Frequencies: Paper Sculpture

[Frequencies is a semi-regular post series focusing on the random design/pop/pointless/happening trends I pick up on from time to time. This particular episode may have suffered slightly at the hands of my busy schedule...yet I think it's still fresh enough to be worth posting.]

There seems to be something inherently playful about paper sculpture. Maybe it's the ephemeral nature of the medium, or the lightness and lack of weight to a blank page. There's something about this unmarked, wide open medium that allows certain artists to expand beyond the page's edge, creating altogether new forms.

Peter Callesen

First up, we have Peter Callesen, whose meticulous cutting from single sheets results in often bittersweet visual puns:

Olivier Gondry

You may have seen this playful yet lovely commercial already. Olivier Gondry recreates the Beringer vineyards in paper:

Jen Stark

Finally, there's Jen Stark, who takes paper sculpture in a completely different direction. Breaking away from the all-white page, Jen uses color and abstract geometrics to transform her medium into something with rigid and almost weighty form:

Roll Your Own

If you're digging these, you can always try your hand at making your own paper sculptures. As a writer and graphic designer, I love the idea of using the paper itself to tell a story, rather than relying on marks on the page.

Perhaps the Most Important Info Graphic Ever

How to nap:

(via SFist)

The Great Debate Over Menu Type

Restaurant-goers are more likely to assume a dish is complex and skillfully prepared if the menu is set in a "fancy" typeface, according to a recent study described in the New York Times. Sadly, the study's researchers used Mistral as an example of fancy type.

Poor font choices aside, experts (thankfully) seem to understand the benefits of legible menus, as well as how best to produce them:

"Allen [CEO of Quantified Marketing Group] recommends using sans-serif fonts and few capital letters. He instructs managers to draw diners' eyes to the most profitable items on a three-panel menu by positioning those golden dishes in three key places: the center of the middle page and the top-right and top-left corners, which he calls the sweet spots. In addition to avoiding bad translations, Allen says chefs should use simple language when possible."

Of course, typeface is a fundamental piece of a restaurant's visual identity. As the study shows, it communicates specific characteristics about a restaurant's personality and food. But you don't need to rely on elaborate fonts for the sake of using elaborate fonts. Professional designers understand how to specify and use typefaces with character (pardon the pun) to influence customer perception and behavior, without sacrificing legibility.

If anything, the study makes a good case for leaving typography in the hands of the professionals - otherwise, you end up thinking Mistral is the answer to slow sales.

Insights From the HOW Design Conference

After an extended trip back to my hometown (Boston, that is) for the HOW Design Conference, I'm feeling super focused. I've spent the last six months or so mulling over Roughstock and my own goals, and the conference put a lot into perspective for me. Instead of a lengthy review or analysis, I'll just note some of the key takeaways I was left with that I think apply to all organizations...

Challenge yourself to think atypically.
We're all conditioned to take the path of least resistance, but if we give ourselves the chance to step off this path, the results can be incredible. There was no better evidence of this than speaker Bill Strickland's discussion of his journey transforming a failing inner city school into an educational powerhouse for arts and leadership. If you want to lead the competition rather than play catch-up, you need to step outside your comfort zone, challenge your own assumptions, and take a few calculated risks.

Work smarter not harder.
This is one of those nuggets of common sense that seems to always fall by the wayside. It goes right along with measure twice, cut once. Whatever you're doing - whether it's designing a direct mail piece, completely rebranding your company, or giving a speech - think about each small step along the way. By making active decisions with a larger goal in mind, the fruits of your labor will yield bigger and better results.

Play.
As the child of workaholics, it's very hard for me to separate work from personal life. But with careful practice, I keep discovering that the more I invest in my personal world, the better my work becomes. After all, the human mind is not a machine. It's an organic, responsive mess o' brains that needs exercise and excitement. Trips to Fenway Park, Charlie's Kitchen, the Museum of Modern Art et al. provided me with color palettes, patterns, lighting techniques, compositions and insights that I never would have gotten with my eyeballs pinned to a computer screen.

Remember why you do what you do.
Chances are, you've gotten so caught up in the logistics of your work that you've forgotten what drew you to it in the first place. Revisit that attraction, and ask yourself if you're doing exactly what you want to do. You don't have to drop everything and hit the high seas on a sailing ship, either; try asking yourself how you can adjust your businesses practices to better reflect your own values. As I practice this myself, Roughstock's future becomes a motivating goalpost rather than a logistical nightmare, and opportunities are already poking me affectionately in the ribs.

I love that just a few days of mental and visual stimulation can make such a difference in both my personal and work lives. Sharing stories with colleagues, meeting new people who I've only ever heard of before, and absorbing the experiences and values of others has been powerful. I can't wait to see it all seep into my work over the months ahead.

Recently Published in HOW Design Magazine...

The current issue of HOW, one of the leading professional graphic design magazines, features Jess' article Deflate the Tire Kickers. Every profession has their version of the tire kicker: those not-so-serious prospects that eat into your profitability. This five-page article walks designers through the client intake process, offering practical advice on how to identify and effectively handle this segment without losing your cool.



The magazine is currently on the newsstands at most major bookstores, and can also be purchased online. [Update: HOW Magazine has now posted the full text on their site, so you can read the article online.]

(And am I the only one who thinks the illustration looks like David Bowie? Which is, of course, totally rad.)

New Work: Evnine and Associates Logo and Identity Collateral

I'm really excited to introduce the redesign of Evnine and Associates' new logo and identity collateral. The new streamlined look plays with the financial concept of "extra market returns," symbolized in the industry by the alpha symbol (the "a" in "eva," which is the company's nickname among its client base).



The big challenge here was creating a look distinguished enough to impress a rather staid financial industry while still communicating the personality and charm of this incredibly focused team of statistical wizards.



Both the letterhead and envelope are printed on 100% recycled paper, while the business card is printed on a heavier stock, 30% PCW recycled paper.

Tell Your Neighbors About the Spray!

I'm going to ask that you indulge my "politics" as I get loud for a bit - I'm just really not okay with getting sprayed with chemicals!

So, for those of you who live in California and want to spread the word, please help yourself to this poster. Download a PDF of either version by clicking on the image. Then take it your local copy shop and start passing them out to friends, neighbors and especially local businesses.





The petition continues to grow, with over 22,000 people refusing to be sprayed. Let's keep it growing!

The Accidental Politics of Graphic Design

"'What does it mean,' he asked the other day, after sifting through his work, 'to live a meaningful life?'"

"...His portfolio would soon start filling up with routine projects: the cover of the department's phone directory, photo manipulations showing what freeways would look like with new carpool lanes. Then, in the 1980s, pedestrians started getting killed on California interstates with alarming regularity."

From "The Artist Behind the Iconic 'Running Immigrants' Image," LA Times.

Graphic Design and the Dining Experience

While recently lamenting (for the umpteenth time, of course) the undying myth that graphic designers simply make pretty pictures, I happened to come across a brief little article on logo designer Louise Fili, who designs primarily for the hospitality and F&B industries.

The article touches on the power of graphic design when it comes to the dining experience, noting in particular that menu materials and presentation can directly impact the diner's opinion and actions. I figured I'd take the opportunity to expand on this a little, and point out a few ways restaurant owners can use graphic design to influence their guests' experience.



The Eyes Are Always the First to Digest
While every restaurant must turn out good food, the very first thing guests actually experience is the way a restaurant looks. This includes cleanliness, the floor plan, fabrics and textures, and so on. But it also includes the single unifying visual element of any restaurant: the logo. Think about the specific moments in which a guest - or potential guest - will see your restaurant's logo:

• When visiting your website after hearing about your restaurant for the first time
• When passing your restaurant during off hours
• When noticing your business card on a friend's desk
• When seeing your ad in a local paper

This list doesn't even touch on the many moments once a guest passes through your doors. It should be clear to you, then, why your logo should adequately and accurately represent your menu, your ambience, your service, and your values. Your logo, after all, is often the first visual clue a potential customer will see when faced with the choice of making a reservation.

The Menu Is a Tool, Not an Order Form
The point of any menu is to inform the diner of their options, of course. But smart restauranteurs use the menu to guide diners to particular choices. This requires careful consideration of size, item placement, colors, and materials.

Provide the guest with a visual path
Text formatting, colors and layout all serve to pull the eye along a specific path. You don't have to draw a large neon box around your high-margin specials, but consider where you place particular menu items to encourage ordering.

Be honest and clear
Avoid florid menu descriptions that don't actually tell the diner what they need to know. Specific ingredient details are fine, but ask yourself - does my customer come away knowing exactly what they'll get?

Reinforce the food
Menu presentation should reflect your food. If your food is simple and clean, for example, avoid elaborate menu folders or busy prints and textures.

Use Graphics to Build the Experience
Your guests want more than just good food - they want a complete experience that stays with them and brings them over and over again. Remember that list of moments when a potential customer might come across your logo? Consider, too, the moments that your guests will encounter other visual elements, and use them to build the experience:

• Menu (of course)
• Door and window signage
  
• Drink lists
  
• Table tents
• Other signage (restrooms, directional signage, etc)
• Check delivery
• Email correspondence
• Business cards
• Print ads
• Coupons and gift certificates

Every time you put a message out to the public - within your doors or without - that communication should reinforce your restaurant's identity. Everything a guest or potential guest sees should serve to enhance that experience, so they remember your distinct look, feel and flavors.

Engaging Environment: The NYC Air Bear

I've mentioned Italo Calvino's Marcovaldo, or Seasons in the City, before and I'm reminded of it once again. The book is about a man who manages to see the bits and pieces of our environment that the rest of us overlook. I love what the Air Bear does: it captures what we can't see, using it to engage and entertain.



The work is part of a series by artist Joshua Allen Harris (if anyone can point me to his website, which I couldn't manage to dig up, please do).

Inside the Mind of a Type Designer

I am a sucker for process. I drool at the thought of reams of artist sketches, I love the behind-the-scenes letters sometimes exhibited in museums to accompany a given collection, and I absolutely, positively get a kick out of reading the how of a what. So I owe a big thanks to Kris Sowersby for exposing the shadows of his type design process to the light, for all to read.



Kris doesn't just provide a behind-the-scenes how-to. He also reveals his own personal approach to designing typefaces, and he gives us a little hint at just how much work goes into something as "mundane" as making letters. This is such a great example of how the ever-so-slightest details, imperceptible to most non-designers, are the be all and end all for those of us who spend our time making things that look nice actually work.

Flags of the World: What They Really Stand For

Here's a striking ad campaign for Grande Reportagem making the rounds. It features lush yet no-nonsense representations of various country flags, with a small map legend inset in each. Reading the copy reveals a much larger truth than the viewer was likely prepared for. It's everything I love in (information) design: subtle, commanding, and quietly thought-provoking.



The campaign comes from Draft FCB Lisbon.

Great Resource! Information Design for Advocates and Activists

If you think charts and graphs are sexy like I do, download this booklet immediately. And if you think charts and graphs are evil necessities that you must use in the execution of your social justice campaign, public messaging plan, marketing strategy or whatever you need to call it, download this booklet immediately.


Click above image to download the PDF booklet.

"Visualizing Information: An Introduction to Information Design is a booklet...designed to introduce advocacy organizations to basic principles and techniques of information design. It’s full of examples of interesting design from groups around the world in a variety of media and forms. It has tips, excercises, and even recommended Free Software packages to help polish up your graphics."

For only 25 free pages of text and graphics, this little publication packs a wallop. It's good to see something along the lines of Edward Tufte become a bit more approachable and digestible. Big ups to John Emerson and his contributors for sharing their skills.

The Key to Readability

David Carson and Raygun aside, publications rely on their readability for success. Smashing Magazine's collection of outstanding newspaper designs offers a peek into what makes a paper readable.

As it turns out, there are some essential commonalities to the selections:

• White space rules: With text-heavy presentations, it becomes necessary to give the eye room to move and absorb all it's taking in. White space not only helps relieve the eye, but leads it across the page and can even build hierarchy.
• Strong graphic placement: The most successful examples in this collection treat each graphic as part of a larger whole, rather than slapping images into the layout willy-nilly.
• Heavy reliance on grids: It shouldn't surprise anyone that a well-designed grid will keep elements properly proportioned, related, and ordered.

These elements help guide the reader through the meaning of each individual article, while creating an organic movement through the entire newspaper. It's a nice collection.

[via Drawn]

The Designer of LodgeNet's New Logo Speaks

"I joked with my client that it isn't what we create as much as what I talk you out of that has real value."

-Jerry Kuyper

[Full interview at Brand New/UnderConsideration]

How Do You Stack Up? The Freelance Switch Freelance Statistics Report Is Here

If you participated in the Freelance Switch 2007 Freelance Survey, then you've already got your copy. If you didn't, then you might want to go purchase one. Why? Because it's got some eye-popping stats from 3,700 creative freelancers throughout the world that could teach you a thing or two about how you run your business.



A few interesting results and their implications:

• Result: "The amount of billable hours a freelancer is accumulating accounts for a large percentage of their overall happiness. This is in stark comparison to hourly rates and net income which have no significant impact on a freelancer’s overall happiness."
  
  My take: When you only charge $30-$40/hour on average (the most common rate range across multiple industries), you have to work more billable hours. It's no wonder, then, that the apparent business is what makes these freelancers happier, as opposed to their low hourly rate or their overall income, which will inevitably be lower thanks to their rate. If they were to raise their rates, thereby increasing their income, perhaps they would then respond that their rates or income influence their happiness. I can't help thinking that this boils down to a crisis of confidence.
  
  
• Result: "This survey suggests that the following activities have no noticeable impact on your income:
  

  Your age or your gender
  Your experience
  Where you live
  The marketing techniques you use (emphasis added)
  The additional goods and services your offer.

  This leads me to the only remaining possible conclusion – it’s all about the skills...I don’t think it would be bad advice to suggest that if your income isn’t what you think it should be or need it to be, it might be time to upgrade your skills and worry less about marketing and diversifying."
  
  My take: I'm not sure I'd agree with the above conclusion based on the actual question asked: "Where do you find work?" Such a question does not measure the efficacy of one's work-finding techniques (which include referrals, portfolio website, internet job sites, social networking sites, blogs, cold calling, and advertising). It simply measures which techniques freelancers are using. If you don't do any cold calling, for example, you won't get any work from it. This is a major flaw in the analysis, as it sends the message that referrals are the only method freelancers should rely on to find new clients. While I know several freelancers who have been successful over the years relying primarily on referrals, I'm not sure how much job security it actually offers.

Overall, the survey is a fascinating collection of data about a business lifestyle that we generally don't get much data on. It's great to see these numbers, particularly with such a large sample size. And while I'd certainly encourage all freelancers to pick up a copy, I'd also strongly suggest thinking critically about what the numbers really mean to you.

Free "Recycled Packaging" Rubber Stamp Art Redux

When I posted the free-to-use artwork for a "Recycled Packaging" rubber stamp last fall, I had no idea how popular it would be. Now, thanks to Anodyne Design, you can see what the finished product actually looks like:



I think it looks gorgeous! And of course, the green ink is the perfect touch. If you'd like to have your own rubber stamp like the one above made, you can download the artwork for free and follow the instructions.

Thanks to everyone who's left comments, and don't forget to spread the word!

Fun With Flyers

Bartending is hard work; aside from the babysitting and drink-mixing and entertaining, you also have to promote the hell out of your shift. So when my buddy asked for me for a quickie flyer for his upcoming anti-Valentine's Day shift, this is what I came up with:

Recession-Proof Marketing

With all this talk of an economic downturn and the House's recent approval of a questionable Economic Stimulus Package, now seems as good a time as any to offer a few suggestions for marketing in a downturn:

• Lay the groundwork early. Don't wait until the belt is already too tight to breathe; strengthening your marketing efforts now will help minimize any damage should a full-blown recession kick in.
  
  
• Resist the urge to stop marketing altogether. Many businesses immediately suspend their marketing budgets, but this just reduces your chances of bringing in all-important revenues.
  
  
• Look to current customers. We all know it's cheaper to sell to current customers than to secure new ones, and this is especially important to remember when you're pacing your marketing spending. Ask yourself what your current customers need during this time (or better yet, ask them!), and find a way to deliver it.
  
  
• Make well-reasoned cost cuts. Instead of sending out a massive direct mail campaign, why not shrink your mailing list to include only the most qualified leads? This will increase your success while decreasing your expense.
  
  
• Move online for savings. Email campaigns, and online networking are effective and inexpensive ways to market when budgets are tight.
  
  
• Leave your competitors in the dust. Take advantage of others' quickness to cut their marketing budgets and run a pointed campaign or two to keep your company front of mind.
  
  
• Look to alternative markets. Chances are, you've been overlooking a market segment that might prove valuable to your business. Now's the time to reach out to these new markets to bolster your bottom line.
  
  
• Work on you. No, not in the self-help, wish-your-way-to-success way! If your market is slowing, though, take a good hard look at how you're doing business, how you're communicating with your customers, and identifying how you can do better. Strengthening your business from the inside-out will make it much easier to pull your business out of the recession rut.
  

So what do you think? Do you have any other tips or suggestions for overcoming that self-destructive inclination to stop marketing when times seem tight? Leave your comments below!

Ambigramtastic

My pop gave The Captain a great book this Christmas—Wordplay: The Philosophy, Art and Science of Ambigrams by John Langdon. It offers an inside-out look at how an ambigram—a type-based graphic that reads the same both upright and upside-down—is born. It's a great reminder that the process of seeing and creating altogether new solutions to what might seem to be stale or already-solved problems are really remarkable skill sets. And some of them are just plain cool!



For more ambigram goodness, check out this ambigram photo set on Flickr and read Typographic Doppelgängers, an article by Langdon on the subject of creating these masterpieces.

What Can You Do With a Cow and a Budget?

Just because your budget isn't huge doesn't mean your print materials have to look like every other in-house, low-budget, stock-photo blah-zine out there. Pentagram's beautiful redesign of Dairy Today demonstrates how easy it is to bring a little class to the world of trade magazines.



How'd they swing it? Simple: instead of relying on the magazine's normal use of cluttered stock photography, they dropped a little cash on a one-day photo shoot. And in that single day, they shot 200 covers. And if you need a before-and-after, just check out what the mag looked like before Pentagram got their hooves all over it:

Why Hire the Cow When You Can Get the Milk For Free?

As the internet makes ideas accessible to everyone and their grandmother, everyone and their grandmother has begun to believe they can do everything. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. After all, we've paid experts (people with extensive training and experience) a lot of money to do specific things for us for a very long time. Now that the ideas they deal in are laid bare for us to absorb on our own it can be very tempting to think that we can fully grasp and then execute those ideas; why hire the cow when you can get all that great marketing milk for free?

Trouble is, we're often wrong.

There is a difference, after all, between understanding that a website greatly increases one's chances of making a sale and understanding how to design and build (two separate things, people!) a website that sucks people in rather than drives them away.

John McCain's early dabbling with MySpace is a good example of this: someone on McCain's campaign knew enough to recognize the importance of MySpace among young potential voters, and decided to create a page for the presidential candidate. Only problem was, they weren't experts in MySpace functionality, nor in copyright laws and web design etiquette. So they nicked someone's css design and failed to give credit to the designer. And because McCain's crew lacked the necessary coding expertise, they outright stole the designer's bandwidth, unwittingly or not.

But the designer was an expert. So he swapped a little of his own code on his own servers, which resulted in a very public switch of McCain's political stance:

"Dear Supporters,

Today I have announced that I have reversed my position and come out in full support of gay marriage...particularly marriage between passionate females."

Fact is, experts are experts because they know something we don't. And when we forget this, attempting to do what they do ourselves without due diligence, it often comes back to bite us in the butt (see yesterday's link to Dani's dissection of off-the-shelf templates).

One of the reasons we've gotten so turned off by experts—be they editors, designers, doctors or anyone else—is because so many of them (us?) rest on their laurels and don't live up to their promises. Seth Godin alluded to this in his recent post on the importance of editors:

"Great products, amazing services and stories worth talking about get edited along the way. Most of the time, the editing makes them pallid, mediocre and boring. Sometimes, a great editor will push the remarkable stuff. That's his job."

And therein lies the moral: know who the hell you're hiring. Know what they're good at, and how they got that way. And make damn sure what they're good at is actually what you want. Because a tall glass of free milk isn't worth it if it turns out to be sour.

Thinking About Buying a Website Template? Think Again.

Zen goddess Dani Nordin has a great post about the pitfalls of off-the-shelf templates over on her blog, including this gem that most folks overlook:

"It takes time away from activities that you're already good at, and takes you away from growing your business. When you went into business for yourself, was it because you wanted to learn HTML, SEO or logo design? Unless your business is graphic or web design, the answer is most likely no. Forcing yourself into a situation where you are doing all of the marketing, logo design, etc. for your business not only takes your valuable time away from your business, it forces you to do a lot more work with a lot less results than if you had found the right designer to partner with on your materials."

DIY seems to have a stranglehold on popular culture right now. But when you get down to the real nitty-gritty, business success relies on knowing when to get your hands dirty and when to invest in professional expertise. We're all on a budget, but if you're not willing to invest in your own business, how can you possibly expect your customers to?

Marketing Resolutions for the New Year

Trying to find the perfect marketing resolution for 2008? Try any of the ideas below to strengthen and grow your business through the coming year. Some of these ideas are simple to implement, while others may require investing a bit of effort and even money. But investment is all about ROI; everything on this list offers at least one significant benefit for organizations of any size.

Words of warning! Not all of these techniques may be right for your business, and almost all of them will be far more effective if you hire the right professional to help. And while that may sound like just a little bit of a pitch, it's also very true.


Brand Builders:

1. Create or update your logo
   Benefit: Creates an immediate visual connection with prospects and customers. Sums you up at a glance.
   
2. Create or update your identity collateral
   Benefit: Sends the message that you're a legitimate, professional business. Unifies your brand image.
3. Define your core values
   Benefit: Focuses your business, aids in decision making and strategic planning, and provides customers a point of connection.
4. Write a blog
   Benefit: Develops a consistent voice for your company.
5. Issue a press release
   Benefit: Enhances reputation, increases company exposure to the public.
6. Update your packaging
   Benefit: Creates a cohesive look and association with your company. Can also increase sales.
7. Create a marketing budget and feed that kitty
   Benefit: Enables you to actually afford to market your business, saves headaches when it comes time to implement your marketing plans.
   

Relationship Builders

8. Start an email newsletter
   Benefit: Keeps your business front-of-mind, educates prospects and customers about your company and offerings, opens the lines of communication between your business and your audience.
   
9. Network off-line
   Benefit: Creates real-world connections with prospects.
10. Network online (in forums, user groups, and on blogs)
    Benefit: Increases public awareness. Builds online connections and resources.
    
11. Conduct a survey with a prize drawing
    Benefit: Opens the lines of communication with your audience, solicits useful information for strategic planning, builds goodwill.
12. Offer something useful (product sample, e-book, white paper, etc.) for free
    Benefit: Builds goodwill, creates demand, engages prospects.
13. Write your policies down—all of them (if you don't have specific policies, create them)
    Benefit: Minimizes mistakes, creates a clear framework for customers to work within.
    

Sales Builders

14. Build/update your website
    Benefit: Too many to list! Strengthens reputation, builds legitimacy, informs prospects, offers customer support, increases sales (particularly with shopping cart functionality).
15. Conduct a highly targeted direct mail campaign
    Benefit: Reaches only those who are prequalified to buy from you.
16. Exhibit at a trade show
    Benefit: Puts you in direct contact with those who want your product or service; personalizes the business.
    
17. Solicit referrals from current customers
    Benefit: Leverages your current customers, automatically establishes trust with prospects.
18. Explore a new demographic
    Benefit: Expands your market reach.
19. Run a print ad in a consumer or trade publication
    Benefit: Reach a large audience in one shot.
20. Design an easy-to-use product catalog or service brochure
    Benefit: Informs prospects and encourages direct sales.

Do you have ideas of your own that can be added to this list? Post them in the comments below and I'll add them as they come.

Map: New Brainland

After studying neuropsychology for a couple of years back during my first attempt at a degree, I sometimes felt lost in this land:



Pretty cool topographical images, created directly from actual brain models.

How to wrap five eggs (or Christmas presents)

When I was first introduced to How to Wrap Five Eggs, an incredible picture book of Japanese packaging, almost two decades ago I couldn't afford a copy of the out-of-print book. Instead, I got my hands on How to Wrap Five More Eggs (now also out of print and not affordable).

I've just pulled the book off my shelf after being reminded of it by the furoshiki instructions posted the other day.

You should see some the stuff in here, it's beautiful:







The idea of packaging something in a reusable container is a brilliant one. It's at once luxurious and—provided the package is produced thoughtfully—sustainable. I can think of several products in the contemporary marketplace that do this...I'll have to pull together some images and do a post dedicated to them.

Wine Packaging: Increasing sales by increasing creativity

From Portfolio:

"To make their products stand out, many winemakers are taking clever, daring, and sometimes even radical approaches to labeling. They’re putting as much attention into what’s on the bottle as what’s in it, turning to labels that shout 'Buy me!' or, in some cases, 'Touch me!...'

...Though winemakers must take on the expense—and time—involved in designing such labels, they often cost only slightly more than conventional stickers. (One winemaker said they’re cheaper than the better-quality labels he uses on his more expensive wines.) Even the Mollydooker Velvet Glove Shiraz label costs just $1.43, close to the $1.20 price of the cork. Many winemakers, though, are simply using playful labels that don’t add any extra expense."

[via Megan at HOW Blog]

Furoshiki: Wrapping packages with a single piece of cloth

Pretty cool bit from Japan's Ministry of Environment:

Frequencies: Hand-held portfolio presentations

[Frequencies is a new semi-regular post series focusing on the random design/pop/pointless/happening trends I pick up on from time to time.]

Designers like to be clever and when I first saw this method of presenting one's portfolio, I thought oh, how clever! But I wasn't the only one, and now all those designers who know clever but can't or aren't inclined to come up with clever on their own seem to feel this is the most appropriate way to present one's portfolio pieces.

The hand-holding does bring human and dimensional elements to the image, pulling the viewer into the frame little bit, perhaps.




It also (sometimes) contextualizes the portfolio piece itself. This is particularly true for business cards, which get passed from hand to hand in real life.





It also creates, scale, of course. Posters look, well, big and postery.




It certainly isn't the most annoying design trend out there, but it's ubiquitousness is starting to wear thin. And I'm not the only one who thinks so:




I suppose, like all design trends, the technique has its place. I still like it.