A list of things I have learned thus far

Stephan Sagmeister is a designer and artist who has taken what he has learned through experience and expressed it through an assortment of large scale installation art pieces. He revisited the list from which the pieces were created at the 2007 TED conference which you can watch here.










In response to the list of things Stephan Sagmeister has learned so far, I too have boiled down what I now know into a short list of knowable truths.

I cannot control how my words, actions, or designs are interpreted.
I am responsible for my failings and successes.
karma will be repaid, for better or worse.
A mistake is often forgivable, taking for granted that it will be forgiven, is not.
Loving some(one/thing) is meaningless unless you express it.
When you love and respect yourself, others will too.
Stupidity ends with education, ignorance with love, and arrogance with defeat.
Losing control of my temper brings out the ugly side of the people around me.
My creativity is dependent on nourishment and rest.
I will never be completely satisfied by the quality of my own work.

While I cannot say that I look back favorably on the circumstances in which these lessons were learned, their value to me is incalculable nonetheless.

Advertising and Design: Driving Sales or Experience?

Not only is Graphic Design and Advertising moving towards providing an experience for the consumer, one design firm, Blast Radius specializes in what they call EXD or experience design.









I recently visited Blast Radius during this year's Emerging Designer's Conference, and while they have appropriated the acronym EXD to represent their process(which is almost entirely web-related) I think that it is indicative of the environment which we are training to participate within.

Modern businesses are built on cohesive brands that consumers can identify with. Thus developing products and services that play into an overriding user 'experience' is part of almost any modern business model. When we create an identity for a company or brand a product, this is ultimately what we are establishing.

At blast radius and throughout all of the tours at headstart, the common theme was to look at the end user, and reverse engineer the ideal user experience to ensure that people will respond to the media they are presented.

AIGA Conference - Command X

As a young designer, I know that designing for an audience would be a heartstopping trauma. For this reason, I am sympathetic to the designers featured on Command X during this year's AIGA conference.







The 7 designers who attempted the challenge were (in no particular order) Ryan, Matt, Elaine, Mike, Scott, Kelly, and Nichelle.

The challenge for part one was to redesign the Denver Bronco's logo. Alas I don't think these
guys were really sports enthusiasts, but their designs were at least founded in some amount of research.











My favorite design for this event was matt's modernist attempt at a sports logo, which came nowhere near what the clients would have wanted. For me, I liked the look of the logo, but it would not be a logo I would submit unless I had solid research that said the target market would respond to it.

We keep hearing the idea of including one revolutionary option amongst a few safer ones, when presenting concepts to a client, and this is definitely one of those logo's that was way off in left field. but given that he only had one logo, he did a damn good job creating an experience for the judges with his presentation.














I personally felt that the design that spoke best to the target was nichelles steam engine bronco. It communicated power and had an edge with the distressed linework.

I wont go so far as to pick on my least favorite designs, but I will say that I wasn't surprised with the depatures of Mike and Scott.

The Wino - er... Wine Connoisseur Speaks on Design

As I am currently in the process of branding my winery, e?nigma, I have been paying even closer attention to the packaging of wines from different regions. I personally like the cost-value relationship of Australian and South African wines, but additionally these wines tend to have some of the most interesting and diverse packaging and brands on the shelves today.

I've been long bored by the gold embossing and delicate paper textures on wine bottles from italy and france. It was said to me recently that some feel that these characteristics are iconic of quality and prestige but I think this is hogwash. I may not be wealthy enough to appreciate the value of a $50 bottle of wine, but cost seems to be the only thing indicated by so-called 'fancy' packaging on these bottles.

I like to get a sense of mood from a bottle of wine; is it fun, sombre, delicate, exuberant, sensual? I cannot tell this from a fancy gold swash or an off-white label.

I prefer wines who attempt to create a sense of play or experimentation in the consumer, here are a few examples of 'fun' wine packaging:

Red Knot:

Kelly's Revenge:

South African wine - Obikwa:

My desire to create a mood for the consumer will be translated through the batch name where each batch will feature a dynamic and unusual name that when interpereted will indicate the qualities of the wine itself. eg. 'Glacial Sandstorm' (A dry wine best served chilled) etc.