Chris Dickman

The Evolution of Paper

2009-10-27T09:51:11Z

Until recently, to be a graphic designer was to engage in an endless love affair with paper. How many hours were spent flipping through swatch books in a kind of tracelike state, waiting for the click that signalled "this... It's doubtful that at any point in the design process you gave a thought to the environmental impact of the paper you'd specified. Even less what the environmental and social practices of the paper company were. What a concept. But those days are over, with both designers and their clients now hyper-sensitive to such issues. Sure, we still have a soft spot for paper. But for many, designing for digital media has become, if not the dominant aspect of their portfolio, one that has seen growth in an era when demand for print-based work has stagnated. And when it does come time to design for print, designers are increasingly sensitive not just about the impact of the paper they choose but about the environmental policies and social engagement of the paper companies themselves.

Pulp and paper production has historically been among the most resource-intensive and polluting of all manufacturing industries. The bad news is that half the world's forests have already been cleared or burned and the vast majority of what remains has been seriously degraded. When you consider that almost half of the industrial wood harvest is used to make paper, the role of paper companies in the stewardship of this dwindling resource is of vital importance. The production of paper also consumes a staggering amount of water and energy, generates large quantities of waste and has been responsible for significant air and water pollution. But don't get depressed just yet. The good news is that for some years now the industry has been working to turn the boat around and in some cases has made surprising progress.

Here at Graphics.com we receive a steady flow of (email) press releases from the paper industry and try to keep our eye on all the major suppliers, given the important role paper still plays in the design process. Below are some of the recent announcements that caught our attention.

Appleton Coated
Appleton Coated is known for its Utopia brand of coated papers, among them the Forest Stewardship Council-certified U1X:Green and U2:XG, both manufactured with extra post-consumer recovered fiber (20% and 30% respectively) and electricity generated via renewable energy. The firm's site now has a Utopia Green Zone area, which provides quite a bit of general information about the environmental impacts of paper and printing, as well as making a case for the benefits of its Utopia line, notably with a handful of customer stories.

Paper companies have to not only convince designers that thir products are "green" but help them sell their clients on paper remaining a viable marketing alternative to online. To this end, Appleton Coated recented created the Print With Purpose publication, "designed to provide insight and inspiration to decision-makers involved in choosing print, and to all who play a role in its creation and execution." It was probably well received by the printing industry, which is struggling to remain essential as a medium to drive purchasing decisions, increasingly being relegated to the secondary role of simply getting people's attention and subsequently sending them online. The publication, a spread of which is shown above, can be requested by calling 1-800-663-1813.

It's a venerable tradition for paper suppliers to provide design awards for creative work using their products. In this vein, Appleton Coated recently announced the winners of its 2009 U B the Judge contest, which were printed all, or in part, on Utopia or Curious Collection papers. The winners were chosen based on "excellence in concept, design and execution," which is all very nice. But it's notable that the next round of the contest will be known as U360, with its goal being to "meet the changing marketplace head on and celebrate the vital role print plays in driving marketing results." It's tough out there.

Sappi Fine Paper
Ideas that Matter is an annual grant program that's now in its tenth year which, as Sappi puts it, "supports and transforms the creative ideas of designers into a powerful force for social good." No small task, but to date the program has awarded more than $9 million in grants to designers who perform pro bono work for nonprofit organizations, in the domain of social and environmental issues. The 16 grant recipients of the 10th iteration were recently announced. Winners ranged from tiny shops to titans like Pentagram, with project organizations spanning everything from the International Planned Parenthood Federation to Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest. It's worth visiting the site to check out the details of past projects.

Domtar
Domtar makes the claim that its EarthChoice line of paper is "the largest family of environmentally responsible papers ever assembled." That may well be case, given that the firm recently announced that it had sold its one millionth ton of FSC-certified paper. A sense of the size of the paper market is reflected in the fact that Domtar alone operates more than 40 FSC-certified sites, including 11 paper mills, three market pulp mills and 14 offsite converting operations. Mind boggling.

Neenah Paper
Neenah has been moving itself in an environmentally-friendly direction for some time now, via FSC-certified paper and the purchase of large amounts of "green" power. Its efforts were recently acknowledged with a 2009 national Green Power Leadership Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The Neenah Green area of its site provides some good material, notably a customizable presentation that designers can show clients to demonstrate the virtues of using recycled papers. But what really caught my attention was a release citing a new initiative in which Neenah has partnered with two non-profit environmental groups in an effort to preserve the rainforest of Costa Rica's Osa Peninsula. Although the 1,500 acres in question is rather small, it remains a worthwhile gesture, which hopefully can be expanded.

YUPO
Of course, you could reduce the impact of paper by simply no longer using it. One alternative is YUPO, which describes itself as the world's largest manufacturer of synthetic papers. Yes, these are oil based, but the firm claims its products provide significant "eco-benefits" when compared to paper. While you may never have heard it, YUPO has been around for decades and supplies a range of products used in the packaging industry as well as by mainstream designers. As it happens, YUPO recently sang the virtues of its products for use in packaging, since they're waterproof, resist stains and chemicals, and are durable, tear and scratch resistant.

The Future
Is our long love affair with paper in peril? Can we continue to rely on tree-based producrs, given that annual global paper consumption continues to rise? Is conservation the answer or should we be moving to alternatives, such as those provided by YUPO? Will the rise of digital publishing and marketing solve the problem? Or are we all simply doomed? Beats me.

Chris Dickman
Founding Editor, Graphics.com

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Be Careful What You Wish For

2009-10-06T11:24:46Z

When complete strangers ask you to lend your voice to their cause, history has shown that it's wise to reflect before taking up the banner. Because sometimes outwardly worthy causes can mask an unsuspected agenda. I guess I've been... Ah, the protection of copyright, who amongst us can argue with that? Being able to reap the fruits of one's toil has an almost biblical ring to it, wouldn't you say? While it's getting harder to find the one honest man of Diogenes who hasn't engaged in some form of copyright violation or another, it's generally agreed, at least for the moment, that not appropriating other people's stuff is an element of what passes for civilized behavior (note that I will not take this opportunity to include a reference to the juggernaut known as Google "I Am Not Evil!" Books).

Despite this, the moral compass of some of our compatriots is deemed to be sufficiently out of kilter that new laws are desperately needed to protect the fabric of our society from the ravages of intellectual property violation (note that I will also not take this opportunity to include a reference to the über juggernauts in the pharmaceutical and "crop science" industries). It was probably Thomas Edison who first perfected the approach we now take for granted as the very heart of modern capitalism: create something complicated, slap legal protection on it, generate demand for it, and ensure that as many people as possible pay for it over and over.

Consider the opening paragraph of the email I received: "The Copyright Alliance and its grassroots network of creators today announced circulation among creators nationwide of a letter to President Obama and Vice President Biden, asking the Administration to pursue policies supportive of the rights of artists." Not being aware of any such "grassroots network of creators" I checked out the organization's site. Who would you expect to see on the board of such a non-profit organization? How about such grassroots groups as the Motion Picture Association of America, NBC Universal, Time Warner and Viacom? The roster of executive members includes such names as Disney, Microsoft, Universal Music Group and Sony Pictures Entertainment. The only outfit having anything whatever to do with the design profession is the Graphics Artists Guild, which says of itself that "for 40 years, we've worked with Washington to ensure that the law supports your efforts, rather than undermines them." Okay, I guess I forgive the GAG. From what, you ask?

Here in France, where large corporations pretty well get what they want (I'm sure that doesn't happen where you live), legislation has been recently passed that gives the government unprecedented, and many feel dangerous, powers. Under pressure from the usual suspects in the entertainment industry, the French government managed to enact legistration that outwardly sang the song of protecting the rights and revenues of French performers and creators. But the general consensus is that it will do little more than erode the freedoms of those using the Net and create a precedent for more of the same.

Under the new legislation, Internet providers must cooperate with entertainment industry giants to track down those suspected of copyright violations. To help out, government agents will act as intermediaries to establish that little Johnny has indeed downloaded the entire works of Metallica. Warnings will then be sent to the perpetrator, who has been identified via his... IP address. After email and registered letter warnings, boom, a judge rules that the Internet access of the IP address is to be cut off and the perp is declared guilty. So what's wrong with that?

First, the presumption of innocence is thrown out the window. Little Johnny will have to show up and plead his case after having been convicted. So one ill, copyright violation, has been replaced by another, a betrayal of a fundamental legal right. Second, you've probably already figured out that tracking activity via an IP address is fraught with peril and will lead to many false identifications. Beyond that, anyone really into illegal content can simply employ a Virtual Private Network and proceed with impunity. It's clear that this new law will have little, if any, real effect on the illegal downloading of content. But the new governmental body put in place to track and sanction Internet users at the behest of global coporations will remain.

What relevance has the new French law to the "grassroots" work of The Copyright Alliance? Decide for yourself. In a presentation last month to the FCC, the group declared that "Government promotion of broadband deployment must encourage meaningful distinctions between lawful and unlawful traffic." I'll leave it to you to reflect on the subtext of what "meaningful distinctions" might imply in this context.

The Marquis de Sade once pointed out that "Those who define are the masters." Graphic designers and creatives, no matter what their field of endeavor, would do well to ponder the words of the Marquis before lending their voice to any cause that seeks to convince them that it has their best interests at heart.

Chris Dickman
Founding Editor, Graphics.com

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Read the Typographic Fine Print

2009-09-23T12:55:06Z

I'm sure you meticulously scroll through the entire End User Licence Agreement (EULA) before installing new software. Ditto when downloading stock images purchased online. No? Frankly, I'm shocked. Well, in that case there's little chance that you're familiar with... I was reminded of this recently by a post in The FontFeed, FontShop's regular coverage of type news, which relates both to its own offerings and the greater world beyond. In New End User Licence Agreement For FontFont, Yves Peters reminds readers that FontFont earlier this year amended its standard license to include a number of uses that before required purchasing special licences or licence extensions. It's worth quoting Peter's succinct overview of the new license: "The most relevant change is that FontFont now allows embedding in any non-editable document, application, and even device—be it for "commercial" or "non-commercial" use—, as long as the font is embedded as a subset in a secure format, so that only viewing and printing but not editing is possible." By "device" is meant "PDFs, Flash, sIFR, Microsoft Office 2007 documents (each with their appropriate security settings), computer games, software, hardware, mobile phones, airplane entertainment systems, electronic wayfinding systems, ATMs, game consoles; as long as the text is non-editable and the fonts are embedded as a subset in a secure format."

Most of us aren't involved in creating airplane entertainment systems (?) but closer to home is PDF, Flash and sIFR. The latter, which I've covered here before, is a somewhat kludgy yet viable way to display text on a web page in any font by using Flash. The bad news is that other current approaches to using fonts, such as font linking and cufón, which converts font paths to VML paths stored in JSON and then renders the fonts using a JavaScript rendering engine, are still not supported by the license. Cufón, while not a long-term solution, seems to be gaining some traction amongst web designers and is worth checking out. Currently only the EULA for Adobe fonts permits cufón embedding, with fonts from foundries such as Berthold, Fontsmith, Hoefler & Frere-Jones, ITC, Linotype and (incorrectly?) FontFont requiring separate licenses, according to the cufón site.

My suggestion would be to become familar with the licenses for the fonts in your library. If these are older fonts, you should check with the foundry to see if newer licenses, often providing more flexiblity, apply to what you have on hand. A good place to get your head around the legalese of font licenses is Peters' post, since he provides a useful annotation of the FontFont EULA. Don't miss the comments at the end, which express the frustration of designers who are becoming increasingly impatient with the inability of the type industry to provide a way for their products to be legally used on web sites. Let's hope 2010 is the year this longstanding barrier to great design on the web is finally eradicated, and the fiddly workarounds can be relegated to the dark realm of single-pixel gifs.

Chris Dickman
Founding Editor, Graphics.com

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iStockphoto: Your Next Insurance Company?

2009-09-16T13:20:57Z

We humans are frightened by a lot of things but for most of us the scariest thing of all is contemplating the future. Not a future in which all is happiness and bliss but one in which something horrible... Through sickness, death, financial setbacks or natural disaster, if you can imagine a tragic event, then there's probably an insurance policy available to cover the consequences. Some of these events are universal, while others are cultural, like hole in one insurance. That's right. It seems that in Japan getting a hole in one is taken as such a sign of good luck that the golfer is expected to share the good fortune with friends and family via lavish gifts, to the extent that this can result in a five-figure outlay. Why be surprised that hole in one insurance was created to ensure that Japanese golfers could once again pursue the holy grail of the perfect shot in tranquility.

This summer, two former Getty Images executives launched the strangely-named Vivozoom stock photo site, differentiating it from its myriad competitors with the claim that it was "the only microstock site that guarantees that its images are legally safe to use." Any reputable microstock site is picky about what images it accepts and also ensures that all legal releases are in place for images requiring one. But Vivistock went further, claiming that "Our extensive market research has demonstrated that there is a real concern that by using un-warranted images you or your client may receive a legitimate claim from a photographer or model claiming that you did not have the right to use that image. What would be the implications of this for your business? Why take that chance, when you do not need to?" Why indeed? The site even cited the EULA from iStockphoto as an example of how far out on a limb you'd be by employing their images. If users did get slapped with a bona fide claim Vivozoom vowed that it would defend them, provided the site was notified of the claim and was allowed to handle the defense, thereby assuming responsibility for damages and costs up to $25,000. Not too shabby.

But perhaps poking the sleeping bear with a stick was a bad idea. It would seem Vivistock got iStockphoto's attention, since the microstock powerhouse has announced that it is now "formally" protecting its customers from copyright, moral right, trademark and other intellectual property and rights of privacy disputes up to $250,000. Take that, Vivizoom! In fact, the iStock Legal Guarantee only provides that if a customer receives a claim, iStockphoto will cover the customer's legal costs and direct damages to a combined total of $10,000. The quarter of a million only kicks in if customers "looking for additional peace of mind" pony up an extra 100 credits for the enhanced protection. Since that's over $100, purchasing real "peace of mind" comes at a price more in line with the images on mother ship Gettyimages.com. In a nutshell, iStockphoto is now a provider of lawsuit insurance, a more profitable field than simply offering cut-rate imagery.

Expect to see a wider adoption of this as those selling inexpensive imagery struggle to compete with the flood of "scary" free imagery being released under a Creative Commons license. As Kelly Thompson, Chief Operating Officer of iStockphoto points out, "There are certainly millions of images available on the Web, but most are not cleared for commercial usage. Creative Commons images can be perfect for some projects, but there are little to no formal inspections on those files, so iStock offers a much safer and suitable alternative when using multimedia."

Boo!

Chris Dickman
Founding Editor, Graphics.com

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All Things Typographic: 7

2009-09-14T13:45:24Z

That's right, ATT is back with its take on what's new in the world of fonts, font applications, notable font usage and general fontiness. This time out I'll focus on recent font releases from Fountain, Gestalten, Kapitza, Linotype and... Heroine
Swedish-based foundry Fountain is known both for its custom type work as well as its growing catalog of fonts, available for purchase online. The latest offering is Heroine, designed by Göran Söderström. This was inspired by the circa 1905 Windsor typeface, which apparently is often used for the titles of Woody Allen movies. Available in nine weights, four of which are shown below, the design was brought up to date and given flexibilty via the addition of swashes and alternate characters, easily accessible thanks to the OpenType format. The font will be released September 15 for purchase on the Fountain site, but you can catch a sneak preview thanks to the odd little video above.

Bonesana
I've covered the typographic offerings of Gestalten here before, which is probably best known for its idiosyncratic books devoted to art and design. Although Gestalten doesn't release many fonts, they're typically interesting enough to warrant attention. Matthieu Cortat's Bonesana is not only the most extensive font family to be released thorough Gestalten, it's also (finally!) the first one to include OpenType features. We're told that it was initially created for a new edition of the 18th-century title On Crimes and Punishment, by the Italian philosopher Cesare Bonesana, and as a result echoes such attributes as "utilitarianism, clarity and reason." The font can be purchased in single weights or as a collection on the Gestalten site, which also provides a detailed interview with Cortat.

Allotment
British design partnership Kapitza has been making a name for itself, thanks in part to a steady flow of new picture fonts. The latest release is Allotment, which again consists of hand-drawn illustrations that provide clean outlines with the minimum number of vector points (making modification much easier). The inspiration for this set came from the partners being allocated an area for a vegetable garden in the London Docklands area. Provided as an OpenType font containing 56 characters, Allotment can be purchased on the Kapitza site.

Neue Swift
Did you know that Swift is one of the most popular 20th-century serif typefaces? Well, don't feel bad, neither did I. Created in the 80s by Gerard Unger for use in newspapers, he updated this series of fonts in 1995 under the name of Swift 2.0. Now Linotype has worked with him to move Swift to OpenType format, describing Neue Swift not as a redesign but as a "significant upgrade." Swift 3.0, in effect. Not only has the character set been expanded, adding dozens of glyphs per font, but small caps and oldstyle figures can now be easily addressed, thanks to the wonders of OpenType. Neue Swift is available for purchase on the Linotype site.

MISO
And in closing, a modest freebie. Mårten Nettelbladt's MISO is positioned as "a heavy duty typeface for the construction industry." It's available for free download in three weights: Light, Regular and Bold, in TrueType and OpenType formats.

Chris Dickman
Founding Editor, Graphics.com

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Presentation Zen: The Video

2009-09-07T07:44:34Z

I've never given a PowerPoint presentation in my life but I've sat through more than a few of them, with varying degrees of interest. And that's no surprise, since with millions of presentations being delivered every day, at any... Does it have to be this way? As far back as 2001, marketing whiz Seth Godin lamented the state of presentations with his popular ebook, Really Bad PowerPoint. A few years later no less an expert on the visual display of information than Edward Tufte launched a stinging attack on current practices with his essay on "slideware," The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within. As Tufte put it, "Alas, slideware often reduces the analytical quality of presentations. In particular, the popular PowerPoint templates (ready-made designs) usually weaken verbal and spatial reasoning, and almost always corrupt statistical analysis. What is the problem with PowerPoint? And how can we improve our presentations?"

Certainly there is a minor industry out there ready to help those creating presentations, starting with Tufte, who includes PowerPoint use in his one-day Presenting Data and Information seminars. If you're really keen you can attend the annual four-day PowerPoint Live Conference, or simply work your way through the many books and videos devoted to presentations in general and PowerPoint in particular. You may remember an extract from Garr Reynolds' Presentation Zen (New Riders) that we published on Graphics.com last year. Reynolds is based in Japan and describes himself as a "longtime student of the Zen arts." This manifested itself originally in his Presentation Zen web site, and subsequently in the book, as an emphasis on presentations embodying restraint, simplicity and naturalness. Given the hopelessness of most presentations, this approach is a welcome one.

So when Presentation Zen: The Video was released recently, I was curious to see how Reynolds would make use of the medium to add depth to the content in the book. As one might expect, Reynolds is a competent presenter and the video is professionally done. But in the course of the 50-minute CD, the material strictly adheres to the sequence of the book and the content itself, down to the visuals and examples. Just in case we forget the connection, Reynolds periodically holds the book while he's presenting. So if you've read the book, the video really won't add anything. And missing is one of the most useful chapters, which provides examples of presentations embodying the key principles of restraint, simplicity and naturalness.

The holy grail of all book authors and publishers is bulk sales. And authors of business books, including Reynolds, typically have related design or consulting practices. So I can see this as being something designed to gain entry in corporations, with the hope of it leading to enough interest in the content to trigger multiple book purchases or leads for Reynolds' services. The same thing can be said of Marty Neumeier's INNOVATION WORKSHOP video, which I covered here earlier. Not that there's anything wrong with this approach to creating videos that serve as an introduction to the main event. But it's an exaggeration to say in the case of Reynolds that the video "expands on his ideas" from the book. Instead, think of it as a well-constructed and pleasantly-presented overview.

Presentation Zen: The Video can be purchased on the Peachpit Press site in streaming form for $25.19 or as a DVD for $26.99.

Chris Dickman
Founding Editor, Graphics.com

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The Joy of Domain Parking: Part 2

2009-08-30T15:02:41Z

Earlier this summer I began a look at the alternatives available to those of us who have domains on our hands but neither the desire nor the resources to build them out to full-blown sites. Beyond simply using the domain... I was clear at the outset that nothing I was going to encounter would turn my motley collection of domain names into a cash gusher. It was more a case of seeing how much time and energy would be required to simply generate some kind of cash flow, however modest. In fact, my goal was to find out what it would take to break even on my domain registration costs. That works out to about 1 dollar a month, per domain, in revenue. Not overly ambitious, I think you'll agree.

As I reported in June, my first stop was with Google's AdSense for Domains program, which since then has been displaying a simple page with related ads on a dozen of my domains, such as Auberges-Bistros.com. Have I made the princely sum of one buck a domain per month? No. In fact, the amount is statistically closer to zero. Admittedly, not all of my domains are magnets for type-in traffic, but they're not all duds, either. So I'd say don't get your hopes up if you're pondering Google AdSense for Domains as the path to monetizing your domain name investment.

If you don't want to let your registrar try to squeeze a few pennies out of your domains, Google has been ruled out and developing a full-fledged site from scratch isn't an option, what's left? Welcome to the world of "instant" site generation, where tools provided by a variety of developers can quickly crank out sites for your domains. These are designed to be search-engine friendly, require no further intervention and, most importantly of all, generate income. Of course, here you're paying for software, as well as a monthly hosting fee, so your revenue will have to be that much higher to make this approach profitable.

I began by experimenting with Instant Site Machine (ISM). To get started with this, you first upload the provided files to your server and then log onto the admin back end, where you edit parameters and optionally input content. Clicking on OK then pushes your changes live—it's as simple as that. Think of it as a bares-bones content management system with an emphasis on creating monetizable pages. ISM's approach provides a pretty good balance between providing enough defaults to create simple sites fast, and options to generate a richer, more-targeted visitor experience.

To try this out I used my royalty-free-stock.com domain, which you can see here. What you're looking at was generated by ISM, without any coding on my part, using one of the supplied templates. Some of the templates are a bit rough but you can customize them using parameters in the admin area (part of which is shown below), directly modify their style sheets or even use your own template.

Near the top of the home page you've got your classic Google ads, as well as in the right column and on the bottom of the page. Just entering your Google AdSense ID in the admin area is enough to make these ads live, with areas in the admin also provided for your AdSense Channel, AdSense Search ID and even Google Analytics ID. The world is larger than Google, however, and you can also enter Amazon, eBay and ClickBank IDs, and have these ads display immediately. Of course, you can also display your own banners and ads.

But just displaying ads won't do you much good if you can't provide them with related content, which ISM allows you to do in both static and dynamic form. You can add HTML or JavaScript on both the home page and in the right column, for example. And you have the option of automatically generating pages based on a list of keywords you provide, which you can see in the Related Searches box in the right column. Above that, there's currently just one item under Navigation—Royalty Free Stock Footage. I used the Custom Page feature to create this page using some text but more interesting is that the ads and the news items now have a focus on footage. The news items here and throughout the site are derived from RSS feeds and are an essential element in adding relevant, dynamic content. You can start by choosing from some of the mainstream feeds, as show below, and add targeted feeds related to the site's topic.

I could go on, but this captures the essense of Instant Site Machine. I found it delivered on its claim of providing a fast way to generate sites that combine static and dynamic content, with a goal of providing a framework for related ad content. It could also serve as a good introduction for those not familiar with integrating RSS into an ad-driven site. Will such "instant" sites generate money? It seems to me that they have the potential to do so. I'll fiddle around with Royalty-Free-Stock.com and report back in a future installment, when I examine additional ways to monetize your domain names.

You can download a trial version of Instant Site Machine, or purchase it for $180, which allows you to use it to generate an unlimited number of sites.

Chris Dickman
Founding editor, Graphics.com

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PANTONE Wants You to Chip In

2009-08-22T14:08:11Z

The economic crunch, combined with a growing aversion to the excesses of our disposable culture, is generating a very real aversion to upgrading just about anything. Take a look around. Odds are that you can spot something within sight... Take something as essential as Adobe's Creative Suite 4 and the apps of which it's constituted, notably Photoshop. Has there ever been a release that Adobe had to work so hard to convince us to purchase? The Creative Suite ads are everywhere (including the Graphics.com Network), all touting not groovy new features but the efficiencies that upgrading will bring to your workflow. Yes, I upgraded, but not until the very last days of the Spring price break. I hung onto my dusty copy of CS2 that long.

But if Adobe has to knock itself out to convince die-hard users to upgrade, how hard must it now be for others selling products and services to the graphics and design community? I was struck by this recently when coming across Chip In, PANTONE's latest initiative to have us replace our trusty guides and chip sets. I say latest, because PANTONE has always faced the problem of how to generate additional revenue from printers and designers beyond a one-time purchase of their color specification products.

PANTONE insists that the guides should be replaced periodically, since the color of their paper will yellow over time, thus "changing the appearance of colors printed on them." In the years when I owned and operated a small offset printing firm, I simply kept my guide in a drawer when not in use, thus prolonging its lifespan, oh... indefinitely? What does PANTONE think designers do, take their guides to the beach? Besides, the science of paper making has come a long way. If a guide really does yellow enough in a few years of exposure to light to make color specification inaccurate, isn't the better response simply to use a better stock?

You may remember that PANTONE did in fact switch to a brighter guide stock back in 2003, when it created separate versions for coated and uncoated papers. According to PANTONE, six years later many of their customers remain unaware of this, which is a rather startling admission. It then introduced an entirely new system of color matching, dubbed Goe. Hands up everyone using that. What, still clinging to the old system?

If so, the verdict of PANTONE is unequivocal: "If you are still using old products, the colors you specify will not be accurately matched." But how old is old? PANTONE says that guides should be replaced "regularly" but that's not much help. This page is supposed to provide a "check if your guide expired icon" but I couldn't locate it.

Time will tell if this latest initiative to convince customers to replace their guides will motivate them to pull out their wallets or instead get cheeky and leave them on the dashboard of a car in full sunlight. However, hats off for a major effort, which includes rebates, "responsible recycling" of your old guide, and even a donation to a philanthropic arts organization for every guide traded in. The Chip In campaign is a good example of how hard companies are working to get their customers to upgrade. Just don't talk to me about CS5.

Chris Dickman
Founding editor, Graphics.com

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You've Been Hacked! Now What?

2009-08-13T12:17:51Z

Your day began by learning that one or more hackers had compromised your site's servers, gaining access to customer account information and possibly credit card details. The trust customers place in you, essential for your survival, is at stake.... Earlier this week I received an email from Campaign Monitor, which provides a range of services for those creating and managing email campaigns. This sounds a bit banal, but their focus is on designers who manage such campaigns for their clients (looking for a new revenue stream?). That, plus the excellent tips related to HTML email newsletter creation, has kept me on their list, after having used their browser testing service for the Graphics.com newsletter at one point.

The email began in a forthright manner that was to be hallmark of how Campaign Monitor chose to manage a serious intrusion on their servers, which led to compromised client mailing list data that the hackers then used for spamming purposes:

"This is unfortunate news to have to give you, but unfortunately Campaign Monitor has been attacked by one or more hackers, and some accounts have been compromised. This has been a deliberate, planned and complex intrusion and we are still in the process of handling the hacks and the impact.

For accounts we know were accessed, we have sent a separate email.

For the full details please see our blog post here.

We are working extremely hard to fully resolve this issue and I want to apologize for what is a critical failure in our service to you and your clients.

Again, please see the blog for details and updates as we know more. The blog is also the best place for questions so we can answer them more effectively for everyone."

So they began by contacting all their customers, not just those who they knew were affected, and then pointed everyone to a
blog/FAQ. To retain customer confidence, they announced that they had put together a team of "external security experts, database experts and hosting providers" and further managed customer reactions via their Twitter-based support team. And then followed up with another blog post. Rather than burying the issue, these posts are featured on the home page of the site.

The upshot? Despite the potentially significant impact of this on customers and their clients, respose was initially almost completely supportive, with high praise for their "transparence." This has warn thinner, with recent comments taking them to take for a perceived lack of attention to security issues. But on the whole, Campaign Monitor seems to be avoiding what could have been a catastrophic meltdown, with every indication of emerging from this ordeal in a stronger position than before.

Would you be able to say the same, if the hackers had come calling on your site?

Chris Dickman
Founding editor, Graphics.com

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Night of the Living Stickers

2009-08-02T12:48:27Z

Admit it, you've always wanted to have a giant skeleton emerging from your living-room wall, haven't you? No? Hmmm. Wait, I see the problem. Sorry, I was confusing this with my other blogging gig for Fangoria. Skeletons! Silly me,... That being the case, I encourage you to nip over to Larger Than Life Prints!. It's not a great-looking site but it provides a pretty nifty service, that of printing on "patent pending, self-adhesive, removable fabric material" in sizes up to 7 by 4.5 feet. It's going for the consumer market by providing some existing imagery, but with the exception of the skate n' skeleton pics of Felix Laflamme and the bitmapped work of user interface designer Susan Kare, the pickings are currently rather slim. This is actually good news for you.

The site allows customers to create their own prints by uploading files in .JPG format, resulting no doubt in familyesque imagery pasted to walls like some banal moment in a slide show, forever frozen in time. However, if you're good with a camera, and even better are already making money from your images on microstock sites, this might prove to be a new revenue stream. Once you've created a free account, you can upload images to your own branded area, set prices and get paid once a month. You can also upload in .AI, .EPS or .PSD formats, so dramatic, wall-worthy illustrations are definitely something to ponder. The site provides the ability to define "cutouts," so you can create a design consisting of multiple parts. Just be prepared to drive traffic to your area, from your own site or wherever else you can ingeniously promote your work, since I can't see the Larger Than Life Prints! site attracting a large number of prospects.

Don't want to have your work rub shoulders online with clipart images of kittens? Then think of stickers as something you could include in your services to clients: the next time you create a corporate identity, why not provide some stickers of the logo? Or you could create small, compelling custom stickers and send them out to clients and prospects as self-promotional items. Finally, why not do something jaw-droppingly creative and decorate your office with it?

Myself, I still have a hankering for that peppy skeleton.

Chris Dickman
Founding editor, Graphics.com

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Learning from the Masters

2009-07-27T09:05:01Z

Those of us who provide fee-based services live and die by our ability to build an ever-bigger "platform," as the book trade calls it—a stew of branding and reach that generates a critical mass of ubiquity and trust in...]]> Neumeier recently published his third book, The Designful Company, an extract of which we ran on Graphics.com a few weeks ago. Like its predecessors Zag and The Brand Gap, the author calls this a "whiteboard book"—one that can be consumed quickly, thanks to how the relatively modest amount of content has been packaged: small format, large type, full-page illustrations. Unlike the first books, however, which covered branding, the latest in the series is devoted to encouraging companies to engage in problem solving through a design-oriented approach. No small task given that "Unfortunately, most business managers are deaf, dumb and blind when it comes to creative process."

This isn't a review of any of Neumeier's books (for a thoughtful one, try The Designer's Review of Books). But while reading The Designful Company I was intrigued to learn that Neumeier had created a short video based on all three books. Available from his publisher, Peachpit Press, it bears the rather unwieldy title of Marty Neumeier's INNOVATION WORKSHOP: Brand Strategy + Design Thinking = Transformation, with the 45 minutes of content available for purchase on DVD for $34.95. It's also provided in streaming QuickTime format on the Peachpit site, which is how I viewed it.

Curiosity being one of my hallmarks, I also visited the site of Neumeier's Neutron own firm, which has "Build your brand from the inside out" as its corporate byline. Rather than placing branding in the hands of an outside entity, Neutron's (Neumeier's) position is that this essential element of success should be managed from within businesses themselves, coupled with a culture of innovation. To that end, "Neutron’s programs are designed to draw executives and managers directly into the brand-building process. Working with our coaches, you’ll learn how to develop powerful market positions, become change agents, align the brand with business strategy, and build a culture of innovation that will generate long-term profits for your company and its stakeholders."

Not surprisingly, Neutron provides a variety of brand-development workshops that dovetail perfectly with Neumeier's books. In fact, one or more of his three books are required reading for those participating in the workshops, implying that the role of the books is to set the stage for individuals and companies to come to grips with a real understanding, and subsequent implemenation, of branding and innovation via the services of (ideally) Neutron or a similar firm.

Which brings us back to the video, which is marketed as providing "enough activities for a one-day workshop," a claim based on the half-dozen or so team exercises that Neumeier proposes during the segments. There is also supposed to be downloadable content that includes exercise sheets and supplementary material, although I wasn't able to locate that on the Peachpit site. Running through the three segments and pausing to work through the simple exercises will probably serve as a refreshing introduction to companies or individuals unfamiliar with such material (and the video is something I could see design firms simply giving away to warm clients up for subsequent conversations). But it's also an excellent introduction to Neumeier and the services of Neutron.

So at this point, as a provider of creative services you should be thinking: hmm, how do the three books, the video and Neutron all merge into one cohesive entity, to generate cash, build awareness and manufacture clients? And the second question should be, to what degree have I been able to put something like that in place for myself? And finally: what can I do today to move closer to achieving that? Careful observation of Marty Neumeier's approach might help you answer those questions.

Chris Dickman
Founding editor, Graphics.com

The French Logo Malfunction

2009-07-20T07:41:56Z

Readers with elephantine memories will have no trouble recalling that last summer in this space I launched a jeremiad against the freshly-minted graphical identity for the French Government Tourist Office. Those just arriving, or regulars now scratching their heads, are... Here's where we are in a nut (snail?) shell. Last summer, France joined the ranks of countries having a graphical identity that embodies the delights of a touristic visit. For France, being the world's most popular tourist destination, this represented a non-trivial task, both for those managing the design project, and for the designers themselves. The result, shown below, was to my eyes far from a success, not least because it traded heavily on the mythic French image of Marianne, here in harness (or rather, out of it) to flog the wonders of French tourism.

Recently I stumbled across the logo again and did the proverbial double-take: "What th'...?!," as they say in the comics. Compare the new version below and spot the subtle, and not so subtle, changes.

This new version was launched earlier this year, the byproduct of an upcoming fusion between the Maison de la France, which serves as a promotional agency for tourist travel to France, and ODIT France, responsible for handling the professional side of travel, such as stats, deciding what hotels get a five-star rating, and so on. Stick with me, this will get duller. The two outfits were apparently crammed together into a basement office in a bad suburb of Paris (kidding!) to create some new entity that we're told "has ambitious plans for a better coordinated and more efficient public policy in order to respond to the challenges posed to French tourism." Challenges. Like running out of snails in the high season?

Anyway, this freshly-minted agency, which no doubt has fewer workers but more managers, in the grand fashion of such things, was given the blindingly obtuse name of, wait for it, Atout France. What does that do for you? As background, "atout" can be stuck in front of just about anything to signal comprehensiveness. So Atout Escargots... well, you get the idea. But for the rest of humanity, that moniker will mean less than zero. And just try finding this new entity with grand ambitions online. It doesn't show up in searches and seems to not have a website. Job done! But back to the logo.

It's true that when we deliver a blistering screed here in the blogs, entire governments tremble. So it would be nice to think that the French authorities took our earlier post to heart and subsequently decided to display Marianne just from the head up. But it was probably more a case of the classic administrative qualities of timidity and the need to meddle. Did you spot the deadening hand of committee-think elsewhere in the new version? That's right, the lower f in France now looks more a capital, turning it into one butt-ugly letter. And the star/starfish thingy is bigger. Hey, maybe there are other changes; if you spot them, feel free to share. Me, I'm too discouraged to look at this thing any longer. Especially since I had the misfortune to also see the logo for Atout France (which explains the darker blue in the new tourisim logo).

What would Strunk & White think about me using "What th'...?!" twice in one post?

Chris Dickman
Graphics.com

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Snagging Images the Guilt-Free Way

2009-07-12T12:57:31Z

Who amongst us has not been tempted to make use of an image found via Google Image Search? In the past, you would have been wise to avoid that temptation, since in most cases this would have run counter... To see this in action, head over to Google's Advanced Image Search. Launched in 2001, searching here will now display images labeled by their creators as being under the Creative Commons or the GNU Free Documentation licenses, as well as in the public domain. Use the Usage Rights drop-down to specify images labeled for reuse, commercial reuse, reuse with modification or commercial reuse with modification. After browsing the results and locating the desired image, you'll need to go to the host site to determine the exact requirements of the licence, such as the degree to which attribution is required.

Does this turn Google into a good source of free imagery? Not exactly. The quality of the images remains for the most part pretty marginal and it can be a hassle to determine the exact usage requirements for an image. There's also still an element of risk in using these, since "Google has no way of knowing whether the license is legitimate, so we aren't making any representation that the content is actually or lawfully licensed." With microstock prices so low, I can't see this as a viable alternative, except for non-commercial applications, such as internal office communications. The OffiSync toolbar, which hooks up Microsoft Office applications to a variety of Google services, is a good example of this. Users can access Image Search from within Word or PowerPoint, complete with the new license filters, and directly bring images into their documents.

Perhaps more interesting from the perspective of content creators is that this could prove to be a viable way to drive traffic and sales. Someone searching for images by using these filters is trying to find content that can be used legally—a good first step. I can see photographers or illustrators making available a range of small images for use under these licenses. Creating an appropriate landing page that provides a prominent call to action to sign up for notices of additional imagery, or another mechanism to convert visitors to customers, should be well worth the effort.

The key is to provide high quality imagery (even if the format is reduced), so it will stand out from the pack. And of course make sure images are findable, keeping in mind that keywords for the search are based on the image's filename, link text pointing to it, and nearby text.

And the image above? It's "A little more than six degrees of Kevin Bacon", by Matt Leclair, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 license.

Chris Dickman
Graphics.com

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Sticking to the Script

2009-07-05T14:17:49Z

It was about half way through the tour of the Château of Germolles that our aimiable and erudite guide—who it turned out was one of the current owners—ushered our little group into a darkened room. The shutters on the...]]> Huddling immobile in the obscurity, our eyes began to adjust to the dimness as we learned that this room was a special one, in a château that the immensely wealthy Margaret of Flanders, wife of Philip the Bold, ruler of Burgundy, spared no expense to transform into one of the favorite haunts of the Burgundian court, thanks to a binge of building and landscaping that lasted from 1382 to 1392. It was at that point that the interior decoration began, under the watchful eye of the duke's favorite painter, Jean de Beaumetz.

The room we were in was Margaret's bedroom, we were told, and with that the shutters were flung open, to dramatic effect. All four walls were covered with white, yard-high letter M's and P's in a bold script on a background of pale, mottled green. The overall effect of these simple, elegant script letters was powerful, yet harmonious. There being no barriers of any kind, we could also inspect the lettering at close quarters and make out individual brushstrokes. Definitely a striking example of hand lettering, but why the theatrics with the darkened room?

Well, one of the fascinating things about very old buildings is how they have evolved in the hands of their many owners. Châteaus spanning hundreds of years are a perfect expression of changes in architecture and the decorative arts, with medieval and Renaissance elements often found rubbing elbows with the dubious taste of nineteeth-century nouveau riches, who snapped them up for a song (along with an impressive title) in post-Revolutionary France.

What made this room special was that while the château was recently being restored, the workers discovered that below unremarkable layers of wood paneling lay this regal decoration, untouched since its creation almost 700 years ago. The M's of course were for Margaret and the P's for Phillip. In deference to her husband, the P's are slightly larger and each one is unique in some way, with small flourishes here and there to distinguish them. The shutters had been closed partly for dramatic effect but also to protect the delicate pigments. Mind the walls, indeed!

I have to admit that this experience had an impact on me. While I began in print publishing, my recent focus has been on the web, a medium which is to script fonts as light is to vampires. What's up with script fonts these days, I wondered? It turns out they're doing just fine, thanks to lots of fresh thinking that takes advantage of the capabilities of the OpenType format. An OpenType font can employ up to 65,536 glyphs (as opposed to the 256-character limit of PostScript fonts), so there's room for the wide range of character variations and ligatures that brings script fonts to life.

Savvy font designers can leverage these large character sets via glyph substitution and character positioning, with Lintotype's Zapfino Extra Pro leading the way by providing at least four alternates for each character form, driven by automatic substitutions to the point that the font has, according to Typophile, "achieved what seems to be limited sentience." That's all we need, fonts with a mind of their own. I can see it now: "You're setting me at what point size?" or perhaps "The kerning, I keep telling you to watch the kerning!"

If you check out recent releases from the major foundries and font vendors, such as FontShop, you'll find lots of nifty new scripts, many with old origins. One of my favorites is P22's Brass Script Pro, shown above, which is based on letters from a 1910 German booklet of hand foil stamping type, and has the unusual ability to provide a variety of swash underscores that adjust to the length of the word. P22 suggests using Brass Script for wedding invitations, packaging and advertising.

Script fonts, it would seem, are timeless. What are your favorite scripts and what kinds of designs do you use them for?

Chris Dickman
Graphics.com

Help End the Email Horror

2009-06-24T08:20:49Z

One of the first things you learn when creating an HTML newsletter is that it isn't a Web page. It sorta, kinda, almost is. You'd like to pretend it is. But it just isn't. The bastard child of graphic... If everyone reading a newsletter was using the same client, this wouldn't be an issue. But the usual concerns of creating any page or site apply—there are still wide variations in how browsers will render the code. Of course, you'll also have readers using Web applications like Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail or Gmail, all of which have their own quirky restrictions. And then there's Microsoft Outlook, which in recent years has provided its own special hell for newsletter designers.

Prior to the release of Outlook 2007, Microsoft's email client delivered a predictable, browser-based rendering of HTML email, albeit somewhat limited in its support for Web standards. But this approach was then abandoned for one that used the Microsoft Word rendering engine. The result was immediate—newsletter creators around the world began banging their heads on the table when they saw how this mangled their creations and made anything but the simplest designs fail miserably. I still have some dents on my forehead from that era, acquired while trying to get the Graphics.com newsletter to fly right in Outlook.

Out of this sense of outrage was formed the Email Standards Project, with a mission to try to guide those responsible for developing email clients to do the right thing by not continually breaking the work of designers. The group seems to have made some headway. So you can imagine the impact on its members of encountering a pre-release version of Outlook 2010 and finding it still relies on Word for its rendering, complete with all the familiar glitches. Their decision was to organize designers to clearly and decisively tell Microsoft that years more of this nonsense just isn't acceptable.

The result of this sense of urgency has been the creation of FixOutlook.org, which harnesses Twitter to send a message to the Outlook team. Created by the email service provider Campaign Monitor, the slick little site lets you send your message and displays a rolling tweet wall as a bonus. Hats off to all involved for this worthwhile initiative.

Chris Dickman
Graphics.com

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