In this post I want to look at how the information is organised on the old and the new tickets and show the importance of designing for your user. Let’s take a look at the previous ticket:

The previous ticket with annotations in red

What kind of information do your users need?

In the old ticket design, information such as title, cinema room, date/time and row/seat are readily available at a glance. A person going to the cinema wants to know where to go. By looking at this ticket they know they have the ticket for the right show, and in which room and seat they are supposed to go to.

Ticket checkers want to know that the customer has the right ticket (I know this because I used to work as one). They are interested in the film title, the time and the date. Sometimes people arrive with tickets for the next or previous day, and of course their seats are taken. It is also important that the checkers can get this information with a quick glance because there are often hundreds of tickets to check. The old design features large print, which makes it easy for both customers and ticket checkers to get the information they want quickly.

On the new ticket, however, it looks as if no thought has gone into the users:

The new ticket design features small print and disorganised information

Making it difficult for your users

This design creates several difficulties for both user groups. To begin with, the small print is harder to read. Important information such as cinema room is hidden at the bottom of the ticket. There is no use knowing your seat number if you don’t know which room you need to go to.

There is a lot of white space around the title, but the condensed type is hard to read. In addition, this ticket has a grey background which doesn’t contrast well with the black type.

Another difference is that on the new ticket the cinema name is highlighted with white on black type, making this the most important piece of information in the hierarchy. On the old design, this information is made less important—as it should be.

But it’s not all bad, is it?

The new design has a few useful additions, such as end time and age restriction. However, they have removed the information about when and where the ticket was bought. This information is helpful for the ticket checkers when dealing with double bookings.

Although the old design is better, it is not perfect. The room, row and seat information could be together. I would perhaps have placed the date and time beneath the title, but these are minuscule problems compared to the new design.

The old cinema ticket (left) and the new ticket (right)

What can we learn from this?

It is clear that the company has not asked the people who actually use the ticket how it could best be designed. There are several things they should have done before deciding on the new ticket:

• Design with the user in mind. This means ask the user.
• Make sure it’s easy to find the important information.
• Write in big letters and use contrast for good readability.

What do you think? Do you have any other comments about the tickets and their design, or maybe you can share something about your tickets?

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1. How I designed my blog without knowing anything
2. Poster design for Tromteatret
3. Legibility and readability defined by design-academics

Tromteatret is a humorous stage show in Tromsdalen, Norway written and directed by people aged 17-25 and features a cast and crew in junior high school aged 12-15. The producers asked me to design a poster for their 2008 show.

The poster is printed in a run of 400-500 and is plastered around the city of Tromsø. In addition, everyone who participates keeps a poster.

2008 markes the 20th annual show, so they wanted a birthday theme, featuring the posters from the previous years.

As I received all the posters from 1988 up to now, I noticed most of them shared a very similar layout with the name on the top and the info at the bottom. I suggested that we break the convention with a diagonal layout for the 20th show to give it some more dynamism and to be more playful. I also thought it was important that the poster was ‘on its own’ rather than just a collection of the previous posters, because it will hang on the wall of a lot of people.

The colourful background pattern resembles a birthday wrapping paper and the diagonal text has a hierarchy with size and placement. I wanted the poster to say ‘this is our legacy, and this is how cool we are in 2008′.

The title says: Tromteatret 2008, reaches 20 and moves away from home

What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

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According to Imran Syed, the author of Wowability, companies achieving it exceed expectations in one or more contact points and are more likely to be their customers’ preferred brand.

Contact points turned into wow-points

A contact point is a point where the consumer interacts with a brand. This can be functional contact points such as price, durability or technical specifications; emotional contact points such as perceived quality, service or ‘feel’ or communicational contact points such as advertising or design.

Syed argues that companies which can exceed expectations and turn their contact points into wow-points will be higher up on the consumers preference ladder. In order words, exceeding expectations leads to more sales and possibly better relationships with customers or clients. If a company barely lives up to expectations, there is no reason for the customer to stay with that brand.

There is a bike shop close to where I live. It’s not the only one of its kind in the area, and their prices are not exceptionally low. What is exceptional, however, is their customer service. It is a small shop with only two or three employees, and they seem to know everyone of their customers personally. The owner always remember which bike I bought, asks how my studies are going and asks how my girlfriend is doing. He even always remember my name—and my girlfriend’s name!

The bike shop has clearly chosen their main wow-point, and I have never even thought about going to another shop for repairs or equipment.

Choose your contact points wisely

How you position yourself in the market has everything to do which contact points you choose to excel with. If your competition focuses on price, maybe you should focus on quality or service. It is also important to find out what your customers want. Price may not be an important contact point at all for them. Sometimes, the best idea is to find new contact points that can interest the consumers. This is what Apple did when they decided to focus on industrial design in a category full of functional grey computer boxes.

The bike shop has identified that their customers want great help. Help with choosing a bike, help with repairs and help with choosing extras such as pumps and lights. The shop exceeds expectations in helping their customers. That is their position.

As a designer, you can choose between a number of contact points to turn into wow points

Do you want to be the designer who always uses the latest technology? Do you want to be the cheapest in your area? Do you want to focus on environmentally friendly design? Do you offer the best service and problem solving skills? Are you the most exclusive designer in your niche? What is your specialisation?

Do you turn design into wow-points for your clients?

Functional contact points such as technical ability and price are easy for others to match. That is why it is important to complement skills with emotional contact points. It is hard to match or copy your personality, personal style or how you communicate.

Communicate your position through design and copy

When you have chosen which contact points you want to focus on, it is important to let people know about them. A wow-point doesn’t work if no-one knows about it. Show your position through your logo, the design on your website and other branding material. Show your position in your website’s copy, in the way you write emails and blog comments and in the way you talk with your customers or clients.

Once you exceed expectations in one field, it is important to keep at it. Don’t let your wow-points turn into commodities.

What do you think? What are your wow-points? Have you ever been wowed by a brand? Please share your experiences in the comments.

Inspiration: Wowability: How to achieve it and why it matters by Imran Syed, Published by John Wiley & Sons, Singapore.

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A type specimen book is what designers use when selecting typefaces for a job. The requirements of a good type specimen book is that it shows a variety of styles (regular, italic, light, bold, ultra bold etc.) in a variety of sizes and situations, such as text or display type. Another requirement is that it shows all the characters of the typeface, so the designer doesn’t get surprised when using, let’s say the ampersand (&), and it doesn’t seem right for the job.

This book contains 16 pages, 18×18 cm. I used a dark pink colour contrasted by a light blue to create a funky and playful look which suites this typeface. Below is a sample of the pages I created.

The cover page of the book

The alphabet in various styles and sizes

Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl

Display type from Roald Dahl's The Enormous Crocodile

Display type: Black on white and light on dark

A funky flowery asterisk pattern

My typography tutor had this to say about my work:

Gill Sans has a distinct personality which you have managed to bring out in your book. It is the perfect choice to represent Roald Dahl and your work captures both the essence of the typeface as well as the work of the author. You have created some simple dynamic patterns and you understand the use of the grid.

I rather enjoyed working on this book, and learned a lot about this specific typeface. Now I see it everywhere, just like I see Helvetica everywhere after I watched the Helvetica movie.

If you want to download the full type specimen book, it’s here.

What do you think?

Related posts:

1. Legibility and readability defined by design-academics
2. Typographic exercise: using type to express words

When generating ideas for logos, websites or printed material there are always some obvious ideas that would be labelled a cliché or not creative.

That is why you have to ask yourself lots of questions when creating a concept

Creativity is about making new connections between things or ideas. Hopefully the new connection is a useful one, but at the idea generation stage anything goes. A ‘far out’ idea may lead to a useful idea later.

I did an assignment at the university, where we had to choose a theme, and then create 50 images using that theme. I chose to use lemons, and some of the questions I asked was:

What if we substituted tomatoes with lemons on a sandwich?

Looks like the sandwiches are a bit bitter today…

What is lemons were spaceships?

They came in lemons… huge lemons.

Don’t these street lamps have the shape of a lemon?

These lemon trees look rather unnatural.

What if lemons had a vicious enemy: the lime?

I may be green, but I have a huge knife!

What if lemons where huge construction elements?

Let

What if lemons were the tools of the revolution?

Enjoy washing the lemon-acid off your wall!

Other questions to ask are:

• What other uses do my subject have?
• Is my subject similar to something else?
• Where does my subject absolutely NOT belong?
• Who else can use my subject?
• Can a part of my subject be used separately?

It is often better to go through this process when sketching, as you spend less time on each idea. I also find it useful to have to come up with a certain number of ideas. That way I am forced to make creative connections.

So next time you are faced with a creative project, how about committing to come up with 50 or 100 or more ideas before you take it to the next stage?

How many different ideas do you usually generate when you start a new project?

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The Norwegian band Lesbian Pedestrian approached me with the task to design a logo they could use on stickers, t-shirts and posters. They wanted it to resemble the Norwegian pedestrian crossing sign.

The original Norwegian pedestrian crossing sign

One of the challenges I met when designing this was the triangular shape of the sign. It’s spacious enough for one character, but two? I decided to make the characters smaller and with a lighter white stroke than the original.

When sketching , I played around with some positions and styles before I ended up with the final one. The bottom left drawing is the one I based the characters on.

When I say rough sketches, I mean just that...

I drew the women part by part in Illustrator using the pen tool. I also treated the name typographically in a way that can be used together with the image, or alone. The font used is Baskerville, a classic font that in its time was criticised for being rebellious and unreadable. I added little hearts on top of the i-characters to convey the love-theme in the image.

The logotype is based on Baskerville

Sticker-image with text

This is what Esben Rørnes in the band said about it:

The logo was unique, suitable, cheeky and funny. Very good! I especially liked the way it critiques prejudice—the colours, the chemistry between the girls, their clothes and attitudes. Working with you was without a hitch. Your first draft was nice, and you responded quickly with the revisions we wanted.

I have no problems recommending you to others!

Thank you Esben! It was fun working on this mark, and I wish you and your band all the best!

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2. Poster design for Tromteatret
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Using only one typeface and one colour (Helvetica, red), I did this classic typographic exercise. Here is what I came up with.

The words addition and migration

Transition and contraction

Disruption and compression

Subtraction and elimination

Expansion and repetition

Have you done a similar exercise? Did you use different words, or if you used the same ones, were your results different?

Related posts:

1. Gill Sans type specimen book (School project)
2. Legibility and readability defined by design-academics

Introduction

Readability and legibility are two terms used when describing the clarity of a text or a typeface. Although both terms relate to the same subject, they describe two different aspects of clarity. Legibility describes the design of the typeface, while readability describes how the typeface is set on a page. This post will explore the differences between the two terms, and look at how they relate to each other.

Text and display type

Whether type needs to be legible depends on its purpose. Strizver identifies two main categories of type: text and display. Lupton defines ‘text’ as ‘an ongoing sequence of words distinct from shorter headlines and captions’. Jury describes text typefaces as ‘perhaps the most conservative’ group of type. This is because familiarity is a major factor when determining readability, and this is the reason why ‘evolution in the design of text type has … been slow’.

Text type is designed to be legible and readable at small sizes. Display type, however, does not need the extreme legibility and readability needed for long blocks of text. In stead, this kind of type can be more elaborate, expressive and have a more stylish look.

The required level of readability, and especially the legibility, of type depends on whether it is going to be used as text or display.

Display type Rosewood STD

Legibility

Legibility is a term that refers to the design of a typeface. Strizver identifies characteristics such as the size of its counters, x-height, character shapes, stroke contrast, serifs or lack thereof, and weight. Jury defines legibility as ‘the degree to which individual letters can be distinguished from each other’.

Strizver’s characteristics all relate to the ability to tell letters apart. Juryd escribes some of the concerns a type designer has to consider when designing a legible type:

Generally, the most legible typefaces are those with larger, open or closed inner spaces (counters). This inevitably means a generously large x-height. However, if the x-height is ‘over generous’ then, as a consequence, the ascenders and descenders will be too short. This not only adversely affects the legibility of individual characters … but also makes the recognition of word-shapes more difficult.

Capital Cs and Gs in Bodoni and Baskerville look similar.

Jury goes on to argue that ‘problems of legibility are aggravated by intrinsic design features in some typefaces’. Examples are the capital C in Bodoni, Baskerville and Caslon. They have a lower serif that can confuse them with the capital G. Other examples include the cross-barred italic J of Baskerville and Caslon, which looks like the lowercase F, and the italic lowercase H of Garamond can be confused with the lowercase B.

Garamond italic h and b look similar, and so does the Baskerville italic J and f.

Strizver argues that legibility is more of a concern for type used as text ‘where the degree of legibility relates directly to holding the reader’s attention for the duration of the copy’. In order for the reader to bother reading a block of text, it has to be legible. If not, it is too much work.

Strizver notes that display type, in contrast, are ‘generally used for a few words in larger settings where the objective is to be instantly noticeable and convey a mood or a feeling’ . When it comes to display type, legibility is not as important as for text type. While legibility refers to the typeface design, the term readability is about how type is set.

Readability

Readability, in typographic terms, refers to how type is set, or arranged, on a page or a screen. Jury states that ‘good typography encourages the desire to read and reduces the effort required to comprehend. Comprehension is the reason for all reading’. In other words a text should ideally be easy to read and understand. The reader should not need to even notice the type, only understand the words.

As Lupton says it: ‘one of design’s most humane function[s] is, in actuality, to help readers avoid reading.’ Jury agrees and states that ‘all that type requires, finally, is to be readable’.

Strizver identifies some factors affecting readability: ’size, leading, line length, alignment, letterspacing and word spacing’. Other characteristics that help with readability are ‘clean, consistent, uncomplicated design features, more open spacing … and thin strokes that hold up at smaller sizes’. Jury states that readers’ ability to read quickly ‘depends very much on the order and arrangement of type begin “normal”‘ and that ’surprises are disruptive to the mechanics of reading’.

Because people learn to read through their lives, it is easier and faster to digest information in a format they are used to. This is why many text typefaces look ‘conservative’ and uncomplicated.

Both Lupton and Jury argues that there are several scientific studies measuring the readability of a text. Lupton states that a problem with the design industry is that it is ‘ruled, largely, by convention and intuition’. Jury agrees, and notes that designers do not regard scientific research as relevant, when it could help them understand better how type works:

[B]y understanding what factors are involved in the varying degrees of readability, the designer can make adjustments to ensure type functions efficiently where speed of reading and comprehension are of paramount importance.

Readability refers to how well a text is read, and the elements of typography that can improve this. Even though there is a body of research on readability, it seems like designers do not take sufficient advantage of it to improve their work with type.

Conclusion

Two of the most important aspects of type are readability and legibility. Legibility describes a typeface’s design, with all its individual elements. It also refers to how well individual letters in a typeface can be distinguished. Readability has to do with how the text is arranged. It deals with the size of the text, the space around it and so on. Scientists have done research on readability, but several typographers are upset that designers do not draw enough on this research when they design or set type.

List of references

Jury D, 2004, About Face: reviving the rules of typography, RotoVision, Switzerland.

Lupton E, 2003, ‘Science of Typography’, Print Magazine, Summer 2003, viewed 30 June 2008.

Lupton E, 2004, Thinking with type: a critical guide for designers, writers, editors, & students, Princeton Architectural Press, New York.

Strizver I, 2006, Type rules! : The designer’s guide to professional typography, John Wiley & Sons, New Jersey.

What do you think? Do you agree with Jury, Lupton and Strizver, or do you have other definitions?

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2. Typographic exercise: using type to express words
3. Who is this ticket designed for?

In this part I will focus on branding for the purpose of renewal. In the next posts I will write about repositioning, change and growth.

Why renew a brand?

It is important for many businesses to stay fresh. A brand needs to differentiate the company from its competitors as well as saying something about the company values and aspirations. But when changing the identity for renewal, a company must stay familiar and consistent. In the words of Knapp:

For many of these companies, new identities are often more evolutionary than revolutionary: They want customers to recognise an old friend, but be pleasantly surprised by a fresh new visual expression.

In the book, Knapp describes several case studies. Some reasons for identity renewal are the following:

Outdated and fragmented corporate image
If a company diversifies into other fields, or changes its focus to a different field, its image may no longer accurately portray what kind of company it is. In one case study, people working in different divisions used different business cards and made their own letterheads. That doesn’t portray the company as a solid, consistent entity.

Your company needs to find its place in the market
The market may have changed. Strong competitors chew away at your target market. Should you still be ‘the cheapest’ or should you position yourself as more of an exclusive option? How can you be different (and better)?

You simply want to make more money
Having a strong brand creates better connections between you and your customers and employees. A good connection helps relationship building and persuasion. If you have good relationships with your customers they are more likely to give you business in the future.

What can a new or updated identity do for my business?

In her book, Knapp asks the clients in the case studies what their new identity has done for them. Here are a few results:

Vicky Carlson, president of Office Pavilion San Diego, says that after the identity launched, sales increased and that 90% of people who visit their office purchase a product.

Design is important because it helps us tell our story. The work environment tells you a lot about the company, and when customers step inside our door, they know we practice what we preach.

Carol Wiley at Brown Shoe & Co says the company is more focused, both internally and externally, and that the identity has helped the company:

It has given us a clear vision of who we are, and how to present ourselves to the world. It brands us as stylish, but timeless.

How do they do it?

The designers who worked on the rebranding of these companies use different approaches. However, there are some similarities to how they work. The process for rebranding is as follows:

Research

• Interview employees from a range of positions
• Review existing market research, internal reports and competitors
• Evaluate the company’s strengths and weaknesses

The interviews are meant to give the designers insight in what the company is all about. How employees see the company, but also how they interpret the company’s vision and mission.

The market and competitor research is to create a picture of the target market and to see how the company can differentiate itself from its competitors.

The strength and weakness analysis is to see which areas of the company the identity should play on, and which areas the company can improve itself through, among other things, their new identity.

Present
The designers present the findings of the research to the company, and identifies which attributes and values they should accentuate in the identity.

They also generate lots of ideas before they narrow it down to a few they show the client.

Produce
When the client has chosen a concept for the new identity, the designers get to work refining it and adapting it to its various uses. In some cases the designers need to create style manuals, which describe how the identity is to be used across the company. This document includes elements such as how much space should be around the logo on a letterhead to how the new identity should look like on the company’s cars.

In conclusion

A strong identity can be very valuable to a company, and using graphic design as a business strategy can make a difference. Designers base their suggestions on sound research and guide the client through the process of creating the renewed identity.

Do you have any stories about how an identity renewal helped a company? Or do you approach identity projects differently? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

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2. 5 steps to create a good, well-researched spoof ad
3. Legibility and readability defined by design-academics

First, some principles for idea generation

In order to come up with some good ideas, we necessarily need to generate some not-so-good-ones as well. That’s why it’s important to be open, accept and write down all ideas.

The idea generating stage is not the time to be judgemental. We want as many ideas as possible before we decide some are better than other.

Forced relationships

The concept of forced relationships is to come up with new ideas by combining two normally unrelated ideas. By forcing ourselves to think of a connection between them, we will be able to generate ideas that may be useful.

One way of doing this is to open a dictionary and point at a random word. Another, more high-tech way is to visit a random word generator.

For example, if the problem is marinating food and the random word is desert, possible solutions could be to marinate something using condensed air or dig a hole in the sand. Or to marinate something in the sun, such as sun-dried tomatoes.

Excursions

When I think about the word excursion, images of maps, mushroom picking and insect-gathering comes to mind. In creativity, an excursion is more of a mental exercise where you look elsewhere for solutions.

One example is the ‘career excursion’. Here, we take on the role of someone in a different career or situation than our own, and ask questions such as:

If I were a dancer, a fireman, an oil-driller, a carpenter, a secretary or an accountant,
What would I think of this? What would I use this for? How would I want to change things?

A variation of this excursion is to use well-known characters and ask what would Sherlock Holmes, John McCain, Captain Picard or my neighbour think of this?

Scamper

Scamper is short for substitute, combine, adapt, modify ( or magnify or minify), put to other uses, eliminate and reverse ( or rearrange). Using the scamper framework to generate ideas is as simple as asking questions such as:

• What else can I use? (substitute)
• What could be added to this? (combine)
• What else is like this? (adapt)
• Can I use a different angle? (modify)
• Can it be used in a different way? (put to other uses)
• Can I remove something? (eliminate)
• Can I use another layout? (rearrange)

What’s next?

When you have generated a number of ideas, it’s time to look at which ones you want to go further with or which ones you want to sketch on paper. This is where you can flesh out some ideas in a mind map.

These are some creativity techniques you can use in almost any situation, alone or in groups. Just remember to be open and accept every idea—you never know where it will lead you.

Do you know any other idea generating techniques? Please share in the comments!

Inspiration: Hicks, MJ 2004, ‘Chapter 7: Ideation’ in Problem solving and decision making: Hard, soft and creative approaches, 2nd edn, Thomson Learning, UK.
de Bono, E 2004, How to have a beautiful mind, Vermillion, London.

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