Design

Over the summer ISO50 linked a gallery of 70 business cards that are in a creative league of their own.  The business card is a time tested strategy to market oneself and many of those in the gallery exhibit unique characteristics that fit each business they represent.  These include a divorce lawyer with half a card, an asthma centers written on a balloon, a second hand store with the first contact info scratched out and plethora of simply laid out graphic designer cards.  The photos were all taken from a Flickr pool where people posted the coolest cards they’ve found, so if you have a particularly innovative business card, throw it in the bunch.  Your odds of landing a client may be better than winning a free lunch at your local restaurant.

[via ISO50]

Internet culture whiz Clay Shirky gave some interesting insights into the biggest mistake of corporate branding. Shirky argues that advertising seek to perfect brands, and in doing so, fail to reach and speak to average day people. When a brand markets a perfect image, people are less inclined to interact with the product, because it doesn’t reflect their imperfect lifestyle. Brands that use a flawed, or ‘human’ marketing campaign reinforce and locate themselves within people’s lifestyles. The most promising direction now for brands, Shirky argues, is to use a raw and unfinished front, making their image far more approachable and reaching a wider audience. Watch the video for more:

[via Influxinsights]

In our final installment of the NYC Innovators Series, PSFK spoke with with Michael Galpert of Aviary about how his company is enabling amateur artists to start flexing their creative muscles.

Michael explains how the high barrier of entry for existing design suites, such as expensive software and complicated interfaces, deter potential artists and how Aviary capitalized on that by creating an easy to use, web-based platform.

Aviary

Also check out:

Michael Sharon of Socialight
Philip James of Snooth

The past four days at four sites around Manhattan, Target opened their Bullseye Bodegas, four popup shops to feature the products from its 22 designer partnerships. Each store featured an edited selection of fashion, accessories, beauty, and home products all with an average price of $25.00. A number of the collections like Anya Hindmarch’s handbags are being previewed at the Bodegas before they go on sale at Target stores later this fall. Visiting the four sites, we noticed each was busy, even early in the morning.

The obvious route might have been to open some sleek white minimal shops and cater to the fashion crowd wrapping up fashion week. But Target remained true to its design for all mantra and created something completely different. The choice of the bodega theme is one that most every New Yorker can identify with. Bodegas or small grocery stores, are nearly everywhere in the city. They typically aren’t glamorous but have the essentials.  Days before the openings last week, ads for the bodegas started to appear everywhere in the city. The ads used bold cut and paste style graphics along with the famous bullseye logo.

At each of the stores, bold yellow,red and black graphics defined the space. Outside, vinyl signs were attached to the windows and a random assortment of paper signs featured the designers. Inside large panels of common products like cereal and detergent were mounted to walls and fixtures. Products were displayed in an interesting mix of fixtures. Common chrome wire rack held apparel and accessories. Actual deli cases contained the beauty and home products. Each of the designers had small information cards adjacent to their collections. Target also used stock price cards to hand write promotional messages in marker.

More photos of each of the four stores are available here.

The New York Fashion Week, currently underway in Manhattan, New York, will feature an unlikely accessory debut this year: a Hewlett-Packard laptop by fashion designer Vivienne Tam. During the presentation of Tam’s Spring 2009 line, models will carry the laptop instead of bags. HP has not disclosed the size or specifications of the laptop yet, but has said they will be the size of a woman’s clutch bag. They’re rather pretty, and HP learnt more from Tam during the collaborative process than they thought they would, as Vice-President of Marketing Communications at HP, David Roman says in the article:

One, Tam’s precise vision for the computer’s design helped its in-house industrial designers learn what was possible in terms of how complex patterns and chic colors can be achieved using HP’s current supply chain. “We use a technique that can build a design into the plastic, so it’s molded into the plastic as a computer is built,” says Roman. “It’s not painted on. We saw that we could use our sophisticated supply chain to do this and keep it at a competitive, aggressive price point.” Two, they also considered how to build buzz around a new notebook computer outside of the typical tech showcases (like CES) and target a specific consumer (in this case, “fashionista moms,” as Roman calls them, women who want a small, stylish, and affordable computer). 

[via BusinessWeek]

Every now and then, it’s good to remember the old stuff. Especially the good ‘old’ stuff. Do you remember, for example, those foam fingers which stated your team’s position of superiority - or your opinion of your team’s greatness? A symbol of American sport in many ways, the foam finger had humble origins. It’s creator, Geral Fauss, was a simple high school teacher. This is what served as the inspiration for his creation:

I saw the students in the stands holding up an index finger, and shouting ‘we’re number 1′ at the playoff games.’ Students rallied around the team and kept a fevered pitch during the playoffs. I knew that they wanted something ‘big’ to show their spirit…..so I thought , why not a large hand sign.’

Geral quit his job in 1978. Today, his company, Spirit Industries, produces other foam-based products like novelty hats, beverage holders, megaphones and footballs in addition to its original foam product, the #1 finger. The #1 sign is in the US National Football League (NFL) Hall of Fame. 

The biggest idea can come from the smallest thing.

[via Design Boom]

The iPhone is clearly a media darling and the graphics user interface is already recognizable the world over.  Recently we stumbled on Teehan+Lax where you can download that iconic iPhone GUI in a Photoshop document to play around with.  It is a helpful resource when trying to visualize the layout of your latest App or even just to serve as a simple compass of a clean design. The PSD (PhotoShop Document) is in simple effect formats and is completely scalable, allowing for a flexible collection of iPhone visuals.  It includes all the readily identifiable icons like the smoked glass menu, the keypad and all purpose status bar.  For those less design oriented, it’s also a handy tool to photoshop a “slide to unlock” button on a picture of a loudmouth child or friend.

[via ISO50]

We’ve been spending quite a lot of time in the last few weeks considering the right venue to hold our next conference. After a long search, we’ve decided that there couldn’t be anything more appropriate than holding an event that celebrates creativity in the region at the Asian Civilisations Museum. Here’s a little background to the venue

The Asian Civilisations Museum is the first museum in the region to present a broad yet integrated perspective of pan-Asian cultures and civilisations. As one of the National Museums of Singapore under the National Heritage Board, they seek to promote a better appreciation of the rich cultures that make up Singapore’s multi-ethnic society.

While Singapore’s forefathers came to settle in Singapore from many parts of Asia within the last 200 years, the cultures brought to Singapore by these different people are far more ancient. This aspect of Singapore’s history is the focus of the ACM. The Museum’s collection therefore centres on the material cultures of the different groups originating from China, Southeast Asia, South Asia and West Asia.

Tickets are selling well - get yours at: http://psfkconferenceasia.eventbrite.com/

In a world where H&M and Uniqlo and Zara and Top Shop (and a million other labels) are able to recreate runway trends at a fraction of the price with two-week turnaround times, what’s left for the high end designer? The Financial Times says it’s all in the fabric. Designers such as Prada and Balenciaga are now focusing heavily on textiles as a way to differentiate themselves from the mass of cheaply made but on-trend labels. Bringing back long forgotten craftsmanship and experimenting with revolutionary techniques, designers are taking a stand and trying desperately to save face.

Prints, texture and rich embellishment were other avenues of exploration. Dries Van Noten revisited a 1920s printing technique created by Swiss inventor Orbis Wirth. With producers Jakob Schlaepfer, the label created incredible marble-ised patterns using an elaborate system of printing layers of coloured wax from a cylinder on to wet fabric. Nicolas Ghesquière at Balenciaga meanwhile (remember the chain-mail leggings from last year?) drew gasps for his collection of dresses covered in elaborate hand-painted landscapes and embellishments and varnished latex.

Balmain explored fine chain-mail – that looked almost like lamé – and Fendi even developed a technique for applying gold to fur, by heating 24-carat gold and spraying it on to surface tips. And that’s not counting Christopher Bailey at Burberry Prorsum, who created whole skirts from miniature suede sequins.

Can the newfound focus on quality, craftsmanship, and uniqueness in textile save the high end fashion industry?

Financial Times: Cut from a Different Cloth