Table of contents for May 2017 in Computer Arts

Our last colour-themed cover by Merjin Hos (see below) was a masterclass in subtlety, reflecting the issue’s focus on pastels and variations within each palette. This issue, we look at colour from a new perspective – drilling into the science, psychology and emotion of colour, albeit with the blunt maxim: colour sells. We wanted a cover that communicated and celebrated the vitality and importance of colour as boldly as possible. We experimented with simple (then increasingly complex!) colour wheel-inspired treatments, as a familiar visual shorthand for the topic. However, it soon became clear that this didn’t do justice to the depth of insight in the feature: the colour wheel is simply too basic a tool when it comes to branding, and we opted instead to let the colours speak for…

NICK CARSON EDITOR Nick cemented his reputation for ‘always being on holiday’ with a birthday trip to Romania, featuring an epic mountain road trip, and Dracula’s castle. The team have since bought him a selfie stick. MARK WYNNE ART EDITOR Mark has been mostly using the office’s all-new long ‘break-out’ area to test pages lined up in his curious (and imaginary) multiple gatefold frenzy. He’s also been art directed by his 13-year-old daughter. ROSIE HILDER OPERATIONS EDITOR This month, Rosie went to Lyme Regis to celebrate her parents’ 40th wedding anniversary (nice one, mum and dad!). At the beach, she hunted for fossils and managed to avoid being attacked by a seagull. KEY CONTRIBUTORS PETER GRAY VIDEO PRODUCER Pete has recently moved desks and is now right next to the…

W hat design has an impact on me? Plenty of classics spring to mind – FedEx, V&A, Pirelli slippers, i-D magazine covers, the Mexican 1968 Summer Olympics, Tate, Shelter. More recently, there’s the Tusk Conservation Awards and MIT Media Lab – I could name many, many more. They’ve all had an impact on me, on the world of design, and on the wider world. Otherwise why would so many still be around? They’re very different projects, but the common element among them for me is a sense of wit, playfulness and thoughtfulness. A sense that the designer has gone beyond the conventional answer to find something extra – they’ve injected joy into the work, and the viewer gets some of that joy at the other end, even years later. For…

Tasked with creating a new identity for New York-based financial advice firm ValuePenguin, Moving Brands set about revitalising the company’s branding, which had become subdued. The agency placed data at the heart of the new system, designing an infographic style that set the brand’s secondary palette of vibrant colours against a primary palette of neutral greys and warm yellows. As with all its branding projects, Moving Brands approached the identity as a system from the outset, putting elements together to create something recognisable and familiar, but with the ability to flex to multiple audiences and contexts. “We identify and design the highest impact applications,” explains Jonny Naismith, creative lead at Moving Brands New York. “This requires thinking beyond expected applications like corporate stationery to key moments that will be experienced…

Colour can be one of the hardest elements to change if a brand is evolving, especially when it has already established ownership. In these situations, the solution may instead involve enlivening the existing palette – as was the case when Interbrand was briefed to help Siemens return to the spotlight with a new identity and bolder approach. “In line with a new strategic platform that included proposition and experience principles, the Siemens expression brand toolkit was evolved,” recalls executive creative director Sue Daun. “Colour was a key attribute. Research told us that the Siemens Petrol colour was positive in terms of recognition and differentiation from its competitors. The new approach needed a more dynamic and adaptive expression that built on the experience principles: real, connected, responsive and impactful.” The existing…

MIKE REED Mike has been writing for brands since 1993, and founded Reed Words in 2013. Combining style with strategic depth, the team works with clients and consultancies around the world on brand voice, naming, campaigns, UX and other projects. www.reedwords.co.uk brand impact awards. Now in their fourth year, CA’s very own Brand Impact Awards reward the best branding from around the world. Two projects featured over the following pages are previous winners – find out more and submit your best work before 9 June 2017: www.brandimpactawards.com Let’s get this out of the way first: ‘tone of voice’ is a rubbish term. It seems unstoppable now – it’s the phrase you find in most brand guidelines, when you get to the section about language. It’s bedded in, to the point…

Clare and David Hieatt launched their pioneering active and eco-friendly clothing brand in 1995. David was a former ad copywriter himself, and Howies made inspiring and inventive use of words from the get-go. The catalogue, which mixed in products with thoughtful, passionate writing, as well as illustration and photography, felt more like a zine. The resulting voice was rangy and loose – a perfect fit for Howies. This clever use of language helped sell the company’s products without the customers explicitly feeling they were being ‘sold to’. All this helped Howies build a community of fans, rather than just a customer base.…

1. GET PRACTICAL It’s not easy discussing this stuff in the abstract. Create some sample copy to kick about with the client. Nothing too long, but enough to inspire some meaningful, practical feedback. Say, 150-200 words. 2. DON’T BE SHY A voice that sounds like all the others isn’t much use. Use the early stages of development to push the language. Not for the sake of it – you need to back up ideas with sound thinking. But show what’s possible. There are lots of safe conventions in branding, but look beyond them. 3. STAY PRACTICAL No one wants to look up the ‘rules’ every time they have an interaction. Keep guidelines short, focused and practical. Look for ways to capture their essence in memorable ways. On one global rebrand,…

One of the best ways to understand the stuff you like on the web is to inspect other people’s code. In Chrome, this is a simple as right-clicking and hitting Inspect from the drop-down menu. With a simple click, you can get under the hood of any site on the web and discover its ingredients. However, after I’d spent months pulling together all my favourite finds on the web to create my own site, I ended up with a Frankenstein’s monster of a homepage. My solution? Delete the CSS. Having a site which is styled by the internet defaults suddenly felt incredibly freeing. I didn’t have to obsess over tiny elements no one would notice and could just get on with the work. What’s more, almost no one else seemed…

1 Bounce ideas around Head of brand voice Chris Sharpe often articulates the initial idea to inspire the design team, but it’s a two-way thing. “It’s nice to have a bit of table tennis back and forth,” he says. Both Sharpe and design director Brett Stabler agree that ideas can, and should, come from anywhere: “It’s just words and pictures at the end of the day,” grins Stabler. “It’s a 50/50 relationship, and when you work those things in parallel, the end result is much better for it.” 2 Know your limits Finding the correct approach to copywriting depends on the context. “I may be best placed to do it – I can be a chameleon – but sometimes someone with experience in the sector will be a step ahead,”…

SEE ISSUES AS OPPORTUNITIES Something isn’t a problem if you see it as an opportunity. Poor source imagery was at first a sticking point, but it also presented an opportunity for more abstract outcomes – because clean and clear wasn’t always going to be an option! STRICT PARAMETERS CAN BE A GOOD THING Sometimes it’s helpful to set yourself limits for the amount of effects and styles that you experiment with. When dealing with a program like Vectoraster, it’s very easy to get carried away and drift away from the brand you’re trying to augment. ALWAYS CONSIDER THE LONGEVITY OF THE IDEA It’s often important for image treatment projects to have a life beyond the designer’s involvement. We bore this in mind from the beginning to allow us to be…

Member of the Art Directors Hall of Fame, Louise Fili discusses her love for street signage, and the lengths she goes to document it. For decades, I have been obsessively documenting the vernacular signage of Italy and France. These images were always intended for my own reference and enjoyment – reproduction was never my goal. But as many of these signs started to vanish, one after another (and as the quality of digital photography got better and better), I felt a sense of urgency to record as much of the beautiful street typography as possible, before it was too late. After my books Grafica della Strada and Graphique de la Rue – which focused on the street signage of Italy and Paris, respectively – were published, Barcelona seemed like the obvious next…

Colour is a powerful tool in a designer’s arsenal, but unless you’re careful, it can come down to a boardroom debate fuelled by a client’s personal preference. Fortunately, colour psychology is a complex, nuanced field that, applied properly, should render said preferences irrelevant. This month’s cover story explores what this means in practice, complete with pro insights from some of the world’s leading colour experts. This piece forms part of a series of in-depth articles dedicated to the craft of branding from varied perspectives, to mark the fast-approaching deadline of our fourth annual Brand Impact Awards. Elsewhere this issue, for instance, Reed Words founder Mike Reed – who has worked on the copywriting for several BIA-winning projects – explores the fast-growing importance of ‘brand voice’ in design. Joining our BIA…

CULTURE TRENDS PEOPLE EVENTS INS PIRATION Each month, our Trends section is curated by experienced creative consultancy FranklinTill www.franklintill.com OFFROUND HUE BY SABINE MARCELIS AND BRIT VAN NERVEN FOR ETAGE PROJECTS Offround Hue is the latest addition to the Seeing Glass collection by Sabine Marcelis, in collaboration with Brit van Nerven. The shaped mirrors aim to disrupt the viewer’s perception of objects and the spaces reflected in them. SHAPING COLOUR BY GERMANS ERMIČS Germans Ermi?s’ Shaping Colour collection forms an investigation into the relationship between colour and shape. Applying dense pigment bleeds to simple geometric forms, Ermi?s work celebrates the power of colour to transform. JW ANDERSON MENSWEAR SS17 At JW Anderson’s spring/summer 2017 menswear show, oversized shirts in cool blues and greys had the appearance of having been dipped…

ADRIAN CARROLL Creative director, D8www.d8.uk “Colour can arguably be used to greater effect than any other component part of a piece of design or identity system, because your eyes register colour first and detail thereafter. Colours are associated with different meanings across all cultures, as we discovered when we rebranded Partick Thistle FC some years ago. Their away strip was the first pink football kit in the UK, and simply because of the colour, it made the national press and sold out within days.” AINA RUDŅIKA Student and freelance graphic designer www.behance.net/aina_rudnika “First of all, it depends on colour psychology. Think about questions like: what is the company about? What message should it be sending? From your conclusions, choose one or two main colours. Then, trust your gut, and experiment…

According to the Wright Theory, the psychological effects of colour are near-universal. If harnessed correctly, designers can control the message of their colour palettes and, crucially, kill subjective debate around colour with evidence to back up their decisions. Here’s how it works… Every shade, tone or tint on the colour spectrum can be classified into one of four colour groups, based on how warm or cool it is. All the colours within each group correlate mathematically and naturally harmonise, while colours combined from different families don’t. There are also four basic personality types – ranging between extrovert and introvert – and each type has a natural affinity with one colour group. Universally, everyone will find a palette chosen with colours from the same group harmonious, but they’ll find a palette…

1. FIND YOUR STARTING POINT Most of the time you’re replacing, or evolving, an existing voice. Why? What’s it not doing? What work’s been done on the brand thus far? Review the existing comms. Asking lots of questions and understanding the context for the voice means you’re not starting with a blank sheet of paper, but a map. 2. IT’S NOT JUST TONE How you speak is vital, but is only half the story. A strong voice is also clear about what it’s saying. What are the central messages? Do they change for different audiences? Often, these answers also affect the tone – if we’re saying A, we should really sound more X. 3. TALK TO YOUR CLIENT We’ve worked with clients where employees turn out to be exemplars of…

Reed Words has been working closely with The Partners on the Argos brand for a few years now, helping reposition the brand as it becomes a digitally driven retailer with a much more confident, ‘can-do’ personality. Our first job was to help establish a fresh voice for the core brand, and write guidelines that would help set it up for the future. As always, our aim was to keep those guidelines brief, practical and straightforward. A big, beautiful tone may look impressive on the shelf, but that’s usually where it stays. We also ran a number of training sessions for Argos teams, helping them use the voice confidently and creatively. As with any organisation, the people are a critical medium for the voice: in emails and letters, over the phone,…

W hen Joe Jones, Andy Knowles and Ian Ritchie set up their eponymous agency 27 years ago, it was in response to their frustrated perception that too much design work was done for designers’ personal merit, rather than for the genuine benefit of the brand in question. “That’s still relevant today,” insists James Nixon, MD at jones knowles ritchie, better known as jkr, and based in an old Jim Henson puppet factory in Camden. “Everything we do is through the lens of commercial value to the brand, not for the vanity of the creative individual. We’ll always do the right thing to do the brand justice, and be grown-up about some of the challenges brands have got in the modern era.” Its client base ranges from household names like Budweiser,…

PRO JECT FA CTFI LE BRIEF: Last.fm uses a range of music-related imagery, across a variety of platforms, but so do its competitors. The company needed a way of applying its existing brand to the imagery used as a way of distinguishing it from other online audio services. It needed a solution that it could easily apply in-house while creating a range of new content. CLIENT: Last.fm, www.last.fm AGENCY: O Street, www.ostreet.co.uk PROJECT DURATION: Two months DAVID FREER Founder and designer David learned his trade at Glasgow School of Art and Rhode Island School of Design. He has lived both sides of the Atlantic, and spent the start of his career in London with Saatchi & Saatchi before co-founding O Street in 2006. TUNING IN David Freer Last.fm approached us…

JIM SUTHERLAND Studio Sutherl& founder and Brand Impact Awards judge Jim has won over 150 professional awards. On page 20, he reveals why wit and playfulness are so important for good design. www.studio-sutherland.co.uk KAREN HALLER Karen is an internationally renowned applied colour psychology mentor and trainer. She shares her insight into how colour can inform branding as part of our special report on page 40. www.colour-training.com PAULINE SAGLIO Following her Design Indaba 2017 talk, Paris-born interaction designer Pauline discusses how her projects blur the boundaries between the analogue and digital worlds. See page 52. www.sagl.io MIKE REED Mike – the founder of Reed Words – has been writing for brands since 1993. He discusses the importance of brand voice on page 60, and shares why it is now more important…

FranklinTill Studio is a forecasting agency and creative consultancy that works with lifestyle brands across the disciplinary spectrum to provide research-based insights that drive creative innovations in materials, colour and design. It creates reports, publications, exhibitions and events with the aim of making its research both accessible and inspiring. It also edits and produces two magazines, published by View Publications, which you can buy from www.viewpoint-magazine.com. VIEWPOINT DESIGN Viewpoint delivers visual, editorial and statistical information to brands, designers, agencies and consumer insight teams determined to create lifestyle products, campaigns and environments that anticipate consumer demand. Written by professionals in the branding and design business, each issue explores how a significant trend will impact consumer behaviour and the global design landscape. VIEWPOINT COLOUR Launched December 2016, Viewpoint Colour offers visual inspiration,…

JIM SUTHERLAND FOUNDER STUDIO SUTHERL& studio-sutherland.co.uk Formerly creative director at hat-trick design, Studio Sutherl& founder Jim Sutherland has won over 150 professional awards. Ahead of judging this year’s Brand Impact Awards, he reveals what good design means for him. JEFF KNOWLES CO-FOUNDER PLANNING UNIT www.planningunit.co.uk Jeff Knowles co-founded Planning Unit in 2011 with Nick Hard. On page 23, he reflects what the last six years have taught him about running a small studio, and why it pays to stop talking about it and just take the plunge. DESIGN MATTERS: How do you pick the perfect colour palette for a brand? – page 22 PLUS: Three perspectives on the recent rebranding of Wales – page 24 Illustrations: Louise Pomeroy www.louisezpomeroy.com…

brand impact awards. Enter your best branding now: www.brandimpactawards.com olour sells. Whether you’re working with a product, service or space, the ‘right’ combinations of colours can influence how someone feels, thinks and behaves – with powerful results. According to a study by the Loyola University Maryland, colour is registered by the brain before either images or typography. The same study found that colour can increase brand recognition by up to 80 per cent. So why, then, is brand colour so often dictated by the personal preferences of a client or committee? What are the ‘right’ combinations, and how can designers sidestep subjective debates to harness the power of colour more effectively in branding projects? c When it comes to harmonious colour combinations, it helps to know the basics – so first,…

PAULINE SAGLIO _ Paris-born Pauline studied at both Penninghen’s and Sevre’s Ateliers, before joining ECAL/University of art and design Lausanne, where she is now a teacher in the Visual Communication department. She met fellow interaction designer Mathieu Rivier during her studies, and found a shared interest in blurring the boundaries between digital and analogue. www.sagl.io Thanks largely to Apple’s love of minimalism, we interact with the digital world in increasingly pared-back ways. Touch-screens are now ubiquitous, and pinching, swiping and tapping have become shorthand gestures to get what you want with the minimum possible effort. But according to Paris-born, Lausanne-based interaction designer Pauline Saglio, digital designers can benefit from a more human, real-world touch. Not in terms of skeuomorphic faux-leather stitching and ‘wooden’ bookshelves, but by introducing a simple, tactile…

British Heart Foundation (BHF) is an example of a big, socially useful organisation that has recognised the importance of writing in building a brand. I worked on several annual reports for them, as well as programmes aimed at children, teenagers, families and others. Tonally, there’s a big range – one minute you’re writing children’s poems about healthy eating, the next you’re talking to teenagers about what happens when you go in for heart surgery. But there’s an underlying spirit and commitment to good writing. The projects involved working with different design companies – but BHF’s roster-based approach meant there was a consistency to it all. This was managed by Louise Kyme, the senior design and brand manager at the time. I think a lot of tone of voice comes down to…

The Alzheimer’s Australia rebrand is one of those jobs I wish I’d done. Interbrand created an enormously powerful identity, integrating writing and design seamlessly. “Alzheimer’s disease is dubbed ‘the silent epidemic’ because of a lack of coverage and understanding surrounding the disease,” recalls former Interbrand creative director Mike Rigby (now at R/GA in New York). “Our goal was the break this silence by creating a powerful verbal brand designed to get people talking.” At the time, Alzheimer’s wasn’t recognised by the government as a chronic disease – which meant it lost out on millions of dollars of funding. The Interbrand team saw the rebrand as a moment to galvanise the organisation – and the nation – to change. And voice was at the heart of it. “The identity system works…

PART 7 This special 10-part series, in partnership with D&AD, is curated by this year’s New Blood trustee Tom Manning. Each advice-packed article reveals the skills it takes to survive and thrive as a young designer in the modern industry, and this month, Tom explains why learning to code could transform your design career. Subscribe on page 38 to get the rest of the set, or see page 74 for back issues. Visit D&AD New Blood From 4–6 July: see you there! www.dandad.org/newblood PART 1 what i learned this year In issue 260, Tom outlined his first year in design PART 2 fulfilling a creative brief We covered how to follow a brief in issue 261 PART 3 ba lance money and happiness Be both rich and happy with issue…

1. Preach what you practise “If you show a client additional stuff through which their brand can live and express itself, no one is going to say no to that,” insists jkr’s global business director Frances Gaillard. “Show proof that their brand can live in this way, and excite them. You need to be an evangelistic ambassador for the work you do.” 2. Find a shared vision “Stubborn clients can be both a challenge and an opportunity,” admits account director Jorijn Harms. “Don’t focus on the client – focus on what the brand needs. That’s what the client is looking for too, and if you can convince them of that vision in mind, you’ll have a shared challenge.” 3. Take clients on a journey “Just like we take audiences on…

Vectoraster is flexible, with a lot of scope for creating different effects, but it can be a bit of rabbit hole. So we created a set of 11 templates enabling Last.fm designers to quickly set a ‘volume’ for each image – basically how much it is altered. We set the parameters for each level in Vectoraster ? things like line spacing, stroke weight, orientation, and so on. This means it’s just a matter of dropping in the image to the ‘source image’ section and the effect is immediately applied.…

Reed design writing words Reed Words is a brand writing agency based in London, working across the globe with clients such as Skype, Disney, and London’s National Theatre, as well as creative partners such as Mucho, FITCH and SomeOne. The work covers brand strategy, voice, campaigns, UX – you name it. Or get them to name it – Reed Words does that too. T he words you put at the top of a page are usually the most important, so it’s no surprise that getting them right can take so many false starts. Take the line above this piece. It took us ages to craft – and that’s after we discounted early favourites such as, ‘17 ways to nail the perfect headline’ and, ‘Our thoughts on headlines will shock you.’ Headlines…