we like to say in this case, features a hybrid wordmark/icon, and url tagline. For the sake of brevity, let's just look at the wordmark/icon and see what we can see.

At first I thought the vinyl on the sign was flaking, but then I realized the cracks in the word Rock are completely intentional. Great attention to detail guys! But wait, do I want my rock to be cracking, or is that what you're here to fix, or what? Also, where was that attention to detail when the designer was rendering the "digger arm"? It's like they started on the scoop, but then completely lost interest in drawing halfway through the illustration. Just look at that dumb thing! What's with that little nub on the top? WHAT DOES THAT PIECE DO?

More importantly: never, ever pervert type like this. What a fucking joke. The awkward combination of the base of the arm into the B character comes from the deepest hell of pedestrian design.

It's not necessary. It's not meaningful, and it's certainly not aesthetically pleasing. It's just a bad idea, terribly executed.

How am I supposed to take your business seriously if you pull shit like this? Are you going to start the job on time, and then lose interest and rough in the last 50%? What's that going to do to the value of my house? Rock Bottom: not even once!

    2. F.I.S.T.

Here's another example of a missed opportunity with logo design.

Get it? the acronym spells fist, so there's a picture of a fist! And plus, that obligatory cop badge outline just reeks of security, so when we put the fist icon in the cop badge, it's like we're saying: "Stay out criminals, or else the police will punch you in the face!"

I get it, your logo is super-obvious. Probably because you were ironically too afraid to pursue an alternate visual means of communicating authority, reliability, and security. So you get in line, rehash the same old visual crap every other security / surveillance company uses to hammer out the same message.

The issue is this: if your concept is lacking, then your execution has to be enough to make you stand apart. Failing on both ends of the spectrum immediately relegates you to "ignorable", which is exactly what we see here.

Look at the fist. Does that look like an awesome fist? No, it looks like a shitty fist icon that some kid drew on his math notebook.

If you're going to go the obvious route, wow me with the visual execution. Don't skimp on the thumb – that is one janky thumb. Look at how it intersects with the gap between the index and middle fingers. That is one poor gap!

Also, look at the pinky finger. I hate it when graphic elements aren't executed with confidence. Either make all the fingers the same length, or tighten that shit up! Enough of this "mmaaah, I don't know if I want a big pinky or a little pinky" garbage. It belies the whole notion that you're a big, bad security company that knows what's what. YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT'S WHAT FIST. Your shit is weak, your thumb is weird, your pinky is timid. You are failing as a logo and probably as a business. Get it together!

    1. CongeeTime

This one is certainly the best/worst.

We actually go to eat here often – the food is good, but I always find myself chuckling when I see the sign from the parking lot. It's one of those impossible objects that I could never author even if I tried. Like a tangled nest of nintendo controller cables, it's something that can only be created through a tornado of boisterous ignorance.

There are at least 4 typefaces at work here. Why is that bad? Look at the results! Slowly move your eyes across this wordmark and feel the weight of each letter shift. Feel the resulting wordpicture. It's like staring at your feet on LSD. While potentially introspective, this is not a particularly comfortable experience, and certainly not a professional or inspiring demonstration of exterior signage.

What's worse is that most of the individual letterforms have been stretched or distorted in some way. Please understand that stretching or manipulating letterforms away from their intended design is the capital offence in typography.

Humans have been crafting and refining letterforms for literally 2,000 years – you are not going to make an improvement in 20 minutes with free transform, and you're certainly not doing the world any favours.

The feeling I get here is that someone was bored. Bored with one typeface, bored with letters, or bored with some other aspect of their life. They wanted something fun, something unique – so they messed around with some system fonts and came up with this.

What I've come to realize over the past couple months is that good type is never boring. Even words set in faces I don't particularly care for (Optima, Courier, Verdana) can look beautiful and interesting if treated in an appropriate way.

That's the magic of typography for me – that letters by themselves don't sing. It takes a musician and an instrument to make music. It takes an awareness of the context, the idiosyncrasies, the audience, to create something truly successful. And it can happen even with instruments (typefaces) I don't normally care for.

    –

Typography, logos, icons, each represent an opportunity for something awesome; these things are magic. Our words and shapes are magic, made possible by the magic of our shared vocabularies. They are the devices of real life telepathy, beaming messages from one side of the earth to another, even across the ocean of time.

These shapes and symbols deserve our reverence and respect. So the next time you find yourself in the act of creating something new, remember the opportunity, and make it sing.

[studiofunctioninc-blog]

Human after all

posted by Frank Maidens

Well here's a sad sight for good eyes: a text-only ad for Google Trends, foolishly and frustratingly installed in one of the worst places for a design that relies entirely on the reading experience.

It is so obviously and laughably bad that I don't think there's actually much else for me to say in this post.. unless I can bleed the stone a little.

Take a look at the image below and time how long it takes for you to actually read and comprehend the message:

IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE?

I swear, I've read it three times now and I'm still not sure if I know what it's talking about. Such a confusing mix of words and numerals as well.. just an impossible situation.

My next question is: who's responsible for this thing? Are we witnessing a blue moon brain fart from the world's most valuable company? Or was it the bumbling subcontractor, hired to apply neighbourhood-specific ads in the worst places imaginable?

The point is, it doesn't matter who'd decision it was – that's Google's logo, it's Google's ad, everything else is moot.

The interesting thing about a piece like this is considering what it does to our perception of the company / brand as a whole.

Having something fail so publicly is never good for sustaining trust in the ol' hearts and minds. I'm not saying this is exactly on par with the Apple Maps fiasco, or that an ad like this would cause the share price to dip.. but to me it represents a kink in the armour. It's a demonstration of fallibility, and corrosive to all of the other carefully laid pieces of the general brand.

It says: Hi, I'm Google. Most of the time I'm totally awesome, but sometimes I shit the bed. Let's hope my next screw up doesn't involve the inadvertent deletion of your entire inbox! Because that would suck for you. Bye!

[studiofunctioninc-blog]

WOW! One whole year of blog!

Hard to believe, but it's been 365 days since our first post. To say thank you for your readership, please accept 20% off take-out from New Sushi Island, the place that started it all!

WOW!

[studiofunctioninc-blog]

The Taste of… Genuine Bad?

Posted by Vivian Hui

Frank and I live and work in Little Italy, spending probably 93% of our time in the area. Local merchants, restauranteurs, florists, butchers, baristas, and the resident homeless guy recognize us on the street and shoot friendly nods our way (along with a free cannoli or two, sometimes).

For the last 3 years, the Taste of Little Italy street festival has quietly snuck up on us – we'll leave the studio one random Friday in June, only to realize that the streets are lined with tables and people, eager to feast on the delights of College Street. This year, however, we were alerted to the arrival of the Taste of Little Italy through a printed flyer and posters up on the strip. It's a terrible thing to behold (just like their Flash website) and I wish we had never encountered it – there are so many design blunders on it that it taints any delicious tastes the festival may have for us next week. It is the visual equivalent to drinking orange juice after brushing your teeth.

Eat… Drink… Distort!

Look at this event logo. LOOK AT IT. When I first saw it, Frank was in the other room and asked, "what's wrong?" because apparently this thing was bad enough to force an audible groan. I scurried the flyer over to him and silently pointed to the tail of the y and he exclaimed in earnest, "no way! ugh!" (This, by the way, is why we are not only partners in business, but partners in love.)

This event logo blows my mind, like only truly amateur design can. Even if you're not a designer, I'm sure you can feel its naïvety, but to help you break it down and articulate why this thing is falling apart at the seams:

The poorly merged, uncomfortable shapes forming the y show an utter incompetence wielding vector objects, resulting in a turbulent frankenstein letterform.

The distorted, wonky, randomly kerned type INSIDE of the frankenstein letterform is illegible and visually nauseating. Between the mangled letterforms and those Pac-Man dots between words, I'm shocked and enraged by the lack of respect for typography as a discipline.

The white stroke around the type is an extremely amateur solution to a problem that could've been solved in a more suitable way: maybe don't use a super saturated blue-black colour for the sky? What about a nice, oh I don't know, sky blue? (Who in their right mind would choose this colour for the sky? Hopefully it's not an accurate depiction of what the festival is going to look like next week, because that is going to be a hell of a storm.)

There are a lot of other things that are wrong with the logo, but let's move on before I give myself nightmares.

Ghouls on a patio

I tried reverse image searching this illustration, hoping that it was just some poorly chosen clip art, but I haven't been able to find anything yet which leads me to believe that somehow, this could possibly be a custom illustration. Just like the ominous dark blue sky, why would someone, when given a choice, decide that this was an awesome graphic to include on a poster celebrating food and culture in Little Italy?

It reads to me as a depressing scene where a polyamorous couple is confronting the husband about his drinking problem, as he stares morosely into his cup of tea. The stroke weights are totally out of whack and the strange gradients/weird flat shadows, unmerged, jagged vector shapes, and unexplained floating shapes make this illustration one of the worst that I've encountered in recent memory.

Not only is this scene horribly executed (what is wrong with that left woman's legs? and is that umbrella being held up by magic?), it is actually made worse by pairing it with this background graphic done in a totally different (auto-traced) flat vector style. I'm really at a loss of what to say about these graphics, so please use the power of your vision to really soak in all of its horribleness (you may want a pair of safety glasses to protect against sharp vector shards.)

Literal blocks of type

People like justified type because it's seemingly "neater" to read, but in general it makes paragraphs less visually appealing and harder to penetrate. For short bullet points of copy like these, I can understand wanting to keep everything in a tight, square little package. So how could these be improved?

Get rid of that damn outlined type, you're ruining everything. We're not dealing with some sort of printing process where it's actually beneficial to have a solid outline behind the type. This just adds visual clutter and impedes legibility and is totally unnecessary 99% of the time.

That little ampersand between Italian & Indie is cringeworthy and needs to find a better home. Although the off-centredness makes me twitchy, it's more the fact that it is just plopped on top of the 2 words like that without any care in the world that makes me want to punch something.

Improve the leading and give each line of text more room to breathe – it will do wonders for the overall piece of mind of the reader.

Don't manually stretch or condense type – it was carefully crafted to have specific, balanced, aesthetically pleasing proportions and by squeezing it manually, letterforms and the overall word picture get all crazy. Most notably, check out the curves of the J and U, along with the arms of the E – they are completely disproportionate to the verticals of the letterforms and the whole JUNE word becomes difficult and painful to read.

Use common sense when dealing with information and delete unnecessary elements, such as those brackets. If information is already visually subdued (in this case through the use of smaller type in the overall hierarchy) then the reader already picks up on the fact that it is secondary information and it's redundant to have the brackets.

The saving grace about this terrible design is that locals in the GTA will still come to the Taste of Little Italy, regardless of how shitty the graphic representation. However, if I were a tourist in my hotel room researching things to do for the day, I would think twice about attending simply because it looks like it would be a poorly run, amateur event – that's if the Flash site even loaded on my device.

So if you're reading this from the Little Italy BIA's office, maybe we should talk to see how your posters next year can have more awesomeness, and fewer polyamorous ghouls.

[studiofunctioninc-blog]

Put your best foot (face) forward

Posted by Frank Maidens

The provincial election looms like an unwanted pregnancy test. Some people might tell you they have a solid idea of how it will all turn out. Others (myself included) may confess they have no idea how the chips are going to fall this time, and then proceed to drink whisky and recite a list of their greatest fears.

Voter polling is a strange bird, and a tool that I've never really learned to trust entirely. Certain deplorable newspapers have also been added to my list of high suspicion, thanks in large to the recent "Cover Wrap" ad purchase debacle.

How then is someone like me to get a sense of which candidates have leading amounts of public support? What other methods do I have to forecast how large groups of people will apply their voting authority? Cue lawn signs, stage right! Doubtlessly one of the simplest, oldest, non-electronic means by which ordinary citizens can publicly draw a line in the sand, while simultaneously pockmarking nearly every block of the residential landscape.

OK fine – lawn signs are a necessary evil in the throes of a campaign. They most certainly provide insight on the voting trajectory of a particular street, or ward, or hovel, or shitty Ontario town.

They are obvious, simple, designed to be seen ad nauseam – but what happens to a political candidate who falters on this highly visible, repetitive platform? What if something goes wrong, or is overlooked in the maelstrom of campaign HQ, and some unsuspecting party avatar is then forced to erect bogus signs? Is it possible that one candidate's efforts/ambitions can be markedly compromised by such an error? Can the associated political party also lose lustre in the eyes of voters?

Cue Adam Vaughan and the Liberal party, stage left!

Viv and I, like the rest of our fellow Torontonians (Tarrahnians?) initially caught our eyeballs on these little rectangles 2 or 3 weeks back. It took us a good day or so of feeling awkward before we could finally articulate the discomfort his lawn signs were causing, and once we committed to a more detailed examination, the transgressions and downright confounding graphic treatments were clear as a sunny day in Bickford.

Is this the end of Zombie Shakespeare?

The first thing you have to notice is just how awkward his sign portrait really is.

Whoever thought it was a good idea to photograph our dear fair-skinned, salty-haired Adam wrapped in Skrillex goggles is either a fashion stylist from Oshawa, or is secretly working for the Tories.

It's a terrible photograph that doesn't make him look like the savvy, intelligent, compassionate person we once knew as a city councillor.

If appearances are important in politics, and I'll bet my testicles that they are (RoFo excluded), then why didn't someone catch this? Wasn't there a print/press approval? Wouldn't it make sense to see how the first 10 signs look before PRINTING 30,000 OF THEM?! Adjust the curves dammit, or hire a better stylist – do something so that at least you start the lawn battles looking like a living person, instead of some kind of bespectacled cyborg cadaver.

Can the real Grit faction please stand up?

Also, since when are there two Liberal parties? Am I seeing this correctly? Oh, there's just one you say.. OK, then why the fuck are there two different signs and two different colours representing the same political party? Such confuse!

I see there's a new provincial logomark this year.. that's fine, I actually don't mind it so much. Sure, it humps the same Obama-Gotham train that ran out of steam back in 2010, but that's cool.. Canadian political parties aren't necessarily expected to be at the vanguard of style and culture. Here's my hangup: Adam Vaughan is a Liberal candidate running in a federal by-election – but he's running in Ontario with a different party logo than the.. Ontario Liberal party. It makes sense, but looks downright confusing. What is the average passer-by to think?

It just makes the whole operation look sloppy and refurbished. It's like someone said: "OK Dong, you take all the new shit, we'll stick Adam with the old logo and some inferior colour red.. we haven't quite decided which colour yet, but we're thinking either Stuffy Victorian Maroon, or Dried Bloodstain". Either that or Adam was forced to apply his name and face to 30K pieces of pre-printed sign boards that were hot off the press back in 2012. Whatever the case, it's another reason his signage stands out for all the wrong reasons.

Unspoken promises

It doesn't matter if we're talking about a hand soap, a new car, a hospital, a political hopeful, or a meaningful charity – sub-par visual execution, a lack of graphic consistency, and inflicting the viewer with states of bewilderment are certainly not key to success in visual communication. Especially when it comes to a political campaign. Especially when it's more important than ever that the PCs eat shit and stfu for the next electoral cycle (full disclosure).

How is anyone supposed to get a sense of party unity when such fragmentation is littered all over the city? What kind of message is communicated by the medium of seemingly mismatching collateral?

It's hard to table "better awareness" as a remedy, or future course of action. It's hard to tell someone "You need to be less ignorant". But I can't think of another way to move forward form here. Real life ain't got no time machine, so all there is to do is embrace the sting of a missed opportunity and remember that feeling the next time a chance to do better arises. Let it not consume you, but rather motivate you to think clearly and execute without error.

At the risk of being too repetitive (my job), I'll say again:

Whenever possible, always review your artwork as rendered by the final output method – before committing to the final run.

If you're going to depart from a visual convention, ensure that departure is done with confidence and intentionality, lest it be read as a mistake.

A confused audience is generally not a happy audience.

Avoid any situation where multiple instances of the same logo or identifying mark may be seen in close proximity. Nothing good will ever come of it (unless of course you're at an LA Kings home game, in which case feel free to mix black & purple).

Take yourself seriously, and take your audience seriously. Cultivating a particular brand image is like tending to an orchard – it can take 50 years of water and wind to establish something magical, and 1 day of fire to turn it all to ash.

[studiofunctioninc-blog]

And that friends is what we call the Wheel

Posted by Frank Maidens

A friend of mine said that to me one night after I played a low straight to win a giant pot of money in a game of Omaha High/Low. I had never heard that expression in poker before – Wheel. The idea of something perfect, or unbeatable in a certain circumstance is a game lover's dream come true.

The specimen on display for today's dissection is similarly unbeatable, albeit for different reasons. Never – or should I say, very seldomly – does one get to witness so many transgressions of aesthetic common sense living in the same piece of design. When I first saw this poster, I thought this was literally a talisman sent down from the Gods.. some kind of magic key to hold up against all of our future studio work – a shining conglomerate of terrible design choices to avoid at all costs.

Shallow Water, No Diving

The first detail that jumps out is seemingly minor in terms of its proportionate size to the rest of the layout, but the gravity of its transgression makes it the primary target of my discerning eye. What is it you ask? Two words, one terrible treatment: vertical type.

Stacking letters is nothing short of a crime against humanity. We talk about it to greater lengths in another post, but if you only have the stamina for one self-indulgent rant per internet session (completely understandable), allow me to recap here: Characters in the western alphabet are special objects that have been crafted and refined over centuries to relate to each other in a left-to-right horizontal orientation. The delicate relationship between forms an counterforms pass the eye from one character to the next, ultimately combining to create the all-mighty word picture. Recognition of word pictures is what allows us to read quickly and comfortably.

So, when some would-be Florida designer (or any other jackass for that matter) decides to stack letters vertically – they shatter the word picture, invent a new shape the reader must struggle to interpret, and also demonstrate to the world they are functioning with a discouragingly low level of human intelligence and probably shit in their own bed at night.

No seriously, letter stacking is that bad – never do it.

Put A Stroke On It

The second chakra of crap design in this poster is represented by the addition of coloured strokes around the letters in the headline. Really this is just a lazy way to make sure that type is legible on top of decorative backgrounds, or it's a "technique" used by people who think life is boring and drink redbull at the breakfast table.

Putting strokes on type is like putting a sweater on a dog: it might be useful in very particular situations, but 99% of the time it's decorative, derogatory, and unnecessary.

Additional to this, look at the resulting effect on what remains of the original letterforms. Once bold and proud, these insulated characters are now mangled embarrassments, their proportions mashed and contorted – particularly in the smaller subhead text "N" and "M" characters. Ironic that in the designer's attempt to boost legibility by adding a coloured stroke they've actually distorted the word picture and made this primary information more difficult / more frustrating to read.

What's the solution? In a nutshell: better planning, less decoration, more confidence in the power of simplicity and unadulterated typography.

If you don't busy your designs with backgrounds that required special letter treatment, this situation is avoided altogether. Using flat colours / simpler textures and appropriately coloured text can add visual interest while maintaining legibility.

It's also difficult in a world of glossy, 3D-extruded TSN graphics to remember the beauty and effectiveness of simple typographic treatments. The easier it gets to apply decorative effects to letters, the more they are used in prominent applications, and the more expected those effects become – just take a moment to remember the scourge of the Drop Shadow that plagued our collective visionscape from 1992 ~ 2007.

Pure deployments of typography have been pushed out of prominent visual platforms (ie. broadcast) and the resulting psychological shift is that typography needs a bit of dressing up to become interesting. This is of course categorically false – a well-selected typeface properly used is one of the most beautiful, functional things we humans have created (much better than sliced bread, at least). The problem of course is, not all type is used properly, so in the absence of deft hands and minds, decorations abound.

Sweating To The Details

Another blatantly amateur move is to abandon your grid for no particular reason. Take a look at the bottom left of the design and tell me if you think that contact info block looks awesome, or like looks a sloppy afterthought. Why go to the trouble of carefully aligning all the other copy blocks, just to stab me in the eye with an anomalous treatment that flies in the face of justice and order? There is seriously no good reason why this text size can't get a little bit smaller, and fall in line with the rest of the left side alignment.

And how about this call-out treatment for the 10K in cash & prizes? Amazing that the top headline section of the poster has more effects than it knows what to do with, but when it comes to a section that could actually use a visual boost, sadly not a flare or flourish can be spared. To add insult to injury, the word Prizes is almost completely lost in the dorsal fin of that Bluntface Hammerfish(?). WHERE'S YOUR BAG OF TRICKS FOR THIS ONE BILL HAGAN?

Printed Social Media Icons – Wow, Such Useless!

This has to be one of the things we hate the most when it comes to printed design pieces. You can read more about our thoughts on it here, but for the purposes of this post I'll briefly say this: if putting strokes on type is like putting a sweater on a dog, dirtying your print design with functionless, unclickable social media icons is like (putting a seatbelt on a bicycle / forcing your besweatered dog to wear an eyepatch). Not only is it completely useless, but it also makes you look like a Luddite who has no idea how to communicate with people in print media. There isn't even a fucking URL for the facebook page.. so what? I'm supposed to search "Boynton Beach Kiwanis Open Offshore Fishing Tournament" on my phone? I'm using a proper keyboard right now and that took me at least 10 seconds.

Also, isn't every business / event / commercial enterprise already on facebook? This isn't 2008.. by telling me your shitty fishing jamboree has a facebook page, your effectively just telling me a) you're dumb, b) not web savvy), and c) 6 years late to the party.

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As frustrating as it is to rake over a poster like this and slowly isolate all of the broken things about it, I do find it amazing that such pieces can actually exist.. that some person has the ability/ignorance to consolidate so many of the things I struggle desperately everyday of my life to discourage and avoid.

This poster might not be a long-lost drawing by M.C. Escher, or some tangible version of the fabled "3-prong, 2-slot widget".. but for your humble narrator, these types of impossible objects are the anti-maps to a land of beautiful visual communication, and a better world for us all.

[studiofunctioninc-blog]

Do the curtains match the drapes?

Posted by Frank Maidens

It's hard to ignore the snowballing buzz around "wearable tech" and the associated companies that are bringing new and interesting hardware products to market. Some people see the movement as the next step in our endless succession of paradigm-busting advancements that will one day have us sending warriors back in time to kill John Connor.

It makes sense though, before tablets killed PCs, smartphones and iPods brought the internet into our bathrooms. Before blog engines and ecommerce platforms made posting and selling things online easier than calling your mom, the very first websites were broadcasting digital messages to a brand new audience. Before that, well, I'm sure everyone was just excited to post on message boards and then crank on a game of Solitaire or The Oregon Trail.

But I digress.

“Wearables” do indeed represent a point of departure from which there is no return. Soon we will nostalgically reminisce of a time when we sat, awkward peripherals in hand and under finger, chained to the desks and monitors and towers that once represented the “computer using experience”. Don't get me wrong, it's good that we're moving on... and for the businesses perched on the edge of this new wave of liberated, interconnected smart devices, there are giant barrels of money to be made.

Enter GlassUp, a decisively unstylish, but fairly exciting product on a mission not to entertain users, but rather deliver important information to facilitate their day-to-day lives by providing driving instructions, selected notifications, access to emails, etc. To me it sounds like a more utility-focused device when compared to Google's soon-to-launch product GLASS... yet despite the odds being stacked against GlassUp, I do like seeing diversity in the market.

The issue I have with GlassUp is this – as awesome and exciting the product may be, the whole presentation of that product is based on my perception of it. I can't hold a GlassUp in my hands right now, I can't feel how light (or heavy) it may be, can't put it on my face for a facedrive. All I have to go on are the visual communication elements as seen on the company's website – and unless I plan a road trip to company HQ (in Italy), or catch these guys at CES, I'm probably never going to see an actual device before / if I decide to buy one.

Myopic is a word I love, and it holds a great deal of meaning here. If being too focused on one segment of your business (ie. product development) means you totally space on another segment (ie. the platforms that introduce / sell your product), will you be successful? Prolly not... why? Because people can't interact with your product on your website to see how awesome it is, or how it really works, or whatever... instead, people are forced to look at pictures and read little blurbs about what it is and does.

This means that your website (and all it's respective photography, writing, visual design, etc) essentially is your product – and if any of those things are lacking, well then it's as if your product is lacking too.

This is the case with GlassUp. I'm sure the product is no joke, and took a small army of engineers to create and make awesome – but looking at the website content, how can I take it seriously?

I'm cringing a bit as I type this, but your website images are "visual ambassadors" for the sum of effort that lay beneath the membrane of my browser. I really wish more people – non-visual business people especially – understood this. Fundamentalism in any one direction typically leads to folly, and in this case it seems GlassUp is guilty of being too focused on product development, leaving only a bit of energy left for visual communication. Don't get me wrong, I truly believe in the power of the Minimum Viable Product (particularly as it applies to websites), but surely you must strike some balance between your efforts.

tl;dr

Spend money on good photography if you're launching a product – it will pay you back in ways immeasurable.

If you need to photoshop something as important as your website’s hero image, or product showcase images, hire someone, or take the 10 hours required to make it perfect.

Understand that virtual representations of your product are extensions of your actual product.

Understand that virtual representations of your business are usually the only exposure users have to your business, and therefore represent you entirely.

Respect, and budget for, the processes required for excellent visual communication (strategy, writing, photography, and design).

[studiofunctioninc-blog]

Critical Copywriting

Posted by Frank Maidens

One of the most profound realizations that Viv and I have come to after years of working as designers is that "visual design" isn't really a stand-alone deliverable or activity.. it's more like a roughly definable phase of a grander process; a thing sat in the middle-ish of a spectrum of actions that range from problem definition, to strategy, visual execution, refinement, design production, and implementation.

The point is that you can't have successful visual design without a good strategy in place. Similarly, you can't effectively design something if you don't know how it's going to be built, or can't anticipate the efficiencies or limitations of the techniques that will implement your designs. The whole "design process" is one continuous strip of interrelated processes that requires understanding, anticipation, and literacy in both directions.

Copywriting falls into this spectrum, usually somewhere between strategy and visual execution. Which makes sense really, since it's hard to design something without an idea of what the content / messages are going to be.. and the framing of said messages should come naturally after you've clearly defined the design challenge and target audience(s).

Sometimes I feel that people overlook how difficult it is to produce simple, effective visual designs. I whine in my head like a hard done by teenager about how annoying life is and how no one understands me. But then I realize that my job is actually pretty sweet compared to the often thankless duties that fall on the shoulders of the copywriter.

If good visual design and typography are invisible crafts, then consider copywriting the stem cell plasma of the universe.

A common issue with almost every project is aligning on budget. Things take time and cost money. Experienced professionals charge more money than unexperienced professionals. Clients have budgets, or have an idea of how much something _should cost. Negotiations transpire, deliverables are altered or cut.. and sometimes, to save on costs, the client will assume certain responsibilities for the project. The deliverables which are most vulnerable to this internal assimilation are usually the most invisible ones – like writing – because, shit, how hard can it be?

What most clients fail to realize is that writing – like strategy, design, production, and implementation – is a critically integral part of the whole process, and that ill-considered writing has the potential to poison the end product and compromise all of the hours that will be stacked on top of it.

Now, Vivian and I are not writers. This blog is chopped full of ignorant English, bad grammar, comma splicing, improper this or that – I have no illusions (you should see the posts before spellcheck saves my ass from crippling embarrassment). But I do know enough as a functioning adult to recognize when marketing English used in a certain context is weak, or outright terrible. I like to think I've been around long enough, and ran my fingers through enough copy, to know when something is off.

So let's take a look at a few examples and all try to learn a thing or two about what not to do with writing in visual design:

Barracuda Networks

We caught this baby at the airport recently. It stood out to us because it screams with boredom. Like a black hole that is ultra noticeable because nothing interesting is coming from it. A hanging gap in space, it is sad and ignorable.

What makes this so powerfully dull you ask? It's that damn technique of one word headlines.

Headlines of this nature are the literary cousin of the stock photograph – the written equivalent of people smiling while eating salad. The result is immediately vanilla – something you've seen 10,000 times and never really noticed. Maybe it's just because I'm not in the business of systems administration, but nothing about this ad attracts or captures my interests (except of course to tear it apart on a blog for an audience of 20 people).

The follow-up to this is the confusing subhead. It took me about 90 seconds to half understand that "Barracuda Spam" wasn't actually a weird kind of spam I'd never heard of before, but in fact that whole copy line is the name of a product. But from the way it's written, it sounds like this firewall is going to protect me from viruses and Barracuda Spam.. hahaha, sounds like a terrible kind of email to get eh?

Emergen-C

We caught this guy on the subway coming home from the airport. I remember initially being attracted to the ad because of it's simple colour scheme and charming illustrations. It took me about 2 minutes of pondering the headline to notice something was wrong. Well, maybe not wrong, but something was sour enough to cause me a little discomfort.

My issue is with the ad's use of the word "didn't / did". When I think about the use of the word "did", I think about a reference to a specific event or action in the past – "yes mom, I did clean my room", "no, I didn't go to the concert with Johnny", etc. When it comes to stating my general feelings, general actions, or philosophies, I am naturally inclined to use the words "do, don't, or doesn't" – "I don't like broccoli” (a lie), "I do bike to work everyday," "Igor doesn't support the arts".

Notice when I'm referring to Igor in the third person about his general actions or philosophies, "doesn't" makes more sense that "didn't" when it comes to the idea of supporting the arts.

It sounds funny to use "did" in this case, like saying "Igor didn't eat vegetarian food" – it sounds off-key, out of tune, like some weird Engrish that is just wrong enough to feel like an ill-fitting boot. Maybe, you say, that Engrish bend is an intentional move.. maybe because Igor is clearly not a native-English speaker the ad is suppose to read this way (in mother Russia, English rules you). I thought the same thing until I poked around on their website a little more.

Notice how the product descriptions are cute to read, but don't actually nail the right feeling. There's too much of a jump to make, or not enough consistency, or something. It's nice that they're trying, but the results just don't cut it for me.

Worse yet is this ad featuring my boy Phil. I guess it makes sense to have a boosted immune system to pick up chicks, but the emphasis on his "A" game kind of competes with the idea that the product is a Vitamin C booster.

And then there's poor ol' Arthur.. i don't really see what his feebleness, general apathy, and bodybuilding ambitions have to do with an immune booster; maybe there's a connection if I strain – but that's the point.. I shouldn't have to strain. I shouldn't have to try to fit the pieces together. This is ad writing and it should click immediately, and if it doesn't, the payoff better be worth it when the viewer finally does put it together. Problem is it leaves me searching, never finding the relief of that ah-ha moment. A subtle frustration, granted, but a tangible one none the less.

Catchin' Stuff in Boynton Beach

Most of Florida, from what I can tell, is a giant parking lot.. the parts that don't connect to the ocean at least.

We caught an eyeful of these promotional banners for Boynton Beach, a sunny concrete hovel just down the intracoastal from various celebrity homes in Delray and Boca Raton (think Yanni, and Wilson Phillips).

There was a butt-load of them, and it seemed that the more we read, the less sense they started to make..

catch a big fish – ok, that makes sense.. here I am in Florida, and maybe I'd like to spend my time sat baking on some boat, luring unsuspecting animals on to a food-laced hook and then yanking them into another paradigm. Not my cup of tea really, but I can see how people would make that association with a common activity in Florida.

catch a workout – right.. a workout. That's important I suppose. Need to keep fit and all that.. but do you really need to "catch" a workout? Seems a little weird, but fine.. this is America after all, and I do have a Canadian brain.

catch a memory / catch a nightlife – now you're starting to lose me. I'm not sure if I've ever "caught a memory", unless you mean that one time I got sick on a cruise ship. _that was a memory. And as far as catching something amorphous like "a nightlife", well, is that something one can catch with a net? Or is it more of a snare that's required. Certainly one does not simply catch a nightlife with one's bare hands?!

catch a venture / catch a tradition – what kind of venture? An ad_venture? A business venture? How can I catch it if I don't know what it is? Additionally, are there any traditions native to Florida that are worth catching? Maybe having dinner at 4:30pm, or the conscious choice to not recycle? Bleh, no thanks.

and finally: catch a friend – wow.. creepy, right? Pick one out, follow along for a bit, then pull up the van, slide open the door and BAM.. you got a new friend! And look, he/she fits perfectly into that little grey box you built in the corner of your underground hiding spot. It's nice and cool underground, and real quiet.. I'm sure your new friend will like it there. Until they run out of clean clothes of course.. but by that time, you'll be ready to catch a new friend!

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You see? Writing _is important! Don't let anyone try to tell you otherwise. And next time you meet a copywriter at a cocktail party, by them a drink and give them a hug from the rest of us.