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It may seem hard for many to work up a hearty “Ho-Ho-Ho” right now, but it’s still a good time to reflect on what managed to go well in the midst of so many challenges, to cherish our family, friends, clients and coworkers, and to share our hopes for a better year ahead in 2021. So, with that in mind, we’ll muster up at least a single “Ho!” and all the best wishes from everyone at The Design Image Group for a truly happy Holiday Season and a wonderful New Year!

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Spotted via The IHA/International Housewares Association’s 12.9.20 SmartBrief:

Writing for Glossy (www.glossy.co), Jill Manoff shares five New York department stores’ responses to pandemic realities with their updated holiday window displays. Maintaining some traditions can be more important than ever in stressful times, which Bergdorf Goodman, Bloomingdale’s, Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy’s and Nordstrom rightfully recognized. But some plans (and some of that planning and work underway a full year ahead of time) were altered this year, eliminating touch-interactive features, switching to live-streamed and online events for the displays’ unveilings, or benefiting different charities and honoring first responders and essential workers.    

Here in Chicago the traditional department store window displays aren’t what they once were. After all, State Street in The Loop is no longer a department store row lined by Marshall Fields, Carson Pirie Scott, Wieboldt’s, Goldblatt’s, Sears and Montgomery Ward. Elsewhere, some Michigan Avenue and Gold Coast street level merchants remain on guard with board-up supplies in the event of social unrest. And, after all, it’s difficult to maintain recommended social distancing when you’re squeezed into crowds congregating in front of holiday window displays.

Just more flashy holiday marketing? Oh, don’t be a Scrooge. New York, Chicago and any other city or business getting dressed up for the season sounds good to me right now. Here, the city’s aglow with lights and decorations from Daly Plaza to the Magnificent Mile, and that’s a good thing in a year when some ‘normal’ is warmly welcomed.

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A Two-Fer For 2021: 

For only the second time in 22 years, Pantone has chosen not one but two colors for its 2021 Pantone Color of The Year.

The two colors are Pantone ® 17-5104 Ultimate Gray and Pantone ® 13-0647 Illuminating Yellow. The first is intended as a stable, calming hue, the second being invigorating and hopeful. Apparently the decision to choose two hues, each quite different, was based in part on the unprecedented events experienced throughout this year, and recognizing next year’s need for stability to build on, along with the vibrancy and energy to do so.

The last time Pantone chose two hues was in 2016 when Rose Quartz and Serenity were selected with a nod towards increased fluidity around gender norms.

Product, graphic and fashion designers racing to rework next year’s projects in shades of gray and yellow is unlikely, of course. Still, Pantone’s Color Of The Year announcements make for intriguing forecasts and recommendations, and it’s always interesting to look back at year’s end to see how – or if – the hues were deployed.

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Inspiration’s Where You Find It.

David Furst and Jeffrey Henson Scales curated the New York Times “The Year In Pictures”, subtitled “2020: A Year Like No Other”, a stunning series of images taken across the country and around the world throughout this tumultuous year. Understandably, the pandemic, U.S politics and social justice protests dominate much of the year, such as the Damon Winter photo shown above, taken at a Florida drive-through Covid testing site back in October. Like all great art, there’s beauty to be found even in tragedy, and no shortage of irony amidst the drama, like Jeenah Moon’s eerie night time photo of The Guggenheim Museum’s shuttered “Countryside, The Future” exhibition, or Simbarashe Cha’s shot from designer Christian Siriano’s 2021 Spring couture collection’s fashion show held outdoors with a parade of opulently attired (and masked) runway models. Still, the series closes on a hopeful note with a Jacob King photo of UK medical staff cheering 90 year old Margaret Keenan, the first person in Britain to receive the Pfizer/Biotech coronavirus vaccine just this week. Go to nytimes.com to scroll through this visually stunning and often poignant gallery of amazing photos and to link to prior years and “The Decade In Pictures”.

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Work, Interrupted.

Publisher’s Weekly might not be the first magazine you’d expect a design and creative services resource to refer to, but The Design Image Group’s office library has an eclectic array of reading material. Of course, there’s no one around to browse new issues these days, the staff working remotely.

So, product developer, writer and editor Liz Scheier’s “Work, Interrupted” from PW’s 11.30.20 issue may only get one reader at our office, and that’d be me. Scheier’s detailed survey is subtitled “New books suggest that the large-scale shift to remote work is only the beginning of a much-needed overhaul of American office life”. Gemma Dale’s Flexible Working, David Burkus’ Leading From Anywhere and Kevin Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel’s The Long Distance Teammate are among the forthcoming titles Scheier looks at, each probing the pandemic driven reshaping of the entire workplace landscape. As she notes, “…the pandemic has been a catalyst for organizations to make the policy shifts their employees have championed for years”.

I’ll bet we all agree – organizations large and small, management and staff alike – that a big reassessment of the way we work lies ahead. But speaking as the person who still has to sign the monthly office rent check on a space that’s barely been occupied since late March, I’ll admit that I’m championing the much-missed in-person morning staff meetings ‘round the conference table...returning some time in Q4-2021, perhaps. If we’re lucky.

When The DIG went remote, we quickly concluded that things might work more efficiently if someone still held down the fort, and it seemed like the honorable thing for the boss to volunteer. There are still packages to send and receive, occasional non-robocalls, some older archives that are too cumbersome to relocate which need to be searched. And it’s not as if the staff doesn’t pop in (masked and distanced, obviously) to address various tasks, quite possibly more frequently than any of us foresaw.  Who knows? Perhaps this weird 2020-2021 will all be no more than another footnote in the long list of a small business’ nearly forty years worth of quirky memories and anecdotes.

But for all of the forthcoming business books forecasting how Corporate America will reassess precisely how (and notably where) work gets done, Scheier’s article also includes soon-to-appear titles like Fawn Germer’s Coming Back! – How To Win The Job You Want When You Lost The Job You Need. It’s one thing to tease one another about pajama pants peeking into a Zoom screen or the uneasy voyeurism of peering into coworkers’ private spaces. It’s another altogether to consider the devastation created by months of relentless job losses.

It’s not only hospitality, travel, dining and entertainment industry workers who’ve suddenly found themselves on reduced hours, furloughed or unemployed. Countless industries and marketplaces (Amazon distribution centers aside, I suppose) have been impacted. Companies are understandably cautious about aggressive new agendas. Programs that may have been the bread and butter basis of 2020 and beyond may still be on hold. It’s getting hard to keep up with friends’, family members’, business associates’ and even some clients’ “Re-orgs” and the consequences of those right-sizing realignments. And don’t think for a moment that our own operation has been immune.

Myself, I plan to select a business book from Liz Scheier’s Publisher’s Weekly “Work, Interrupted” article for Q1-2021 reading (ordered for pickup at my local indie bookseller, mind you). I’ll choose one covering the evolving workplace dynamics of the 2020’s, but then search on my own for another that offers tips on sustaining “non-essential” business activity that is, for us, mighty essential business indeed. That seems like the best way to ensure that The DIG’s work isn’t interrupted. Or, at least, not too much.

https://www.publishersweekly.com

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Eight months ago today, The DIG moved to working remotely. The decision was made by a simple show of hands vote, and none too soon, since later that same day the Governor issued statewide shelter-at-home directives.

The transition went much smoother than anticipated, though within a couple weeks we concluded that it would be more productive if someone still worked in the office (the boss was ‘volunteered’). There are still occasional phone calls to handle, client packages to send/receive and older non-cloud archives to access. One live body on-site seemed comforting to clients and staff alike, and posed little risk in a multi-tenant office building that was (and still is) down to about 25% occupancy, our neighbors presumably doing more or less what we are. The designers still need to pop in periodically for on-site work for hard copy/3-D prototypes and comps. Everyone masks-up, distances, and it’s a real event when people are roaming the hallway again and all the lights are back on.

Like many, we fretted about an abrupt drop-off in business, which didn’t really materialize. But clients are contending with their own remote-work complications and are understandably prudent with 2020-21 plans, so the future’s the same nail-biter for us as it is for everyone else.

We’ve adapted to the new normal, but eagerly look forward to re-adapting to the real normal in some kind of vaccinated post-pandemic period. Hopefully, this time next year (or sooner!) we’ll be back to grousing about long hours at the office and navigating tortuous commutes once more. You know, that all sounds pretty good to us.

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The Spring 2017 issue of HOW magazine, with the annual International Design Awards feature. 

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Thirty three years ago. Really? Hard to recall a pre-Mac world, isn’t it? 

The premier issue of MacWorld magazine from February 1984, with a very dapper and youthful looking Steven Jobs on the cover. Dig those chunky keyboards, the jumbo-size boxy mouses and the rich and vibrant graphics on the mini-screens!

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Much to digest in the new February 2017 Graphic Design USA magazine, notably the “People To Watch” article with a broad selection of senior creatives and agency owners form coast to coast, and the corresponding “Students To Watch” article with an intriguing list of up-and-comers who are likely be seen again soon enough in the design press. 

Sadly, this issue also includes an obit/memoriam for the publication’s founder, Milton Kaye (1921 – 2016), who launched the magazine over 50 years ago when graphic design as we know it today was still being seen by many as some less illustrative offshoot of ‘commercial art’. Kaye’s family continues to very capably run the magazine, but that doesn’t mean his guidance, insight and support for designers and the design profession won’t be missed.

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Teen & College Age Shoppers Cling To Brick-And-Mortar Retail. Really?

Writing for the Media Daily News at MediaPost, Laurie Sullivan tells us about a recent IBM Institute For Business Value global study of some 15,000 participants which indicated that approx. 67% of Generation Z consumers favor brick-and-mortar stores most of the time, with another 31% shopping in-store sometimes, and a whopping 98% shopping in store at ‘some time or another’. 

Admittedly, the latter two stats aren’t particularly compelling. But that first one is kind of a shocker. We don’t have to look too far to spot Generation Z’s 13-21 year old’s with their noses pressed against their phone screens, thumbs working furiously as they converse with their pals a few feet away, and doing it 24/7. So, discovering that a solid two-thirds favor brick-and-mortar stores instead of online shopping most of the time seems a little topsy-turvy for that tech-savvy generation. 

Now, there could be all kinds of reasons for this, not the least of which being that the younger segments of this demo often pay with cash, and that means on-site purchasing. For many, the local mall may still be a hangout, despite all the doom and gloom news about the decline of shopping malls. And there’s no question that they’re researching brands, products, fashions and trends via the internet and their preferred social media venues. Still, 67% of the next big demographic is something to digest and plan ahead for…or, to reckon with right now. Particularly when these same consumers point out that less than a fifth of retailers managed to provide them with a highly personalized shopping experience.

Articles like Sullivan’s Media Daily News piece get our attention here because we (probably like you) just naturally assume that retail in its traditional forms continues its steady decline as consumers across all demographic segments and throughout multiple product categories migrate to online purchasing. It’s downright jarring when we confront evidence that contradicts the common assumptions. So, the point’s been made here before…fellow creatives and our clients alike spend inordinate amounts of time dissecting the minutiae of highly fragmented online and social media initiatives, at the risk of neglecting the intimacy and one-on-one engagement that traditional display components, retail environment promotional and communication devices, and of course, compelling package design can provide.  

Look for Laurie Sullivan’s article at mediapost.com

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Vogue Archive: It’s like a photo history encyclopedia...120 years of sumptuous hi-res. images, iconic print ads and evolving styles, comprising over searchable 400,000 files. Safe bet that the inspiration for a photo shoot, layout or vexing design challenge lurks somewhere in the subscription-based Vogue Archive.

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Seen at DigitalArts from IDG (digitalartsonline.com.uk): “Design Trends 2017: 24 leading designers and art/creative directors tell us what’s inspiring them for the year ahead.”

Trends and forecasts? It’s a lot more than designers and AD’s switching in-progress projects to Pantone’s 2017 Color Of The Year. At DigitalArts you can scroll through more forecasts and predictions than you’ll likely be inclined, or be able to, assimilate into the opening months of your own 2017 project agenda. Music Agency’s Creative Director Adam Rix looks to bid farewell to what he calls the ‘gentrification of branding’ with far too many homogenous brand ID’s relying on familiar contemporary sans serif fonts mated to pastel or neon color palettes. Clearleft’s Andy Budd talks about digital skill shortages, concerned that more UI, UX and product designers are needed than the education system currently is churning out, while at the same time Framestore’s design director Anthony Gibbs worries that continually spiraling higher education costs are pricing students out of any chance for professional design careers. AKQA Group Creative Director Ginny Golden looks for evolving attitudes towards gender fluidity to drive more ‘normcore’ and unisex looks for products and brands. Design Director Kath Tudball cautions creatives about indulging in sentimentality and nostalgia, and on and on it goes. 

Whether your focus is 2-D graphic design, 3-D product design, broadcast, UI/UX or integrated marketing, you’ll find some thought provoking comments from a diverse range of design and creative services leaders. Check it out.

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And speaking of type: The January/February 2017 issue of Communication Arts, the Typography Annual. Let the font fetishists among us go crazy!

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Newport - 19600213 Post

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We’d never condone smoking, but that headline’s neatly condensed serif font is just gorgeous.

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A Very Happy New Year To All!

Many seem pleased to put 2016 behind them. Politics aside, the year has had its share of turmoil.

But, surely there’ve been some pleasant surprises and successes, maybe even some triumphs as well. Here at The DIG, the first half of 2016 was terrific, the second half not so much. Oh well. There’s always next year.

So, as we all should every New Year, we look ahead to 2017 with optimism, hoping for prosperity in business, good health and success for family and friends, and peace for the entire world.

So from all the gang at The Design Image Group, to all our clients, associates, friends, and here, to our followers: We’re wishing you a very Happy New Year, and all the very best in 2017!

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Dropped through the mail slot this morning: The December 2016 issue of Graphic Design USA magazine, one our faves here at The DIG, this issue devoted primarily to the American Graphic Design Awards, sponsored by Verso Corporation. 

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DIG THE SEASON: Hoping that everyone enjoys all kinds of jingling bells, well-decked halls, Yuletide carols, mounds of presents and all that jolly seasonal stuff. But mostly, a safe and peaceful holiday for one and all.

So to all our Tumblr friends, from The Design Image Group, our warmest wishes for a truly happy holiday season.