Design

It’s hard to make things easy. And, it’s even harder to be visually appealing at the same time.

In the earliest forms of advertising, copy was king. Strong use of words and typefaces would be effective in your marketing piece, but not everyone understands concepts and information at the same rate. Some people can understand messages quickly while others need help to grasp what is being said. Visual aids are a way of further explanation. Nowadays, we’re able to relay much of what we once had to explain through the written word with the use of images.

Consumers have seen themselves moving away from wordy messaging and finding that most engaging piece of advertising in a graphic or photograph. You might recall a spoof we posted about how Microsoft would redesign Apple’s iPod packaging.

The very best visuals take a complex idea or series of connected ideas and make them instantly understandable. Just the right visuals make those ideas even more memorable. Use of visual tools led to longer retention of information. Visual aids allow a speaker to use verbal and nonverbal communication to solidify the message and provide a point of reference for the mind.

Visual representations of information, or infographics, are often used to support information, strengthen it and present it while leaving the amount of explanation required to a minimum. Using appropriate visual aids are the essential ingredients. Here’s a good reference to infographics to see how effective they can be without an explanation.

So when you have an advertisement that you want to convey to your consumers, give serious thought to using accompanying illustrations that will complement what you are trying to convey.

Here’s a video from the 2008 TED Conference of Chris Jordan on how he takes raw data and depicts it in his art in a more visual language. Notice how using visuals that integrate just enough to clarify his presentation. This makes for a powerful communications combination.

Map Illustration Software

Anyone who has ever had to produce a location map knows how much time can be used up on the simplest things! MapDiva sounds like it will give Adobe Illustrator, the current software of choice, some competition! Touted as simple to use and priced low, with the emphasis on map creation, Ortelius not only allows designers to use their own geographic information, but includes fully editable, royalty-free vector outline maps of regions, countries, continents, and the world, to get you off to a quick start.

Thanks to the program’s 20 tools, designers have open options of choice of colors, fills, strokes, and adornments that allow them to assemble unlimited style and symbol combinations. Ortelius also includes WYSIWYG drawing and editing; layers and layer groups; and automatic junctions and style transitions.

Read all about it, and try out a free trial of the Ortelius Standard Edition for the MAC.

Getty Stockphoto for Web & Mobile

While one tends to think of Getty Images as a provider of expensive, high-end imagery, the firm has broadened its range in recent years with the acquisition of iStockphoto. But Getty has targeted another set of image buyers who are developing web and mobile content, and often need hundreds of images at smaller file sizes with the Getty Web & Mobile Images products.

The release of the new Web & Mobile image products featuring very small file sizes designed specifically for online and mobile use. As an extension of the firm’s $49 web-resolution offering, the new product features very small sizes – 170 pixels and 280 pixels. The huge selection of high-quality imagery and illustrations are appropriately priced – starting around $5 – and in ready-to-use formats that are ideal for use in mobile, website, email marketing, banner ads, widgets and other web application environments.

Pantone Color of the Year

Pantone gives out a yearly award to one of its 3,000+ colors in their product line. While we’re not sure what other colors were nominated, we do have a winner. The envelope please…

… and the award goes to 14-0848 Mimosa! (hooray, cheering, fist pumping!)

The Color of the Year award was first given out in 1999, when Pantone announced cerulean blue as the Color of the Millennium. Then, in 2007, they turned it into a regular feature, naming chili pepper the winner, and in 2008, blue iris.

In a time of economic uncertainty and political change, optimism is paramount and no other color expresses hope and reassurance more than yellow. Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute states:

“The color yellow exemplifies the warmth and nurturing quality of the sun, properties we as humans are naturally drawn to for reassurance. Mimosa also speaks to enlightenment, as it is a hue that sparks imagination and innovation.”

Read more from the official Pantone press release and raise your glasses! A Toast to you Mimosa!

Smashingmagazine.com is one of my favorite sites to check.  As a mom whose kids didn’t like to grocery shop with me because of my opinions of the use of type fonts or color on packaging, I found this article inspiring!

No one understands the statement “design is everywhere” better than designers.

For instance, when it’s time to grocery shop, do you treat the experience as a journey through Design Mecca – with sources of inspiration lining the shelves from wall to wall? When you’re waiting on the unbearably slow line at the post office, do you make note of the ugly signage covering the walls and kill the time by redesigning it better in your head?

The next time you go out, why not make a conscious effort to spend the time observing all the graphic design you see around you: from pothole covers to food receipts and anything that catches your eye?

Read the full article by Stephanie Orma, and take the ‘How Good Is My DesignDar?’ test online here.