Ugh.

You and I know better. But that doesn’t mean we can stick it to some group of design non-believers with a list of the Seven Deadly Design Rules and force them to submit. We have to understand that, sometimes, circumstances require us to be creative in our application, that, sometimes, those bullets are necessary and that extra typeface is needed and those logos are untouchable.

Then again, sometimes, we need to stop, step back, strip it all down and reconvene with the bare basics.

Believe it or not, sometimes, it works.

Today’s example: the State of Montana.

After years of diverging license plate designs, ugly pastels, a roster of causes (105 in all, not counting University-specific plates) and, yes, what seems like a million typefaces, Montana took its recent history of over-design and wiped it clean.

A lack of consistency? Gone. A full palette of colors? Gone. A feeling of retro freshness that will hopefully inspire others (including Nebraska, of whom we will only say, “Please. Hire. Designers. Next. Time.”)?

Absolutely.

(Photo via greatfallstribune.com, ©AP Photo/Matt Gouras)

Great design doesn’t mean doing the most with what you have. It means doing the best with what you need.

Thanks be to Montana for reminding us.

(via: Design Observer, which was via: W Magazine)

It starts during the summer. Themes are discussed, a stage is mocked up, and a speaker is booked. This year, the Chamber’s theme revolved around the consistent exposure Sioux Falls receives as both a business-friendly city and a place with high quality of life. The forerunner in this praise: Forbes Magazine.

So the natural choice for a speaker? Steve Forbes.

Throughout the summer and into September, the staging is finalized, the design is set and the invites start going out. Schedules are coordinated, extra help is brought in. We build monster set pieces. It’s like being in Play Production, except the stage is massive and the talent does more than botch lines from As You Like It.

As we get closer to the date, work swirls in a fever pitch. Our building is filled with staging pipes and banners – printed in house by Jason – and speeches pass over an entire series of desks. Video reaches the final stages of production, and a handful of lucky HSers work late into the night.

And then, it’s the week of the show.

Though the program is Tuesday night, we begin setting up Sunday morning. The stage takes a day and a half to erect, video is double- and triple-checked, and the HS Dancers go through their final run-throughs. A skeleton crew stays back at the office while the real action occurs at the Sioux Falls Convention Center in a flurry of construction, rehearsal and anticipation.

An hour before the show begins, you’d have no idea that this has been a process of months. When the lights go down, you’re seeing the end of the work, and the beginning of a grand celebration of the area we call home.

By the end of the next day, it’s all gone. The room is ready for the next event. Hopefully, you attended. And hopefully, you gained a new appreciation for everything the Sioux Falls Area Chamber of Commerce does for us – not just businesses, but everyone.

If you could believe it, that’s not even the end. Because chances are, we’re already looking toward next year’s show.

So it’s always cool to see someone take the tired “save money during a recession” message and do something cool with it.

Like this Volkswagen guerrilla campaign for the new BlueMotion line of vehicles.

The gist: The European map on a batch of Euro banknotes is stamped with a representation of how far you’d get based on the banknote’s denomination. How far would you get with 50 Euros? It’s right there on the banknote.

Then, they released the bills throughout German VW dealers, service shops, etc.

And they did it all without falling back on tired clichés. Which, even without the awesomeness of the idea, gets a whole fist full of thumbs up from me.

(Via: Direct Daily)

A quick word from the corporate sponsor.

Constantly raising awareness. Moving toward a cure.

What’s that? Oh, yeah. We’re pretty excited about a pink bus.

Not just pink, though. PINK. As in, Avera McKennan’s new bus wrap – promoting the Avera Breast Center and featuring some of the region’s very own breast cancer survivors – is unmistakable and impossible to ignore.

After all – it’s bright pink.

Here’s the thing. Marketing and advertising have become so much a part of our every move that we begin to tune it out. We are inundated with visual and aural marketing at every turn. So it’s not just a fight to be noticed - it’s a fight to be relevant, with a message that people actually want to hear, promoting solutions, not features. Or, at least, to offer a change from the typical.

As marketers, we understand that our target doesn’t want to hear us. And it’s up to us to change that convention.

Which is why something like the Big Pink Avera McKennan Bus works. Not only does it promote a worthy cause - get mammograms! - but it’s also a bit jaunty. Jovial. A beacon of fun in an altogether too cluttered advertising and marketing landscape.

Buses are often seen as beat down. They’re driven hard and laid out to rest in some giant garage. We’re fighting to change that convention too, by turning them into a visual medium. They aren’t art yet, but how far are we from that? How far are we from accepting public transit as a focus of attention?

Because when you see a pink bus, is there anything you can do other than say, “Holy cow. That’s totally a pink bus?”

If I sound a little sarcastic, you’ll have to understand that I’m a writer. Which means I have one goal over any other: create interesting content.

It’s this goal that makes me cringe when people say that SEO is the most important part of putting together a successful Web site; that copy should be manufactured with the robotic eyes of a search engine in mind.

And it’s this goal that often leads me astray, railing against SEO in the name of art and literature and everything the act of writing stands for.

Because the truth is – SEO isn’t king. And neither is content, anymore. Seems that both have to work in harmony.

See? Now I’ve just upset both sides of the debate.

There are two arguments in the battle. For SEO champions, it’s, “If your content is good, but no one sees it, is it worth it?” And for the content wonks, it’s “If you get people to your site, but they aren’t interested in staying, is it worth it?”

The real answer lies somewhere in between. It isn’t all or nothing for either side. You need both. In fact, one should naturally lead to another. Great content should generate positive SEO, as great content relies on communicating in a way that gives the reader exactly what they came for. And great SEO means you’re covering all of your bases – that you’re thinking for the masses instead of your little corner of intelligentsia.

It means more than compiling lists of regurgitated facts and keyword-laden copy. Conversely, it means more than developing beautiful prose more akin to Steinbeck than Sergey. It’s right in the middle. It’s what we sought out when we redesigned our Web site. And it’s helped us in both cases: better content and better search results.

No, it’s not SEO über alles. Nor is it content without regard to searchability. Simply put, it’s writing the way people will read. Will think. Will care. It’s managing content logically and creatively.

It’s copy written for robots and people. How futuristic. Are you doing it?

Every year for our anniversary – and any other event worthy of staying late and enjoying each other’s company: holiday party, staff retreat, etc. – Lynell and Tammy whip together a “Weird” Al Yankovic-style parody of a classic song.

Usually a dance is developed. Typically, there are costumes.

This year, for whatever reason, the theme was “Grease.” Maybe it’s because HenkinSchultz turned 18 this past Wednesday. Or maybe Lynell just had a wig she needed to use before returning it to the costume store.

Or maybe… well, who knows, really.

All that matters is that we had a lot of fun celebrating our last days as a child – and first days as an adult. We can smoke now! (But we can’t drink, and we’re still six years from renting cars.)

Anyway, thanks to all who have made the past 18 years so fantastic. And Happy Anniversary to us!

(Visit our Flickr page for the complete set.)

That being said, Vitamin Water understands its place on the market. It’s natural. It’s got vitamins. And while it will never overtake the heavy hitters, it’s vying to be the most creative and most beloved.

50 Cent is a part-owner. And Steve Nash is the lead spokesperson. And this is their newest viral sensation: a “flavor creator” through Facebook.

What we learn: Steve Nash is hilarious. Retro-cheesy is in. And having a sense of humor about your brand is important.

This is not to say every company should start hiring clowns and wiener dogs to perform abridged Shakespeare for every television spot, or that an insurance agency should eschew years of brand management and stability only to hire Carrot Top as a spokesperson. But when the opportunity arises, it’s important to understand the value of taking your company a little lightly.

Don’t drop common sense for the sake of a laugh. Never let amateurs take hold of your company’s name. Understand that - even in the face of humor - careful planning and execution takes precedence.

But if you have the chance to have a little fun, do it.

Your customers will thank you. The viewing public will thank you. All you’ll do is look a little more human. A little more memorable. A little more desirable.

(And, if possible, hire Steve Nash to help you out.)

(And now a message from the corporate sponsor…)

We’d like to take a moment to re-introduce www.HenkinSchultz.com.

What? Re-introduce? Huh?

Well, yeah. We’ve re-designed the site. It’s been up for a few weeks, but this is the official launch, my friends, so let’s rock this joint.

But it’s more than a re-design. It’s a re-imagining of what our Web site is here for: namely, providing content to current and potential clients and the community as a whole. Our clients wanted more access to the awesomeness we’re providing, and we were happy to oblige.

So we’ve got constantly updated portfolios, HenkinSchultz’s Greatest Hits, easy contact to all of our other outlets – Facebook, Twitter, Post Haste – and the same devotion to our people.

It works because we’re all in on it. Every employee has a chance to update as necessary. It’s crowdsourcing at its best: when it works together for one common goal and not against each other for a cheap fix.

So welcome. We like what’s going on over at www.HenkinSchultz.com. And we hope you do too.

(We return you to your regularly scheduled Post Haste post.)

But, above all, these letters all have one thing in common: they represent communication in its rawest form – words on paper, no sound, no video, no Flash; just the bare bones message of one person’s desires and thoughts.

The art of communication depends on words as much as it does design, technology or media mix. In fact, in this humble copywriter’s opinion, it needs words above anything else.

In marketing, each word is carefully chosen to influence and clarify. When you think about it, every message a business sends out to the public is simply a letter from company to customer. Every ad is an open letter to the viewers. Every Web site is a letter to someone who stumbles upon it.

Which means the decorum of letter writing should always be evident. Are you being clear? Are you presenting an argument for change, or are you simply making a joke? Are you being genuine, or is your message false?

If you were sending your advertisement to someone, would they want to continue correspondence? Are you offering anything worth responding to?

Maybe Hitler didn’t heed Ghandi’s request. But it certainly wasn’t for lack of clarity or influence.

So it’s a pretty awesome surprise that my good friend (in a strictly “blogging-on-the-same-Internet” sense) Bill Green of Make the Logo Bigger summarizes the User Experience discussion in a series of Pac-Man and vehicle side mirror analogies.

From “Why is this user experience [swear word] so hard?”

However, if I want to incorporate more features into my Facebook page, the effort it’s taken hasn’t been worth it. A simple thing like incorporating YouTube videos or my Flickr account has been a major pain. I’ve wasted so much time with what I thought “should” be an easy task, and still not gotten it right.

It’s like Pac Man: I just need to get from Point A to Point B, but instead, I have to do a bunch of stuff first and avoid some very bad things along the way.

Cue endless pokes and virtual beers thank you very much.

(If Pac Man isn’t to your liking, then how about this metaphor: Trying to do something on Facebook is like entering your front door by first going through the garage, then walking around the house.)

Read the rest here. And rock on, Bill Green. Keep fighting the good fight for all of us.