Archive for the ‘Graphic Design’ Category
For BP, There Is No Such Thing As Bad Publicity?
Today I was trying to learn more about the new strategy to stop the oil leak in the Golf, and came across this illustration below. The first thing I noticed was the BP logo in the upper right corner. Many people have pointed out how bad BP is with public relations. It stuck me as odd that they would stamp their logo so proudly on this illustration that explains how to stop the oil leak. Why would they want to associate their brand with something so negative?
Earlier today, I walked by the BP gas station on Houston and Broadway here in New York City, and noticed that someone had splattered dark brown paint over the BP sign. To me, branding the illustration of the biggest oil leak in American history with a logo is just as damaging to the brand as this brown splatter, except that the order is reversed; instead of defacing the logo, slapping the logo on something that’s defaced. Such an odd thing to do.
—posted by Dyske » Follow me on Twitter or on Facebook Page
Typekit’s Advantage Is Its Licensing Model
One of my readers asked me some questions about my post regarding Typekit, so I want to share my responses here.
Regarding the “in-between” parties involved in the business of selling fonts:
Without a service like Typekit, you would need 2 in-between entities. A foundry who would market/promote/distribute your print fonts, and a service like Typekit who would safely and centrally distribute your fonts on the web. Many foundries use online stores like myfonts.com, so if you are a designer of these fonts, you already have 2 in-between entities. Adding a web distribution service would make it 3 in-betweens.
As I said in my comments, what is revolutionary about Typekit is that it’s a SAAS model, meaning the fonts are distributed from their central server with a proper mechanism to keep track of the usage and billing. I don’t know the details of @font-face and EOT-fonts, but they are just embedding technologies. They would not keep track of usage. If true, they are quite different from what Typekit is offering. Typekit is a subscription service like Rhapsody; they offer a different type of licensing model for the artists/designers.
Typekit’s SAAS model would enable licensing models which are based on usage. Right now, you as a type designer are getting paid by the number of designers who purchase your fonts. So, if some super-famous designer purchase your font, and use it for 1,000 different clients, you get paid the same exact amount from this designer as another designer who used your font only once. Licensing model based on usage would be similar to what music composers/song-writers have had for TV commercials and radio plays; it is a lot more lucrative. Even if small independent designers wouldn’t use Typekit, the usage fee from big design firms with high-profile clients would probably generate a lot of money for the type designers. Typekit might turn out to be like iPhone App Store. There might even be a gold rush at first for some font designers.
It is not easy for individual font designers to set up a SAAS mechanism on their own server with a system to keep track of usage and automatically charge and pay based on usage, and to ensure that the server would never go down. This is the part that sets Typekit apart from the rest, not their embedding technology.
Typekit’s licensing model effectively passes the responsibility of licensing to the end users, not to the designers. In my opinion, this is a much better business model for font designers. Think about it: We could create a variety of licensing models. We could charge per site, per page, per visitor, or per hits. Whatever would make sense. Right now, we only have a per-designer model, which is quite unfair for the font designers.
When we purchase stock photos or illustrations from places like Getty, it’s not the designers who license them; it’s the end users (such as magazine publishers, website owners, and advertisers). Why shouldn’t this be the same for font designers? If your font becomes really popular where a big corporation like Microsoft uses it on their massive advertising campaign, why shouldn’t you be paid for the usage? With the current licensing model, you as a font designer would get paid for several copies of your font for the designers in charge of the advertising campaign; that’s it! Meanwhile, the composers who wrote the music for the TV commercials and the photographers who licensed the use of his photos would be paid for the usage. They’ll be making a lot of money.
This is the revolutionary part of Typekit’s model. It could fundamentally change the business potential for font designers. Font embedding technologies cannot do this. It’s the SAAS model that changes everything.
In fact, other businesses like large font foundries could offer services similar to Typekit and compete with them. I believe Adobe, Microsoft, Apple, and Linotype are in a good position to do so.
The business of type design as it is now is not really a business, mainly because the licensing model is flawed. To my knowledge, there are no type designers making hundreds of thousands of dollars just designing fonts, regardless of how popular their fonts are. On the other hand, there are many photographers, musicians, writers, software developers, and even chefs making millions of dollars. If the business of type design could be like the rest of the business, it would be a huge improvement. In order to get there, we need to change the licensing model. Distributing the fonts using @font-face or EOT-fonts does not change this fundamental problem.
So, Typekit is taking the right step towards it. Nobody else is (that I know of). That’s why I’m excited about it.
Addendum (I know it’s getting long)
If I were to submit my own font to Typekit, I think I would prefer a licensing model that would allow me to make enough money from the Web usage alone, and make the print-version available for free, to encourage the use of it for the web.
Here is an example. Suppose I have a font called “DyskeSans”. Suppose I am selling the printer-font for $100 (for each designer). And, suppose the font is relatively popular and I’m making roughly $1,000 every month from the sale of it. If I were to sell this font via Typekit, I would prefer a licensing model that would make me roughly $1,000 a month only from the web usage. For the sake of the argument, let’s say it’s 1 cent per each web-page view (100,000 page views per month).
An alternative would be to charge for both web and print, but reduce the prices on both. For instance, I would make the print version of the font $50 and 0.5 cent per page view (or 1 cent for 2 page views). Either way, I would make the same amount of money.
But what if one day, Bank of America decides to use my font as part of their brand? Suddenly the usage of my font shoots up to 1 million page views per month. With the former licensing model, I would make $10,000 a month, whereas with the latter model, I would make $5,000 a month. Suddenly I would want to switch my licensing model, but it’s too late because Bank of America has already bought into the original license agreement.
—posted by Dyske » Follow me on Twitter or on Facebook Page
Graphic Designers vs. Chefs
Top Chef Masters
As I was watching Top Chef the other night, I felt envious of chefs because the success of their job is not defined by satisfying one particular customer. If 7 out of 10 customers loved their food, that would be a success. There will always be some people whose tastes are incompatible with those of the chefs. With graphic design, we don’t have this statistical cushion because the success of our jobs usually comes down to whether we satisfy the taste of a single person (or a few at the most). This aspect of graphic design is more stressful than the restaurant business. Each client is paying thousands of dollars for our service. For each given project, if we fail to satisfy the key person, we are in trouble. If the same amount of pressure was distributed among hundreds of people paying a small amount each, our success would be measured more democratically. This is a much easier situation to manage.
Trying to satisfy the taste of one particular person is very unpredictable unless you know him very well from the start. And, the outcome of a job can become rather unfair or unjust. Even if we do a great job by a more objective standard, the client might disagree and hold us accountable for his dissatisfaction. In general, it is futile to fight the client in such a case because it is not easy to establish or prove indisputable objectivity in graphic design. This is yet another reason why it is important to establish the right kind of client relationship from the start. Because we cannot control our outcome democratically (as chefs can in the restaurant business), we need to control what kind of client we should work with. That is, much of our success is determined even before we start the job. Here, what Milton Glaser once said rings very true: “Extraordinary work is done for extraordinary clients.”
—posted by Dyske » Follow me on Twitter or on Facebook Page
Graphic Design Is a Feminine Business
I consider graphic design a feminine business because you cannot approach clients directly; you have to seduce/attract them passively. Now, you might find this offensive, but that’s probably because you are assuming “passive” as being inferior to “active”. I don’t. (Considering passive as being inferior to active is a Western prejudice.)
This passive nature of graphic design makes the promotion of it quite challenging. If you are a good salesman, you might be able to win new clients by directly approaching them but this often leads to tricky client relationships, starting off on the wrong foot, so to speak. Graphic design is a business that requires a certain amount of credibility, like doctors and lawyers. If some doctor cold-called me, I wouldn’t trust him. I’m sure most of you wouldn’t either. The same applies to hiring a graphic designer. You have to find one through your usual means of establishing credibility. Most of us rely on referrals from the people we trust.
As a designer, if I were to start a relationship with my client with cold-calling, she would be more likely to doubt my credibility all through the project, which would make the job more difficult to manage. Graphic design projects are much easier to manage if my clients have a certain amount of respect for me, because the nature of the business is highly subjective. For this reason, I’m careful about how I start my relationship with my clients.
—posted by Dyske » Follow me on Twitter or on Facebook Page
Michigan Disadvantage
Jeff Daniels looks like he is about to cry in this photo. I saw a TV commercial of this campaign and he looked depressed in it too. This can’t be intentional, can it? It would be so much better to have a photo of an anonymous autoworker who looks happy and confident. Or, no photo at all would be better than having Jeff Daniels looking really desperate.
Or, change the campaign concept to plead for help. “Click here to see how desperate we are,” would go very well with that face of Jeff Daniels.
—posted by Dyske » Follow me on Twitter or on Facebook Page
Grunge Is Back
A few months ago, when I was saying Grunge will be back in full force, I was half being sarcastic, but it’s really happening. I guess fashion is rather predictable (or I’m just getting old enough to see the pattern.). See this New York Magazine article.
“a looser, wildly eclectic, inspiring, and vastly less costly aesthetic”
Basically, anything that symbolizes wealth is out of fashion. Wall Street bankers are dressing down too, which is not just about fashion, but also the fear of getting mugged or beaten up by those who are angry at them. That’s exactly how it was back in the early 90s. I was working on Wall Street then and I remember how quickly we all went home and changed into our Grunge outfits, and pretended like we were poor.
I wonder if those brand-new ultra-modern apartments will ever be sold. Even if the economy has bottomed out already, we won’t see any robust recovery for a long time. Those ultra-modern apartments will look ridiculous. They will be relics of the past, and the symbols of our past sin. I remember in the 90s, when SoHo was quickly commercialized, some of the new buildings were shunned because they were too ostentatious. One building on West Broadway in particular was brand new and had many retail spaces inside. Nobody wanted to rent it. I think it sat there empty for about 10 years, and they eventually demolished it entirely without anyone ever renting it. Another building also on West Broadway was saved by the fact that it wasn’t all covered in glass. They deliberately vandalized the facade of the building and was able to rent it to a boutique with a Punk aesthetic.
I guess we feel more comfortable with whatever the youth culture we were involved in. I’m happy to see Grunge come back. I’ve always felt comfortable in that sort of aesthetic even before Grunge. The graffiti-covered subway was part of the reason why I was attracted to New York. So, I’m happy about this change.
—posted by Dyske » Follow me on Twitter or on Facebook Page
Too Unexpected Can Mean Invisible
I’m finding that when you put something in a context where it is not expected, people simply ignore it. For instance, you can put some strange things on the home page of a website, and have no one notice it.
Many of us spend a lot of time and energy worrying about what other people think of us; how we present ourselves, what we say and do, etc.. Well, the truth of the matter is that no one actually cares about you that much. Why? Because they are too busy worrying about themselves. No one will spend the time to carefully consider what you are saying; and that’s a good thing. It means you are free to be who you truly are, and no one will ultimately care whether you are this way or that way. All that worrying is a waste of time and energy.
The above is a picture I took of a slice of blueberry pie from Clinton Street Baking Company.
—posted by Dyske » Follow me on Twitter or on Facebook Page
Cool/Uncool
The left side was cool 15 years ago, and it’s cool now again. I’m sure it’ll be uncool again in a few years. Even now, some will say the left side is uncool and the right side is cool. Some would even say both are uncool.
Let’s face it. No one really knows what’s good and bad. We graphic designers exist, not because we know what’s good and bad, but because we learned how to convincingly tell you what’s good and bad. It’s mostly in the attitude. Your designer may have a degree in graphic design. He may even have a master’s degree. He may have worked in the business for decades. Or, he may have won a lot of awards. But, even then, when he tells you this is cool or uncool, he is as insecure as you are. He just know how to put on the right attitude. Why do we designers put on this attitude? If we all admitted that we don’t really know what’s good and bad, nothing will ever get done.
Say, you as a client need a logo for your company, and you don’t know what’s good and bad, so you must look for someone who claims to know what’s good and bad. What if you couldn’t find anyone? What if no one was willing to put his foot down and say, “This is good!”? You’ll never have a logo.
Graphic design is a business of providing a sense of stability in an otherwise chaotic, subjective world. So, if a graphic designer tells you something is “cool”, just go along with it. Let him believe that he knows what he is talking about. Otherwise, nothing will ever get done.
—posted by Dyske » Follow me on Twitter or on Facebook Page
Flashy Design
In today’s fast-moving world, you cannot be the only one standing still. Communicating your ideas isn’t enough; your audience needs to feel your energy, passion, and drive. To achieve that, you want something like what you see above. Something that slides, flashes, and spins really fast and a lot. You want something edgy, wicked, and MTV, something that looks like it required a pound of cocaine to create. It doesn’t matter if your audience can actually read it. Even if it will look really dated in 6 months, it’s worth it. That’s what it means to be cool. For that, you need a cool design firm; a kind of design firm who would snob you a bit like a bouncer does at a trendy nightclub. In other words, you don’t want a design firm who would want you. If they treat you with respect, they can’t be that good.
—posted by Dyske » Follow me on Twitter or on Facebook Page
Theory of Graphic Design Theory
If you know something about writing music, you know how useful musical theories can be. If you are an intuitive type who never studied theories, you are likely to keep on writing the same kind of music forever. And, eventually you will feel like a one-trick pony.
What is useful about any type of theory is that it allows you to draw deductive conclusions. Say for instance, you are writing a song, and you have a nice chord progression going, but somehow you can’t figure out how to resolve it or transition it to the next section. If you know your theory, you can analyze the progression you have so far, and figure out what chords would theoretically allow you to resolve or transition it nicely. It is like Newtonian physics, how it can predict the location of a moving object in time.
—posted by Dyske » Follow me on Twitter or on Facebook Page
