Brand Design Blog, News and Ideas

In the design industry you often hear the phrase ‘Keep it simple, stupid’ or ‘Keep it simple, son’.

Both amount to the same acronym ‘K.I.S.S.’

Keep those 4 letters in your head and you’ll do alright.

So, why keep it simple? What does keeping it simple mean?

Well, the reality behind the idea of ‘keeping it simple’ is pretty straight forward.

The simpler you make a design, the less chances you have to make a mistake.

Each element that is added to a design (of any sort) ’should’ have a purpose. It should perform a task or fulfill a need. It should target a purpose.

‘Purpose targets’ can involve everything from function to communication to efficiency.

By adding unnecessary elements to a design, your design requires more power to perform its function, the message you wish to communicate is diluted, and your design performs at a lower efficiency.

Here are some examples:

• Logos designed with fine line work. Viewed at a small size the line work becomes jumbled or disappears. The same when large logos are viewed from a distance.
• Television ads. Too much background noise, music or sound effects. Causes the message spoken by the voice over to be hard to hear. You miss the message.
• Magazine advertising. Too many messages or too much text dilute the most important idea. The messages fight for attention. You end up with the reader not receiving enough impact from any one message. They fail to be called to act on your idea.

So with each element you add, you have another chance of missing the purpose target and ultimately causing the overall design to miss it’s full potential.

By keeping the elements involved in a design to a bare minimum, you have less chance to miss your purpose targets and you allow your design to become efficient.

I see examples of over complicated design every day.

Have you seen design that could be simplified to become more efficient?

Can you simplify your own designs?

There is more to this topic, including Keeping it simple for customers. Which I may discuss in another post.

But for now, I’d be interested in your feedback.

We’ve just completed work on a Life Insurance Website.

Life Insurance Advocates are specialist insurance brokers working out of the Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne, Australia.

The brief was to encourage more people to contact the Brokers via their website presence.

So we broke the task down into two major areas.

Firstly, to take the old, dated design and restyle the website branding to give it a new, fresh look. While in the process giving it a friendlier face and making the sites ‘online’ contact areas more accessible.

Second. Our client wanted a stronger search engine presence for key terms within their industry. To begin this process, we cut out all the table based design and moved towards CSS styling. Allowing for less coding and easier crawling for Search Engine Spiders.

We also moved all important keyword phases to be text based to once again make them more accessible to the Search Spiders.

All major service areas of the business were also given their own pages to make for more relevant listings and copywriting was reviewed for additional search penetration.

This natural (white hat) form of search engine optimization pays off well in the long run, as it’s less prone to the ups and downs of chasing after Googles latest Algorithms (not that that is an exact science either).

You can check the site out at www.lifeinsuranceadvocates.com.au.

I’d be interesting to hear your thoughts on the site revision.

Here’s some really interesting new technology.

In the video below you’ll see a new program that allows for imagery to be scaled based on element importance, rather than simply stretching or squashing the image.

Watch the video and you’ll see how it all works.

Looks great right?

Sure…but this technology has ramifications for the design and photography industry. Here’s on photographers point of view.

But…don’t we already have problems with amateur designers distorting images?

Could this be better than the alternative?

Finally, watch this reply to the photographers argument.

Either way, it’s really interesting technology that has amazing possibilities.

So, what’s your view on the topic?

Do you see technology such as this as good or evil in the online design landscape?

Let me know. I’d love to read your thoughts.

Here’s a list of name that you might want to try and remember.

All these young entrepreneurs are under 30 and have all created little online empires for themselves.

One thing to keep in mind though…All this net worth is on paper. They would need to sell their business and assets to great this amount of capital.

Still…I wouldn’t mind being in some of their shoes.

Check it out at: Top 20 Websites run by People under 30

Just been announced at Mac World 2008.

The New Apple Laptop. Macbook Air. The worlds thinnest notebook.

Everyone had been wondering what Steve Jobs might announce at this years conference after the press that the iphone got last year.

This new laptop is ultra thin. At it’s thickest point you are looking at 22mm which then tapers down to a 4mm ‘blade like’ edge.

Even if you’re not a Mac fan, this one is definitely worth a look.

You can view the commercial here.

Or, have a closer look with the guided tour here.

I’ll be interested to read your feedback on this one.

We all know that business cards are one of the most useful pieces of promotion in our marketing armory.

But, making your business card stand out from the crowd can often be a difficult task.

Here’s a post from a blog I found recently that has some great reference material that will help keep you inspired when you’re banging your head against the wall for that great idea.

Check the post out here: Cool Business Card Ideas

I’d love to hear of any other great design resources that you’ve found.

I’m a big subscriber to podcasts. The quality of information and levels of entertainment far exceed most main stream media.

Why?…Because podcasts are niché media broadcasts. You’ll find something for everyone, something targeted on just about every subject.

For those new to the subject. Podcasts are (according to wikipedia) a collection of digital media files which is distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and personal computers.

Below are 10 great podcasts worth watching or listening to, with a brief description of each.

The list is alphabetical (so there is no favoritism).

1. Boagworld

This audio podcast, hosted by Paul Boag and co-hosted by Marcus Lillington, covers the subject of web design and accessibility. Boagworld is based in the U.K, but it’s subject matter is very universal. They often have great guests from the web design celebrity set, such as, Andy Budd and Jeremy Keith. If you have anything to do with web design, running a website or online development, this is a must listen to.

2. Cranky Geeks

Great little weekly video podcast. This program runs as a panel format and features loads of web celeb’s. It’s hosted by tech’ journalist John C. Dvorak and has a funny tongue in cheek approach to topical tech’ news and online issues. Some interesting points of view here from people in the know.

3. Diggnation

If you haven’t heard of Digg.com you need to go check it out. Diggnation covers the top weekly stories from Digg.com. It’s a weekly video program hosted by Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht. It’s two guys, a few drinks, a couch and a whole lot of laughs. It can be childish as times and has some pretty explicit language, but who said news had to be serious. Definitely worth a look.

4. Duct Tape Marketing

Small Business Marketing Expert, John Jantsch, hosts this weekly audio podcast. It covers subjects such as online marketing and business management while interviewing experts in the weeks subject. Great interviews, that have some really informative information.

5. Extralife Radio

One of the most fun weekly audio podcasts online today. Hosted by Scott Johnson, ELR covers everything Geek. From comic books to computer games, movies to toilet humor. Scott Johnson also hosts a number of other podcasts which can be found here. But I thought it would be unfair to name more than one in this post, even though they are all great quality.

6. Mind Your Own Business

Mind your Own Business is an audio Podcast hosted by Guy Kingston and covers all topics regarding business and entrepreneurship. This is another U.K. program, but certainly has information that will satisfy a global audience. It seems to be a fortnightly effort, but you’ll often get a weekly show.

7. TWIT – This Week In Tech

Hosted by Leo Laporte, this weekly audio podcast is one of the big ones. All your weekly tech information in one place, with great guests that provide both information and entertainment. Leo Laporte has a network of podcasts which you can subscribe to and you can check them out at twit.tv. This is a staple ingredient for any online or tech junkie.

8. Sarcastic Gamer Podcast

This weekly audio podcast is all about gaming (that’s computer gaming for anyone thinking chess or monopoly). The guys at Sarcastic Gamer made their fame by doing online Parody Songs about subjects such as the PS3, microsoft and jack thompson (the activist, not the actor). They’ve now got a great little podcast that’s entertaining, while providing some great gaming news and information. If computer games are on your radar, this one may be for you.

9. SmallBizPod

This is a business related audio podcast that shows up twice a month. It follows an interview format and has guests from around the globe speaking about their business history and current business activities. Some insightful information and a great host in Alex Bellinger, who has a love all things business and for techno music which he plays at the end of each show.

10. Tiki Bar TV

Each episode of Tiki Bar is like it’s very own stage show. Pure entertainment and a whole lot of laughs. This video podcast, unfortunately, only comes out once a month. But it’s definitely worth the wait. Two guys, a girl and a tiki bar. What more do you need? …Oh yeh, alcohol. Well they have that too. This one probably isn’t for the kids, but if it’s to your taste, make sure you look through the back catalogue.

Well…That’s it!

Again, I just want to say that these are in alphabetical order. I’m not telling my favourite. Which you think is the best is for you to decide.

If you don’t find anything in this list. You can check out itunes or another podcast aggregator and do a search on your favourite subject. There is bound to be a podcast about it. If not, why not start your own.

Now I know there are more I could mention, but this is my top 10 not top 12 or 14. These are the podcasts I listen to on a regular basis, while I work or in the car.

If you have more you want to mention, then feel free to do so in the comments. I’d love to hear what are your favourites and I’d also love to hear what you think of the podcasts listed above.

Enjoy.

White space is an important element in creating clean, functional design.

The idea of white space does not relate to the colour white, but instead the allowance of space surrounding a design object.

By allowing this ‘white space’ we let objects function without being impacted by surrounding design elements.

To explain more, I found this great article by Mark Boulton at Alistapart.com

I’d just like to say HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone.

I hope this spin of the calendar will be a great one for you and your family.

I’m looking forward to doing some exciting work this year and hopefully providing you with some great information and quality discussions about the design and branding industries.

Welcome to 2008!