Seven Seconds to Attack

William Morris: The Wood Beyond the World
Photo by Naoko Takano 

A couple links I kept from last week, both from the always thoughtful and readable Craig Mod.

The first is a great article on how online reviews could be made better, particularly on Amazon. What really struck me though was reading it on the same day that Apple announced their new products. Social media, and especially Twitter, were filled with snark and bile, almost all of it completely content free. Just hate for the joy of being a hater.

The reason we are upset by Amazon trolls is that their actions truly damage — both psychologically and economically. And yet these damaging acts themselves are devoid of rigor: Seven seconds to attack that which took 700 days to produce. 

With little effort the attackers attach their bile to something greater than that of which they are capable. This dissonance — venom effortlessly and thoughtlessly spat upon the diligence or precision of a work of art — is from where the tension is born. It’s what enrages us. Especially those of us who create. And so, the factor dividing the “good” reviews from the “bad” is very often, simply, the presence of rigor. Of being thoughtful.

Emphasis mine. The thing that struck me on Twitter, and made me stay away for the rest of the day, is that many of the people gleefully spewing bile, especially in light of their occupations and skill sets, could have made thoughtful contributions and critiques. But they didn't. Sneering for social points has come to take the place of talking about craft.

Which leads me to the next article. Lets Talk About Margins.

Thoughtful decisions concerned with details marginal or marginalized conspire to affect greatness. 

The whole article is a wonderful meditation on having craft matter. Matter a lot. Something I repeat over and over again as I am teaching, is that “The front of a label or piece of packaging will get you an interview. The back will get you the job.” Every mark we make effects every other mark (though, sometimes, the marks we don't make matter the most) and each requires our full attention. Everything, even the bar code (maybe even especially the bar code) and ingredients list, deserve the full attention of our craft.

One of the first lessons I truly absorbed at Methodologie (then TeamDesign) was about the importance of detail, and it came from a conversation about page numbers. The senior designer I was assigned to, Paula Richards, was putting what seemed to me in my inexperience, a huge amount of time into figuring out where the page numbers should go on an annual report. She walked me through the big considerations about where they should go, (the biggest being, don't put them under the readers thumb) and about making sure they were right there when you look for them, but not when you weren't, and then said what has stuck with me all these years. “Every element on the page should be polished like a jewel.”

What would our profession, and by profession I mean all of the disciplines that fall under the large umbrella of visual communications, be like if we all concentrated more on craftsmanship—on polishing each part of a page or screen or level or interaction or installation—than on polishing our snark to score points with our peers?

The First Color Index

271 Years Before Pantone, an Artist Mixed and Described Every Color Imaginable in an 800-Page Book.

It actually reminds me more of the Color Index and similar color selectors.

I'm always telling my students you can't have enough books full of color swatches. They often chafe during early projects when I limit them to a color or two but by the time I let them work in full color they have discovered what we all discover. Color is hard. It can visually support a message, or detract from it. Guide the eye or muddy the water. Pop or dissolve an entire piece into cacophony.

The Bear & The Hare

The Bear & The Hare,  John Lewis's Christmas advertisement has been making waves across the internet. Some folks are already saying it is the best holiday ad of the season and we haven't even gotten to Thanksgiving yet! Notice how it is part of a larger campaign that not only goes across platforms, but encourages continued interaction with the John Lewis brand.

The way it was made is super cool since it combines traditional hand drawn animation, stop motion, tons of hand made models, and a big laser cutter!

You can read more about The Bear & The Hare on FastCo.Create and there is another making of video  as well as where you can see more of the sets and models.

Update: I was disappointed in their store window displays though. They continued the Bear & Hare theme, but rather than picking up the look and feel of the commercial, they went with giant robot versions of the woodland creatures. The robots are cool looking, but it feels to me like they are violating one of the most important adages of marketing and advertising. Frank Stanton, President of CBS in 1951 said it best, "Just when you're beginning to get bored with what you have done is probably the time it is beginning to be noticed by your audience." It feels like they got bored, or the team in charge of in store wanted to be "original" at the expense of telling a consistent story.

Other cool design this week:

Social Networks Are Making Us Lonely. Really well done motion design by Shimi Cohen.

Five cool book designs via CreativeMarket.

A gorgeous one page scrolling web site from National Geographic about the Kennedy assassination. HT: Methodologie

Responsive Web Design

Ethan Marcotte has a new article out on screen size, responsive design, and where we are going with the future of content.

Caturday: Your wireframes need work.

I'm editing your wireframes. They need more tuna.

San Francisco Zoo Web Site Redesign

This spring, San Francisco Zoo in-house designer Brenda Fletcher redesigned the web site for the zoo. It wasn't an easy process:

the zoo has about 250 animal species, and each one has its own information page on the site. Plus, every department of the zoo is represented on the website...

In addition to wanting the site to be easier to use than the old site, the new site would include online ticketing. She did the front end coding while the dev team worked on the back end. The project took nearly nine months from concept to launch.

One Page Web Sites

Everyone knows how much I love one page web sites. They are such a potentially brilliant solution for sites that don't have a lot a content but need more interactivity than a typical static brochure site.

Front End Development

Everything you wanted to know about being a front end developer.

Box & Dolly

This is amazing not just for the technology on display, but for the all the thinking, planning, creativity, and teamwork that it took to create this piece.