David Airey, graphic designer » Graphics

What if: Sydenham

David Airey — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 11:12:12 +0000

The idea’s simple.

Take a photo of a run-down or unused shop-front where you live.
Give it a digital refurb.
Present to shop owner, potential developers, or local council.

From the what if? website:

“If one shop, business, bench or sign is improved due to the work we are showing in here, then we will consider it a success.”

(before) Craft Shoe Repairs

(after) Billings Quality Fishmonger & Butcher

(before) Sydenham cinema

(after) Sydenham Picture Palace

It’s a lot better than doing nothing, one way to improve your local neighbourhood, and something I plan to do for my hometown Bangor.

what if: sydenham, designed by Good People.

Great idea.

——

Update:

“I did the same thing for a local park with an idea to improve it. The local council listened and gave us funding. We now have an outdoor gym, outdoor classroom, community garden, updated adventure playground and people are using it again.”
— LEE NEWHAM, GOOD PEOPLE

——

Excerpt image courtesy of Thinkstock.

Published on David Airey, graphic designer

Repetition

David Airey — Mon, 03 May 2010 12:28:53 +0000

“A single image is okay.

“But that same image, when multiplied a number of times, is often irresistible.”
— BOB GILL

Gill’s book Graphic Design as a Second Language is one of my favourites.

Here’s one of Gill’s logos I enjoy.

Model’s face courtesy of Thinkstock

Published on David Airey, graphic designer

Olympic pictograms through the ages

David Airey — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 23:01:18 +0000

Designer and AIGA Medalist Steven Heller commentates on Olympic pictograms through the ages in this short video from the New York Times (embedded above).

It’s hard to argue with the two sets Heller gives most praise to — those for Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008 (both shown toward the end of the video). My personal favourite are the Beijing pictograms. Clean. Contemporary. Appropriate.

Published on David Airey, graphic designer

AIGA’s response to NEA’s call for logos

David Airey — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:43:02 +0000

On February 1st, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) asked designers submit logo design proposals for its Art Works initiative.

The request was a speculative one, prompting Richard Grefé, executive director of AIGA — the largest and oldest professional communication design association in the United States — to respond by addressing a letter to NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman.

I’ve picked out a few excerpts from Grefé’s letter (shown below), and the full response is linked to at the foot of the post.

AIGA’s response to the NEA’s call for logos

“This type of competition runs against the global professional standards and practices for graphic design [...] it is both unfortunate and inappropriate that the NEA would be pursuing this practice.

“The approach you are pursuing is one that seriously compromises the quality of work you are entitled to and also violates a tacit ethical standard that has long standing in the communication design professions worldwide.

“Speculative design competitions or processes result in a superficial assessment of the problem and can only result in a design that is judged on a superficial basis. [Such competitions] will not result in the kind of work a client deserves.

“Only too often, [spec work] results in a client eventually having to bring a more experienced designer onto a project in order to execute it.”

Read AIGA’s full response to the NEA here.

What AIGA President Debbie Millman says about spec work.

Header image: 1968 AIGA Annual cover, by Paul Rand.

Published on David Airey, graphic designer

What graphic design schools are lacking

David Airey — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 23:01:35 +0000

Last month I sent out a call to design students and graduates, asking what should be included in an ideal graphic design course.

Here’s the lowdown.

What graphic design schools are lacking

“Design school teaches you how to talk to other designers … there needs to be an entire course on talking to people who are not designers.”
— STEPHEN LEE OGDEN

“First-year students should be put through a rigorous programme of calculus, economics, history, composition, and public speaking. The goal would be to produce first a thinker, a professional, a businessperson, and an educated individual. Only then will traditional design “training” begin. And yes, a lot of people would drop out. The phrase “in the real world” would be banned — this school would be very much a part of the professional world.”
— PRESCOTT PEREZ-FOX

“A class that gives homework from that awesome lil’ book “Caffeine for the Creative Mind.” Or one that uses “Orbiting the Giant Hairball” by Gordon Mackenzie as mandatory reading.”
— RAUL SORIA

“Fifty percent of the class shall be directed towards commercial work, with the remaining fifty percent spent pursuing personal projects.”
— BRANDON HUNTER

“What we lacked was web design teaching. It’s a big part of the demand would have been a major plus.”
— LAURA

“I would teach how to get a proper design brief from a client. The design brief is half the battle and can really guide your work. I would then teach client contracts, another area I feel school has given me little knowledge about. Revisions, getting half pay up front, client approvals, and other legalities.”
— TYLER MAYNARD

“I would place a lot of emphasis on the strength of the concept. Design students might fall deeply in love with a design because it’s absolutely gorgeous (but it might not always be the most effective solution for that particular project). It’s important to learn the difference between a gorgeous solution and an effective one.”
— CATRINA DULAY

“I would prepare my students for the inevitable…the small projects that take time away from the major projects. For example, after assigning a two week project, I would sporadically assign ‘Client Emergencies’ like that ad that needs to be designed, approved and printed by ‘tomorrow’. That’s something that I wasn’t prepared for when I got my first design job.”
— ANDREA WILLIAMS

“Run it like a business. I feel like clients abuse designers and there needs to be a class to learn how to deal with them.”
— VICTOR ZUNIGA

“Balance, movement, tone, grid structure, etc, would all become permanent vocabulary for my 101 students.”
— DOUGLAS BONNEVILLE

“Part of the problem of my graphic design degree was that it spent a lot of time glamourising the subject and not enough time telling us what it was like in the real world. More input from employed designers would be a welcome addition.”
— ABBAS AREZOO

“Once my students graduate I’d always keep in contact in case they need anything more.”
— ASHLEY DEAN NEWALL

“I would teach the students, ”Kill your darlings!” This was the sentence one teacher repeated in a design course in Sweden. I find it important because sometimes we think we have the solution, and it’s definitely not. Killing your first idea is a good solution because the first one that comes to you is almost never the right answer.”
— ANELIYA STOYANOVA

“I would teach students a lot more about running a business. My course was outstanding at teaching us design, but lacked in teaching us how to run our own business.”
— TIM

“I would make sure that all students understand the importance of print-ready files. This was an area that was barely touched upon in my courses, both BA and MA. A lot of people left the course not knowing how CMYK made a full colour. Ridiculous.”
— MARIA STEPHENS

“It would be good to see a focused course covering all aspects of web design in more detail from yr1 including standards, css, type, usability, social media, IA, branding etc.”
— LEE MUNROE

“I would assign projects that that solve real problems for real businesses. I am so sick of all the Best Logos Of The Web posts that are full of fake, made-up businesses and words that would never be used in real life. If you can work with the challenges of a real client with real opinions, and you can still come up with a top quality design, that’s what it’s all about.”
— SHANNA

“If you don’t know how to interact with clients, or even close a sale, your talents are going to be restricted. No clients = no designing.”
— ALAN ANDERSON

Photo from Terashima design exhibition

“I’d make very clear that design is not art. So many designers end up where they are even though they always wanted to be artists. As such, they hate the business side, and try push clients to fulfill their own goals. Design and art should be separate, and that should be fundamental in any course.”
— KEVIN CANNON

“If designers had more knowledge on how to start a small firm and turn it into something great, we wouldn’t have so many frustrated creative people in the world.”
— JAY SHAMBURGER

“At least one design class should pair each student with a business seeking a new visual identity, with the students then taught how to ask intelligent questions, prompting the business to reveal its vision for the new look.”
— JENNIFER NULL

“Since so many designers are called-upon to do web design, and so many websites require some programming (with Javascript, PHP, Actionscript, etc.) a minimum of practical exposure and experience to de-mystify (and defuse) the basics can go a long way.”
— BOB QUINN

“I would love a class that taught how to be diplomatic with people who don’t know anything about design but think they do.”
— EMILY DOLINER

“If I ran a design course I’d spend most of the time teaching basic design principles and working with pencil and paper.”
— MARIO MONTOYA JR.

“If I ran a design course, I would take the time to learn the art of teaching first and realize that just because I have designed a few annual reports in the field does not qualify me as a good teacher. Many of my professors have not been able to justify their grades, didn’t know what a scoring guide/rubric was, and loved to humiliate students during the critique portion of the class. Phenomenal teachers give constructive criticism, but they also know that they should sandwich it in between some positive feedback.”
— TRACY

“I would include some sort of discussion or lecture on pricing.”
— ERIC LAWSON

“The capstone would be very similar to my branding class where students would create a product/company of their own and take it from nothing to launch, writing design and marketing briefs and design several key things such as an identity package, advertising, catalogs, packaging, etc. with the instructor acting like an art director in a design firm. Outside of design I would have students take courses in experimental psychology to expose them to research methodology and looking in research journals to help solve design problems.”
— JON LIEBOLD

“Students should be given projects where the teacher plays the role of a difficult client — someone without imagination and the ability to articulate what they want. It can be a huge challenge to isolate the core message of a design project, and knowing how to handle those clients, and keep them happy, can be even harder.”
— NEIL KOWALEWSKI

“I always felt that my design classes, while informative and very helpful, never touched on the ‘real world’ of the design community and life. How to survive at a design firm (whether small or big) was never spoken of.”
— LEE GUSTIN

“If I ran a design course, I would hire David Airey to give me advice on what to teach students.”
— EDUARDO VELARDE

“Business practices in the design field would be high on the list. Presentation skills should also be stressed.”
— VICTOR WARE

“I’d like to see design schools help students garner freelance work on their own, as a student project supervised by an instructor, as well as require an internship in an agency setting.”
— NICK VENTURELLA

“After our last final a couple weeks ago, my fellow students all felt like, “Wow, we’ve got a portfolio website for ourselves, but how do we do it for a client? Do we buy the domain or what?”
— PEGGY

“Perhaps a lack of craft is partially the fault of the student, but in many cases, as a teachers assistant I find myself often showing students how to properly utilize an exacto blade, or even how to score something. These basic skills are easily enough taught, and I can’t believe that some of my professors are overlooking them, because they’re fundamental in the final presentation of your product.”
— RACHEL MERCER

“Preparing students for the working world should be a priority.”
— JACOB PAYNE

“If I ran a design course I would want students to seek out opportunities within and outside the design profession. My favorite thing about being a designer, the thing that pulled me into this field to begin with, is the ability to see how so much other stuff works behind the scenes. I love talking to clients who do things I never knew existed.”
— KEVIN M. SCARBROUGH

“If I ran a design course, it would be for kids from 7-18. It would be completely free, and all they had to bring were their own tables and chairs.”
— SU CHIN’S HUSBAND

“I would include a lot more on client interaction or the business side of design. For every design course I’ve taken, we learn the ins and outs of the software perfectly, along with the review and application of design principles.

“However, there have only been a few courses where the outline simulated a real-world design we might have to do for a client, or the handling of any other sort of client alteration, suggestion, or complaint. Of the few that had done that, I learned the most.”
— CRYSTAL

“Instead of just having the students design a book about a place they visit, for example, I would make the students research their place of choice, talk to people from that place, photograph the location, derive common themes of their place, use word maps to find deeper than surface ideas for much more well thought-out designs.”
— BENJAMIN KOWALSKI

“The tutors would behave like clients with the briefs so you have to ask the right questions in order to get the information needed.”
— GEMMA JACKSON

“I had an instructor who made us run our projects through an output bureau before we turned them in. It was expensive, even with the student discount, but it only took one midnight phone call (“Hi. Your type defaulted to Courier. You said you had to turn in tomorrow morning… what do you want to do?”) to make me pay attention to all the details. That was invaluable experience.”
— CYNTHIA KNIGHTON

“With just a little more effort ‘clients’ could have been assigned to each student, or students could have come up with a client, written up a brief and then thrown it in a box and swapped with other students so they had to follow some guidelines from a client. Who gets to change the name of their client because they want to create a logo in a grunge style this week?”
— DAKOTA CHICHESTER

“I would love to see more print shops being visited, mom and pop, large scale, all types from full four color offset to web to flexo to letterpress, designers need to know how things work so that as designers they can design for how it will be processed.”
— CAMERON

“Business classes should be a requirement because design serves business. Without an idea of how businesses operate, we designers are missing a huge part of what we are designing for. We aren’t creating commissioned art pieces, we are creating design solutions.”
— CHRIS LEE

Over to you

If you know of a design teacher or course leader, why not forward them the link to this page? I know my old tutors would’ve been appreciative.

Not everyone who commented on my original call was featured here, as there was some overlapping thoughts, and I’ve edited the comments for succinctness. Thanks very much for the time everyone took.

Top photo from Terashima design exhibition

Published on David Airey, graphic designer

Studio Culture

David Airey — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:25:49 +0000

Here’s a brief look inside one of my latest graphic design reads: Studio Culture: The secret life of the graphic design studio.

Edited by Tony Brook and Adrian Shaughnessy, here’s the blurb:

“Studio Culture provides a unique glimpse into the inner workings of 28 leading graphic design studios. In a series of penetrating interviews, the secret life of the studio is revealed, and the mechanics of building and maintaining a vibrant studio culture are laid bare with disarming frankness.”

The two editors Brook and Shaughnessy signed the inside, which was a nice touch.

The book is filled with stories from the business of design — from balancing the books to hiring interns and clients. On page 10, for instance, Nicola of London-based Build said, “We don’t do printed portfolios. It just doesn’t seem relevant any more. A couple of times in the past I dropped one off at clients. They’d sit on it for a month and go ‘Oh, we didn’t get a chance to look at it.’”

Interviewed throughout the book are inspiring design studios such as Edenspiekermann, Universal Everything, Milton Glaser, Inc., Coast, Pentagram, and many more.

The Milton Glaser interview was of particular interest, and he described his office like this:

“My office, which has always been more or less the same, is a big undifferentiated room. I sit in one place in the room, in the same relationship to the rest of the room as everybody else. There is no visual hierarchy.”

I love the overall design by Spin, but what is it about design books and tiny type? Maybe it’s just how my eye-sight isn’t what it once was.

From the website:

“Studio Culture is a book for both seasoned professionals who have been running studios for years, and for idealistic designers contemplating starting up. It is the complete guide to creating, maintaining and growing a studio culture.”

312pp, 165×230mm, 4 colour + 1 PMS
£24.95 + P&P

You can buy your copy today, direct from Unit Editions.

For more design book recommendations, visit my bookstore.

Published on David Airey, graphic designer

A call to design students and graduates

David Airey — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 23:01:57 +0000

I know that many of you have either been a design student, or are currently enrolled on a design course. Tell me, what would you change about your education? Complete the following statement in a comment and I’ll publish your thoughts in a follow-up post, linking to your website:

If I ran a design course…

——

Update: 01 February 2010
Here’s the follow-up: What graphic design schools are lacking.

——

Published on David Airey, graphic designer

Lovely Package does alcohol

David Airey — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:38:35 +0000

Inspirational work courtesy of packaging design blog Lovely Package.

Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky

Lots more packaging design goodness on Lovely Package.

Published on David Airey, graphic designer

Milton Glaser on design studios

David Airey — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:30:54 +0000

Photo from PRWeb

“The great benefit of this [everyone sitting together in a single room] is that you can hear what everybody’s saying. I’ve never written a memo in my life, because everybody knows exactly who I’m talking to and what I’m doing. Everybody here knows everybody’s business. If you have a deep sense of privacy I don’t think that you could work for me.”

Milton Glaser of Milton Glaser Inc. quoted in Studio Culture: The secret life of the graphic design studio.

Review of the Studio Culture book to follow here soon.

Published on David Airey, graphic designer

Graphic design bookstore

David Airey — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:16:59 +0000

I’m often asked what graphic design books I recommend, so to save a little time in future I’ve launched a graphic design bookstore.

The books are divided into seven categories:

I’ve read about half the books listed, and those that I haven’t come recommended by other designers. Where available, each book is shown alongside its Amazon rating and customer reviews.

Here are a few I’ve had a chance to feature on my blogs:

Do you have any design book recommendations, or any thoughts on the books I’ve picked? Tips or preferences much appreciated.

David Airey, graphic designer » Graphics

What if: Sydenham

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Repetition

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