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Polish poster art still thriving

2013-04-01T13:41:24Z

I just returned from a trip to Poland and was thrilled to see Polish poster art alive and thriving. The kiosks and walls of Warsaw, Krakow, and Bydgoszcz beautifully advertised music concerts, plays, and dance performances. Cinema schedules displayed tasty typography.

In Warsaw I visited the Poster Museum at Wilanow. Read more about the legacy of Polish poster design here.

I was also pleased to see so many bookstores in Poland. Quick shout out to Ann Arbor's Literati Bookstore opening soon!

Really old handwriting

2012-11-03T00:36:38Z

A few months ago a few of us here in the office were bemoaning the fact that cursive handwriting is no longer taught in elementary school. And with our constant communication via Facebook, Twitter, and email very few of us send or receive handwritten letters. Last week I was extremely fortunate to get a special visit to the University of Michigan Library's Papyrology Collection.

Arthur Verhoogt hosted us and pulled a few choice items from the collection for us to view. The pieces are under glass, but we could lift up the items, look at them from the front and the back, and hold them inches away from our faces. One was a letter from a soldier to his mother. He had just arrived in Rome and reassured her that he was safe and all was well and that he missed her and his family. We looked at one of the earliest copies of the "Epistles of St. Paul". I noted that the scribe carefully considered type weight, linespacing, and layout on the page. Graphic design from the late second/early third century!!!

One of my favorites was a doodle. A "Sketch of an Elephant with Two Figures" from the fifth or sixth century that was found on the back of an invitation.

Creative Strategy In Action

2012-07-30T19:21:02Z

As a member of the Marketing Roundtable presented by Ann Arbor SPARK, I was recently invited to speak to a group of entrepreneurs and business professionals at one of the organization’s monthly programs. I chose this opportunity to share some of what I’ve learned and observed after 20 years on the creative and strategy side of marketing communications, and dispel a few myths about creativity and the creative process.

Here are a few take-away points from the presentation.

There is no monopoly on creativity. Of course we think of artists, writers, musicians, and poets as creative. But creativity and innovation are at work every day driving progress in a wide range of fields. You too are creative, and you can become more creative by working at it.
Creativity counts in business. In a recent survey by IBM of more than 1500 CEOs from around the world, creativity ranked as one of the most essential skills for navigating today’s complex world. That explains why innovation and creativity seem to be hot topics in business today. (If you’re in marketing, sales, or business development, you know the importance of creativity and innovation in business.)
Big ideas trump big budgets. A common misconception is that doing “great creative” is only for big companies with big money. Of course you have to spend something to market, but that’s part of the cost of doing business (I hope). I believe that if you’re working with a smaller budget, it’s even more essential that you work smarter and be more creative than the other guys.
Brand building takes time. Think of some of the world’s most iconic brands – brands at the level you aspire to for your business. (We often hear names like Apple, Starbucks, Nike, and BMW in our brand workshops.) What do they all have in common? A professional, consistent, quality brand established at all touch points. Remember, these brands didn’t pop up overnight. And while you don’t need an astronomical marketing budget to set your business apart from the rest, let’s not kid ourselves, these brands didn’t achieve top-of-mind status with no marketing budget. Invest in the time and resources to build your brand right.
Seek professional help. As an entrepreneur, don’t feel you have to take your business to the next level single-handedly. Aspire to grow your business to a point where you can hire others to strengthen your weaknesses. If the role of salesperson isn’t your thing, bring on a sales professional. If your time is better spent engineering than it is designing and marketing, seek the help of a professional designer or marketing consultant that you click with.
Have fun innovating. Artists and “creative” types create because it’s in our blood; it’s what we do. Similarly, most entrepreneurs and business builders I know enjoy the challenge of bringing a product or business idea to reality and helping them grow or perhaps selling them off and moving on to the next idea. So, rather than get wrapped up in today’s industry buzz words that hype “innovating” and “disrupting” the marketplace, I say enjoy doing what you do and keep “progressing.” After all, progress is creativity.

Walk through the complete presentation PowerPoint here.

Learn more about the Marketing Roundtable presented by Ann Arbor SPARK here.

Great Stories & The People That Make Them Happen

2012-06-22T15:13:23Z

Last night, a group of Q folk attended 826 Michigan's Storymakers Dinner at Zingerman's Roadhouse in Ann Arbor. This is the third annual and it has been our pleasure to be involved from the start.

The guests of honor last night were Zayd Dohrn and Rachel DeWoskin (Ann Arbor native, Community High alum). They both shared their love for 826 and read excerpts from their own writings. My favorite part of the event is hearing from the students and parents who have been directly affected by the volunteers. Two students read their stories from 826's latest published work, "What to Call the Place I Call Home", and were able to take in a room of cheers for their accomplishments.

Of course the food was fabulous, an Asian-inspired meal prepared specially by the chef of the Roadhouse. The company was wonderful. Our intern Thomas Hill did a fabulous job with the design materials. One woman shared that his invitation was the reason she was attending. The power of design, well done.

The evening ended with an amazing rainbow and sunset on our way out the door.

If you've never heard of 826, look them up. We are so fortunate to have the Michigan group. On top of the ongoing tutoring throughout the year, they put on so many fun and interesting activities for people to get involved in (your children, you if you're looking for a place to volunteer!) Check out this awesome video piece created by a group of kids at an 826 animation camp.

Tasty Wine Labels

2012-06-11T15:07:50Z

For me, as well as many others, the Internet is an endless space where I can become distracted for hours on end. My recent visual explorations have been through the world of packaging design. Being a person that thinks two dimensionally, the actual construction of the various pieces often baffles me. Wine label design has been one of my favorite categories to browse because I can’t imagine there are too many complications with the construction of these labels. Plus, what designer is not guilty of selecting a wine based purely on the aesthetic of the label?

Here’s a round-up of some of my recent favorites.

Plural Wines: A lovely use of an element that is essential to every designer as a means of creating a categorizing system for wines.

Mayrah Wine: This packaging makes great use of the entire bottle and would certainly lure me in if I saw this in a store.

Alternative Organic Wine: Not only is this wine organic, but all the packaging is organic as well from the paper to the twine to the inks used for printing.

Spodee: The use of a milk bottle certainly brings a whole new element to the design and fits perfectly given the history of Spodee (visit their website to find out more).

Honey Moon: A promotional wine to be sent out the first day of summer

Silhouette Wine: A simple and elegant design that gets the message across.

Two Hoots Wine: Despite how much they've been overused lately, owls still never fail to entice me.

Wines of the World: A quirky idea that’s the perfect transition to my final finding.

Corkers: Lastly, not a wine label but an adorable and perfect pairing for wine that could definitely keep me entertained for quite some time should I ever get my hands on this.

And so, this ends a peek into what I spend my time doing outside of Q. In my short time here thus far, I’ve had the chance to dabble in all sorts of things and I’m looking forward to the rest of my summer here. Also, if you're interested in looking at more packaging design, the dieline is an awesome blog to check out!

Lisa is currently a graphic design intern at Q and a recent graduate of the University of Michigan.

826 Michigan Storymakers Dinner

2012-05-29T16:26:47Z

Today we received our own Q-designed invitations to the 826 Michigan Storymakers dinner. We are proud to be design sponsors once again for this annual event. 826 is such a wonderful group, supporting and inspiring young children to be creative writers and thinkers.

Each year it's a fun design project. Our intern, Thomas Hill, led up the design materials and developed a typographic solution as tasty as the Zingerman's menu planned for the event.

If you'd like to learn more about 826 (and you should!), visit their site or stop in to their robot shop on E. Liberty.

Screening of “Linotype: The Film”

2012-04-18T13:59:28Z

AIGA Detroit hosted an early premiere of the film Linotype: In Search of the Eighth Wonder of the World. The venue was Signal-Return, a letterpress studio that recently opened in Eastern Market. I was curious about both the film and Signal-Return. For one, I’ve heard about a linotype, but didn’t know all that much about it except that it made a line of type. Two, as a designer I wanted to check out Signal-Return’s space. Neither disappointed. The film was great. It was well edited and upbeat. It went through the history of the linotype, why it came about, who designed it, who used it, the mistakes and the fortunes, where they are in today’s society, and where they might be in the future. This is truly a great experience for any printer, designer, historian, or curious individual looking for new information about an old piece of history.

Going there I didn't know what to expect. I've been to a few AIGA events and the turnout always seems to be different. Some are sold out while others have just a handful of people. This event filled the entire Signal-Return space. The mixture of the audience was fantastic. There were design students, design professionals, friends, family, a coffee guy, and some old timers that had experience with the linotype itself. The person who sat next to me drove four hours on a Wednesday night to relive his glory days as a linotype operator in businesses all across southeast Michigan, including the Detroit News.

Thomas Hill is Q’s current graphic design intern. A recent graduate of Eastern Michigan’s design program, Thomas splits his time between Q and Planet Rock Climbing in Pontiac.

Lunch with Carter and Black

2012-03-12T14:35:25Z

Last Thursday I was honored to accept a last minute invitation from the University of Michigan School of Art & Design to lunch with Matthew Carter and Roger Black (thank you Mary Alice Bankert!). Carter and Black were in town last week as part of the Penny W. Stamps Speaker Series – one of the best things the School has done for the Ann Arbor community.

Both gentleman have had long distinguished careers, are obviously good friends, love to talk, and are actively pursuing their craft. Yes, you can design after age 30. Thank goodness!

Matthew Carter, type designer, now in his 70s was recently awarded a Macarthur genius grant. Enough said.

Roger Black first earned recognition for his work with Rolling Stone and The New York Times. And he was a co-founder of Font Bureau. He is still the go-to-guy in publishing in all mediums. Early on he embraced "computer design" and now has a trio of companies that deliver templating and web fonts: Treesaver, Webtype, and Ready-Media. He's received some flack about templating, but says it is simply system design and designers still have to apply the brand and content.

Thanks again UM!

Labor of Love: Folk Fest 2012

2012-02-06T20:51:06Z

Each year, we have the very good fortune of working on the promotional materials for the Ann Arbor Folk Festival. This year we focused our concepts on letterpress. There were so many good reasons to go this route, and of course our dear friends at The Ark gave us the freedom to follow our interests and make it come to life.

In the past few years, there has been a revival of letterpress. I think it's a reaction to the over-digitized world we live and work in now, at least it is for me. I push pixels around all day long, I design more web sites than printed pieces, and if I am working with a client wanting to print something they often go with the ever-economical digital output. There are reasons for these decisions, but thankfully people are finding enough reasons to create interesting letterpress work as well.

More and more small shops are opening up. Last year we were introduced to the folks here in Ann Arbor at Elevated Press. There is a new studio ("creative enterprise") in Detroit's Eastern Market called Signal-Return. Folks are collecting presses, putting them in their basement, and creating lovely pieces for weddings and parties. Others are just bringing back the type.

Last May, I spent a weekend in Nashville and came across Hatch Show Print (post here). It was such a happy discovery, I really hadn't known much about the old techniques of letterpress poster printing. I loved the effect, and of course the oodles of old wood type all mixed together. So with this inspiration, and our recent connection to local artist/engraver/letterpress guru Jim Horton, I knew we could do something very cool for the Festival.

The Festival poster is always a design challenge because of the huge amount of text needed for the artist lineups. With Jim's hundreds of type libraries in mind, we went with a concept that focused on the words, a feast of type. We were able to utilize his collections, and only order a small fraction of the design elements as custom plates. Turns out there are only a few companies in the country that continue to produce custom letterpress plates and one is here in Owosso, Michigan! Owosso Graphic Arts, they were awesome. Great service, super quick turnaround.

The process was a labor of love. We worked with Jim's book of type specimens as we laid out the design, suggesting type styles and sizes but knowing that a huge portion of the "puzzle" would be put together in his space when setting up the lockup for the first proofs, pictured above. We had to work through a few changes, getting hierarchy of artists just right, correcting some typos. We looked at the print on a few different stocks, but in the end went with French's Poptone 100# Sweet Tooth. We wanted a bright white and liked the texture this one offered. Unlike Jim, we preferred irregularities in the printing, less than perfect coverage in certain areas. This toothy paper helped with this effect.

The final printing process took at least four days, one day for each color. Thankfully, helpers were plentiful, from the Q crew to a batch of U-M printmaking students eager to take part. We started with the red.

Followed that with the gray.

(This press was originally intended for proofing newspapers.)

Then on to the purple, only realizing then that the date and time were supposed to be purple. Fortunately, we all liked new gray dropshadow created with the purple on top.

Finally, the orange, our headliners.

Finished!

We had a wonderful experience working with Jim, getting our hands inky, spending time in a letterpress time capsule. I am already scheming a way to get back there for another project.

The Festival itself was another big success. Amazing artists, fabulous music. Thank you to The Ark for bringing this to Ann Arbor each year. Thanks to Jim for being such a great guy and interesting person to work with and learn from. Long live letterpress!

Jazz in Barbados

2012-01-25T18:19:12Z

A few weeks ago, I drove 30 minutes to the east coast listening to classic calypso tunes on my favorite radio station (Q FM), bought a bottle of water, and ran a few kilometers along this beach:

Then I drove past this rock:

And up a long hill and down a steep, rocky, one-lane path to Naniki for lunch:

The first thing I noticed when I walked in was the beautiful view:

The second thing was the groovy American jazz on the sound system, just the right volume. Very few bars and restaurants in Barbados play jazz in the background. Four places that I know about offer live jazz a few times a week. Naniki is one of them. The owner told me that he has live jazz every Sunday afternoon, and last Sunday was really special. A great trumpet player.

The view from my table:

The buildings are duplex cottages, $US 75.00 per night and up. The horizon is the Atlantic Ocean. On the other side is Senegal.

Naniki was quiet. I selected a table two tables away from a British couple. After I ordered, a group of four selected a table two away from them on the other side. The owner stopped by to tell me more about the music schedule, and he said again: Last Sunday was the best. The trumpet player was Marcus Belgrave. I thought: Amazing. One of the best trumpet players in the world, a legend from Deroit, where he still lives and plays and teaches when he's not traveling. He played with Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, all the Motown stars, Tony Bennet, and Aretha Franklin. He came to Barbados, and he played here?

The owner said: That's Marcus Belgrave over there. Where? The fella in the hat. That's Marcus Belgrave? Definitely. And he invited me over to meet the people at the end of the deck: Marcus Belgrave, his wife Joan Belgrave (an excellent singer), Mr. Belgrave's Barbadian cousin, and a British woman. The Belgraves are also refugees from winter. They're thinking about settling in Barbados for a good part of the year. His father was from here, one of the thousands of Barbadians who moved to Panamá a century ago to work on the canal. He was one of the lucky survivors, and after the canal opened in 1914, he moved to the US. This week, the Belgraves spent a lot of time tracing his family history in the Barbados Archives. The British woman was a volunteer teacher in Barbados before I was here in the Peace Corps. I don't know what the Bajan cousin does in life, but he's probably a retired teacher. I didn't ask him because I was so busy talking with a superstar.

I said somebody should create a major exhibit (plus an iPad "book", and a fascinating web site, and a television series, and a documentary film, but I didn't mention all that) about the Barbadians who went to Panamá and built one of the most important projects in world history. We all agreed that it's a good idea, and Naniki's owner said: Mr. Watson at the Barbados Musuem is working on a similar idea, so you should talk with him if you think you can help in any way at all.

They said that Mr. Belgrave was planning to play with the Royal Barbados Police Force Band later that afternoon, at Hastings Rocks, which is directly across the street from my bedroom balcony. Eventually, I excused myself and left them in peace from all my fan talk.

Lunch was grilled marlin, rice and peas, pickled bananas, and a salad. The owner showed me the CD covers of the music he was playing today, so far: Monty Alexander, Oscar Peterson's Canadian Suite, and Grover Washington. I told him the sound system was excellent, which was true. A totally crisp complement to the easy breeze from Africa. He said: Oscar Peterson sat right over there a few years before he died and just chatted all afternoon. I told him about the Jazz Foundation of America. He knew about it, and he knows some musicians in New York who are involved in that work.

When I left, I told the Belgrave party about the Louis Armstrong Summer Jazz Camp. Of course, they knew about that, because Mr. Belgrave is a jazz educator in Detroit and elsewhere. In 2009, he received the Kresge Eminent Artist Prize ($50,000) for his lifetime achievements.

As I drove back toward the west coast and turned south, Joanne Sealey on Q FM was hosting her Saturday reggae hour and taking phone calls from New York and Vancouver. After I stopped at the supermarket, the new Q FM theme was classic R&B: The Best of Your Love, The Temptations.

At exactly 4:00, the Barbados Royal Police Force Band (founded in 1889) greeted a few hundred Barbadians and tourists with a Sousa march in a historic gazebo overlooking the Caribbean:

They played movie-music medlies, a few Caribbean tunes, and a tribute to Michael Jackson.

The conductor announced Mr. Belgrave's presence, who consulted with Joan and a senior police officer (my apartment is in the big building in the background):

Then he joined the band for some Latino and jazz numbers, and he played a few solos:

The crowd loved him, especially when he said: It's so good to be back home!

During lunch, Naniki's owner told me that he learned to love jazz from his father, who collected American records. When I asked him about jazz in Barbados, he said: Too many people here think that jazz is an elitist thing, only for the intelligentsia. They're wrong. It's exactly the opposite. Those people don't know where jazz came from.

Among many other places, it came from Barbados and Panamá and Detroit.

Q Previews the North American International Auto Show

2012-01-12T22:01:41Z

It was good to be back at the North American International Auto Show during industry preview days visiting our client, Clark Hill PLC. And it was encouraging to see that the reigning Detroit-based auto show was up to speed with more of the energy and excitement of new vehicles and new ideas that were missing a few years ago.

We entered Cobo Hall at the Ford exhibit, which gave my colleague, Christine Golus, a chance to reflect on the automotive brand that she has a special appreciation for, having grown up in a “Ford family” – her father worked at Ford’s Dearborn and Wayne locations. We sought out the newly redesigned 2013 Escape, curious to see how designers carried over emerging, modern design cues from the recent Focus and Explorer re-launch, and eager to see what kind of fuel economy improvements were made in this popular SUV. (We’re pleased to report 36 mpg highway with EcoBoost.) Of course a brief pause to admire the lineup of Mustangs on display goes without saying.

Of particular interest to us at Q was a brief presentation at the Chevrolet exhibit focused on two concept cars aimed at "millennials," the Code 130R and Tru 140S. The Chevy team conducted research to explore why so many of today’s would-be teen drivers are indifferent about getting a driver’s license and longing for the freedom of the road – an odd phenomenon that we too observed among the teens, and their friends, in our own households. Their findings were incorporated into the styling and interior features of the concept vehicles.

After lunch with our friends at the Clark Hill booth overlooking the show, we decided our trip to the NAIAS would not be complete without a stop at the BMW exhibit for a glimpse of the latest German engineering and a few photos to share with our Q partners in Wiesbaden. While BMW had a smorgasbord of new 3 Series vehicles on display, we were disappointed they neglected to bring the X3, which Q creative director Todd Szymanski helped launch to dealers in 2011.

Christine’s pick for show favorite: the Fiat 500 Abarth in silver, but not necessarily the menacing scorpion logo adornments. Paul’s pick for show favorite: the Cadillac CTS-V Sport Wagon black diamond addition, with 6-speed manual transmission and track time that beats Ferrari. (Don’t believe it? Watch this Top Gear review.)

A graphic designer goes to the 2012 Detroit Auto Show

2012-01-12T19:39:41Z

OK, I'll admit it. I'm not a car gal even though I was born and bred in the Motor City. But, this morning's visit to the North American International Auto Show delighted me as a designer. Large open spaces, bold shapes, colors, huge screens, motions graphics, iPads, Macs, multi-textured surfaces. Sophisticated. We went as guests of Clark Hill PLC, long-time Q client. I'll let my colleague, Paul Koch, talk about the cars. But, I did like the Fiat!

See photos and videos here.

From Q to You!

2011-12-22T19:31:46Z

Designing with Emotion

2011-11-28T19:43:33Z

Just finished Aarron Walter's Designing for Emotion this Thanksgiving weekend. What a treat! I was happy to see that Q implements a number of his suggestions in our web site design process: personas, mood boards, digging into the personality traits of the companies and organizations we work with, but what inspired me the most was the reminder to design for "delight" and don't forget about the human connection.

As Walter's notes behind each and every organization and web site are people. Right! Walter alludes to the industrial revolution during the 18th and 19th century that replaced the skilled craftsman – "As the machine found its place in our world, the human hand's presence in everyday objects slowly faded.…We web designers find ourselves in a similar situation. There's plenty of opportunity to build fast and cheap sites with no reverence for craft or the relationship we build with our audience. We could create new projects with stock photography, boilerplate templates, and one-size-fits-all copy.…Or we could follow a different path, one paved by the artists, designers, and architects of the Arts and Crafts movement…create an experience for users that make them feel like there's a person, not a machine, at the other end of the connection."

Only problem is that there is a machine on the other end!!! Amazing, powerful technology and automatic processes that power Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, Facebook, Skype, and many of the other apps and web sites we interact with daily. Nonetheless, we can't lose site of the people. Rather than human-computer interaction Walter's tries hard when designing to "make the interface experience feel like there's a human on the other end, not a computer." Human-to-human interaction via our computers.

And designing for delight and emotion does not mean that all computer interactions are silly, playful, or fun. Serious work and issues are dealt with every day via interactive experiences, but as Walter's says "If we stop thinking of the interfaces we design as dumb control panels, and think of them as the people our target audience wants to interact with, we can craft emotionally engaging experiences that make a lasting impression."

So similar to the Thanksgiving tradition of "I am thankful for…" here is a start to my "What delights me list":

1. iPAD app about Merce Cunningham by the 2wice Arts Foundation.

2. Google's doodles on their home page. I especially enjoyed that one on Martha Graham's bday.

3. ebird.org a place where my birdwatching husband enters in his personal bird lists (he has many, many lists going back many years). This data generated by mom and pop birdwatchers from all over the world is then used by Audobon and the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology in their migration maps and species studies.

4. Skype and Tumblr for keeping me connected to my daughter while she is on study abroad in India – if and when her internet is working!

5. Word of the Day from dictionary.com. A new word greets me each and every morning in my email inbox.

… and the smell of freshly brewed coffee in the Q kitchen!

Celebrating Q People!

2011-11-22T20:42:23Z

Q recently turned 30 years old. In honor of this momentous occasion, we've spent the last few months putting together a project and planning a party, both of which focused on the various people that have made Q the company that it is today.

The project included an animation, which tells the story of Q. It was followed up by a minisite filled with contributions from the people of Q's past and present; Q alum, clients, vendors, and friends. You’ve heard it before, but the sentiment speaks true, “In the end, it’s all about the people.” Way beyond the work designed and produced, it’s the people we've shared these experiences with and learned from that make Q what it is.

Which is a whole lot of fun, especially when it's time to throw a party! We celebrated this past week at our offices in Kerrytown. The setting was lovely, the music just right, the food fabulous (thanks to Eat!), and the company delightful. Such an amazing group of people together in one place. Thank you to everyone who stopped by and joined in on the celebration. Cheers to Q People!

Our full album of photos here »