So, in preparation for this bold move, we have decided to plan a trip to New York in the next six months. What’s strange is that everything seems to be pushing us toward New York in our day-to-day lives – from odd commercials coming on Television when we’re visiting my family, to the latest and strangest Pay-Per-Post opportunity that asked us to write a blog post on New York walking tours.

At first we were thinking “why would I write this?” Then it occurred to us that New York City is one of the most populated and artistic places on Earth – from fashion to architecture and sculpture. So we figured, “why not?”  We think that Mr. Bruce Scher should be honored to have this article written on our site, because it’s our first step to the Dark Side – we’re picky about what we write.

Basically, Bruce Scher is a New York native who hosts walking food tours around Manhattan. We intend to use his service to get to know the area, which is the primary intention of our road trip. Of course we’ll be scoping out part-time jobs and making housing arrangements, but we can’t think of a better way to get to know the area than by visiting the restaurants.

Bruce personally leads local food tours in the city’s most unique neighborhoods. Apparently we will be visiting the favorite essential restaurants native New Yorkers frequent in Greenwich Village, Lower East Side, SoHo, Little Italy, and Chinatown. The crowning gem to me as an artist is that he guarantees that when we are not busy eating, he will show us the must-see landmarks on the way to the next food stop.

Rest assured that this DOES in fact have something to do with design. Josh has every intention of packing around my Moleskine sketch book and taking notes, sketching, and finding inspiration in the city. The simple inspiration of taking a walk through New York is what we hope to find when we move there. If you have any other ideas on inspirational or fun activities in New York or New Jersey, leave us a note in the comments – we’d love to try it out on our visit so we know what’s fun when we move.

The documentary focuses mostly on MTV and Sprite, two partners in one of the largest marketing campaigns in the world. MTV has maintained a very important role on the influence of yesterday and today’s generations. When it came to advertising, MTV went to great lengths to grasp the attention of teenagers, who in turn, had the attention of their parents. By grasping these teenagers attention, MTV has been able to grow and introduce new trends throughout the years by incorporating advertising into everything they do – music videos, sponsoring concerts and events, even in their reality TV. I still remember watching MTV and listening to pretty much all of the music that was featured in the documentary, so in a way I experienced some nostalgia (boy, do I miss it).

Targeting teens through such a large campaign has its consequences, though. As the video pointed out, there is a certain amount of “feedback” occurring with media and teens, where researchers find the small trends, make them big, convince bands to sell out, then let the trends die. The teens follow the trends until a new trend gets big, which was likely started by the people who were on the receiving end of bad humor. The beginning of this feedback loop is where most venues try to reach teens. They go to the teens themselves and find what just happens to be new; what trends are beginning.

After a new trend is found, it’s packaged and sold through channels that are catering to teens, namely MTV and Comedy Central. Everything from the commercials to music videos, or the crude humor that teen males find amusing, is packaged in a neat little visual identity. For instance, clothing trends are started by a few teens, then applied to bands, and resold to the masses. This is actually how MTV transformed advertising, by turning everything on the network into nearly subliminal ads.

In my personal opinion, I don’t think that these particular advertisers should be close to the audiences that they are studying, though this is the way that corporate media survives. I feel that teenagers today are acting more like adults with no responsibilities – if corporate media wants to mold teens, it would be a good idea to avoid molding them into the “mooks” or “midriffs” that were described in the video. One line in an interview struck a chord with me, when an executive mentioned that there is no stopping pop culture. I agree with him, but I don’t think that advertising should be pushing pop culture faster than it would normally evolve.

So what is your opinion on marketing to teens?  Would you consider this exploitation or catering to the masses?  How far is too far?

If you are a particularly lucky designer then your client has already conducted the necessary public interaction and acquired as much information as possible on their prospective clients.  If not, then the ball is in your court.  You have two options at this point in time:

1. Outsource the work to a marketing firm to get the information.
2. Go talk to real people.

In the end, it’s up to you to decide, but I think it’s a bit more interesting to do the work myself.  Finding these elusive people that are being targeted is the tricky part, especially if you’re a designer in a rural area (like us).  I would like to point out that I’m from a college town, so the University is always available to pass out surveys.

The first step would be to hit up your current network of people – immediate friends and family, extended family, old acquaintances, etc.  Find as many people as you know that fit the demographic that your client wants to appeal to.  Or anybody close, for that matter.  Once you’ve gone through that list of people, see if they know anybody, etc.

Once physical acquaintances are drained, move to the internet.  Social networking is viral at the moment, so take advantage of it while you can.  Facebook lets you send out surveys and questionnaires. MySpace has bulletin boards, mini-blogs, and friends.  Twitter has 140 character posts…but with bit.ly you can make a tiny link to a survey that your followers can click and complete.

Sometimes this isn’t good enough, either, so move on to third party research.  I’ve never had to resort to third party research, but I have managed to find a few resources that look promising.  eMarketer.com looks promising, but requires a paid subscription in order to access the best market research.  If I were to go this far, then my client would most definitely be paying for my temporary subscription.

Unfortunately, every audience is different.  I cannot tell you what to ask your audience, just use good judgment based on the product or service your client offers.  Throughout this entire process, you still need to be taking your own notes and sketches, just as in steps 1 and 2.

Before any final logo, design, or illustration is created you need to organize all of the information somehow.  My suggestion is to scan over it all with a highlighter in hand, mark anything that looks particularly interesting, then mark strong trends.  Pay extremely close attention to the audience data, as that’s who the client is trying to please, and ultimately who you are trying to please as well.

Once that is done, take a break.  I don’t mean 5 minutes – I mean take a nap, take a day, or take a weekend to just think.  The brain is most creative while at rest, so keep a sketchbook nearby to doodle when you feel like it.  You cannot force the creativity needed when you are trying to make a lasting and unique design.

Now, breathe a sigh of relief – the research is complete.  The hard part is over, now the harder part is yet to come – creativity.  There are numerous resources available for this, far too many for me to cover, but I may try to tackle it at some point in time.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this 3-part mini chapter.  Leave some feedback and let me know what you think.

I’ve had a few clients insist that they have developed a new and fresh idea for their company, that it’s never been done before.  I know that they are lying.  Fifty years ago, this statement may have been true, when new technology was flourishing and imaginations were running wild.  Today, sadly enough, it has all been done.  The trick is finding a new way to do what has already been done – take an existing idea and improve it.

Knowing the enemy is a bit different and more difficult than knowing the client.  Usually, knowing the client simply involves asking for information.  Knowing the enemy is searching for information, and I’m going to help you figure out where to search.

First – USE Google! Google is currently the largest search engine on the internet.  With such a vast index of websites, it would be downright dumb to not look for similar companies on Google.  For example, if I had a client that wanted a web 2.0 logo for an economic development company, I would simply go to Google and search for “urban economic development” or “city growth planning.”  The first four or five results on any Google search will be typically be the largest competitors in any given market (other than the ever-present Wikipedia result) or similar companies that may not be threatening.

Now that Google has been used, take a few peeks around each website and take notes about how seamless they are.  Is every page completely different or are they consistent in the basic elements?  I’m hoping that they are consistent, or they’ve probably spent thousands of dollars on a website that was poorly designed.  The most important part here is to take notes on everything from the color scheme to the logo, the text used and the article headers.  This is an examination of the competition.

During your detective work, keep an eye out for a link that says something along the lines of “Corporate Identity” or “Design Guidelines.”  If you can find a link that says “Corporate Identity Design Guidelines” then you’re definitely in business.  These lengthy PDF documents contain every last detail about how a logo design is supposed to be used, and how any other element in any given design is supposed to be used.  This includes, but is not limited to, web design, brochure design, business card design, billboard design, advertising design, vehicle design, etc.

Corporate identity manuals are the essence of a company image.  Designers slave over these books to cover as many graphic possibilities as they can imagine, and typically get paid very well for doing so.  Reading through any company’s identity manual is usually very enlightening as to how everything fits together, and it’s worth taking notes on these as well.  Sometimes it’s difficult or impossible to find these manuals though.

If you can’t find any manual for a given company, take a look around the internet (via Google Image Search) for older company logos.  If you can see how a logo was redesigned, you can typically harvest some information about when and how the market changed.

Knowing the enemy is essentially doing your research on market trends based on the competition.  As with knowing the client, it’s important to make a big sketchy file filled with notes and information.  Organize the information floating around in your head, then move on to the final step of your research – Targeting the Audience.

I recently read an article by Jacob Cass (Just Creative Design) entitled Why logo design does not cost $5.00, and it piqued my interest as to exactly why designers have it so hard.  Close to the end of this article he has a list as to why professional designers put more work into logos than amateur designers, and what makes those professional logos better.  The first two items on this list are:

1. The Design Brief: They conduct a questionnaire or interview with the client to get the design brief.
2. Research: They conduct research focused on the industry itself, on its history, and on its competitors.

While I do agree that these two steps are very important to the logo creation process, I think that they could be combined.  The design brief should be the beginning to the market research.  I’m going to try to cover my opinions and insights on market research in three phases.  I hope that this three-part series gives you new ideas on market research, and any discussion is welcome, as I plan on completing an eBook with the content from these posts and your comments.  So, without further adieu, I present Step 1 – Knowing the Client.

A. The Boring Stuff

Knowing a client goes far beyond a basic design brief, though this is typically the first step.  I have a questionnaire for my new clients to fill out either on the web, or I can interview them over the phone.  I’ve covered how to get through an introduction while conducting a design brief and creating thumbnails at the same time in my article A Unique Approach, but the research does not stop there.

After my first sit-down with a client, I’d like to get to know the company I’m creating for a bit better.  If at all possible, make sure you get:

• Company History
• Mission Statement
• Business Plan
• Marketing Plan
• Target Market
• Company Values
• Company USP (Unique Selling Point)
• Description of Products and Services

This list may seem a bit arbitrary, but the amount of information you can gain from knowing this information about a company could be inspiration for an entirely new and fresh corporate identity.  While most of this reading could be very dry and dull, you may surprise yourself one night at 1:00 a.m. while groggily reading this company research how the letters start to run together and create an image by accident.  It has happened.

B. The Fun Stuff

Once the dry reading is completed it is time to move on to the next step – surveys!  While it may not sound “fun” exactly, it can be very informative or humorous.  I would suggest putting together a standard list of questions for employees and any important people in the business.  Paper can be messy and very difficult to sort through, so an electronic questionnaire or survey to send to an email list.  You may need to find a programmer or a piece of software to help with this, but you’ll be saving trees, and most of the responses can come back to you already sorted into a database.

Once you have received this information, it’s obviously time to start reading.  Keep an eye out for the funny people, as their humor can be very inspiring.  Also, keep an eye on strong trends in certain answers, such as “Where would you like to see this company in 5 years?  10?”  These are the questions that will help you create a timeless design rather than a trendy one that might be outdated next year.

C.  Wrapping up the Company

Now, with so much information overload, it’s time to sort it all out.  If you’ve made it this far with a client, I hope you’ve been taking notes and drawing all them until you can’t read your original notes anymore.  Well, not really.  It is important to take notes and keep drawing, though, but try to be organized if at all possible.

Once you have some notes that catch your attention, some thumbnails from the client, and some doodles on napkins, it’s time to put it all together.  It doesn’t particularly matter how you do this, but try to organize your thoughts before you move on to Step 2 – Knowing the Enemy.  The more organized you are, the easier it will be to create a project strategy or creative brief for your client.

I would like to apologize sincerely for taking a week off from the studio. We both decided that it would be good to take some time away from work in order to sort out the insurance claims and get our bills with the chiropractor straightened out.

Generally, as a rule of thumb, I don’t post about our personal lives on the website, as most people won’t be interested and it is considered unprofessional.  I made an exception this time, as it’s important that people know why we were on hiatus and that we haven’t abandoned our blog.

With that being said, we’re going to be trying to get back on track this week – with a portfolio piece up tomorrow, an article on Wednesday, another portfolio piece on Thursday, and the design review on Friday.  It’s good to be back to work, and we appreciate your thoughts.

Feel free to leave us some comments.

The New School has been a strong collection of colleges since the end of World War I, but each of the schools and universities had no direct connection to another.  This was one university with 8 different schools that had no visual connections to each other.  Bob Kerrey became president of the school in 2003 and decided to make some changes.

The new logo had to be versatile enough to fit into 8 different existing names, be representative of the school’s wide variety of students, as well as the dynamic nature of the classrooms.  That was just the message, but the image was to be edgy, creative, and nonconventional, while still retaining clear readability. (Yes, it is a word.  Legible and readable are two different things.)

After a massive 2-year study (involving surveys to students, faculty, staff, and the higher-ups) Siegel & Gale created the new word mark logo along with an extensive but easy-to-read identity guidelines manual for The New School.

The main logo mark is a bold sans serif typeface that appears to be airbrushed in and out of focus throughout the logo.  The new brand for The New School includes three visual variations for the main logo mark, along with three available colors to choose from.  The three visual variations are simply blurred in different areas of the type, while the color variations are red, orange, and yellow.  With three variations of each to choose from, the logo is very dynamic, making for a total of nine separate but unified logos.

I personally admire this logo mark, as it was quite successful in pulling an entire group of school together under one parent identity.  My kudos to Siegel & Gale and The New School for collaborating to create a unique brand identity.  What are your thoughts?  Feel free to leave comments or criticism below.

P.S. If you want us to review a design, just send us an email at support [at] outcastdesignstudio.com, and we’ll see what we can do.

On the other hand, it is quite easy to find anti-censorship articles all over the internet.  Most artists feel insulted at being censored or limited in how they express themselves.  I will try to express both sides of this argument, but my sentiments lay with the anti-censorship movement.

As near as I can tell, most censorship activists find that some things are too mature for children to see, or too revolting to look at, anyway.  Robert Sherer’s first incident with censorship was in 1989 with his thesis gallery “Re-Presentations” which displayed male figures in common female poses.  The Christian Coalition has challenged nearly every one of his galleries since, stating that his works are recruiting youth into homosexuality, or disturbing God’s natural order.  Neither of these statements apply to his work as he saw it when he created them, nor do they imply anything very sexual.

Fortunately the internet has created a massive community that the government itself cannot control in terms of censorship (except in China).  Artists can express their political opinions on the internet through design without much fear of government censorship or legal action.  The only exceptions to this rule are censorship within public schools and copyright infringement (which is wrong anyway).

Typically a public school system will not allow nude art of any kind to be shown within a classroom, whether it be a student wanting to study the nude figure from a purely artistic perspective, or nude art photography from well-respected photographers.  The justification behind this is typically to protect students from offensive material, though who is to judge this, I am not entirely sure.

The anti-censorship movement is a much more talkative front, and it seems that many organizations such as the ACLU and Individual Visual Artists Coalition are much more active in fighting wrongful censorship than any censorship movements.  Zara Arshad wrote an interesting article for AIGA that discusses the ever-increasing violation of free-speech rights across the world, particularly in the UK and USA.  She explains that now is the time to “design for the masses.”  In other words, let designers push the envelope and see what happens, there is no point in hiding the truth as the artist sees it.

Mike Lenhart wrote an article for ArtBistro.com that shares a similar perspective.  While Arshad wants to empower the people again, Lenhart simply believes that everyone has a right to free speech.  While a designer can create something, the viewer can choose not to see it.  Personal liberties and open minds are crucial to the survival of art and creativity.

One slightly more conservative view on the matter was written by Carlos Centeno for RELEVANT Magazine.  Centeno is a Christian graphic designer who doesn’t believe in others censoring his work.  As he puts it, “Truth [...] should never be censored because the moment we try to tame it, it becomes fabricated truth — in other words, it becomes deception.”  He goes on to explain that he does censor how the truth is communicated, though.  He feels that he can communicate the truth in a mild manner so as not to insult anyone.

My opinions on the matter are mixed, though mostly in the anti-censorship arena.  I think public schools and conservative parents should be more open-minded.  I think conservative people should try to be more open minded, and if not, then turn the other cheek, so to speak.  What are your opinions on censorship in general?  Censorship in art?  Let’s hear some feedback.

Japanese art and design has always been a major interest for me.  When I was younger I would decorate my room with tapestries and Asian décor, incense, and paintings.  Today I’ve collected quite a bit more Japanese art and have come up with some ideas of my own Japanese themed décor that I would like to create.  I’ll enjoy discussing selected works from five creative Japanese designers and illustrators today.

Japanese art, for the most part, has a very modern and minimalistic quality to it, yet at the same time there is much to say about how the designs make you feel.  In such an overpopulated area of the world, simplicity and creativity are essential to communicate.  If a message can’t be communicated in a short amount of time, it is looked over, and if that short message isn’t creative, it’s forgotten.

First on my list is Japanese artist Yoshi Tajima.  He a prime example of an artist who utilizes simplicity and creativity in every piece of art.  This design, called “Voices,” is a very elegant yet dramatic design.  Black, cyan, and magenta are the main colors used in this image, which is interesting because they are three of the four pure colors used in print design.  The symmetry also creates an interesting focus.  Take a look at more of Yoshi’s art at RadioGraphics.jp.

Shun Kawakami (a.k.a. artless) designed this wonderful piece.  I’m an avid lover of typography, so when I first saw this I was very impressed.  The Bonsai tree fits in seamlessly on top of the O and the mono-black coloring gives the entire design a nice minimalistic touch.  There is so much going on in this illustration, but not enough to make it look busy.  You can check out more of Artless’ designs at pingmag.jp.

Feebee here really knows how to draw Japanese girls!  There are so many intricate detailing in her illustrations but yet again there is a very simple yet creative edge to it.  Her style is very unique in the world of Japanese illustration, though, as it is a blend between traditional Japanese art, and modern art and technology.  Feebee’s official website is in Japanese, but you can visit her MySpace for an English experience or friend request.

Chiho Aoshima takes a more busy approach to her designs.  She uses vector art to imply a traditional style that has no shading, which is very unique.  Chiho has a tendency to mix very warm colors with very cool colors, yet they blend nicely.  My favorite part of this design are the little extra details she’s hidden in various parts of the picture – little faces and animals and such.  To learn more about Chiho, visit Kaikai Kiki Co, Ltd.

I, for one, look forward to trying a few of these creative approaches to graphic design in future work.  I hope to one day be able to employ simplicity in art and still make it look amazing.  Japanese art has always been the cutting edge, from painting and printing, to architecture and interior design.  If you’d like to study some more Japanese art, I’ve supplied a book list below, all available from Amazon.com.  Feel free to leave your input, comments, or thoughts below.

Book List:

Japanese Graphics NOW!

Japanese Design

Japanese Prints

Crazy for Kanji

Japanese Tattooing NOW!

Japan Style: Architecture Interiors Design

Every Friday we will be posting a Design Review, whether it be logo design, graphic design, web design, or reviewing one of our favorite tutorials.  Hopefully we will be able to provide some insight on these various aspects of the design community, and everyone involved can learn something new.

Our first Design Review is going to focus on the Amazon.com logo, one of the most recognized logos in the internet today.  Amazon.com is currently the internet’s largest online store, so it should be interesting to take a closer look at their logo.

While the amazon.com logo is very simple, almost to extremes, it has been established as a corporate logo that nearly everybody knows.  I personally look forward to the mail man walking up to the house with a smiling brown box in his hand.  The amazon.com logo is unique, though simple.

The meaning behind the logo might be lost on people who don’t know exactly what it means in the first place, but it is quite memorable.  The bold ‘amazon’, and slightly more narrow ‘.com’ both emphasize the brand more than the website itself.

A cheeky grin that doubles as an arrow from “a to z” seems to simplify everything that amazon.com stands for to this point, though the meaning is lost on some.  Most consumers would not stop to think about a logo, or understand what this particular logo is communicating on a conscious level, though it probably does make a subliminal appeal.

Though some of the letter forms have been altered, particularly the ‘z’ in amazon, the sans-serif typeface is very legible and easy to read, and the slightly rounded corners on every letter really soften the logo and make it appear more ‘friendly’ in a very subtle way.  The Turner Duckworth Design Firm also created an entire alphabet to use on international sites, so the amazon.com brand is now universal with this typeface.

The logo is a two-color graphic that would translate well into a completely black and white logo (just turn the yellow smile/arrow into a black line).  It is quite versatile and has appeared on web advertisements, boxes, business cards, letterhead, envelopes, etc.

We hope this review was insightful.  Feel free to leave comments or your own insight on the review or the logo itself.  We want to know what you’re thinking.