Dean Vipond - Branding and Interaction Design

Open data, open to all

Here’s a write-up of some interesting open data projects showcased at Manchester’s FutureEverything conference in May.

There was an overarching theme at this year’s FutureEverything of ‘cities’ – what makes them unique, what drives their development, how people live in them and how they could be improved. This provided a compelling anchor for a decidedly broad range of subjects being discussed.

The first session I attended was for Bristol’s B-Open Media Sandbox initiative, which commissioned a number of projects to look at creative uses for Bristol Council’s open data. How can council data be used engage citizens and improve their lives?

We saw three case studies – Delib’s visualisation project around council spending, PM Studio’s Blossom Bristol game built on pollution data, and Connect Bristol’s “Hills Are Evil” service, which provides information on hills, curbs, and difficult surfaces for wheelchair, pushchair or cycle users.

Open data versus privacy

Delib’s ‘I Heart My City’ was interesting in that the aspirations for the project could not be fulfilled, due to the available data being insufficient to present a truly transparent service. Location data was not available, so citizens could not see how council money was being spent in specific areas of the city. In addition, only external spend was available, meaning it wasn’t possible to show how money was being spent in internal departments.

Despite these frustrations, it was interesting to see what could be made, were the correct data made available. Delib’s delegate did point out that in London, any transport company wishing to tender for contacts must agree to providing their data, so that future initiatives (such as bus tracking services) could be enabled.

What did arise from the post-presentation questions was the notion of privacy. What does open data mean for the privacy of public sector employees? Would a social worker, teacher, or council receptionist want their salary to be public knowledge? Sure, knowing the financial details of our elected politicians is one thing, but is it necessary for us to know which of our local library staff earns more than their colleagues? I don’t think so.

Also, as apparently essential as a bus tracking service would be, it’s not a stretch to point out that being able to pinpoint a bus driver at any given point might have privacy implications.

Blooming gamification

Blossom Bristol was a very different project, being a mobile game for monitoring air and water quality across the city. Players could plant virtual crops in real places across the city. The real-life environmental conditions of the area would dictate the health of the crop.

‘Gamification’, the notion of influencing people’s behaviour by making a given task feel like a game, is a very hot topic in technology and marketing circles right now. It’s a hateful term, mainly because there are so many snake oil merchants suggesting that strapping a points or badge system to anything from email to a daily chores will instantly make people want to interact with it.

What the gamification advocates forget (and what PM Studio remembered) is that you need to build a compelling game if you want people to play it. Blossom Bristol succeeds in that it was fun, and people cared about the crops they planted in the same way as they did their Nintendogs. The outcome of this was that people became more interested in the environmental quality of the space around them, which then drove more pressure on councils to improve work in this area. Unfortunately it was only commissioned as a trial – I’d love to try this game where I live.

Resident Evil

The Hills Are Evil project was fascinating, and to me, felt like a real ‘why hasn’t this been done before?’ kind of project. Allowing users to provide gradient, surface and curb information to a collaborative map allowed wheelchair users, people with puschairs, or cyclists invaluable information for getting around Bristol. Flat maps give no indication of whether a street is steep, cobbled, or has high curbs.

What was interesting is that the creators didn’t aim to just make something for disabled users, moreover something disabled users would find useful. This way, it didn’t come off as patronising, and also opened its usage base up to, say, cyclists who were looking for an easier (or more difficult) ride for the day.

How can open data be open to all?

Each of the three projects showed just how beneficial clever use of data and user interaction can be, in improving people’s lives on a personal or civic level. What ultimately strikes me about these projects, is that they (obviously) require smartphones, and as such present a barrier of entry to many of the people who would stand to benefit the most from using them. Even if though smartphone costs are continually falling, the sustained investment of connectivity and data charges is not something poorer people would be able to afford.

The notion of giving someone a fishing rod instead of a fish is no longer valid, so long as a continued injection of cash on the part of the user is required.

I would love to see a project like this trialed where devices and data charges were all fully funded. I think we’d really start to understand the benefits open data projects can help entire communities, not just those who can afford to be involved.

Tags: Design, games, interaction, mobile, technology, User Experience
Posted on July 27th, 2011 in Events, Ideas | No Comments »

Sweating the small stuff

Do the fine details really matter to a powerful brand? Last year I took my family on holiday to Center Parcs. In terms of a brand experience, I was rather impressed. From its well presented and easy to use website, through to the information packs we received in the post and the demeanour of the staff on arrival, it all met with my expectations of what Center Parcs was about.

A pleasingly on-brand cosmetic bottle

Once we’d arrived at our chalet, the positive experience continued. All the welcoming literature was on-brand and clear, and even the complimentary shower gel was branded! However, my spidey-senses were tingling. I knew that someone, somewhere, was using Comic Sans in the name of Center Parcs.

I was right. As we entered the swimming pool, there it was – our jaunty, fun-loving friend informing us of CCTV cameras. Sometimes I hate to be proven right, and this was just such a time.

A displeasingly off-brand sign

Vipond’s Law

Finding evidence of Comic Sans was an inevitability. In 1989, the author Mike Godwin coined what is now known as Godwin’s Law – “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.” Basically, it is inevitable that any online discussion, if allowed to continue long enough, will reference Hitler and the Nazis.

In a similar vein, I’d like to propose Vipond’s Law – that no matter how tightly controlled a brand’s design may be, as the number of individuals responsible for communications grows, the probability of Comic Sans being used in a branded touchpoint approaches 1. It cannot be stopped.

I bet that there’s an out-of-order sign somwhere on a toilet cubicle door at one of Apple’s offices, or an email signature belonging to a receptionist at British Airways that undermines the efforts designers and brand guardians make to ensure consistency.

The Co-op (or Co-operative, as their branding dictates) threw me quite a curve ball recently. I had been involved with organising a funeral, using the Co-op’s funeral services. Included with the final bill was a stamped, addressed envelope for posting a cheque. You can imagine how incensed I was.

A jauntily-titled piece of funereal communications

The question I’m asking, however, is does this *really* matter?

Who cares?

Do microscopic chinks in a brand’s armour really weaken it, or are they a reminder that any organisation is run by real people? Designers, myself included, speak at length of the importance of consistency in communications, and that any deviation from the style guide is a grave act.

I can spot brand deviations a mile off – it’s my job. But I doubt the average member of the public notices, and if they were to notice, they wouldn’t care. Did any Center Parcs customers enjoy their holiday less (excluding myself), because some swimming pool signage was off-brand? Would someone dealing with the loss of a loved one really think less of a funeral director because of an off-brand envelope? It irks me, but I would say not.

I’ve been responsible for large brands before, and to a certain degree, you do have to choose your battles, or nothing would ever get released to market. However, as innocuous as these little branding indiscretions are, it is still the job of the designer to stamp them out. Yes, it makes us seem petty, but the moment we let things slide, bigger and bigger mistakes will be made, and all of a sudden your brand is out of control. We must plug the tiny leaks in the dam, lest the whole structure becomes fragile.

So I urge designers (and clients) to keep a keen eye on the fine details. And when asked, ‘does it really matter?’, reply with an emphatic ‘yes!’

Tags: branding, Design, typography
Posted on January 5th, 2011 in Brand | 8 Comments »

Dissecting dConstruct – part 2

Part two of my report from dConstruct’s one-day conference in Brighton. Following a lovely lunch in the sunshine in Pavilion Gardens, we re-entered the theatre for part two of dConstruct.

Auteurship

First up was blogger John Gruber, who received whoops and cheers as he took the stage (I’d not heard of the guy before). His talk was on the notion of auteurship; that the best projects are those with an individual ultimately calling the shots. The typical adulation of Steve Jobs followed (can we get through one conference without people pointing to Apple as an example of design directly influencing business success? WE GET IT!), but most of his talk was centred on film makers, where the likes of Hitchcock, Kubrick, et al controlled the entire creative direction.

This is all well and good, but I’m unsure of how far this can really translate to design, where customer engagement is often essential. Just because Apple run very little customer engagement programmes in the development of their products and services, does not mean it’s not of worth. Would anyone want to drive a car which hadn’t been tested with customers first? What about a banking website, or a health service? Sure, leaps of faith and intuition on the part of designers are vital to the process, but to dismiss the needs of clients or end users is arrogant. Still, it’s a good way to get a designer-heavy crowd on-side.

Improvisation

The next talk (from Last.FM’s creative director Hannah Donovan) began with a lovely improvisational music performance, which served as a prelude to this talk on how we can learn from musicians when designers improvise. Taking in classical music, jazz and early hip-hop, she demonstrated how improvisation still needs rules, roles and desired outcomes to be successful, and not be an unfocussed mess. It is also important to not let your tools inhibit your thinking, which is why a pen and paper will always be better than Photoshop for brainstorming and rapid prototyping.

This was a really interesting talk, not least because it wasn’t directly about design. While the preceding film-based talk left me cold, I still see it as important that talks like this are on the programme. Designers need to be inspired by much more than just other designers, lest their work becomes a homogenous dirge, adding to the clutter Marty Neumeier mentioned.

The value of ruins

Without doubt the most startling talk came from James Bridle, a historian and publisher, on the importance of preserving our past. Throughout history, humankind has wilfully and repeatedly erased its archives and histories. Giving many heartbreaking accounts from throughout history, stretching from The Alexandrian War (over 2000 years ago) through to World War 2, and more recently Sarajevo and Baghdad, we learn of how so much of our recorded knowledge and information has been destroyed.

It’s just as pertinent now, as despite the efforts of things like the Wayback Machine, websites as cultural and historical artifacts are constantly disappearing as servers are switched off, or domains expire. I wrote a piece about this myself, and it was heartening to see that others have been thinking about it too. James points to Wikipedia as a wonderful example of how we are recording information in new ways. Each article’s history section shows every amendment to the article, allowing us to see not only the latest version of events, but how we as people piece together our history. As an example he pointed to the article on the Iraq War, the history of which he had printed and bound – in twelve volumes! A marvellous, tangible example of a new way of preserving our past.

James’ delivery was passionate, funny and assured. As Matt Edgar mentioned on his blog, he deserves his own BBC series.

Network of things

Tom Coates provided a stellar talk, on the subject of the power of networks when they encapsulate much more than computers. Like James before him, he looked back in time, to Darius The Great’s Persian Royal road network which, while allowing for the sharing of information, also influenced what we make and how we make it – things no longer had to be made with local materials. Similarly, the internet is also changing things, such as how sets of data available to us now inspire people to develop useful new services. He stated that all the really successful services have also allowed their data to be accessed and used by others, such as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr, triggering a swathe of great new ideas. Just look at how many sites and services use Google Maps!

He then went on to examine how adding connectivity to things that don’t really need it will inspire people to become more creative, pointing to the networked bathroom scales which upload your weight to the internet, allowing you to monitor fluctuations, and keep to your diet. Also interesting was the idea of objects as a service, whereby we would no longer buy a washing machine, but have one installed for free, but be charged per wash.

Pushing this notion past the household, he looked at the idea of the networked city, where data and connectivity are already being piloted to provide useful services, such as London’s cycle hire programme, or San Francisco’s parking meter initiative. Exciting and insightful stuff, but as always, problems will persist such as issues surrounding privacy. Also, inequality will continue to be problematic, not least because such services would still require people to have mobiles or computers to exploit them.

Despite this, Tom pointed to people’s willingness to get involved and spend their time contributing to a whole (specifically the Open Street Map project) as a positive indication of how connectivity will help facilitate people to get more out of the things that surround them, and act as a force for good.

Engagement or arrogance?

Unfortunately I had to leave before the final talk for the long trip back north, but overall, dConstruct 2010 was an excellent event, leaving me with much to think about. The most engaging and useful talks came from those subjects less specifically concerned with design, but the broader contexts in which design plays a part. This is ironic, as I left with the nagging feeling that many of the attendees will have left thinking that things would be much better if they were allowed to control everything.

Phrases such as ‘design thinking’ seem to be gaining traction right now, and while I’ve worked on countless projects where designers have been involved far too late in the process, they are still just one (vital) element in the success of a project. Encouraging more people to be involved in the design process allows the designer to gain a deeper understanding of a project’s desired outcomes. Shutting everyone out does not necessarily mean you will get a better outcome.

I highly recommend that you download the audio podcasts of each talk.

Posted on September 21st, 2010 in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Dissecting dContruct – part 1

Part one of my report from dConstruct’s one-day conference in Brighton. With a pleasantly varied range of talks and speakers, down by the seaside in Brighton, I was rather excited.

The Designful Company

Things started very well with Marty Neumeier, with his talk The Designful Company. It was pleasing to hear someone speak with some assuredness on the benefits design can bring to the continued success of a business, and how changing an existing situation to a preferred one is what design is about.

Considering his audience, he was preaching to the converted to some degree, but it was apparent he had had this conversation many times with marketing heads and CEOs. What was of benefit was the how persuasive an argument he made, and I imagine many attendees will be using snippets of his talk when in discussion with clients (I know I will). He complemented his theories with some excellent examples of great, not so great, and downright bizarre products which have been put to market over the years, showing how ‘good and different’ products tend to succeed, whereas ‘not good and not different’ products just add clutter to an already busy marketplace, benefitting no one.

He suggests that brands are now more important than patents for business – companies can work their way around patents, but once a strong brand is aligned with a certain service or product in a customer’s mind, it takes something truly revolutionary to displace it. Compelling stuff! I also liked his assertion that a brand is what its customers say or think it is – particularly relevant with the increasing power and voice of customers through social media.

Boil, Simmer, Reduce

So we were off to a great start. Up next was Magnetic North’s Brendan Dawes whose style of delivery couldn’t have been more different to Marty’s. Brendan took us through his preferred design process of ‘Boil, simmer, reduce’ – basically throwing lots of ideas and inspiration together, playing around with what’s there, then removing extraneous elements. MN’s work for the Manchester visitor centre was a good example of the company’s approach, and I need to go have a look next time I head across the Pennines.

I’ve seen Brendan speak a couple of times before, and while I tend to disagree with half of what he says, his enthusiasm, genial delivery and moments of real insight always keep me listening. His improvisational stage manner does make me sometimes wish he’d keep some cue cards handy, but just when you think he’s painted himself into a corner with a certain tangent or anecdote, he’ll knock the audience for six with an off-the-cuff remark that really makes you think. He finished by urging the audience to make less crap, as there’s enough of that in the world already – something which tallied nicely with the preceding talk.

Information is Beautiful

Fresh from his appearance on Newsnight, David McCandless took us through his insights into data visualisation. I was skeptical about this talk, as my last blog post would suggest, but I was pleasantly surprised. He was clearly more at home talking to a design-savvy audience, and possessed none of the rabbit-in-headlights demeanour which characterised his TV appearance. David went through some of his pieces, such as a graph showing most common break-up times for relationships, and the ‘mountains out of molehills‘ piece on subjects which garnered tabloid hysteria (such as swine flu, the millennium bug, etc). Questions over the narcissism of infographics aside, what was very interesting is how laying different data sets over each other can provide otherwise hidden insights, such as areas of BNP membership versus areas with high ethnic minority populations, showing surprisingly little overlap between the two.

David then admirably took us through some of his failures, such as the four-way Venn diagram. He freely admits he’s not a trained designer (he’s a journalist), and for someone who commands a lot of attention from designers (at least in some circles), it’s refreshing for him to admit he doesn’t have all the answers.

The power & beauty of typography

I was looking forward to Samantha Warren’s talk, being a bit of a typography nut myself, but I must admit I was hugely disappointed and frustrated. Whilst Samantha clearly has bags of enthusiasm, this didn’t translate into a compelling talk. She looked at old printed material from a few hundred years ago which, despite limitations of typeface choice, still managed to be expressive and interesting through layout. This was good stuff, but some of the examples of modern typography just weren’t that great. Posters for gigs? Some nice designs, but not exactly earth-shattering in the typography department, especially when she replaced the typeface on one poster with Arial, which (to be honest) didn’t lose a great deal, simply because it was an illustration-led piece. Much better would have been to show Ikea’s disastrous move from Futura to Verdana, where the differences are very stark. Where were the Blue Note jazz sleeves? The V&A logo? For a talk like this, you really need to find some world-class work to inspire the audience.

Samantha opined that choosing a nice font was like choosing a pair of shoes to go out in (ie, finding a balance between personality and practicality). This irked me for a couple of reasons. Firstly, choosing the right typeface is crucial, but only a small part of producing good typography (as the poor kerning on her slides demonstrated!). Secondly, the shoe metaphor just isn’t convincing enough, and served to trivialise what is a vital, yet often misused part of design (especially online).

With the current arms race going on in web font technology, now is the perfect time for our leading typographers to examine the implications and opportunities afforded to designers, but I got no such insights from this talk.

Still, three good talks out of four isn’t bad, so I walked out into the glorious Brighton sunshine at lunchtime a happy customer. However, the best was yet to come. Look out for part two!

Tags: branding, business, data, dConstruct, Design, Journalism, politics, typography
Posted on September 14th, 2010 in Events | No Comments »

You beauty!

Is data visualisation getting a bad name?

I was pleased to see graphic design in the news this week, for reasons other than the usual public and tabloid outrage over massive fees for ‘just a logo’. Data visualisation was the subject of a small report and studio discussion on BBC2’s Newsnight show, featuring ‘infographic’ advocate David McCandless, and design heavyweight Neville Brody duking it out.

The general argument on the part of McCandless is that we are saturated with data these days, and that his work and that of others is exploring new ways of presenting it, in order to give abstract subjects some context or relevance. That such projects can also be beautiful is a serendipitous by-product of this exercise.

Brody took the opposing view, largely consistent with my own, that superfluous artistry serves to cloud the very facts the graphics are trying to represent, and that this is potentially dangerous.

Ganging up on the new guy

The studio debate felt fairly one-sided to me – McCandless is clearly less experienced in discussing design at a deep level than Brody, and presenter Kirsty Wark seemed to treat McCandless as some kind of nefarious, truth-concealing politician, rather than the jobbing designer/author that he is. You could see Brody trying to get some decent responses from McCandless, but none were really forthcoming, which is a shame, as he had some valid points, which just weren’t asserted hard enough.

What I think McCandless was trying to say was that with the massive and constant streams of data to which we now have access, their meaning can be lost, and that representing information visually can help people better digest it. Wark suggested that such methods could also be used by political parties, to ‘spin’ stories. Her tone angered me, as it felt as though she had exposed McCandless as having invented a new tool for politicians to hoodwink us with. No Kirsty, you’ve just realised what graphic design is about.

Truth

Graphic design is all about communication, and for the most part, this is to influence people’s behaviour. Whether you’re designing a gas bill, a poster for a concert, a leaflet about diabetes, or a website for a chartered accountant, you’re spinning something. Sure, most designers have a level of integrity in their work, but to suggest that design is about presenting pure facts, with absolutely no subjectivity, is complete rubbish.

The thing is, the need for good data visualisation is probably greater than ever. It’s just that there’s a hell of a lot of rubbish ‘infographics’ out there which makes one think the discipline is a waste of time. Much of what I see definitely clouds the facts therein, drenched as they are in lovely shapes, colours and typefaces which distract, rather than inform. Even the term ‘infographic’ makes it sound like a throwaway, consumable item, to be Tweeted to your friends, along with a link to a blog post entitled ‘67 awesome shopping cart icons’, and then forgotten.

The message

Designers have a responsibility, either to their client, to their client’s audience, or to the information itself, to ensure that a message is communicated, and received. If it’s necessary to influence people’s reactions, for whatever your reasons, then that’s fine; it’s your job to do that. If you’re just playing the narcissist on your Macbook Pro, under the auspices of being a force for truth, then you’re not a designer.

As is often the case, Paul Rand said it best: ‘When form predominates, meaning is blunted. But when content predominates, interest lags.’ It is the job of the designer to find this balance, if information, and its meaning, is to be understood.

To finish, here’s a great pastiche infographic, which sums up my concerns very nicely. Thanks to Phil Gyford for the permission to use it.

Phil Gyford's infographic

Tags: data, Design, Information Design, Journalism, politics
Posted on August 10th, 2010 in Ideas | 2 Comments »

Can we ruin it? Yes we can!

The new, CG series of ‘Bob The Builder’ is a triumph of expense-saving over art and craft.

As a father to a young family, I see more than my fair share of TV shows aimed at the under-fives. As has always been the case with kids’ TV, there’s a real mix of good stuff and awful dross. However, the long-running series usually have something going for them, which is why they continue to be commissioned. Bob The Builder was one such show, which has clearly struck a chord with lots of kids over the years. While not my son’s favourite show, it usually holds his interest, and I didn’t mind watching it, as the stop-motion animation was smooth, and the models nicely made. This is now no longer the case.

The original Bob The Builder (© BBC)

Stop-motion stopping

Last year, I had the pleasure of meeting the animator Barry Purves, behind such legendary shows as Wind In The Willows and Chorlton & The Wheelies. He told me how the demand for costly stop-motion is dropping at an alarming rate, and that even the next series of Bob The Builder was to be made in CG. This was disappointing, if not exactly surprising news.

The new, terrible, CG Bob The Builder. (© HiT Entertainment)

However, what was surprising was how shockingly awful the show is. Considering its legacy, I was expecting some tastefully and carefully produced animation, the kind where you’re not sure if it’s CG or not. However, it’s the worst kind of pile-’em-high, sell-’em-cheap programme making, with absolutely none of the charm of its stop-motion predecessor. Colours are garish (as opposed to the bright, but balanced palette of yore), the animation of the characters is robotic and springy, and the re-use of assets inexcusable (I saw Bob making a brick wall, where every brick had the exact same shading and texture). This, combined with textures that would look shoddy on a Playstation 2 game, makes for a stultifyingly depressing watch. Of course, my son hasn’t noticed the difference – he’s two years old – and this will have been precisely the justification made in the board room when the decision was made to switch.

But children aren’t stupid, and as my son gets older, he’ll be able to tell the difference between good and bad, which is when he’ll tire of rubbish like this.

Craft, heart and charm

Yes, stop-motion animation is expensive and time consuming, but it also affords the creator the opportunity to imbue real character and emotional expression into a film. Just look at the utterly delightful Timmy Time, made by Aardman. There are little details throughout that make this great fun to watch. The model making is exceptional, and it’s at times genuinely funny.

The delightful, stop-motion Timmy Time (© Aardman Animations Ltd)

This isn’t an anti-CG article. Apart from the obvious people like Pixar, there’s loads of great CG animation out there. Just look at the beautiful and spellbinding adaption of the Oliver Jeffers book Lost and Found. It’s been created with great care and charm. It also does things that would have been nigh on impossible to do with traditional techniques, such as the quite brilliant storm sequence.

The animated adaption of The Gruffalo was also an excellent example of CG animation that takes its cues from traditional stop-motion animation, but builds on it with the capabilities of CG. Bob The Builder does none of this.

Lowering expectations

What irks me the most is that technology should be showing children that anything is possible, and that you just need imagination to make things happen. What Bob The Builder does is show kids that using computers allows you to be lazy, uninspired, cheap and artless.

Tags: animation, Motion, TV
Posted on April 27th, 2010 in Film & Animation | No Comments »

Can a brand have as many voices as customers?

Could technology drive a bespoke brand experience? I touched on this notion during my talk at Future of Web Design, but didn’t have the time to explore it further. There seems to be a shift towards very specific personalisation when it comes to our experience of many products and services. Spotify playlists, iGoogle, Ensembli, etc. all provide a framework for us to experience and consume things hand-picked by ourselves. It’s something we’re getting very used to. Indeed, there was a lot of grumbling when Twitter introduced its new ‘retweet’ feature, as people were all-of-a-sudden seeing comments in their news feed from users they hadn’t specifically chosen to view. So how could a brand possibly support this continued drive towards personalisation, while retaining some semblance of identity itself?

Your M&S isn't really 'yours'. It's still 'theirs'.

Consistently inconsistent

Just because a brand is a unique entity does not mean it can’t shift its personality to suit whomever it may be addressing. We all have distinct personalities, but we all alter our behaviour depending on to whom we are talking. Personally, I talk and act slightly differently depending on whether I’m with friends, business clients, or my children. Despite my changing behaviour, all these people recognise me as ‘Dean’. By the same token, I always know I’m ‘me’. Could a brand do this?

Of course, many brands have employed differing voices to communicate with different sections of their audience, but it’s still a relatively blanket approach, based on a combination of research and best guesses. Yet no research, however specific, could hope to facilitate communication on an individual level. Technology could facilitate this.

What technology?

There is a project that’s been developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology called Personas which aggregates your online activity, to create a visual represenation of your time on the Web. You are presented with a graph, which categorises the subjects you have spent time being involved with. It’s an interesting little project, but it got me thinking: could we not also track and analyse the language people use online?

Twitter, Facebook, blogs, forums, comments… regular web users have a huge wealth of thoughts and opinions in the public domain. If we had the technology, we could see what people think on myriad subjects, and what language they use to express themselves. Could a brand not harness this information and use it to deliver the ultimate personalised experience, one which not only provides the content, products and services a customer is interested in, but delivers it in a voice specific to them?

While it can take years for an audience to develop a sense of trust in a brand, why can’t a brand harness a voice each customer already trusts – their own?

How could it work?

Let’s look at Amazon.com as a possible case study. For years, Amazon has utilised a customer’s browsing and purchasing habits, as well as those of others, to deliver a powerful recommendation service – one which continues to impress me. However, look and feel of the site aside, there’s no real personality to accompany this, and it feels something of a missed opportunity.

What if Amazon could not only access a customer’s activity on its own site, but that person’s entire online activity? It would have a much deeper understanding of someone’s likes, dislikes, motivations, not to mention the kind of language they use. If a user was comfortable with colloquialisms, text speak, longer words, even bad language, Amazon could recognise this and alter its voice to suit, while still providing the level of service people associate with the brand.

Examples of how Amazon could shift its personality

Everyone would have a unique experience of, and relationship with Amazon, and Amazon’s brand would be strengthened by this. Yet through its other brand touchpoints (service, visual communication, etc.) it would assert a distinct brand personality. As with myself and how people see me, everyone would have a distinct view of Amazon, yet it would still be instantly and consistently recognised.

Technology driving brand development

This kind of ultra-personalised experience would only be possible with emerging technology, that not only recognises and matches words, data and so on, but can also understand meaning, context and subtlety. This is what is so interesting and exciting right now. Technology isn’t just offering new touchpoints for customer contact. It is allowing brands to do things they’ve never done before. Those brands which can recognise and exploit such possibilities stand to make massive progress in the coming years.

Tags: branding, data, technology, User Experience
Posted on January 22nd, 2010 in Ideas | 2 Comments »

My favourite logo

I have finally decided upon my all-time favourite logo.

I can very rarely point out a single thing to be my absolute favourite ‘anything’. Ususally, there are too many shifting factors and circumstances which stop me being able to claim anything to be the best ‘thing’ ever, in any given field. Music, film, books, places… how can anyone unequivocally say that one ‘thing’ is better than all other ‘things’, especially when such statements are highly subjective?

Yet, when it comes to logo design, for me, there is an absolute winner: The Open University. But why?

Perhaps it’s partly nostalgic. This logo has been in my consciousness for as long as I can remember. Long before dedicated TV channels broadcasting non-stop kids’ shows, there would be precious little for a 5-year-old to watch on a Sunday morning before Mom and Dad got up, save a few dull advanced mathematics shows. The Open University logo would feature on the end credits of such shows, and while I paid no mind to what it really represented, it was always there. I’m also pretty certain it was on the spine of a couple of books on the family bookcase.

It’s certainly more than mere nostalgia, though. The Internet has allowed everyone to become gorged on nostalgia, rediscovering long-forgotten TV shows on Youtube, reminiscing about old sweets on Facebook, or stalking old flames on Friends Reunited. Nostalgia is now a regular and easily accessible pastime, and we all know that some things really weren’t as good as we remember them to be, yet The Open University’s logo still appeals.

I love its form. The ‘O’ and ‘U’ combined, puts me in mind of the work of Barbara Hepworth or Henry Moore, while at the same time resembling a coat of arms, more in keeping with that of an educational institution. It’s extremely simple, but you can see how much care has been put into its proportions.

The history of the logo

The original logo was designed in 1969. Walter Perry, the University’s Vice-Chancellor had the original idea for the form, and Douglas Clark, Director of Design produced it. Over 40 iterations were produced, before it was complete! Various proportions between the two shapes were explored, along with the position of the ‘O’ (or ’roundel’) within the ‘U’. Perry and Clark had to argue quite strongly for the roundel not to be centred, which was requested by some members of the approval committee. I’m really glad they succeeded!

Amazingly, the design met some opposition from the BBC, who wanted to design the logo themselves, due to their involvement with the University. Of course, they ultimately acquiesced. I can’t imagine them wanting to pass on such an iconic design now! It’s as much a part of the BBC’s heritage as the Blue Peter logo.

Purely on a visual level, it’s a great piece of work. Alongside the armorial leanings, the roundel cut out of the ‘U’ suggests a portal – new opportunities, which is something the institution obviously provides. It doesn’t look dated, and is as simple and striking now as ever. Indeed, it’s a bold enough symbol to be adapted to any prevailing design trends (such as its current glassy look). The combination of great design, the power of its heritage and at least some nostalgia, makes it my favourite logo. What’s yours?

Information on the history of the logo was taken from ‘Armorial Bearings of The Open University’ by N. Woods (1992). Sincere thanks to Stuart Brown at The Open University for his help with this article.

Follow The Open University on Twitter.

Tags: branding, Design, Inspiration, logo
Posted on January 6th, 2010 in Inspiration | 4 Comments »

Decode at the V&A

I headed down to London to see the Decode exhibition at the V&A. Based around the notions of data visualisation, technology and interactivity, it was a small yet flab-free exhibition that was impressive and fun.

The entrance to the exhibition was strewn with fabricated foliage, which responded to sound and movement, responding with light and sound, prompting entrants to stamp their feet a lot!

Generative

Following this, there were a number of pieces of generative art – works which run procedurally, either by preset programming, or responding to data. Perennial Flash hero Joshua Davis had a nice looking piece, while a work by Universal Everything felt a lot less ‘techy’, almost painterly, as it built, shifted and reinvented itself.

Swarm Draw by Joshua Davis

Sound and vision

Radiohead’s mind-boggling interactive video for House of Cards, by James Frost, was there, looking great on a hi-def touchscreen, allowing users to move it around as it played. Have a go of it yourself here (note, it takes a while to load, but it’s worth it).

House of Cards by James Frost

There was a nice piece by Flight 404 (who coded one of iTunes’ music visualisers, fact fans) which reacted to sound, although I felt a bit of a fool shouting and coughing at the screen to make the imagery react. It’s a really interesting piece, especially as the relationship between sound and visuals is a minor obsession of mine.

Solar by Flight404

Fun and games

Many of the more overt interactive pieces are clearly influenced by video games. Sennep’s piece ‘Dandelion’, where the user holds a ‘real’ hairdryer, and uses it to blow away seeds on a digital dandelion clock, was a combination of Nintendogs (a DS game where you pamper virtual puppies), and outstanding Playstation 3 game Flower. Another piece was very reminiscent of groundbreaking music toy Electroplankton.

Dandelion by Sennep

What was nice about the exhibition was that not everything was screen-based, with a few more tactile, mechanical pieces too. By far the most impressive piece for me was Daniel Rozin’s ‘Weave Mirror’, comprising hundreds of wheels, coloured from white, gradating to black, which rotated to form a greyscale image of the viewer as they stood in front of it. While the programming and planning behind it was incredibly complex, what was most satisfying was the sound it made as it changed, reminiscent of pre-digital train departure boards (clickety clickety click).

Weave Mirror by Daniel Rozin, taking a picture of me taking a picture of it!

Just the beginning

It was a very satisfying exhibition to experience, and I applaud the permission of photography and video, which obviously allows people to record specific instances of works which by their nature are fleeting. What I do feel though is that the ideas and execution on show here is only scratching the surface of what could be possible, both in terms of how data could be presented and used, and in real-world applications that could enrich and improve peoples’ lives. It’s certainly gotten me thinking.

Decode runs until 11th April 2010. Find out more about Decode here

Tags: data, exhibition, games, Inspiration, interaction, Motion, Music, technology
Posted on December 16th, 2009 in Events | No Comments »

Perfection is hard to love

Is it the imperfections we see in things which endear us to them?

My very first post on this blog was on the notion of ‘perfection’ in design, and how if you look at certain, often mundane things objectively, it is easy to see that they do their job perfectly. There is nothing one could add or remove from its design to make it do its job any better.

However, upon thinking about it further, I think this is also what stops things that fall into this category reaching greater awareness through emotional attachment. People don’t ‘love’ door handles; they just notice when they’re a bit stiff, or positioned too high or too low.

Good design doesn’t have to be invisible

It’s often said that ‘good design is invisible’. This isn’t necessarily true, as it is often the small, needless details which heighten one’s experience of something. Remember when CD players in the early ’90s said ‘Hello’ and ‘Goodbye’ on their LCDs when you turned them on and off? I loved that. Or the tactile clicking noise when you use an ipod’s scroll wheel? Unnecessary, yet delightful.

It is when design takes a step away from just doing its job, and begins engaging us on a sensory or emotional level, that things become less ‘perfect’ and universally accepted, but also heightens the chance of standing out and being loved by some.

It all depends on how far the creator goes. Obviously the more one develops a design in a certain direction, the greater chance it will appeal more to a certain group of people, and less so others.

Shadow of the Colossus (©Sony Computer Entertainment)

Look at the video game Shadow of the Colossus. It’s a unique game, with an odd, lonely atmosphere like no other I’ve played. It encourages a distinct level of emotional involvement in the player, both in their relationship with the in-game character’s horse (that sounds a lot weirder than it actually is!), and also in the guilt the player feels in defeating the huge (stunningly designed) beasts you have been charged to kill. It’s just this kind of atmosphere, and conflicting feelings the game invokes, that has driven many to proclaim it a masterpiece (myself included), while at the same time drawing derision from those who don’t wish to experience these things when they play games. Of course, the game could have been made more immediate, and the beasts in the game could have been made more clearly ‘evil’, but that would have eliminated just the elements that have made it so revered in some circles.

London 2012 logo

From a branding point of view, Wolff-Olins’ London 2012 Olympics brand identity has been highly criticised — by both the mainstream press and by many people from within the design industry. I saw a talk given by Neville Brody not long after it was unveiled, and he had quite a rant about it! For me, the jury is currently still out on whether the branding succeeds, and I don’t think we’ll really find out until after the closing ceremony.

I know the branding doesn’t appeal to me personally, but then perhaps Wolff-Olins was taking it in a different direction — one that will appeal more to young people, and encourage them to take up sport, and become more aware of the importance of global competition. But perhaps something like the Olympic Games shouldn’t be so narrow in its scope. It is, after all, intended to unify people from across the world; not just to inspire the UK’s disaffected youth. Would a more universally acceptable design solution be remembered in years to come? Does it need to be? Considering the reactions it has garnered so far, it’s safe to say that this design isn’t ‘perfect’ either, but it’s getting a lot of press, and I’m sure some people really will grow to love the identity. Indeed, I’m quite partial to the recently unveiled pictograms, even though I don’t care for the main logo, or the typography employed.

Take a chance

Of course, ensuring your creation appeals to a specific group of people is one of the chief aims of many design projects. Engendering deep emotional involvement in the end user is probably something that cannot be truly gauged until after it is in use, but taking that extra step could mark the difference between a successful, yet unremarkable piece of work, and a flawed, but loved one. Whether that is right for your project, or your client, is of course a different matter altogether.

Tags: branding, Design, games, Perfection
Posted on December 2nd, 2009 in Ideas | No Comments »