Stacey Addison's Blog

My initial reaction the the Kids Kottage website was shock. It reminded me of websites that were first found on the internet, the websites that I created in grade 7. I wanted to laugh, but at the same time, I felt bad for the company.

After actually looking at the company, I realized it was a charitable company. That would explain it.

As a designer, I understand the amount of hours that goes into a good design. The endless dedication and large workload are somewhat stressful. For a company to do a design for a charitable company, it is a big check that remains unpaid. If Kids Kottage approached the wrong designer on the wrong day they could have been denied a website. Depending on how the designer reacted to the idea of a free website design, the representatives of Kids Kottage could have been offended or scared into looking for the right company with big hearts.

As designers, we should give our heart out and do a charitable design every year or every 2 years. Not only does it look good for you, as a designer, but it also will help lift your spirits and will help a company that cannot afford a design.

We shouldn’t laugh at bad design on charity sites, we shouldn’t critique or insult them, we should offer our help, or do nothing. Critiquing a charitable website doesn’t help the company: they most likely don’t have the resources to “fix” the website.

Next time I stumble onto a website that reminds me of Kids Kottage, instead of laughing, insulting, critiquing or questioning, I will remember that I am a designer, and donating a design is just as important as donating money.

With a decent design on their website, they may get more donations from visitors, they may get more people offering to help, more people volunteering…

Design is a powerful tool.

For post 7 Design is….

Design is to … create something Greater than the Sum of its Parts.

I am a Safeway shopper, a loyal customer. Recently, while walking through the aisles, I was stopped in my path. Safeway had decided to redesign their fruit sodas. And I personally like the new design.

The design uses bold colours, heavy type, and interchangeable images.

Using a simple template, each can is different, yet related. One can easily take and two cans from the line and know they are related, and from the same company.

The simple illustrations are easy enough to identify, yet intriguing enough to catch your eye. The images use gradients to enforce the idea of a 3d image.

The bold colours used are different enough from each other to create a visual identity for each individual flavour, yet all have something to do with the flavour of the soda.

The designs are very inviting and appealing.

The flavours are Black Cherry (dark magenta), Grape (purple), Tea with a Twist (mint green), Lemonade (yellow), Orange (orange), Strawberry (red), Punch (cyan), Grapefruit (light pink), and Pineapple (yellow-orange).

The designer of the new line is Michael Johnson.

The world surrounds design.. but

Design is Everything.

It’s amazing what packaging can do for a product.

When I stumbled across this photograph I had to do a double take. Yes, you viewed correctly.

I originally thought the designer, MT.Design designed the line as an experiment. However, after taking the time to read rationale I understood the entire point of the design. MT.Design states “Design can make even the most evil of companies appear friendly, and it is done by designers every day.“

To take drugs such as cocaine, heroine and LSD and create packaging that offers a unique and elegant image is like taking the evil out of the drugs and giving them a positive appearance.

Although, with the heroine (marked as H for the design) there is a lengthy warning label warning users of all negative effects of the drug. Effects such as physical effects, likelihood of overdose, and opinion on long term usage.

The points of interested are done so in a varied text weight to grab the users attention.

NarcoTech even has a caution advising users to only trust NarcoTech heroin.

Each of the NarcoTech packages has the warnings on the container or product itself. NarcoTech not only offers the drug in a fashionable image but they warn of the dangers of the drug as well.

MT.Design took the basic usage of the drugs and incorporated that idea into the design.

For example, the Cocaine (Co) comes in a plexiglass and metal box. The box is used as a storage case for the individual packets of Cocaine, but also as a table to use the drug. The container also includes razor blades, which are used to portion the cocaine. The individual packets contain warnings of the effects and probable side effects of using the drug.

With the Marijuana (Mj), the instructions are printed right onto the marijuana sheet. The paper is given as an envelope the marijuana was dispersed in. On the backside of the marijuana sheet are the warnings of the drug.

The LSD (L) is dispersed through a Listerine PocketPal type of container. The LSD is laced onto paper for the user to eat. On each piece of paper is the effects and warning for the drug L.

A lot of thought was put into the design of this line. Each piece was given immense attention.

MT.Design took the time to make these products to prove a point. A company may be evil or bad, but with the proper design concept and advertising the company can look innocent and professional.

MT.Design closed their rational by saying “The comparison can be made that these illegal drugs are no different than products made by businesses with questionable business practices on the basis that both are destructive.”

I couldn’t agree more with MT.Design, they state that a company needs only good design and concept for a product to look friendly to a user.

Fifth times the charm. Design is….

The fifth Design is more than Graphic Design.

Branding yourself. When I think of branding, I think of the process of burning a mark onto a substance. Branding in the design world is entirely different, yet quite similar.

In a way, you are burning a mark onto a substance: You are figuratively burning your identity and creative abilities onto yourself. You are using this branding of yourself to represent yourself to possible clients. Branding yourself is creating an idea about who you are and what you are.

To brand yourself, you have to start with knowing who you are. What parts of who you are do you want your customers to know?

You have to know what you want to represent. When a new client visits your blog what sort of opinion do you want them to have of you? What sort of things are you willing to do to represent that opinion?

Once you know who you are and what you want the client to know, you can start the creative process.

The creative process to represent yourself is a lot harder to represent a client. It is easier to ask a client questions than to ask yourself. The creative process for yourself is based more on the idea of building who you are. That is more difficult then representing someone or some company you can observe.

This is exactly how I felt during the creative process of my self branding. To find a theme that represents who I am and what I can do was difficult for me. As I am not 100% sure of what I want to be doing with my career, it was hard to pinpoint on an exact type of design.

The branding identity that you give yourself is what clients will think of you.

Lealea Design has many good hints for branding yourself and many hints on branding strategies.

Another week, another Design Is….

This week? Design is change.

When we started our interface design class I didn’t believe the lecture about the creative process.

As we began our new project designing a website I learnt I couldn’t be more wrong. I used the traditional creative process and designed according to our knowledge on print design.

Not only is interface design a different process, it’s a different audience and different means of viewing. When designing print you design for aesthetics and hand held pieces. When designing a website you design for aesthetics, functionality and interaction. Not only does the website have to look nice, it has to function as a website – have the buttons look like buttons, directions of the page obvious, and the navigation of the page obvious. – and it has to interact with the user.

To create a website that looks professional, have it interact with the user and function as a website is a lot harder than I assumed it would be. You may design a page with buttons, but how those buttons look to the user is the main objective. From saying that, the buttons can’t look like text, they have to look “clickable” and functional. The layout has to work with top left navigation, and the website also have to work with all screen sizes.

The process to create a functional and aesthetically pleasing website was unique.

My issues with the buttons ran deep. I started out by creating a website idea based on my print design process knowledge. I began laying the page out and started with right hand navigation – I didn’t think about how the page is set on the left and the right side may be lost. After realizing my vital error, I worked with left hand navigation. The navigation on the left looked more like text than buttons. It took me many designs to figure out a decent location for the buttons. I finally decided on a horizontal navigation bar along the top. The secondary buttons are located underneath that bar, and the tertiary information (Contact Us, and address) are on the bottom of the page.

After the presentation on website design process, I used this video to help me figure out the final design.

I have learnt that the creative process for web design is a lot more demanding then the creative process for a print design.

I found the website for CritBuns rather intriguing. Not only is it an aesthetically pleasing design, the buttons are obvious and functionality is good. The only issue I have with that website is that when you click on a button, the only way to tell which button you are on is by a small underline. Since the type on the buttons is small, there should be a more obvious difference between the unclicked button, and the current location button.

Virb also has a very interesting website. It uses very obvious buttons, is aesthetically pleasing and is easy to navigate. While using an obvious large logo on the top of the page to say where you are (see this page for an example). The functionality is easy to understand and it interacts great with users (with drop down menus).

Third week, third Design is picture…

This week, “Design is Typography”.

I was happy to find out that I had an interface design class during my final year of study. Happy because, though web and print have many similar needs for design, web is its own identity with its own needs.

Print design usually is marketed to work for the individual who is holding it. It is meant to be looked at closely, and to convey certain information. Web design is meant to be viewed in an entirely different medium. Having design on a screen alters the way the viewers eyes sees the design, the colours are different, the images are different, and the bulb powering the screen is bright.

Websites have to be designed based around this knowledge. Certain care and emphasis has to be put into web design that isn’t in print design.

In high school I took a class that introduced us to graphic design, we had the ability to design post cards, business cards, t-shirts, posters, the list could go on. I have a decent background knowledge with print design, but what I was never introduced to was web design. 

I wasn’t sure how to design a website, to have it interact, to incorporate all the pages into one common theme. There is so much space to play with and enjoy, it can be overwhelming.

I never really took into consideration the design aspects of websites. I avoided websites that bothered me (for example this homegrown website and this “professional” website which represents a web design company) and I flocked to websites I loved (such as Second Cup and Digital Marmalade, a company specialized in multimedia design). 

Now that I know (the basics) about the design that is put into a website, I appreciate them more.

And, for our weekly Design is… picture…

“Design is attention to detail.”

What makes a blog a good blog? What makes a blog an ugly blog?

What attracts readers? What turns readers away?

A good blog is written by a good blogger. A good blogger doesn’t need to have experience blogging, but has to have basic grammatical knowledge. A good blog, therefore, has good grammar.

A good blog also has to be interesting. That, you would think, would be an obvious one. But a blogger needs to interest people of all genres, all lifestyles, all interest levels.

A good blogger has to know what they are talking about. A blogger needs to write about something they know, and not something they don’t know.

Who wants to read an entire novel when reading a blog? Blogs need to be sweet, simple and to the point. I certainly don’t want to read 1,000 words on why your day or week was grand. A short blog is a sweet blog, a sweet blog is a read blog. A decent size for a blog post would be 250 words.

The use of links and images is a great way to make a blog a good blog, but there is a fine line. Using too many pictures creates a bad blog…  Or an ugly blog – which brings me to my next point

What makes a blog ugly?

Poor design choice is a major one. The use of colour and layout on a blog are a huge breaking point. Do you want to read a blog that has a black or dark green background with yellow writing? Nope. Why? Because your eyes will hurt and have a hard time focusing on anything for the next five minutes.

Colours depict certain moods, certain moods depict how you feel about certain posts.

Now you may be asking me, what do you think are good blogs? What are bad blogs? Well, it is your lucky day. I will give you a couple examples.

First, lets start with the good.

Good Blog – - This is a good blog for many reasons. The design is simple, the use of white is great, the colour choice is a docile blue, and the layout is reader-friendly.

Good Blog – - Although this post is about what makes a good blog post, it is a good layout and good blog. It is simple and easy to read, and keeps your attention.

And the ugly…

Bad Blog – - Now, there is nothing wrong with the layout, the content of the posts, or the pictures used… The problem is the colour. I can’t stand looking at this website because of the colour. The black background makes me see nothing but backlit screen.

Bad Blog – - this website has blogs that are over 1,000 words (on the regular) and ramble on. It is hard to focus on these blogs and stay interested.

I think we should start a weekly “Design is…” picture.

The first one is “Design is… before you.”