Noisy Decent Graphics

Some of the worst usability I've seen in a long time

The other week, I had a little trouble logging onto the Design Week website. Odd, I thought, I must have forgotten my password. So I clicked onto the 'Forgot Password?' link and awaited an email.

When the email arrived it said click on this link and reset your password. Here's the screen that greeted me when I clicked on the link.

Can you stop the obvious mistake there? I thought it was a joke, so I entered my new password. This is what happened next.

Yes, my current password is incorrect because I've forgotten it.

To be fair, it turns out I couldn't log in because we'd forgotten to renew our subscription, but that's not
the point. A 'Forgot Password?' link that takes you to a page that asks you to enter your current password is insane.

Still, mustn't crumble, recently Design Week very kindly wrote about my Flickr page .

On a similar note, the last issue of Digit featured some stunning insights from me about pitching and presenting. You'll be able to read the article here.

Things I / we have done that haven't worked.

I think the title is fairly self explanatory, but to clarify; it means stuff I've done as a graphic designer or stuff we've done at work that just hasn't worked. Here goes.

1. Asked a potential client to choose what we look at in a creds meeting.
I had this brilliant idea that to stop the boredom of a standard creds / portfolio meeting we'd lay all our work out on the table and ask the potential client to choose a piece of work they liked. So we did this at a meeting with Burberry.

Yes, Burberry.

Cue very puzzled brand manager, "Errr, oh I don't know, erm you choose one".
Me, "No, no, no, you pick something that looks interesting".
Brand Manager, "Erm. Errr. Oh. Umm. No, you choose something..."
Me, "No, no, no, you pick something that looks interesting".
Brand Manager, "Errrr....".

We never worked with Burberry.

2. Cut a straight line.
I absolutely can not cut a straight line. Nowhere even near. At college the head of our course cut the stuff out for my college show. Now Tom or April do it.

3. Ice Cream Van.
A few years ago we were thinking about buying an ice cream van. We were going to paint it all up, all get dressed up and drive it round to clients and potential clients offices. Redo the inside so it could show all our work. And so.

That was until we had a meeting with our business advisor who said things like, "where are you going to park it?" "you're gonna turn up at my office in this smelly, dirty old diesel van..." "who's going to drive it?" "what if it's raining?" "how often are you going to use it?" and so on. It probably sounds like a half decent idea written on here, but it isn't. Trust me it isn't.

4. Mispronounced a name.
In any industry it's a good idea to have a decent relationship with journalists from the trade press. It isn't a good idea to mispronounce their name (a different way) every single time you meet them. That's one publication and one person who will never have a good, correctly pronounced word to say about me.

5. Scan.
I used to be able to scan stuff, not very well, but I could do it. Now I wouldn't know where to start. Does Twain Acquire still exist?

6. Sage.
Have you ever used Sage? Do you know what a nominal code is? Do you know what nominal code 5002 is? Have you ever tried putting one and a half years of accounts into Sage? Are you an accountant?

7. Shouted at someone for being late when actually I was late.
Do I need to explain that? And I mean really shouted.

8. Tried to make centred type look good.
But then no one can do that.

Keep the bins laden

It's only April and already we have the Headline Of The Year.

Helvetica Film?

There must be someone reading this who knows something about when this Helvetica film is coming to London. Is it ever coming? Are there dates?

Should we try and organise it? I can think of a few places that would show it and I'm sure there are lots of people reading this who'd like to see it. Right?

So, anyone know anything?

One Secret Is To Save Everything

More here.

Because they're all different, they're all numbered, photographed and carefully indexed.

Have you ever wondered what these Space Invader things are? So have I.

Now you can find out here.

Advice: Sit at the front

Here's something that really annoys me.

If you've spent good money (or if your company has spent good money) on a conference or a lecture the least you can do is sit at the bloody front.

If you look closely at the picture above (bottom left, in a bit) you can see me and Beeker sat right at the front. I'm in the gold corduroy jacket, Beeker is the one looking slightly pissed off because I made her sit at the front.

What's wrong with sitting at the front? It's not bloody school.

You're probably going to hear some really interesting people so you want to be as close as you can, don't you? It's not like a fucking Derren Brown show where they're going to drag you out of the audience and make you give a stuffed donkey a blow job. So sit at the front. Ta.

Fully Charged

This is one of the best ideas I've seen in a long time.

We rented an apartment in Barcelona last month and the owner included this basket full of every mobile charger you could ever wish for. All with Spanish plugs, obviously.

I've lost count of the amount of times I've been abroad, or even away from home in the UK, and forgotten my charger. It feels like part of you has died when that little battery finally gives up the ghost.

Six years ago, at the Edinburgh Festival I saw a mobile phone charging unit by Orange.  It was like a series of small swimming pool lockers. You paid a pound, took a wristband key and you could leave your phone charging in a secure environment. Brilliant. No more forgetting, or even if you've remembered no more carrying, that bloody lead. I thought I'd soon see them everywhere, but I never saw another one. Have you ever seen one?

The other day at the D&AD judging I saw one of these. It's not the same, but it's very similar. It may even be the same company that makes them.

Don't you think it's a good idea? I can imagine them in office receptions, at train stations and airports throughout the land.

Send 'em in

I met three people last week (who weren't friends of Russell) who mentioned the Interesting conference. Most of them bemoaned the fact that they didn't manage to get tickets. Have no fear because Russell has released another 100 tickets which I think you can buy today.

And don't forget to send your tshirts and your old posters to us at TDC HQ (the address etc is here). I know it's early days, but remember, being early is like being lucky.

interesting2007

20% to 33% equals an increase of 65%

  "Sir Martin, the chief executive of the world's second-largest advertising   company, expects further strength in the internet advertising market, adding   that the medium now accounts for 20 per cent of its sales. He believes the   proportion of sales from the internet will rise to about a third of its   business as penetration picks up in continental Europe."

The Dossier

I've just finished sending out our monthly email newsletter (which we call The Dossier) and it occurred to me that some of you may want to sign up. If that's the case you can do that here.

If you don't want to do that, then you should look at Richard's now legendary set of Pelicans on Flickr.

Yellow Pencils

Whilst we're on the subject. Not mine. Spotted in the reception of someone else.

Meet in the top field at 4?

There is a good (and in my humble opinion - fair) article about the design vs advertising D&AD thing over on Michael Johnson's blog.

Michael used to be the President of D&AD and he's actually won a Black Pencil for Graphic Design, something that's really fucking hard to do. (Only four have been won in the last 30 years for graphics. Is that right? Can someone check? Claire?) So he knows what he's on about. Read it.

Brand New, New Brand

Luxford Advertising

I used to work here. It was a pharmaceutical advertising agency called Luxford Advertising. It's long since gone now. It didn't go bust, the Chairman just decided to close it one day. Well, he didn't just wake up one morning and decide to close it, he put a bit more thought into it than that.

Kingsley and April once heard Paul Smith say that his dream is to one day just close all the Paul Smith shops. Put up a sign that says, 'thanks for your custom, we are now closed'.

Anyway, that picture up there used to be the Boardroom. Now it's the waiting room for Charles Worthington hairdressers. I left Luxford in 2000 and it closed in 2004, I think. There were around 25 staff and they did everything from DM to TV, but mainly print ads. The agency was based in a lovely Georgian (?) terrace that's now just round the corner from our office. When someone told me it had become Charles Worthington's gaff I wondered round for a look.

This used to be the basement. It still is a basement. It used to house two copywriters, an art director and a creative secretary.

This used to be reception. Reception was on the 1st floor (that's one above ground for my US visitors) which used to annoy the hell out of me. Receptions should be on the ground floor. Obviously.

Through that door, top left used to be the photocopier and where the nail varnish type stuff is used to sit the fax machine.

It was very odd going back. So many memories, so many visual memories smashed by CH's architect. The place looks really nice, by the way.

If you're reading this and you used to work at Luxford, leave a comment below.

What simple piece of graphic design would improve this sign no end?

 

The Design Conspiracy Doercast

Should you wish to, you can listen to a podcast Kingsley and I recorded whilst we were in Romania.

It's called a Doercast because the guys behind the recordings only interview doers. Which means they think we must be doers. Very flattering.

Einstein was right, probe shows

Ever so slightly better than 'Duck comes back from dead, again'.

PUSH HARD

I saw this little sign on a big, heavy, wooden door the other day.

Those four little letters make all the difference. How many times have you pushed a door only to find you've used far too much or far too little strength. That little 'HARD' just gives you enough extra information to make the instruction so much more helpful.

Fantastic usability and so much better than this.

Masterpiece

I read this little tale in the Evening Standard today. Because the Evening Standard suite of websites are so fucking shit I can't find the full story. So I'm going to try and write it down from memory; ie it may not be 100% accurate.

There is a tale about a man that finds an old masterpiece in his attic. It has lain undiscovered for centuries. The man contacts an expert who cannot believe it's lain undiscovered for so long and therefore must be a fake.

A few months later another, identical masterpiece is found. Now the expert is puzzled. Two identical paintings that have lain undiscovered for months. Which one is the fake?

Actually, both of them were fakes, but no one could see it. Sometimes we want something to be true so bad, greed clouds our vision.