Creative news 14 January 2008
Tony Blair’s identity wins wallpaper award
Lucienne Roberts has designed the letterhead and stationery for former British PM, Tony Blair, winning an award in the process.
Michael Bierut talks typography with The Atlantic
In this video interview with The Atlantic, Michael Bierut talks about typography. Thanks to swissmiss (Tina Roth Eisenberg) for flagging this one up.
New Flickr group for International Typographic Style
Antonio Carusone, of the excellent AisleOne, has launched a new Flickr group for International Typographic Style.
What do you think of the new Xerox logo? For me, it’s a step backwards. Not sure what they were aiming for. You can read what other designers are saying about it on The Designer Forum.
This short essay is taken from Michael Kroeger’s book, Paul Rand: Conversations with Students, which was published on January 3 by Princeton Architectural Press.
New challengers from the lowballers… and what to do
Not so much news, rather olds, but a useful article from AIGA with interesting discussion afterwards. Thanks to Adam at Be A Design Group for re-surfacing this one.
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25 appreciated comments on “Creative news 14 January 2008”
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Xerox – like the ‘after’ except for the x-ball.. Sure it looks good now, but about 4 years from now it will look dated… then again, the font will look dated too.. Ok, for the next 12 months I like the new Xerox look, but after that I will hate it. I wonder how much they actually spent on the rebranding..
William Tully’s last blog post..WARNING: Contains Coarse Language
Xerox could have done a way better job. The new ball in their logo doesn’t make me think of their company or the product. The ball actually looks cheap, like a bad 3D ball with an X on it. If you look at the ball the “X’ goes from light in the middle, to dark on the outside, but the red ball goes from dark in the middle, to light on the outside. It doesn’t make much sense.
They should have had David design the logo… Then it would have been great like the FFOH logo.
Dan Cole’s last blog post..3D CSS Border
Tully,
I agree that the Xerox logo seems designed in line with a trend, and that it’s certainly not a timeless one. It reminds me of the xbox logo:
Dan,
I hadn’t noticed that shading before. Odd. Here’s what Xerox say about it on their website:
More here.
It doesn’t say who created the logo, or how much the whole branding package will cost the company. If anyone knows more info I’d appreciate you commenting.
There’s no doubt this is a multi-million pound project.
I am not a fan of the new Xerox logo either… it also reminds me of the xbox logo but I suppose it is an X.
I don’t see what is so good about the Tony Blair stationary, bit too minimalistic in my opinion but who is to say when you earn half a mil per speech. What is your take David? The paper alphabet on the first link is nice though :)
A lowercase treatment? Um, yes it’s lowercase, yet it is a completely different font… At first glance I kinda like the font used, but the more I look at it, the more it appears to be the Fisher-Price 2.0 version of Xerox… I like the concept behind their “X”, however, I think they have failed miserably in actual delivery of that concept – the XBox reference is dead on.
William Tully’s last blog post..Gerry McGovern: Great Websites Do, Not Say
New Xerox logo = puke. Cliche, trendy (in a bad way), and unimaginative. Nuff said.
I interviewed with Interbrand before, the company that designed the new Xerox logo, but ultimately wasn’t interested in them since they’re located in another city about an hour or two from where I live. I don’t think the office in Ohio is the one that worked on the project, but still disappointed that they came up with a crap of a logo like that. I really hope the web 2.0 trend will die.
It is a shame that a prestigious company like xerox is rebranding to look like a foolish web 2 company. The logo will be old by 1-2 years. Somebody just copied the web2 trend.
And yes, then there is the xbox connection…
Niyaz PK’s last blog post..Where is the new mouse?
Is everyone agree that Xerox(R) logo is not exclusive anymore? The old one looks more professional and it can last almost forever.
Apart from that, I believe David has put so much effort in gathering all the news for all of us. A big round of applause to him. Keep it up. And thank you very much for sharing.
Personally, he’s an inspiration for me in this industry.
The Xerox logo says Kinko’s too much to me and they are equivalent to low quality (never pay full price because they will always screw something up!). I don’t think this was a positive step in their rebrand. Why did they have to rebrand anyway? The uppercase X from their before logo is a bit of an icon in my mind. The x ball doesn’t say xbox to me; it’s not tech trendy enough!
The Lowballer article from AIGA was fascinating. I think the other thing to consider is the internet (eLance, SitePoint) has opened up access to designers from all over the world. This can hurt those of us in more wealthy countries because our standard of living is higher than those in developing countries; we have to charge more to make a living. We’re really moving towards a world economy because of the internet.
I think the author was spot on when she said this mindset is all about fear of losing the job. I’m glad she brought up the issue of quality being tied to price. I’ve heard that so many times, and I would be suspicious, too, if say I was buying $10 Oakley sunglasses (normally retail around $200). It’s the same reason designers should refuse to work for spec.
Can I share a few other articles/sites I’ve seen on pricing?
1. Value-based fees are best
2. Pricing Your Consulting Services
Have you seen these articles, David? This subject should be near and dear to every designer heart! If we let it go, it’s scary to think that we may not be able to make a living doing what we love (though this is a remote possibility, I think).
Aww come on guys – the new logoisn’t THAT bad…
Okay… maybe it’s pretty close to that bad, but SOMEONEs got to defend it. The design community has become pretty vocal, and generally no one has anything nice to say.
Of course being critical provokes more commenting and drives conversation, so thats always nice – then again, if everyone is being critical, then it’s the guy who is supportive that stands out. I’m giving that idea a go on my blog, (3 Reasons Why Xerox’s New Logo Is Just Fine) but I couldn’t really defend the whole ‘Pokemon ball’ thing. heh
Jacob,
What happened to your website? Looks scarily like the same situation that happened to me when my domain was stolen. I hope it’s not that serious.
I like Tony Blair’s stationery, and I’m always a fan of minimalism. Would’ve been great to see the design process, and any alternatives that were suggested.
Peter,
I’d seen the Interbrand name around this story, but didn’t put two and two together – cheers. What was the job you were going for with them?
Rafie,
Thanks for the kind words my friend. I’m happy to provide info that you think useful, and am glad to have you as a reader.
Lauren,
The NO!SPEC website is a great source of info for designers, and essential reading for those just entering the industry.
Those two articles you link to are interesting, especially where the second one picks up on price resistance. If you, as a designer, can’t educate the client so they understand why you charge what you do, then you shouldn’t take the job in the first place (that’s a great point, and I’ve spoken about how we need to be teachers in the 5 hats of graphic designers).
Jayson,
Interesting that you pick up on the digitized red X (at the end of your article). For me, that icon is so much stronger than the rebrand.
I just noticed that! Where is Jacobs website?
It was Interbrand. You can read more here: http://www.interbrand.com/portfolio_details.asp?portfolio=3096
I agree, the old look was iconic, this just fits in with the others. Maybe if there were no other logos like it, it would be better. Interbrand made the at&t globe also.
Also, the Xerox ball looks just like the ball on this site:
http://powertochange.com/corporate/canada/
David and Novak,
Re my website: Yes I have been going crazy the whole day (it has been like that for 15 hours now). I have been contacted by my hosting provider and they have told me that…
I found this extremely bizarre as it is not like I have a huge number of visiotors that could do this (maybe 250 unique a day) yet somehow there has been too many ‘index.php requests’. Something I really have no idea about. I have emailed them back telling them I would try sort it out myself and for them to put up the site again (so at least i can access my emails).
This has been really frustrating… at first I thought it was what happened to you but I had checked my google filters.
I really hope that this clears up soon and without me getting a dedicated server – that would be way out of my budget. eek.
Nice find, Harris.
Jacob,
Sorry to read that. Is there a specific reason to have jackcass.com as your main website? Perhaps this could have been avoided with justcreativedesign.com as your main one?
It does seem very strange for your host company to disable your account in this way. I’d have thought they could simply limit the bandwidth available, so that at least some traffic can get through. At least that’s what my host provider would do.
Originally my main website was jackcass.com (a funny pun of my nick name of Jack and my last name Cass) however I wanted to go for a more professional approach for my blog which I also turned into my portfolio.
All justcreativedesign.com was, was a pointer to my hosting account which was originally bought with the domain name jackcass.com so essestially it is the same thing.
They did this to my account, they say it damages everyone else on the shared hosting server. It has nothing to do with bandwidth though because I had plenty left – it was “index.php requests”, something I don’t know about, nor many people.
I am still awaiting my host providers reply – they are way to slow for my liking.
Thanks for your kind input Niyaz… I will email you to save this space for real comments.
Jacob,
Do you have access to your logs?
Check the logs and see is if someone is playing pranks – like sending too many requests to your website.(A sort of Denial of Service attack).
Also try to shutting down all the wordpress plugins you are using. Visit the forums for these plugins and look for any complaints of this sort by any other users. Sometimes theses plugins are poorly programmed and may take up much CPU resources.
CPU is a very valuable resource. It is valuable than the bandwidth. There is a remote chance that somebody might have installed some COU intense file in your website. Check every file in your web folder and look for nything suspicious.
I think your most popular domain name is justcreativedesign.com
If that is the case, try hosting that domain somewhere else for now. Atleast you can keep your readers. If you need hosting, contact me.
David,
Sorry for using your space for this … :)
Jacob,
Good luck with your site and hosting service. I hope everything gets resolved quickly for you! You will share with us what happened so we can not make the same mistake(s), yes? Wish you didn’t have to go through this, but maybe some good will come out of it.
David,
I remember that post you did on Liz’s blog. I really enjoyed it! Education is not only a key to the client understand you, but it will help them trust you, which makes for a better working relationship all around in every area.
Niyaz, Jacob,
No worries about your off-topic discussion. It interests me too.
Lauren,
Glad you enjoyed the 5 hats article. ;)
Sorry if you already mentioned it, but what plugin did you use for the “leaving this box checked with search your website…”
nevermind, I found it as commentluv, it’s very cool!
I will definitely write a post on the problems I had so as others can not experience the same thing.
The follow up post: (click my name)
BE AWARE OF: Your Host, WordPress Plugins, CPU Load and being BANNED from your own website.