On Thursday night we were very honored to receive a Stevie Award for the Nikon USA redesign, in the category of Web Site: Product Information.
Myself and fellow Molecular representatives Raph Chun, Josh Manton, Adam McIntyre and Thomas Becker were at the ceremony in Times Square, NY to celebrate the win.
Congratulations to all the Molecular peeps involved in making this project extremely successful, and also a big thanks to our Nikon client Joe Ventura, for giving us the opportunity to work on such a cool brand.
I’ve been asked to write an article for .net magazine in the UK. I am pretty honored. It is the UK’s biggest internet magazine. It is a 750 word full page feature which I will provide thought leadership on design processes with Flash. Watch this space, I will publish the article here too! Of course I get to promote Molecular, although not blatantly
Diana is an extremeley talented friend of mine who once worked as the designer for Boston Magazine, but has now decided to go solo and concentrate on her amazing photography work. You will probably bump into her at one of the many parties in Boston. Her photography portfolio is excellent, and definitely worth a look:
The graphic design and visual language of signs in the US have a very unique feel to them. I have started a personal project to photograph and record the names and locations of the many signs I encounter as I continue to explore this vast country.
Here is an old sign from the outside dining areas at the Green Mesquite BBQ in Austin, Texas. A great place, incredible food and very good value. The yard had a bunch of old rusty beer signs nailed to the walls. A lot of modern places try to imitate that with reclaimed signage. This place was authentic.
The concept is to leave disposable cameras around London for people to find and record their personal journey. Once they have used the camera they are expected to send it back for developing. Each camera has a unique code and will be displayed on the site Matt has built.
It is a great idea, and I suggested to him I could leave some cameras around Boston and New York. God only knows what kind of photos he will get back. It will be interesting to see which areas in London etc. will yield the best results. I think if the bags were left in the more creative districts of cities there would be more chance of collaboration, otherwise people may just ignore them.
What a great show. Amp Fiddler was in town, playing for a small although very enthusiastic crowd of soul fans at the Middle East, Mass Ave. Cambridge. He sounded so much better live, much more energy, and the backing singers supporting him had incredible voices.
For those of you who don’t know him - he is Detroit born soul/funk/electronica artist best known for playing in George Clinton’s Parliament and Funkadelic groups back in the 70’s and 80’s.
I felt sorry for them to play such a small and sparsely populated venue, but in a selfish way it was good for me because I was able to get very close to the stage, and the intimate space definitely provided a greater atmosphere.
Michael Lopp from Apple was a good speaker and a funny guy. Funny as in humorous. Although, I would probably be laughing if I was working at Apple. Must be a great job.
A couple of interesting facts I learnt from Michael about the process at Apple:
Michael’s philosophy: There are two kinds of people. Those who open their presents on Christmas day, and those who take a sneak peak the night before. Apple designs things for people who wait to open their presents on Christmas day.
He exclaimed, ‘How many companies do you know make packaging porn?’
‘We do pixel perfect mock-ups.’
He explained that one of the directors didn’t even like lorem ipsum on mock ups, he expected to see everything in its correct place.
At Apple they have a process meeting, where they go crazy with ideas, and a production meeting, which aims to put structure around the crazy ideas. They do it every week. They don’t stifle the creative thought until it is needed.
Ok so that was weird. I was sat in TGI Friday’s having a beer (it was raining and it was joined to my hotel) - and all of a sudden Billy Bob Thornton and the Boxmasters came over and sat at the adjacent table. A couple of people buzzed around, including a photographer. She proceeded to take some snaps with me kind of sitting in the whole scene. I got talking to the publicist (or whatever) and she was really cool. I was able to go and sit with the man himself and get a photo, and we chatted a little bit about his music etc. Really nice guy. He told me to come and say hello when he is playing in Boston in summer. Ok, you got it Mr. Thornton.
Although this talk was aimed at beginners, I thought it would be interesting to listen to another designer share his experiences and reveal his creative process.
Naz was nice to listen to. You could sense he had that passion for his craft which we fellow designers share. His presentation focused on details, paying close attention to those finite aspects of a project which individually aren’t much but combined together form a complete package, a strong and elegant solution to a problem. His sentiments would be later echoed in a talk I attended given by Michael Lopp from Apple.
Naz outlined 8 key factors in his design process:
1. Experiment - play around with ideas, total creative freedom
2. Make the right choices - pick the strongest ideas, choose visual rules
3. Stay consistent - keep all comps neat and structured
4. Completeness - finish all screens, leave no open questions
5. Step in, step out, step back, balance - take a break, come back to it
6. Be your own critic - you need sound explanations for your design
7. Complexity in simplicity - less is more
8. Obsession is healthy - be dedicated, obsessive
It was interesting to me because his creative approach is very similar to my own. I like to concentrate on the details even at the early stages of a concept. In his initial experiment phase he mentioned that he didn’t sketch ideas onto paper, he collected assets and went straight into Photoshop to see what works and what doesn’t. I think our generation of designers (being much more digital) tend to do this a lot. I like to use the tools I have as much as possible, because you quickly arrive at a more finished look. Have a look at Gapers Block- a site Naz has created which provides entertainment and lifestyle information for Chicago. Good stuff.
After a pretty bumpy plane ride and what seemed like a descent into nothing but grid-like farmland, I touched down in Austin. The weather here is awesome - got to make the best of it before I go home to Boston.
I met up with molecular buddies: Brandon, Paul and Mac. We picked up the hire car and headed into town for some Tex Mex food and Margaritas. What else would you do first in Texas? Brandon went to college in Austin so he knows the place pretty well. As we drove down the highway to our destination, Chuy’s, I noticed a few things. Everything seems much bigger here. The roads are huge. The land around property is huge. Even more so than New England. Also, what is it with all the Piñata stores? There were loads of them. How many of these things do the people here go through?
Chuy’s was very cool, friendly service, massive portions of authentic Tex Mex and cheap booze. We headed off to the Austin Convention Centre in a lighter mood.
The Convention Centre was pretty busy, we joined the first line to pick up our badges. All around me I noticed a lot of different people, some drinking beer whilst waiting, others sat on their laptops geeking out. All just generally waiting in line.
30 minutes later, badge around my neck, I picked up my free stuff (it came in one of those cloth shopping bags with a huge Adobe logo.) I headed to my hotel to check in and relax before the first evening party: Friday night mix at six.
Like the newbies we were, we arrived too late to the party and the line was massive. Instead we explored downtown Austin. There are a lot of laid back bars here, all clustered together in a relatively short space. A bar crawler’s dream.
