Posts Tagged ‘Design’

The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding

// May 7th, 2009 // 14,306 Comments » // Advertising, Design

Came across this while I was doing a project:

The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding

1. Expansion

The power of a brand is inversely proportional to its scope

2. Contraction

A brand becomes stronger when you narrow its focus

3. Publicity

The birth of a brand is achieved with publicity, not advertising

4. Advertising

Once born, a brand needs advertising to stay healthy

5.The Word

A brand should strive to own a word in the mind of the consumer

6.Credentials

The crucial ingredient in the success of any brand is its claim to authenticity

7. Quality

Quality is important, but brands are not built on quality alone

8. The Category

A leading brand should promote the category, not the brand

9. The Name

In the long run a brand is nothing more than a name.

10. Extensions

The easiest way to destroy a brand is to put its name on everything

11. Fellowship

In order to build the category, a brand should welcome other brands

12. The Generic

One of the fastest routes to failure is giving a brand a generic name

13. The Company

Brands are brands. Companies are companies. There is a difference

14. Subbrands

What branding builds, subbranding can destroy

15. Siblings

There is a time and a place to launch a second brand

16. Shape

A brand’s logotype should be designed to fit the eyes. Both eyes.

17. Color

A brand should use a color that is the opposite of its major competitor’s

18. Borders

There are no barriers to global branding. A brand should know no borders.

19. Consistency

A brand is not built overnight. Success is measured in decades, not years.

20. Change

Brands can be changed, but only infrequently and only very carefully

21. Mortality

No brand will live forever. Euthanasia is often the best solution

22. Singularity

The most important aspect of a brand is its single-mindedness

30+ Examples of Visual Information Design

// May 4th, 2009 // 13,583 Comments » // Art in Motion, Design

Infographics or information graphics are the visual representation of data. The goals are always to balance content and design in order to communicate the data set. Infographics should never be so complex that it hiders it’s ability to communicate, however it should never be so simple that it lose the insight of the data it represents. The golden rule is “to make it as simple as possible. But no simpler!” One of the unique characteristics of infographics is its ability to bring together seemingly unrelated sets of data in order to tell a cohesive story. Often these visual representations will show us the connections between data sets that might have otherwise been overlooked in their raw numerical format. By visualizing, therefore humanizing the data we are able to understand it in a physical, relationship based paradigm.

Beyond simple (if you consider it to be simple) data visualization, information graphics also play a role in non-verbally communicating messages or entire stories to the audience. Think about the last time you were in a plane and looked at the information car; did you need any word to understand the message? Visual representation of information is almost as old as humanity itself (think back to cave paintings and hieroglyphs) over time technology has allowed us to display this information in evermore creative ways. Enjoy these 30+ smashing infographic images and videos.

Google Data Visualizations

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Browser Wars

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Where People Like to Kill Themselves

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Climate Change: The Carbon Atlas

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Personal Annual Report

annual-report-infographic

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Coffee Much

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Global Tobacco Trade

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Stealing the Show

movies_big

Red Tape

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Text similarities in essays

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Web Trends

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Price and market penetration of consumer electronics over the past 50 years

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Tall buildings

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Poverty and Wealth

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Made in China

madeinchina

Where we Live

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Periodic Table of Typeface

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The History of Beer!

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How Long will it Last?

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Napoleonic Wars

I guess you can’t really talk about information graphics without talking about this graph which shows the size of Napoleon’s army over geographical location, time, weather and events during his Russian campaign. While  it might be very pretty, it does exactly what an infographic is supposed to do: Show a complex set of data in a simple, easy to understand formant.

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Corporate Connections

This is an example that I feel missed the mark, it shows the connections between large international conglomerates.  There was no attempt to show the geographical distribution of the companies which I think would have made this graphic much more useful.

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Examples in Motion

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Objectified

// May 1st, 2009 // 10,379 Comments » // Design

About a month ago I was sitting alone and lonely searching the netflix “watch instantly” tab, when I came across a documentary called “Helvetica” by Gary Hustwit. And I thought -Who is this Gary Hustwit fellow and who is he kidding? Why in god’s name would anyone watch a documentary about Helvetica? (which for those of you who don’t know is a really common corporate typeface similar it Arial). Of course, being the weirdo that I am, I had to watch it, and it was surprisingly satisfying.

So today when I happened across Objectified – an upcoming documentary by Gary Hustwit – I admittedly got a little excited. Not sure when it goes on sale but there are screenings listed throughout the summer. I might have to make the trek up to Philadelphia for the may 11th show.

Objectified Trailer

Helvetica Trailer

Upcoming Screening for Objectified

May 3 & 4
Toronto ON, Canada
Hot Docs International Documentary Festival
Canadian Premiere! Two screenings at the Bloor Cinema, Q&A’s with Gary Hustwit.
Tickets on sale now.

May 5
Vancouver BC, Canada
Special Screening – Rio Theatre
Post-screening Q&A’s with Gary Hustwit
6:30pm SOLD OUT. New show 9:30pm, get tickets.
Sponsored by the GDC BC, BCID, and ACID

May 7
Cleveland OH, USA
Special Screening – CIA Cinematheque
7:30pm, post-film Q&A with director Gary Hustwit
Sponsored by AIGA Cleveland and IDSA Northern Ohio
Tickets on sale now

May 8 – 21
New York NY, USA
IFC Center
Our New York theatrical run. Gary Hustwit and special guests at opening weekend shows.

May 11
Philadelphia PA, USA
Special Screening – Drexel University
The Westphal College at Drexel University, 6:30pm & 9pm
Bossone Auditorium
Post-screening Q&A’s with director Gary Hustwit
Tickets on sale now.

May 13
Atlanta GA, USA
Special Screening – Plaza Theatre
7pm, post-screening Q&A with Gary Hustwit and special guests.
Sponsored by the Museum of Design Atlanta, AIGA Atlanta and IDSA Atlanta
Tickets on sale now.

May 14
Indianapolis IN, USA
Indianapolis Museum of Art
Post-screening Q&A with Gary Hustwit.
Get tickets.

May 15 & 16
Columbus OH, USA
Wexner Center for the Arts
Three showings, post-screening Q&A’s with Gary Hustwit
Tickets on sale now.

May 18
Savannah GA, USA
Savannah College of Art and Design
Trustees Theater, 7pm. Post-screening Q&A with Gary Hustwit.

May 21 & 22
Boston MA, USA
Museum of Fine Arts
8pm both nights. Q&A with Gary Hustwit after May 21st screening.
Tickets on sale now

May 22+
London, UK
Barbican Center
Tickets on sale now

June 9
Portland OR, USA
Special Screening – Cinema 21
7:00pm, post-film Q&A with director Gary Hustwit
Tickets on sale now

June 10
Seattle WA, USA
Special Screening – Seattle Cinerama
7:00pm, post-film Q&A with director Gary Hustwit
Tickets on sale now

June 12
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Cinéma du Parc
7pm and 9:30pm, Q&A with Gary Hustwit after both screenings.
Tickets on sale now

June 24 – 28
San Francisco CA, USA
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Our SF theatrical run. Tickets on sale now.

Find out more at http://www.objectifiedfilm.com

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Question for you: Do you know of any other good movies about design? I would love to hear about it.

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Progress is Beautiful

// March 26th, 2009 // 23,397 Comments » // Advertising

audi_logoOver the past few years Audi has made great strides in their branding efforts by using smart, beautify designed advertising campaigns. The VW subsidiary has continued to grow market share, and perhaps more impressively sales over the last year despite the fiscal crisis and the collapse of the automotive industry. This article will examine the techniques employed by Audi in its quest for market domination. As well as the aesthetic simplicity, and beauty found in the Audi ads themselves.

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Auditory Branding

Perhaps the most unique aspect of Audi’s advertising campaign is it’s commitment to Auditory Branding. In many ways this is a throw back to the company jingles of the 50’s and 60’s, but the challenge for Audi has been how to bring the idea of the company jingle to a luxury market. Your typical jingle might tell you everything you need to know about a product, but it surely doesn’t exude the elegance, style, or grace that one expects to find in a luxury product. Audi’s director of marketing Stephen Berkov said the goal is to find out “What is the sound of an Audi”, by tying the company to a sound, or a general style of sound, it offers unique branding capabilities, and allows the brand image to be perpetuated in new, and exciting ways. Audi’s solution has been to use original scores in all of their advertising.

Here are two examples from their 2009 A4 campaign:

Progress is Beautiful

Truth in Progress

Digital Advertising

The biggest opportunity and one of the biggest challenges in marketing over the last half decade has been how to effectively break into the digital medium. It goes beyond simply making a website and trying to drive traffic to it. The challenge is to permeate this new Web 2.0 culture. Audi has used a variety of tactics including viral marketing, and interactive marketing as it’s answer to this paradigm shift.

Art of the Heist

This 2005 viral marketing campaign for the Audi A3 has too be one of the a3heist2most innovative on record. It started with the staged theft of the new A3 model (which at this point had yet to be released), complete with broken glass and police tape. New York City was promptly canvased with flyers seeking information on the theft, and the story was picked up by local and national news outlets. Audi then went into full swing by creating a storyline behind the heist and viewers were able to follow the story on StolenA3.com, Lastresortretrieval.com, and Virgilkingofcode.com, all created by Audi. The story turned into a full blown web mini series that attracted over 500,000 participants, most of which fit right into the A3’s target market, Males, 25-34, making 150,000+. Audi execs liked to call this new approach “alternate reality branding” and it is easy to see why. In the end, the sprawling campaign included traditional print and broadcast ads, live events, online puzzles, films and gorilla tactics that spanned over 4 months, and increased the interest of the new A3 by 79% (according to the agency anyway).

A Rhythm of Lines

This 2007 interactive marketing campaign for the Audi A5 is not about the car. Its all about the driver – style conscious, creatively minded and beyond the

reaches of traditional advertising. Audi’s answer was to appeal to their creative side by letting them create their own advertisement. They developed an interactive flash website that allowed users to create their own “Rhythm of Lines” and enter them in a contest where they would be reproduced as limited prints. The creations could also be saved as desktop back grounds, or sent to friends. Visit microsite here

Mobile Marketing

The latest innovation from Audi has come with its 2009 A4 campaign in which they take advantage of the new smart phone crazy by introducing a free Iphone app. The application is available for free from itunes.audi-a4-driving-challenge

For years advertisers have explored different methods of pushing advertising into the mobile space, and various attempts to have ad sponsored phone service, ads before calls, ad-funded dialup services and even location aware ads pop up as SMS messages as you travel around have all basically fallen flat… Audi shows us how it’ll be done in the future with Audi A4 Driving Challenge. Dave Taylor

Simplicity of Design

I have always been attracted to Audi’s ad campaigns for two reasons, great music, and simple, elegant design. To finish up I wanted to include some examples of how simply and directly Audi conveys theirs messages. Not commentary here, the ads speak for themselves.

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