It’s not just about the pretty stuff

This past week I have been involved with a project for one of our larger clients that has revolved around an organisation chart. After passing the problem around various departments with limited success they asked us to have a fresh look. The problem was that there were various levels of information that they wanted to convey in as concise a format as possible, this needed to be understood by people not familiar with the structure of the organisation without any additional explanation.

This exercise got to the heart of what graphic design is all about. According to dictionary.com graphic design is;

“the art or profession of visual communication that combines images, words, and ideas to convey information to an audience, especially to produce a specific effect.”

I would add to that definition that graphic design is the art of problem solving, and the project above was pure problem solving. Where the client had several pages of different information, we were able to produce one chart that pulled all the data together. This showed group structure, key staff, reporting lines, contact details, business sectors, and much more. Of course once the structure was in place we could then present it an attractive way.

There is a whole branch of graphic design that focuses on the organisation of information. One of the best examples of this the London underground map.

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The current map is so ubiquitous these days that it’s difficult to imagine an alternative. For decades London underground maps were shown geographically and you only need to look at these (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tube_map_1908-2.jpg) to see how difficult it would be to find your way around the tube system. The breakthrough made by Harry Beck in 1931 was to dispense with the geography and concentrate on the relationship between stations. This was refined over the years to the map we are all familiar with today.

The tube map and other examples such as the periodic table are perfect examples of one of the staple tenets in design – Form follows function.

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Design basics – Print industry jargon 1 of 2

Decoding the mumbo-jumbo
All industries seem to have their own internal jargon and abbreviations which become common parlance to those within the trade and mystify those outside of it. We thought we’d try and pull together a series of articles explaining commonly used design and print jargon as a useful guide for our clients. If you’ve encountered any confusing design or print jargon that we’ve missed off please drop us a line and let us know and we’ll add it to the list.

AC’s – Authors Amends/Corrections
These are amendments/corrections made to the artwork by the client during proofing and are generally charged for.

Banding
When a graduated/blended tint is reproduced by some printing systems it can produce banding, which is an uneven transition of colour as the increment of the tint is increased or decreased. The resulting finish is always compromised and undesirable. Care should be taken when designing and proofing a job with large graduated tints to avoid this.

Bleed
This is an area of print that extends beyond the page edge and allows the page to be accurately trimmed down to size without a white border. Not adding a bleed is one of the most common mistakes that result in artwork being rejected by a printer.

CMYK
Refers to the common method for full colour printing using: C – Cyan, M – Magenta, Y – Yellow, and K – Black inks (key colour). You will also hear the term ‘CMYK split’ referring to the exact make up of individual colours.

Coated / Uncoated paper
The vast majority of papers used in commercial print are finished with a thin coating this helps their ink retention and colour reproduction generally producing a brighter crisper finish to the print. However the trade off is they tend to lose some of the softness to touch of high grade paper made with cotton fibres or similar and they aren’t great at taking pen inks on top of the finished print. Uncoated papers have a much wider variety of touch finishes with a softer feel to them, but they do suffer from a generally duller print finish as the ink tends spread and lose some intensity on the page.

Crop Marks / Registration Marks
These are the lines and marks added after the proofing process at the edge of the paper helping the printer line up the printing plates and ensure the design prints accurately and indicating where the paper should be cut.

Die Cut
A post-print finishing process of cutting a leaflet or brochure to a pre-formed shape eg. a circle or wavey line.

Dimensions
Traditionally, in graphic design, measurements are given in the order of depth and width (DW – alphabetical). These days the convention has lapsed so it is always safer to specify what dimensions are being given (eg. 240d x 120w).

Digital Printing
Digital printing systems print directly from computer to paper using data fed into the press, and do not require intermediate media such as film or plates. Digital printing is most cost effective for very small print runs and usually benefits from a short turn around time compared to litho/offset printing.

Dot gain
Dot gain describes the ‘spread’ of ink outside the original size of each of the ink dots making up an image. It is most prevalent in lower quality paper stocks and when lower quality print screening has been used such as in Newspaper print. Other dot gain variables include the inks and the condition of the press. In effect, dot gain can produce an over saturation of colour which is not always desirable as a consequence of increased ink density.

DPI (Dots Per Inch)
Refers to the resolution or quality of images. The higher the DPI, the better the quality of the image. The industry standard resolution for print is 300dpi.

Dummy
A paper sample mock-up of a proposed job made from the actual paper materials and cut to size, with binding finish and correct paper bulk.

Finishing
The general term we use to all the processes after the actual printing on paper (eg. trimming, binding, laminating).

Folio
Folios are the page numbers and document titles repeated throughout a publication, often at the bottom of a page.

Font / Typeface
In the digital age often confused and used interchangeably, traditionally there is actually a hierarchy. A Font is a single set of letters, numbers and symbols that share a single design. A typeface is the design and style of the font. Eg. Times and Times Bold are two separate fonts both are using the Times typeface.

Four Colour Process
The most common form of full colour printing uses a mix of four colours: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black.

GSM
The standard measurement for paper thickness is GSM Grammes per square metre.

Gutter
The inside margins or blank space between 2 pages of a book or magazine is the gutter. The gutter space is important to ensure important information doesn’t disappear into the binding area between the pages, extra space should be allowed in large publications to ensure this doesn’t happen.

Laminate
A transparent coating added to covers to give protection and smooth finish. This can be a gloss, silk or matt finish.

Moiré
An undesirable optical effect created by an unwanted interaction between separation plates or misalignment, the image will seem to shimmer. The effect can also appear when a pre-screened image is re-screened for reproduction, for example, when scanning a printed original.

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Design basics – Ockham’s razor

Sometimes less is more

Ockham’s razor is an easy to learn and apply rule that can be used to improve our work within all disciplines of design and is a philosophy that widely holds true in fields far beyond design.

Sticking to our principal area of interest, the basic rule of Ockham’s razor within graphic design is that the simplest design solution should be chosen given the choice of several equally applicable designs. Generally this means that you should favour simplicity in design over complexity and drop all unnecessary clutter from your designs. This cutting out of unnecessary elements to create a clean, clear message, is equally true in graphic design as it is to exhibition design, website design or any of the other fields within which we operate.

The origin of Ockham’s razor dates back to the 14th century theologian William of Ockham who stated “entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity”. Albert Einstein also summed it up nicely “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler”.

A great success story of the theory is the rise to almost complete monopoly status of the internet search engine market of Google. Once, one of a plethora of small search websites favoured mainly by computer geeks and firmly in the shadow of the big brands like Microsoft and yahoo with their huge blanket advertising campaigns, Google slowly rose to be the dominate market leader by creating a clean, simple easy to use design with the minimum of add-ons and advertising. This enabled them to return fast accurate results and created huge brand loyalty amongst its advocates and early adopters who spread the word to the masses.

Ockham’s razor is most evident all around us in product design and another great example of the approach is the Apple ipod. The sleek desirable look of the product, cutting everything back to its bare minimum number of buttons to function made it an object of desire and when combined with its intuitive easy to use menus created one of the most successful new products of the new millennia so far.

In conclusion we feel you should always consider the Ockham’s razor principle when evaluating the merits of any potential new design project. Can it be made simpler, cleaner and easier to use without losing its core message, clarity or its functionality?

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Design: the way out of economic gloom?

As designers we have always been aware of the value our work provides to businesses. However, with no tangible evidence it has been difficult to convince our clients, in fiscal terms, of the effect design and creative services can have on profit and growth.

In 2005 the government commissioned the largest ever study into design and innovation in the UK. The report by Sir George Cox became known as the Cox Review and revealed some startling facts about just how important design is to the UK as part of our domestic economy and our position internationally.  Up to 70% of UK creative businesses output is sold overseas which is not only a source of pride but also concern. It would seem that emerging markets realise the value of design in business growth and are exploiting our talents to gain a competitive advantage over our own businesses.

It is widely believed that if UK businesses could learn to accept and realise that good design can contribute to larger growth and profits the UK economy would be in a much stronger position. To try and help companies realise the value of design the Design
Council have carried out their own extensive research in order to gather proof that will provide businesses with hard statistical evidence that design has a direct link to improved business performance.

The outcome of the Design Council’s research is that there is now conclusive evidence of an unquestionable link between companies that are design aware and larger, faster growth and improved profits.

Here are just a few of the key facts that the Design council research highlighted:

  • Businesses that increased their investment in design over the past three year also increased their chances of turnover growth.
  • Businesses that see design as integral are more than twice as likely as others to see rapid growth.
  • Businesses that decreased their investment in design significantly cut their chances of growth.
  • For every £100 a design alert business spends on design turnover increases £220
  • For every £100 a design alert business spends on design profit increases by £83.
  • Design led businesses do better than the FTSE 100. The 61 design-led businesses reviewed by the Design Council collectively outperformed the FTSE 100 by more than 200% over the last decade.

The UK are world leaders in design with some of the best creative agencies in the world. It is important that UK businesses realise the value of this talent in order to grow and stay competitive in an ever changing world. For more information go to:www.designfactfinder.co.uk and http://www.dti.gov.uk/files/file13654.pdf or to view the Cox Review click here.

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Airsprung Beds Packaging

Take a look at the packaging Arena design have recently designed for Airsprung Beds. Airsprung Beds is one of the UK’s oldest and largest bed manufacturers selling to major retailers such as Tesco, Argos and Littlewoods.

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