Where have I been?

I’ve been at the white house.

The creative world is a weird one. We know that…we wouldn’t have signed up for this if it was anything but. A crazy life driven by time lines and deliveries…an endless cycle of ebb and flow in terms of work. Periods of full out effort and downtime of reflection and creative rejuvenation. What? Where the hell does that happen? Well..it has to happen sometime and I recently decided to take on a private project…despite my ridiculous schedule lately. I took on something I had no business doing. Ahh. Perfect. This is becoming a familiar trend in my life.

The project was called “Whitehouse Redux“. An open call for entries via their website (whitehouseredux.org) lured me in. I thought what an interesting challenge that would be to deliver a message and an experience in a physical environment. A departure for me where the majority of my creative effort resides is in the web or in print, but I actually think that the specifics of mediums is irrelevant. I mean communicators should be able to act in any medium. Right? Right. Besides I love the fact of doings things where I have no right to to be doing them. So architecture seemed like the perfect arena for me to do such an act, and it seems I am not the only one.

To the meat of it all…what was compelling to me about this project is that most of us instantly have some pre-conceived idea of what the White House symbolizes. What was even more compelling was the re-envisioning of what it could symbolize.

Something I preach to my team regularly is the practice of really getting into the language and idea your creating and really geeking out on those details. I usually say create your own world. I realized I miss that in what I mainly do now. I was joking with one of my creatives recently about my personal creative output lately had been .pdf edits and cocktail napkin sketches. I miss the process of the mechanics of getting into a file and creating the worlds I keep telling my creatives to do. This project was to be an escape, a place to immerse myself in the “what if” that is missing in so much of our lives, in this pre-calculated today.

The White House to me ( in its current state) a symbol of secrecy, power and well…not a home, anymore. Lets think about that…it is a home. A home for the highest elected official in our land. It’s a home that we all decide ( yeah I know…go with me on this) who gets to live there. That person we put there leads out nation. Translation: The White House is really “our house” all of ours. My goal was to design a house that was about making the White House a house again and allowing democracy to be served fully. A place where our decision making and international dealings were done in with complete transparency.

Like I said this was a contest and I had a blast doing it. I don’t expect to win…but it was a fun endeavor. I really am interested in seeing the other ideas. I am excited to see what real pros could churn out if there were no boundaries…so we’ll see. I did just receive a note from whitehouseredux.org mentioning due to the overwhelming participation ( 831 participants from 42 different countries around the world) that they need just a little more time to review the work and tally the votes.

So anyway stay tuned to see what the new residence of the world’s most powerful individual might look like. For the time being here is my take. Download “Transparency” now.

The Polaroid Edge Effect and the Little Save Icon.

Every once and a while I’ll just write about some stuff that is just in my head in the hopes the sheer process of getting it out of there may un-clutter my brain.

Some things are relics of our past intruding on present day….I think thats actually a line from Ghostbusters. Damn, thats weird, and re-affirms I am old(er). I am realizing that are many things that we use as very common visual vernacular that I am not convinced the folks under 25 may have ever seen, in real life. And since we really use or engage with these things everyday…lets figure out what to do about them.

#1. The polaroid edge effect. Its found on every photo sharing site. It’s also becoming especially popular in communications that are intended to be scrap-booky or collective. Lots of non-profits love this effect…in fact I may go as so far to say its the non profit equivalent to the “wet” or “glossy” omni present reflective look made popular by Apple. But does everyone know where it came from or what it denotes? I think its humorous that this vehicle is used in teasing younger audiences. I can remember special family events and grandpa pointing a big horrible piece of industrial design that clumsily un-folded, right at me. He would (with some effort) push a bulky button and the device would spit out an inky dark dark square surrounded by that white frame we see so much of today. I can remember the anticipation of waiting, then seeing the image emerge. To me I see that and I know where it came from. Those of us who can remember that era know that it represented candid-ness, and an “instant” flash minutes later providing memory preserved forever…(or until it turned a monoprint in all hues of reds)…but does everyone? I was shooting with a film camera the other day and I cant tell you the disapointment on my kids faces when they could “look at the back” an see what I just shot. Kids.

#2. The save icon on PC’s. Come on. It’s a 3.5 inch floppy. From a UE perspective its had to be a knock. Because again those who weren’t around when DOS was the thing and Macs loaded their 3.5’s into the front, probably don’t have a clue what that thing is. Let alone what it really means or as an icon implies. Yet it is the most important command available in any program…next to undo…of course. Also what does it say about brand? “Hey you see this little thing…it means you can save with confidence. Just like it was 1996. And we’re proud of that.” So, without a historical preservation tour before any new generation of users is allowed to run rampant through a computer, how in the world can anyone think this is a good idea?

OK. So what to do about it? The polaroid edge thing I think will evolve away going the way of the Dodo and hopefully all the trappings of “The Web 2.0 look”. So we might not have to do anything about it. But you could show the kids a real polaroid, how it works and to enjoy a bit of anticipation in an instant gratification world. The damn little save icon, its useless…we can never change it. Don’t force the kids to see where that thing came from. Let’s just keep our heads down and maybe it will go away…or the next iPod will look like it. Then we’ll all know what it means again.

The Cultural Cursor.

I was having a chat with resident genius and super guy (seriously) Marc Escobosa the other evening on our states of things. He spoke a phrase that I thought really was worth talking about more. That phrase was…”a cultural cursor”, he used it as a way describe the role we as visual communicators operate. The definition of cursor is…”A cursor is a moving placement or pointer that indicates a position.” Furthermore…”The literal meaning of the original latin word cursor expresses the idea of someone or something that runs.” Damn. Marc is smart. We are moving pointers who indicate a position, at least we should be. And we tend to run around a lot. Well at least I do. Don’t you?

Think about it…our roles as creatives are to be exactly that, pointers who indicate a position, or at least points of view. We are selective sponges…constantly taking cues and making notes of what is going out there and what people are ready for. I say selective because if you took in what everything that was popular, edgy, trendy, contemporary, corporate etc…you’d end up with…well, something like the current rage of the “Web 2.0 look”, a vast blend of everything that results in so much homogeneousness, it really depresses me. That look is completely devoid of any point of view originality, focus or real idea, not to mention brand. I guess that’s it’s purpose, to appease all, since there is no way that much glow and gradients could ever set off of someones subjectivity hot buttons (except mine). The result complete vanilla. Read here…no position. But its clear there is no cultural cursor in place in these instances.

In our problem solving efforts (our daily jobs) it become evident how good we are at being “cultural cursors” really comes into play. One of the creative exercises I like to perform in the initial period of any project engagement are what I refer to as the “Barometers”. This ideally consists of 2 types of explorations, socio personas and mood boards, individually or together these 2 exercises heavily inform the creative brief, but more importantly it gives me an idea of where to take our position. Here is where we prove we are cultural cursors.

The socio persona. I have never found much creative use for “user personas”. They are wonderful for seeing how buying process plays out. But less than impressive when I am trying to to really get glimpse into what these people consume and digest. I want to know the way they like to be talked to, or better yet how they like to be listened to. In an effort to communicate with people you have to speak their language. And how do you do that without knowing all the things that define their vocabulary? Well? Ask them. Ask them what they read, what they watch, what they listen to…music especially is a big cue for me. Like fans of “The Smiths” can always handle the color, black. True. Ask them if they cook. What kind of car do they drive? Incomes and age are deciding factors but they don’t tell complete stories. From interviewing users we usually will construct 1 persona from a number of interviews…the result: a collaged interpretation of the persona. A visual depiction, usually a paste up of different things, from typographic approaches to words, to colors and patterns. Here notes, doodles etc find their way in. And always a face. From here we get to understand what a particular audience segment, who the persona represents, can handle or expects visually and gives us insight on how they want to be spoken to.

The mood board. Time permitting the mood board provides an organic way for designer to really begin to feel out “what if’s”. It provides an opportunity for the starts of directions and languages to be envisioned. Mood boards if not approached with goals in mind correctly can be fun, but useless. Clearly defined objectives for each board are necessary. These can be composed form clippings and sketches from magazines, books whatever. When dealing with a project where there is an abundance of material that exists already, this is always a wonderful excuse, to tear that stuff apart. Literally. Tear it apart and put it back together so that it becomes new again, yet remains familiar. When these come out right they result into “at a glance” glimpses of possible directions.

In combination or individually these two exercises are wonderful tools, which I like to refer to as barometers. These exercises allow us to go into a project very early on and plant stakes firmly in the ground. Once we read the “barometers” we can really focus in on some specific direction and concentrate all of our energy where it will do the most use.

So it’s true…a lot of what I just described can happen without a lot of formality. In fact more often than not it does. We are after all “cultural cursors”. My friend Marc mentioned the the book ” The Tipping Point” saying it suggests that people are either ready for an idea or not. Plain and simple. I like to believe our role as visual communicators, is not defined by a black and white line drawn in the sand. Part of the fun part of our job is the fact that we see, feel and experience so much of whats going on out there, we have good instincts about what our clients need and what they can handle. I am saying trust your gut, your clients should come to you for as much as what goes on there just much as they do for what goes on in your head. After all it is experiences that lead us to any sort of ideas we come up with. Whether you’re aware of it or not, it is your constant responsibility as a creative to take note of your surroundings as much as it is to figure how much of what you see, experience and learn makes its way back into your particular projects. Good visual communicators are “Cultural Cursors”.

The value of idea.

According to wikipedia an idea is…a concept or abstraction formed in the mind. Philosophers view the simple definition of the word itself in a million different ways. Ideas can be many things…from simple diversions ranging to legal property. But the one thing ideas aren’t is “free”. All ideas have value. Sure some less than others. Compare the idea behind those baby pacifiers with the hillbilly teeth in the front to say, the idea behind the cure for Polio or the Pasteurization process. Or are they? The value of any idea is directly based on it’s relevance to those who need it. We like to think that what we do as designers, visual communicators and creatives is that we strive to act upon the force known as the idea. In fact that is the most valuable part of what we do…coming up with ideas.

Original ideas are I would dare to say the most valuable part of any creative or strategic exercise. With the wealth of layout programs, filters and pre-built templates out there…the execution is inherently less valuable. Why? Because execution, not to ever be confused with craft, is now a commodity. Because one idea does not fit every problem. That is why truly original thinking and the ideas that result are the most valuable things that anyone can ever create. It is why we work so hard everyday to deliver the things our clients not only want but what we know they need. That is why we get hired.

There is a reason you don’t see a lot of outsourcing for things like curing cancer or any sort of great creative work. Why? Because really big ideas and the solutions that result, don’t fit into template structures and require organic and unorthodox approaches that are not easily replicated in assembly line fashion. Its nice to know in our constant quest to speed every damn thing in this world up, that the idea will come when the idea comes. Again another reason why ideas are highly valuable. In many ways ideas, strategic, thinking and sheer creativity, are not unlike diamonds. Both are reasonably unlimited resources (I know DeBeers would like us to believe diamonds are otherwise…). Both are highly valuable when in the right hands, and ironically there are varying degrees to their perfection. But regardless…there is an awareness of the value they represent.

When was the last time you got a diamond for free? I would say unless you’re on the fortunate end of some inheritance the answer is never. So the same should hold true for ideas. We value our ideas. Our clients value our ideas. Clients would never arrive on our doorstep and they would definitely never return if they didn’t see this value. The ideas that we arrive at or strive for, directly add value to our clients business and goals, in many ways, further compounding the pure value of what I have been talking about. Additionally we benefit from our ideas too, since they provide opportunities to explore new possibilities, that lend to our experience as strategic thinkers, and help power our internal libraries of material that help generate even more valuable new ideas. Simply put. We work very hard on our ideas, they deserve to be honored and delivered with respect. So it goes without saying that our ideas are never ever to be given away for free.

Consistency above all else.

Paul Rand once said “Don’t try to be original, just try to be good”. Some may argue with that, voicing that originality and inventiveness rule the business we are in. Many would think without it we would all be bored out of our skulls and stuck in the dark ages. I can partially agree with that…but without consistency we would all be lost. I like to think what Paul was saying was be consistent. Consistency undoubtedly breeds “good” visual communication.

Why?  Because without consistency you end up presenting multiple problems to your audience before you can even begin to communicate with them. I often push design teams to build “rules” for themselves that will establish systems of consistency. This way we can “teach” users our rules, related to the particular problem we are solving. That could be extending a brand or relaying the idea of some new technology, sometimes both. These rules that enforce consistency, visual handrails if you will, that provide a sense of dependability and safety. This all makes it easier for the audience to venture out to different parts of the communication we’re creating and immediately get down to doing what they came the for, the business of finding, exploring and digesting information contained within printed pages or digital experiences.

I love it when clients, friends and even our families think that designers, creatives… whatever you call them, are artists in smocks and berets, throwing pixels around. Ideation can happen in that environment, but the craft of actually making the delivery mechanism of the communication, (Websites, brochures, ads, etc) is far less sexy than that. Simply because what we do is about thinking and reasoning, to reach conclusions and to tell those stories, you need rules and systems. Big or small, rules and systems provide the consistency, that make sit possible for information to be distributed and consumed. It’s kind of ironic to think that in the world of brand and technology which is in a constantly state of re-invention and always looking for originality, really can’t move forward with out some adherence to consistency.

Whether its messaging, visual systems or even coding…to be “good” at what we do everyday there needs to be a set of underlying rules, known as consistencies.

Bovine Coverage

About this time last year Six-Fifty approached me to design a cycling kit for them. I knew a few of the team member were rockers from way back. So…the now famous “Van Hell Yeah!” pattern was created. Heavily borrowing form Eddie Van Halen’s trademark guitar paint jobs. So the Tour of California wrapped up today…and with OLN, sorry VS, (you know the hockey, bull riding, fishing and sometimes cycling channel?) there was some televised evidence of some of angry+bovine’s clothing design visible. No, not in the main peloton, maybe next year? Thanks our voyeuristic society, the invention of TiVo and the fine folks at six-fifty racing, who were able to schooze into the Toyota United mini-team segment and were willing to freeze at the top of Mount Hamilton to appear on TV like some crazy camera wielding Tifosi. Thanks Jordan and Kayser for making Bovine look good. Or did Bovine make you look good? Ahhh! Nevermind, check out the current Bovine cycling catalog right here.

12 Questions With…Myself?

So the other day I was asked to answer a few questions for the upcoming launch of solutionset’s blog. It was interesting not what I was saying but the fact that I want to do more interviews with other people I work with respect and admire, from with in and outside of design. Like my blog their thoughts should somehow relate to creativity. I think I’ll change the format a bit. But this is something that has sparked me to document how other folks see the world.

Just so you can see how I answered:

1. What’s your role at SolutionSet?
(me) My role here is to lead, motivate and inspire the creative staff and share my passion for visual problem solving with everyone inside and out of our walls. I am also a creative director.

2. How long have you been with the company?
(me) I joined January 1 of 2007, so a bit over a year.

3. Where are some places you’ve worked prior to SolutionSet?
(me) I have a had a number of stints at a variety of creative shops around the bay, ranging from a boutique-y annual report joint to an ad shop to one of the very first pure interactive firms here in the bay area. I was also part of the wonderful poster child for the bubble, known as marchfirst. I also went on to learn about what our clients are up against daily by being a creative director on the client side for more than 4 years at 2 different technology companies.

4. What’s your favorite thing about your job?
(me) My Job. Making stuff that answers questions. Clients and the people I work with.

5. When you’re not at the office, where are we likely to find you?
(me) With my family, probably skateboarding or making something with my kids, hangin with the wife, or on my bike…or talking about being on the bike. Or introducing people to people I met on my bike (that was for Alex Kim).

6. When you were a little kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
(me) A pilot. My dad was a decorated Marine Corps (answers a lot of questions huh?)Aviator, who was shot down and still returned to do an additional tour in Viet Nam afterwards. His word was everything and it set an example for me today. I still think to this day what he did for the service of our country is amazing.

7. What’d you study in school?
(me) Uh oh. Well. That took a while. I knew I would do something that was visual it was all I was ever good at. Originally I set out to be a Art Historian, then a fine artist, then an illustrator, then I had to take a design course. And realized that there was a profession for what I had been doing all along. Dang, that part took like 5 years alone.

8. What made you decide to work in design?
(me) My first job in design made me decide to work in design. How? I can explain. So the boutique-y annual report shop I mentioned above…was run by this very powerful little woman, who was kind of like being around the Marines again…lots of yelling and ordering…etc. In the daily fray I would ask the designers how they did what they did. They would often rudely tell me not to bother them. Except for one. One day I came in and she said “ Lets get some coffee.” that conversation changed my life. She pointedly asked me what I wanted to do. I said “I want to make things”. She then said “Get out of here as fast as you can.” I wasn’t sure why she said that…but when we got back to the shop she very professionally backed up all her files…gave her key to the receptionist and we never saw her again. In fact in 2 days the other designers (who wouldn’t deal with me) quit too. I smelled opportunity and true to form, I dove right in to my new found responsibility of being the ONLY designer left. Sweet. I could only go up.

9. What’s something exciting you’re working on right now?
(me) My kids…man that’s a lot of work. I also am working a rather conceptual vision/positioning campaign for BEA. Some very fun things for Adobe. And a very visible project here in Palo Alto “The Black and White Ball theme for 2008.

10. What’s your design philosophy?
(me) Gee. That’s tough. I know I should say “swiss” or “ form follows function” or something like that. But in reality, my approach or philosophy in design is to do whatever it takes to help an idea become a reality. For ideas to become reality they must have purpose and reason. A common thing my design team may hear me say is “Be true to the system you have set up already…more often than not the answer to design problems are right in front of you and simplifying and reducing things around the problem usually reveals the solution.”

11. What’s one of your proudest moments as a creative director?
(me) One of my proudest moments as a creative director was when I found out that a series of posters I had done to explain a very complicated technology space was being used in a university as an educational tool to explain to students the value of this technology.

12. What would you tell someone who wants to break into the industry?
(me) Learn to run. Not to run away. But to run hard. Be hungry and try like hell on everything you do.

So stayed tuned for my periodic interviews which I hope get completely derailed from a static list of questions.

Wireframes Are Not Coloring Books for Designers.

I was chatting with Dave Lowe-Rogstad the other day co-founder of the upstart creative shop Substance in Portland. We were talking about how we as designers and communicators had to be the UE/IA (User Experience/Information Architecture) experts in addition to the title on our business card. In fact way back when they were really inseparable, or at least it was difficult to discern where UE/IA ended and design started. What he said has stuck with me…”Information architecture shouldn’t be about making coloring books for the designers to fill out”.

The UE/IA role is a rather new one. I won’t disparage what the good ones do. Like any profession…there are good and bad. I think what has actually led to the proliferation of the breed is our goddamn quest to speed everything up. That’s fine. So are IA/UE folks jobs are there to get things on a page suggest some positions and get clients to sign off on essentially a checklist of must haves set in an objective setting devoid of theme and color? Not if you ask one of them personally. First off they would say their job is “to protect the user”. From what? Paper cuts? A nasty multi-key combo? or the dreaded “no look confusion maker” of dare I say…the absence of a “home”button? Seriously though their aim is to make sure information user need is on pages in somewhat dependable areas…but that sounds like a designer who knows his job? IA/UE, lets call them “usability folks” from here out, are good at setting boundaries for tests and trials I’ll give them that. A creative would pull out before half the of the first of the pots of coffee of the 9 that will be consumed during a typical user testing scenario. Were weak that way. I’ll admit it.

IA/UE suggestions and decisions are also based upon case studies of human interaction with things that are already done. Usability people are wonderful at remembering rules and things that have been done in particular scenarios and cautioning against things and suggesting things that have been proven to work. But this is where it all goes to hell in a hand-basket. More often than not what agencies are presented with is a situation that has a particular set of rules and requirements that by the sheer nature of the client being unique, makes the problem unique. So how can you apply a set of rules based on past solutions that worked on past problems against problems that haven’t been solved yet?

And I think this is where I really try and get involved with the usability folks. It is valuable for a voice to provide some additional rules for the usability teams to truly be effective with their task. For example if a particular website for a company has a brand attribute…e.g.”helpful”…it would be a good idea to have a precedent built in that suggest that is considered during every step of the way. Here the usability folks can be diligent in placing “need help?” links or other aid devices. Additionally determining user flows that truly facilitate a particularly “helpful” experience is where i personally rely on the strengths of UE/IA folks. Why is this important? Because today, Brand is a promise…if that brand lives online than the experience there is the promise personified.

So Dave made a good point. “Information architecture shouldn’t be about making coloring books for the designers to fill out”. It should be about making a guide that was authored by a team of experts (Usability, Creative, and even Account folks? Sure as long as they pick up lunch) who understood a particular problem and developed a system of rules and hierarchy that strategically opens the door for creative to do some wonderful things.

Creative IS a Strategy.

Creative is more than simple decoration. It’s a strategy. Companies, individuals, hell, even agencies that don’t operate with an understanding that whether your designing a logo, building a website or creating a campaign that does not view creative on the same strategic level as a pricing schedule or a go to market strategy are sure to be lost in a sea of competition. Creative as part of a larger corporate strategy, executed correctly will take most far beyond those simply making a competitive product. I haven’t always approached the work I do in this way. But now I honestly can’t think of it any other way than to think “what will be the business result of what I create”. In my wide eyed days of entering the creative field I simply wanted to make cool stuff. I still am excited everyday I do what I do. But, if you can really help a business benefit from whatever cool may be, well now you have something.

It took a cold slap in the face of being on “client side” to really realize that if you wanted your creativity to actually see the light of day, you had to build it on top of objectives and goals rather than simple aesthetics. No matter how cool the aesthetics maybe, if it doesn’t have a reason or quantifiable business benefit, it should never to be a allowed to fly. During my stints on the client side…I dealt with 2 distinctly different scenarios. 1 who knew nothing about creative, nor cared. Number 2 was the complete opposite, knew and loved design, but didn’t fully understand why.

#1. First client side Creative Director role for me. Goal: Help re-brand global technology company. Things to do: Build internal global creative group to help manage effort. Sounds easy enough. Yeah right. It was a horrendously huge job. They had people doing their own things ( marketing, branding, messaging…) all over the globe…no one had any idea why I was there, or what I was trying to do…and they didn’t care. I was hired by very energetic VP of Marketing who saw the value of creative in relation to the strategy he was setting out to accomplish. I quickly realized I had to make the rest of the company care…and I started at the top. Frequent conversations with CEO really allowed me to create branding characteristics that met the hopes and dreams of the company. This fresh face to the world really let them begin to tell a story of resurrection. We even shot a little movie that showed the results of what they did everyday meant to the world. It was here I saw the power of internal branding efforts, of which we did many. Once they realized that creative was something that allowed them to be re-discovered and that life was coming back there was measurable change in the not only the ledgers, but also in the press and industry at large. I soon had everyone at the company beating down my door to weave strategic creative into what they were doing. This was a blessing and a nightmare. Clearer sales collateral led to more sales, products were familied and repackaged to make more sense to the market. It was all delivered via a corporate strategy that relied on creative.

#2 New world. Instantaneous love affair. Goal: “We want to be Apple”, but don’t know why. Things to do: Change everything. Fast. It was here my door was beaten down instantly by everyone in the company. This company had a personality somewhat like an agency, most everyone there got how important creative would be in the overall strategy of the company. With a clear idea of what their brand was already. The bar was already set. High. As a pioneer in narrow sector of on-demand software, they could afford to be different both visually and the way the did business. In fact they had to be. We even had a regular exercise where we gathered everything we were or had been working on and covered some walls with it. Just to take inventory, and see what our cohesivness was, and how different we were from our competitors. Here again it was important to see where they wanted to go (not only from on high, but the usually more tactical view from down low) so that I could tailor the creative to pave the way…literally. On-demand…means it all happens on the web. Everything. So we set out to make it so that the engineer, marketing folks, sales people and even HR’s lives were simplified by having everything needed there too. A great of what creative did here was explain this new thing just in very creative ways

Those 2 different places couldn’t have been more different in the ways the started. But during those 4 years I decided to be on the “other” side of the fence rally taught me something. What I learned there was invaluable as a creative, as a strategic thinker…and as a salesman. We all recognize companies who have taken steps to incorporate creative creative as a whole and adopting into your business seems like a no brainer…in fact I would say today, those are the only ones we recognize anymore. The ones who see creative as a strategy and not simply decoration. Your brand should never be your logo, and your logo should never be your branding.

Let’s not forget it’s a craft.

In a “yeah, we can do that, whole site in just 3 weeks” type of world…it’s nice to get a somewhat sane time frame and deliver some real craftsmanship back to the client. Once in a while take your hand off the sausage machine and show the client, your team and yourself, that “damn, this feels good and we’ll show you” type of thing. A wise man named Christian over the past year or so has really re-ignited my love for “the presentation”. Whenever I get the opportunity (and the time) I love to present the client with something they can walk away with. Something that archives the journey to that point..it usually allows them to see where were going. Whether it’s an identity, website or whatever, why not give them something honoring the work. Let’s not forget it’s a craft…what we do.

I an era of creative presentations via powerpoint and phones or web ex meetings. I ‘ve even heard of presenations that are “un-manned”. That’s why powerpoint has that crazy record feature. The craft of the communication and presentation of ideas is not lost one..if I am to be involved. Be it elaborate or simply well thought through in terms of archival components…I see them as attempts to honor this craft.

Recently I have worked on few projects that had some wonderful craft traits to them. Education.com for one. A relatively fast moving project but very inspirational because of the folks we were working with. This essentially web MD for educational information had a detailed and complicated journey. At the end of a detailed and very interactive presentation. The client was presented with a documentation of that journey. This document was the culmination of the findings of a full brand exercise combined with first round identity directions resulted in a take home composition book. That drove home the greater idea of who they will be…and reminded them of those who helped get them there.

More recently a project for a web-service start-up with evite and myspace type of approach to the serious business of creating memorial sites for departed friends and loved ones needed an identity. Everyone on this project has experienced a death in the family or of a friend. We all knew this presentation had to be something from within us. In this instance, we wanted to not only reveal new identity directions but also let them see how impacting this service and its promise to the world could be. The result? A box of honor…with inset plates and chaptered stories setting up each mark retold the story from the presentation.

In both these instances story telling and craft really help sell the design and make our jobs as creatives not only easier, but more successful. At a bare minimum when I present the hard work of myself and the rest of my team (you know…the craft)…I want to do it justice. We as creatives on projects are often closer to the problems than our clients are during the design process and therefore more apt to see pitfalls and opportunities them anyone else. We all make decisions in this closeness. Those decisions are the parts of the story I need and want to re-tell. Those efforts deserve to be honored., and the clients should hear them. So next time, take the time for some set-up, build in some theatre and suspense. Your clients won’t forget you for it. Let’s not forget it’s a craft.