Noisy Decent Graphics

The best organisation of the information to aid the communication

This post and this post from Russell have made me think of another reason why the iPhone is so brilliant.

(Picture from the Darth Strategist, with thanks, usual stuff counts)

Yawn, yawn, another Mac fan saying how brilliant the iPhone is. Yes - but listen to these comments from one of those posts about the design of remote controls.

"you realise that remotes would be much better if they could evolve to highlight the buttons you regularly use"

"they should do a "big button" version so that grandparents who can't see so well and have arthritic fingers can use it. That goes for mobile phones too"

"Maybe they should supply his and hers remote controls"

"Why oh why are there no user intuitive remote controls?"

This is exactly what the iPhone will be able to do. The folksonomy of button design, if you like. It could learn which features you use most and only display those buttons.

(Picture taken from Apple, obviously. Usual stuff applies but I'm sure they won't mind. Especially as I'm about to give them $600.)

The best design organises information in the most useful way, but makes that organisation look seemless and elegant. Think Underground map. Not cartographically correct, but the best organisation of the information to aid the communication. That's what the iPhone should be able to do. That's great usability.

I once bought my Mum a calculator from the Early Learning Centre. Why? She kept complaining the screen and the buttons were too small on her calculator.

With an iPhone you could tell it you were 90 and struggling with the buttons and then you could download a bigger set of buttons through iTunes. How simple is that?

Etcetera.

And that is revolutionary. Now you might be thinking, 'yeah yeah, it's not that clever, anyone could have done it'.  Anyone hasn't got the iTunes infrastructure that Apple has. Anyone hasn't got the consumer confidence. And anyone hasn't done it. And as we keep saying it's all in the doing. Which is why everyone has phones designed like this.

(Picture of Steve Jobs talking about 'not so smart phones' at the iPhone launch, from Engadget, thanks chaps usual stuff applies)

I wonder if Matt has anything to add?

(My Mum isn't 90 by the way.)

Rebecca has a request

Rebecca (our fantastic Business Development Manager) has a small request.

"but I must admit that this has left me feeling very exposed, a bit like someone reading my diary and finding out who I want to snog"

Read more here.

We are not alone

One of the reasons I wrote this post was because "I'm becoming fascinated by how this thing takes hold of us all and I'd like to share it with you lovely people".

A few weeks later and loads of my fellow designers have said it struck a chord with them. I wanted to list some of the comments people have made.

This my life... I keep telling my design students that they have to join AIGA or they will end up surrounded by people who don't understand them. This article describes why perfectly.
http://tdjohnsn.livejournal.com/77380.html

Yes, I have a mild case of the Designer's Disease as outlined on Noisy Decent Graphics. Yes, I photographed my deoderant because I like how it is designed.
http://pussreboots.livejournal.com/156107.html

THIS explains everything. It is the most truthful and reliable written source of why I am the way I am. Why I think the way I think. Why I see the way I see. Why I look the way I look. Why I live the way I live.
http://thealamoandme.blogspot.com/2006/12/me-in-nutshell.html

sounds very familiar. there was a billboard here not too long ago for a classic rock radio station that featured a tagline in comic sans! i had to take a different route home for the next two weeks to avoid seeing it.
http://joshuablankenship.com/blog/?p=4558#comments

My wife claims that I waited until we were married before revealing that I was a font-spotter but I deny that to this day – I’ve always been one. Noisy Decent Graphics reminded me of the first day of my marriage with his great post about being a graphic designer – the disease with no known cure.
http://30gms.com/permalink/design_disease/

I love it.  I smiled. I nodded my head in agreement.  I said "OMG...I do that too."  (Yeah...I said that more than once.)  All this time I thought maybe I was just "a bit" weird.  Now I know...I'm just a designer.
http://artlook.typepad.com/a_look_at_art_design/2006/12/the_design_dise.html

Although i’m not a trained graphic designer, i’ve grown up and been immersed in art and design since I was born, and hence can really relate to this post by Ben. It’s SO true.
http://hostler.com/2006/12/08/the-design-disease/

This explains so much.
http://beanstalktalk.com/beanblog/?p=267

Have a read, especially if you know exactly what I am talking about. You can't walk anywhere without noticing the signs, postings, flyers, windows, everything.
http://designthat.lifewithchrist.org/permalink/28595

For me it borders on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, everything I do is informed in someway by Design. What I buy, how I think, my habits all stem from Design. I collect things for no (logical) reason, scraps of paper, old books, diagrams, I photograph strange things.
http://www.designbyok.com/blog/2006/12/04/the-design-disease/

My friends, have no fear, we are not alone.

Roll up

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to circusmuseum.nl, the ultimate image bank with posters, photos and prints from the collection of Jaap Best, the Netherlands’ largest collection of circus memorabilia.

"The design genius who displays his good taste by regularly reading The Sun in California" *

Would you Apple and Eve it? The Sun does a The Sun style profile of Jonathan Ive. Next he'll be on one of those bloody greatest Briton programmes.

* Very proud of the fact that if you swap California for London in that headline it could be me...

 

Blogging advice

Graham (who doesn't post that often but started the New Year with a post almost every day...) has written some thoughts he's going to bear in mind when posting this year.

Worth a read.

Prom Night Fist Fight

Nothing to do with fighting at all, but the digital illustration and typography playground of Joshua Blankenship.

"He has a gift of not putting too much in, which is a danger for many designers."

Good profile of Jonathan Ive in The Guardian last week.

At last, a decent phone design

So that was it. Pretty amazing wasn't it? I don't know about you, but I love it.

(Picture taken from Apple, obviously. Usual stuff applies but I'm sure they won't mind. Especially as I'm about to give them $600.)

There will obviously be a million posts about the iPhone and some of them may be better than this one. But I was thinking about something on the train home and I wanted to write about it whilst it was still fresh. So we are.

We've all got mobile phones. We've had them for years. The iPhone is a trillion times better these phones. But when I started thinking about it I realised that there has never really been a good phone.

Yes, there have been nice looking phones. There have been phones that do OK stuff, I'm sure you remember your first camera phone. But there has never, ever been a phone that makes you go wow. Try explaining why your phone is good to your Dad. Try explaining why it's better than his phone.

Difficult isn't it? Better camera. Err... it stores more text messages. Errr... it has better ringtones. Err....

Now try explaining why you're so excited about the iPhone.

Easy, isn't it?

That is good design my friends.

So why hasn't there been a good phone before? Why can't the design brilliance of companies like Nokia and Sony come up with something even half as good? Why have we had to wait this long for great phone. Design is the new management consultancy? Maybe Jonathan Ive is the new management consultancy. Jammy bastard.

(Little caveat. I haven't used an iPhone yet. It might be crap. Apple might mess the shipping up. It may break after a week. Maybe. I doubt it. But...)

Watching the iPhone launch via text. A bit like Ceefax. Brilliant.

"9:18 am if i die i want you to have my peripherals"

I hope you're watching...

Decorating when you have the Design Disease

My first (and hopefully last) car design post

Does anyone have any idea what car this is?

New Year's Resolution

Via Design Observer - Aim For The Worst.

Excited?

(Picture taken inside the Macworld Expo and borrowed from SetteB.IT, usual stuff applies)

If you're reading this you're probably an Apple fan. If you're an Apple fan you're probably beside yourself with excitement that Steve might (might) launch an iPhone on Tuesday at the Macworld Expo, San Francisco. Except that it won't be called an iPhone of course.

The best place to read about iPhone rumours is macrumors.com and their round up of Macworld rumours. They'll be running a live text commentary (there is no streaming video until later) on Steve's big speech over at macrumorslive.com. The big speech is 9am PST Tuesday, which I believe is 5pm GMT (is that correct?).

For what it's worth, I reckon they probably will launch one. And I, like you, will be in the queue to buy one. I read somewhere the other day that 25% of Americans would buy a Mac Phone. That's a lot of people for a product that doesn't even exist.

Over here you can see what I think is by far the best mock up of an Apple phone, although I still insist it won't look like anyone predicts.

And lastly, over here you can find out whether Khoi Vinh (design director of NYTimes.com) would buy one.

Surely not?

Good morning, hello, welcome back, Happy New Year. Noisy Decent Graphics is now officially open for business 2007.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin. This is a little photograph I took the other day.

Surely not? They wouldn't, would they?

Hot Winter Deals

I unexpectedly found myself listening to Excess Baggage on Radio 4 t'other morning. There was a fascinating discussion about the design of holiday brochures.

They had the Travel Editor of the Daily Telegraph, the founder of a small bespoke travel company, the sales director of a big bucket tour operator and a designer. The different points of view from the different parties was amazing. If only briefings could be that insightful.

Debora the designer annoyed me a little, in so much as she did nothing to dispel the myth that designers are expensive idiots that sit around in black polo necks.

The sales guy was the most interesting and he had some revealing stats. On average they get one sale for every 30 brochures they send out. 80 brochures per sale for coach tours, 18 brochures per sale for Tenerife. Interesting eh?

You'll find all the links to the various companies on the Radio 4 site, and of course you can (and you should) listen again. God bless the BBC. 

Happy New Year

Design stuff that's happened in 2006

In the spirit of the end of year Top 10's and despite saying I wouldn't do a Top 10, here's a Top 10 of design stuff that's happened in 2006. Except that it's a Top 15.  In absolutely no order whatsoever.

1. Pearlfisher
One of our direct rivals, we've pitched against them several times this year. They've been doing some good work. Crap name though.

2. WMH/Loewy
In an industry of mediocrity Williams Murray Hamm have always stood out. Anyone with a bit of design business knowledge will know that they're very profitable and that they are very well run. Not many design businesses can say that. Add in their massive awards tally (they topped the effectiveness and creativity league tables this year) and they've been ripe for a sale for sometime. Loewy have been saying they want to build a design services network and this is the most high profile (and probably most important) acquisition on the road to that goal. A brilliant addition to their stable.

3. CR Blog
For me Creative Review has years when it's good and years when it's bad, usually correlated with to the amount of inserts that fall out of the mag. The more inserts, the worse the issue. The newly launched CR Blog is completely different. Consistently good, no inserts. It looks good, the writing style is the right mix between blog and magazine and it's updated at a nice pace. Top marks. And it gets far more of my eyeball time the the magazine ever does.

4. Alan Fletcher
Can't finish without mentioning him, of course. Enough has been said already, but this was the year we realised how much we appreciated him.

5. Design Museum
The Design Museum has been under a resurgence of late. Fletcher aside, the F1 show was brilliant. When Rawsthron left many people thought it would lose it's way, instead it's continued along the same path. The 2007 exhibitions look good too.

6. Apple iPhone
I keep waiting for Apple to fuck up, but it never seems to happen. 2006 has been the year of the internet iPhone rumour. It's a testament to Apple's current talents that almost everyone thinks, unquestionably, it will be brilliant.

Personally I don't think it will anything at all like these. Or even like a phone. And yes, I'll be in the queue to get one.

7. Web Typography
Was 2006 the year people finally started to think about this? Let's bloody hope so.

8. User Generated Content and the effect on Graphic Design
City of Sound touched on this brilliantly here and we've had lots of discussions about it in the studio. What does it mean for the world's designers when the top websites (Google, eBay, Amazon, YouTube, MySpace) all look so bloody awful? How can you design for content that's not generated by you? It can be done and it can be done well. We're right back to function over form (thank God) and only the best will succeed.

9. Lippa Pearce
Lippa and Pearce are two very good designers. This year they left the hassle of their own firm and joined the relative safety of Pentagram. A decent year in anyone's book. But I question whether it's a good move for Pentagram. Do they really need two more middle aged male print designers? Probably not. They need some more people who instinctively understand digital. Digital naturals. Someone who can bring an element of wit to the web (to wit to web) that's been sorely lacking. Someone a little younger wouldn't go amiss too. That's my opinion anyway.

10. johnsonbanks

Another year of great work (check out the Beatles stamps), but it's the website that's impressed me this year. All design agency websites are shit so it's nice to come across one that isn't. When I first saw that the new website was designed in Flash my heart sank. But this site has proved easy to use, interesting, constantly updated and it looks lovely. I imagine Michael hates blogs but his Thought For The Week does the same sort of job nicely.

11. Ace Jet 170
Blog find of the year for me. Richard's website is a fantastic collection of design manna. All beautifully photographed. It's an amazing resource. If you haven't looked yet (why the fuck not?) then go now. One look is all it takes.

12. Macmilllian Cancer
I love this stuff by Wolff Olins (Marketing's design agency of the year). It feels different and right. I suspect it isn't right and it won't last long, but I liked it.

13. Cunt poster
So simple, so brilliant.

14. Spin
Again another one of our direct competitors who have been doing some great work. Particularly their stuff for The Hospital.

15. Us
And last but not least, us. We've had a really good year. But rather than me bore you about it why don't you pop over here and download The Design Conspiracy Annual 2006.

Anyone else got anything to add?

CLOSED

So that's it. Noisy Decent Graphics is now closed for Christmas. We reopen sometime in January, not sure when but probably between the 2nd and the 8th. Unless I change my mind. Keep checking back listeners.

Thanks very much to everyone who listens in, and double thanks to the linkers and the commenters.

In the meantime, do me a favour and drop a comment saying what you would like to see me write more about in 2007. I'm all ears.

Have a good one. (Oh, there will be a list on New Year's Eve.)