Branding the CSI Network

September 26,2007 at Chris Glass

If I am to believe the wikipedia, and I usually do, William Golden was inspired by Shaker design when he crafted the CBS eye symbol back in 1951.

It's nice to see how well this ol Eyemark has held up over the years.

Of mild interest is to see the call letters becoming more important. With web addresses and the tiny real estate of onscreen menus, this makes fine sense.

Also interesting is how the treatment reflects the design style (or software) of any given period. If that's any indicator, it appears we're getting back to the excess of the 80's. Gnarly.

Me? I'll be happy when this treatment is filed away and replaced by something with a less heinous "S."

Will they iTouch Designers?

Posted by Bennett Holzworth on April 24, 2008 at Be a Good Design Group


As I work on my four year old G4 I can’t help but imagine that graphic designers are becoming useless to the likes of Apple and to a certain extent Adobe. I can think of very few software or hardware upgrades that were made in the last couple of years that have made our job significantly faster, better or easier. Sure we will be able to work faster when Adobe comes out with software that is ported for Intel machines, but do we really need anything much faster? When it seems that iTunes takes up about as much processor speed as Photoshop, I realize that it is not designers that are driving the technology anymore. So what industry is driving the market for faster computers? The obvious answer is video.

I have to admit that I love new technology and software just as much or more than the next guy. But many times I agree with those nay-sayers that argue that we don’t need software beyond Photoshop 7 and InDesign CS. Unless you are in the market for more filters and better drop shadows, what have we really gained from the last several Adobe upgrades?

So what can these companies do to generate a little more need (as opposed to sheer want)? As you might have gathered from the above graphic, I am hoping for iPhone multi-touch technology in the next generation of iMacs. If Apple takes away the mouse and keyboard and truly connects the designer to their computer, then the designer demand will be unstoppable. Then we will all be closer to feeling what the early twentieth century typesetters felt when they physically locked up that type in the chase. I know Apple wouldn’t be the first to have touch screen computers, but as they have proven with the iPod, you don’t have to be the first … just the best. Wasn’t it Malcolm Gladwell that pointed out that the originators and extreme innovators usually fail? Sometimes the market isn’t ready and primed for a certain innovation. For example, the Newton.

Since Apple appears to have mastered the multi-touch technology, when will we see it in their computer line? Jobs did make a special effort to note that this technology was heavily patented. Is it time that Apple starts paying a little more attention to the loyal designer base and work with Adobe and others to deliver a truly innovative product? Here’s to “pinching” instead of (command) + (+) or grabbing that antiquated old magnifying glass.

Accepting change--The evolution of Fast Food logos

posted at June 06 2005 at Chris Glass

I bitched about the new White Castle logo a couple years ago. Today I was driving home, saw an old Taco Bell sign and was transported back to a happier time—when evolution wasn't so far out there.

How I miss the crisp gridded balance of yore. The warm tones are fading. Browns replaced by blues. Type now looking like it would be at home amidst fluorescent splatter from the 80’s.

Okay, fine. I can deal with all this change. I am resilient. I am hopeful.

Who Shot the Serif

This article is original from I love typography


One of the reasons for starting I Love Typography was that I felt there just wasn’t enough being said about the topic. Secondly, and more significantly, I always found it difficult to quickly locate typographic resources. The long-term aim of this blog is to be such a resource, a one-stop-shop for everything about typography, from terminology to new typefaces, from inspirational examples of type to choosing the best font for the job, whether that be on- or off-line.

So without further ado, let’s take a look at type terminology. Now, before my alliteration sends you running, let me say that there is nothing to fear. But why should you be interested in the terminology of type? Does it really matter if I don’t know my ascenders and serifs from my descenders and spines?

Well, what you will discover, is that learning just a little about the terminology will help you to have a greater appreciation for type; it will also help you to identify different typefaces and fonts — and that in turn will help you make better, more informed choices about the fonts you use. Oh, and lastly, you’ll learn what fish scales and serifs have in common.

Today we’re going to get intimate with the serif (you’ll learn more about her friends in future Typography Terms posts):

One of the terms of type that most are familiar with is “Serif” and is easily distinguishable from Sheriff — John Wayne has shot and killed several sheriffs; to the best of my knowledge, he has never out-gunned a serif. Serifs are often small, but they’re tough.

Before writing this, I sent several questions on type terminology to friends who know little about the topic. Most answered “What’s a Serif?” with something like, “it’s the curly bits at the ends of letters”. And although you are unlikely to read that in a typography text book, that’s just about right (though they’re not always curly).

So why the word “serif”? Well, it’s commonly held that the origin of the humble serif can be traced back to ancient Rome. Before an Inscription was carved into stone the letters were first painted on. Anyone who has tried painting letters will know that one is left with slightly wider sections at the ends of the brush-strokes. The stone carvers would then faithfully carve out the letters including the flares at the end of the strokes — thus was born the serif.

However, it looks as though no-one knows much about the etymology of the word “serif”; some say that it comes from the Dutch schreef, meaning “wrote”, while other sources say the term “sanserif” actually pre-dates serif, so that sanserif on its own simply meant without serif (though that begs the question, where did the word sanserif originate?).

Interestingly the equivalent term in Japanese, uruko, means fish scales, and in Chinese the term, translated literally into English, comes out as “forms with/made with legs”. The Chinese one is perhaps the most descriptive. So if someone tells you to “give it legs”, you’ll know that they are requesting a serif font. And if someone shouts “he has no legs!”, then I guess they’re looking at Helvetica.

The TypoWiki defines a serif thus:
A serif is a flare at the end of a letter terminal.

And Wikipedia as:
non-structural details on the ends of some of the strokes that make up letters and symbols.

There are numerous kinds of serif. The two main types are Adnate and Abrupt (these are further subdivided into many more groups which we’ll look at in future). The Adnate serif is more organic. Notice how the serifs join the the stems via a curve; the Abrupt Serif — as its name suggests — is squarer and more rigid; the Slab Serif is a good example of an abrupt serif. It’s not rude; it’s just square.

In future articles we’ll be taking a closer look at these related topics:
Serifs, in and out of fashion;
Serif or San serif — which should I use?
Great Serif typefaces for Web and Print.

Well, that’s all for today on serifs. Actually, there’s a lot more that can be said, but I’ll give your scroll bar a rest. In future posts we’ll be taking a look at more Typography Terminology. Eventually, this series will be edited and published as a downloadable PDF “e-type-book”.

Marshalls.com redesign

So Young, and So Gadgeted

public at June 12, 2008 By WARREN BUCKLEITNER in New York Time



EVERYONE knows that babies crawl before they walk, and that tricycles come before two-wheelers. But at what age should children get their first cellphone, laptop or virtual persona?

These are new questions being faced by 21st-century parents, and there is no wisdom from the generations for guidance. You can’t exactly say to your teenager, “When I was a boy, I didn’t have an unlimited texting plan until I was in high school.”

Some parents eagerly provide their children with technology. “My 4-year-old has been on the Web since he could sit up,” said Samantha Morra, a mother of two from Montclair, N.J. “My 6-year-old has an iPod and wants a cellphone, although my husband and I aren’t sure who he’d call.”

Others, like Christine Jorgensen, a mother of three from Flemington, N.J., are more cautious. “I’m not a huge fan of flooding my children’s lives with the latest gadget,” Ms. Jorgensen said. “My children go online for schoolwork, but our computer is in my sight, and protected to the teeth.”

What’s the right approach? Studies of child development offer some middle ground. Long before the invention of the first microprocessor, the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget identified four stages of cognitive development by watching his own children. His theories bring some logic to the debate about how to support your child’s growth with the latest technology.

AGES 0-2 Babies and toddlers cannot use a mouse until at least age 2 1⁄2, and flat monitors do not offer much in the way of stimulation in Piaget’s first stage, “sensorimotor.” To work at this age, technology products must act like a busy-box, with lights or sounds that respond to a child’s actions. Toys like the Laugh and Learn 2-in-1 Learning Kitchen ($71, www.Fisher-Price.com), which has doors and switches for a baby to explore and a crawl-through doorway, fit well with this stage.

But even these activities should take a back seat to real experiences. It makes sense to stick to materials that squish in a child’s hand. Invest instead in a camcorder to catch those first steps.

AGES 3-5 “Preschoolers today are growing up in a digital world, and they see their parents using devices like cellphones and computers,” said Prof. Sandra Calvert, director of the Children’s Digital Media Center at Georgetown University. “They like to play with pretend cellphones as if it were the real thing.” This pretend-play is actually an important part of the Piaget “preoperational” stage, when children first understand that they can control the events on a flat screen.

This is an age when they can take real pictures with cameras like the V.Tech KidiZoom ($60, www.vtechkids.com), and can explore interactive versions of their favorite shows on PBS Kids (www.PBSKids.org) or Nickelodeon’s Noggin (www.noggin.com). For $10 a month, the subscription version of Noggin removes the ads, and the activities adjust to a child’s level.

A TV can be made interactive with the growing number of TV toys like ClickStart: My First Computer (www.leapfrog.com, $60), or video game consoles running games like Go, Diego, Go! Safari Rescue ($40, www.take2games.com, for Wii and PlayStation).

Portable game systems that can make it easier to wedge a wriggling preschooler into a car seat include a Leapster (www.Leapfrog.com, $60) or Nintendo DS, running software like Scholastic’s Animal Genius ($30, www.animalgeniusds.com).

All of these are well suited to this stage of development.

AGES 6-11 At the age a child can ride a bicycle comes the ability to search the Web, and the whole digital world starts to open up. Suddenly they are hooked on favorite video games and watching funny videos on YouTube. But Piaget labeled this stage “concrete operations” because children still have trouble with abstract ideas. Professor Calvert reminds parents that electronic devices should be used to “supplement rather than replace real experiences,” and encourages them to “make sure there’s an overall sense of balance” in activities during this stage of life.

This is a time when parents need to keep an eye on the screen and steer children toward good sites, like Club Penguin (www.clubpenguin.com), which introduces the notion of chatting and the online stand-ins known as avatars. It also teaches them that there is no free lunch online, and that paying members ($6 a month) can have a fancier igloo.

While video game consoles like the Wii and PlayStation have fewer gimmicks, they have been known to eat up large chunks of a childhood if used unmonitored in dark basements. Fortunately the number of games with redeeming qualities is growing. The just-released Pokémon Mystery Dungeon for the Nintendo DS can exercise reading skills, and Wii Fit has recently captured the curiosity of phys ed teachers. Wild Earth: African Safari (www.majescoentertainment.com) can turn a child into a wildlife photographer, and Boom Blox ($50, www.ea.com for Wii) and Lego Indiana Jones ($50, www.lucasarts.com for multiple platforms) are thick with collaborative problem-solving opportunities.

By age 10, many children can start editing videos and programming with software like M.I.T.’s Scratch (www.scratch.mit.edu), a free download for Macintosh or Windows. Scratch lets children drag and drop routines that take the form of jigsaw puzzle pieces.

AGES 12 AND UP Besides being much harder to wake up, middle- and high-schoolers are reaching the cognitive functioning of an adult. They have entered Piaget’s “formal operational” stage, able to juggle synchronous streams of information from phones, MP3 players and laptops. Communicating with friends is on par with breathing, to the delight of your wireless provider.

In fact, cellphones are now more or less mandatory for children at this age. Besides providing a social advantage, phones can reduce parental stress in a crowded mall, get children in touch for homework help, serve as a call to dinner — and be withheld as punishment that really works.

Parenting skills for this age include reading phone bills. Lori McCoughey of Mahwah, N.J., a mother of two, saved $200 a month by switching to Verizon’s friends and family plan. There are also pay-as-you-go plans like those from Tracfone (www.tracfone.com). For $50, you get a working LG 225 camera phone, preloaded with 100 minutes. A meter counts down the remaining time.

Giving collegebound children their next digital prize, a laptop, while they are still in high school gives them time to set up their MP3 players, learn how to find Wi-Fi zones and write papers before they are on their own. They can also create portfolios on Google Page Creator (www.pages.google.com) to show off their accomplishments to college admissions offices or future employers.

If he were alive today, Piaget would probably advise parents that for a young child, everything — whether it has batteries or not — is a discovery waiting to happen. But toys work best when they are matched to a child’s level of development.

The Many Faces of Design Leadership

post by Kevin McCullagh on Monday, June 02 2008 in Core77



'What the hell is Design Leadership anyway?' is what I keep hearing people mutter under their breath these days. It has become one of those subjects that any player in design now has to have an opinion on, but debating it usually generates more heat than light, as self-anointed design leaders rehearse their personal or company agendas. Self-importance, not clarity, seems to be the main concern. At one level this isn't surprising. Leadership is a slippery topic these days: there are more books on Amazon attempting to define the mojo of leadership than that other holy grail, innovation. The 21st century is dogged by crises of authority: whether they are presidents, CEOs or premier league soccer managers, today's leaders are less respected and less certain of their position than the self-assured chiefs of yesteryear, like Margaret Thatcher, Jack Welch and Bill Shankly.

There are many different types of design leaders—and no common template. A corporate design manager helping to steer a company into an emerging market requires a very different skill set and approach from the head of a start-up consultancy pioneering new methods in the design of public services.

Having become a live topic in designland, leadership is now an even harder subject to get your arms around. Unlike business leadership, which is about leading organisations, the remit of design leadership is fuzzier. It is often used interchangeably with design management, but is also liberally applied to any big personality around the industry. Faced with such confusion it is worth stepping back to ask a few simple questions. What makes a design leader? Do they have to be designers? Who is leading whom? And to where exactly? I have recently been forced to grapple with these questions while producing a Design Leadership programme for senior designers from a range of companies and disciplines. Leaders as pathfinders First, it is useful to reflect on why Design Leadership has become such a hot topic. It began as a more specific 'grey hair' discussion within design management circles in the early noughties. But unlike other such debates this one captured the imagination of consultants, academia and the blogosphere. What is driving this widely felt need for leadership? One answer is that designland is feeling a collective sense of both disorientation and opportunity— have designers ever felt so simultaneously highly valued and uncertain about their future? As I have previously argued in these pages the design industry is living through 'seismic times' and 'as the ground shifts under our feet, we scramble for a clearer view of the emerging landscape.' To push this geological metaphor further, the industry is looking for pathfinders to guide us through unfamiliar new territory to the land of opportunity.

Self-importance, not clarity, seems to be the main concern. At one level this isn't surprising. Leadership is a slippery topic these days: there are more books on Amazon attempting to define the mojo of leadership than that other holy grail, innovation.

Many new paths are being cleared in numerous directions—from selling one-offs in art galleries to facilitating co-creation processes—by very different types of pioneers with their own perspectives and tool sets. For me it is useful to think of design leaders as trailblazers taking design forward in different ways. They break new ground by envisaging and then helping to create the future shape of the profession.

10 faces of design leadership
To illustrate the point here are 10 types of design leader who have pushed the boundaries of the profession over the past few decades— for good or bad. The categories are neither exhaustive, nor mutually exclusive... but hey, everyone loves (to hate) a list.
The Maestros
Design craft leaders who have raised the bar in design practice. Exemplar practitioners who have set new standards in their own fields include Jonathan Ive, Naoto Fukasawa, Masamichi Udagawa and Sigi Moeslinger, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, and Thomas Heatherwick.

The Visionaries
Discipline leaders who have pioneered new fields of practice, like Bill Moggridge in product interaction design; Ron Arad in design art; Larry Keeley in design strategy; and Live|Work in adapting product and interaction design methods to the design of services.

The Managers
Corporate leaders who have led design to the top table in their companies and in turn elevated the design function, like J Mays as VP of design & Chief Creative Officer at Ford group, Chris Bangle at BMW, and Tom Ford at Gucci.

The Entrepreneurs
Business leaders who have explored new ways of doing business in design, like Terence Conran as design consultant and retailer; David Kelly in the foundation of Ideo; and Tom Dixon with his unique combination of roles as designer, manufacturer and director of Artek.

The Ambassadors
Communication leaders adept at accessing public, business and government forums to convey the benefits of design, like Richard Seymour and Dick Powell with their TV programmes; Clive Grinyer in various private and public sector roles; and Tim Brown, most notably at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

The Entertainers
PR leaders who have captured the imagination of the non-design press and re-positioned what design means in the public consciousness—for better or for worse—like Philippe Starck, Karim Rashid, and Marcel Wanders.

The Scholars
Education leaders who have pioneered new forms of design education, like Michael and Katherine McCoy at the Cranbrook Institute in the nineties; Gillian Crampton-Smith, the founder of both the Computer Related Design course at the RCA and the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea; Lidewij Edelkoort in her role as chairwoman at the Design Academy Eindhoven; and Patrick Whitney, Director of the Institute of Design at IIT. And let us not forget the unsung leaders of great courses, such as those at the Universities of Cincinnati and Northumbria.

The Provocateurs
Thought leaders from outside designland who challenge its navel-gazing tendencies and cajole designers into reflecting on the context in which we work, like the ever polemical James Woudhuysen with his exposes of design's muddled thinking and low expectations; John Thackara in his eclectic dispatches from the fringes of design, art and environmentalism; Rick Poynor with his well aimed broadsides; and Roger Martin with his home truths on how designers are perceived by business people.

The Scribes
Editorial leaders who have pioneered new forms of design journalism, like Deyan Sudjic with Blueprint; Jeremy Myerson with Design Week; Tyler Brule with Wallpaper and Monocle; Bruce Nussbaum at Business Week; the teams behind Core 77 and Design Observer.

The Curators
Influential museum and gallery directors who have presented design in new ways to new audiences, like Stephen Bayley at the V&A Boilerhouse and the Design Museum; Paola Antonelli at MoMA; Alice Rawsthone at the Design Museum; Murray Moss at his Moss store; and Carla Sozzani at her 10 Corso Como store.


This is obviously a partial list—and some leaders could feature in several categories. For example, Steve Jobs is in a class of his own as not only a business but also a pivotal design leader for his sophisticated understanding of design and the exacting standards he holds Apple designers to. No matter. My point is to illustrate that there are many different types of design leaders —and no common template. A corporate design manager helping to steer a company into an emerging market requires a very different skill set and approach from the head of a start-up consultancy pioneering new methods in the design of public services.

The Post-Materialist | Muji Obsession

By Nick Currie in New York Times



A report from our Berlin correspondent on design in culture.
The Japanese call them (that is, they call us) “Mujirers” — people so addicted to Muji’s “no brand quality goods” that its store openings and new product announcements set our pulses racing. In Japan, the store can cater to all your needs, from cradle to grave. Since the 1980s it’s offered not just household goods, but food, clothes, bicycles, campsites, phones, yoga, furniture, floral shops, cafes, even off-the-peg concept homes. And, some would add, a state of mind.

Here in the West we’re finally getting the chance to discover why a brand built on the apparent absence of branding inspires such loyalty. New York Mujirers experienced a bout of tachycardia last week when the city’s second Muji store (the first is in SoHo) opened on the ground floor of The New York Times building (40th Street side). Up to forty Mujis are set to follow, in cities across the US. Here in Berlin, the opening of the city’s first Muji store two weeks ago in the former British Council building threw many of us — thrifty, discriminating people inexplicably thrilled by self-assembly pens, wooden toys and endless rows of subtly-nested semi-transparent plastic boxes — into a state of tastefully-understated hysteria.

What unites all these products is a certain lack of splash, an avoidance of unnecessary color, pattern and detail. Designed by the likes of Naoto Fukasawa — whose recent book with Jasper Morrison calls the aesthetic “Supernormal” — Mujiware approaches the Japanese ideal of shibui: an unobtrusive beauty. The company is also committed to fair trade, sustainability and recycling.
I always think of Muji as the kind of store likely to appeal to readers of early Nicholson Baker, a man who could wax lyrical for pages on the origami-like beauty of a milk carton spout. But in fact it’s cyberpunk sci-fi writer William Gibson who really nailed its appeal: “It calls up a wonderful Japan that doesn’t really exist,” Gibson wrote, “a Japan of the mind, where even toenail-clippers and plastic coat-hangers possess a Zen purity: functional, minimal, reasonably priced. I would very much like to visit the Japan that Muji evokes. I would vacation there and attain a new serenity, smooth and translucent, in perfect counterpoint to natural fabrics and unbleached cardboard.”

Muji the company is, characteristically, more restrained. Its Web site says it’s all about “the confident awareness that modesty and discretion are, together, the better part of style.” Be still, my beating, ecologically-packaged heart!

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