“I would have written you a shorter letter, but I didn’t have the time.”
— Mark Twain

The process of developing meaningful content for websites is sometimes a bigger challenge than the technical construction of the website itself.

One reason for this is there being essentially no limit to need. The freeform nature of the web is that any content area can be endlessly broken down and refined. What’s more, there’s rarely a permanent solution — only a series of provisional drafts.

In a sense, it’s a resource management question, with time being the most important resource. The question to ask is not “what’s important?” but “what’s MOST important?”

The answer to that question is rarely formatting. If your goal in developing content it to tell a story, appeal to emotions, persuade your audience, or some similar goal, the process of adding to or adjusting the formatting will not only not bear fruit, but it will distract you from achieving meaningful results. The choices you make —  inevitably to “stand out” or “add interest” — will read as inconsistency, then clutter, then desperation.

Making this phrase bold, centering this image, adding a border here or there can consume hours of time while providing only the illusion of progress. It’s like having a sad little sofa in a sad little apartment –  moving it to this wall or that wall really doesn’t matter. Quoting Wargames, a movie from my youth, “the only way to win the game is not to play it at all.”

give me your time

The real solution is  the age old process of writing, thinking seriously about your message and then using formatting to clarify — not compete against — your content.

Our web development processes are based on this concept, with templates presenting  a core of only a few formatting options.  This acts as a foundation that helps people work quickly, make simple choices, and produce consistent results.

the source material

The combination of new location, a daily bike commute, and quick daily walks have made Becca and I much more sensitive to the changing seasons this year. Readers of previous posts will remember that leaves are of particular interest to us this fall.

We were especially struck with the incredible richness and range of colors, and Becca had a great idea to use them in our office entry room signage. The concept was to isolate each leaf against a perfectly white background.

three of the fifty-four leaves we used

Although completely natural, the project had the feeling of a design exercise – with the different size, shape, and patterns of each – creating a sense of both diversity and unity that makes the natural world endlessly fascinating. It reminded me of the evolution of typography, how the interplay of form and function propelled countless designers to reinterpret the same essential forms, over and over again.

a close up

Most striking is that the leaves were all gathered within a few blocks of our office. In an urban setting of concrete and cars, it is easy to think of the natural world as something “out there.” Yet, the diversity of the these leaves tells another story; we have only to open our eyes and see.

the finished result

A call out to the person who wrote down “leaf” with a felt pen on a leaf at Maritime Park. Somehow, among the millions – perhaps billions of leaves – we found your message and included it in our project. What are the odds?

Thinking creatively means making contextual decisions that are not always informed by an absolute set of opinions or values. For example: some people hate hyphens and never use them, but “real designers” know that sometimes hyphens have to be used… usually to avoid something even worse.

I say that because recently we’ve been involved in a series of conversations about capitalization. Thrilling, right? Sad to say, in my case, it’s a subject that continues to grow ever more interesting. In any case, recent conversations on caps has led me to believe solutions are found in thinking of capitals contextually – not in absolute terms.

So… here is a designer’s exploration of the different ways of thinking about caps.

Title Case
We Rarely Use Title Case Because  It is So Distracting And Hard To Read. The Added Contrast of Contrast Caps Makes it A Good Choice for Trying to Make a Subhead Stand Out Against Other Competing Information. Ok, enough. I think title caps makes stilted, phony language. To my mind’s ear, it has the same strained, self importance of  James Lipton – as per this excellent parody by David Cross.

ALL CAPS
 Used in body copy, all caps reads as SHOUTING… but for subheads and labels ALL CAPS looks more geometric and structural. Where other caps treatments have an uneven top or bottom surface, all caps is inform. The shapes it produces can fit – Tetris like – into structures of content. All caps seems more like a label, and has a more authoritative feel to it. To the eye, all caps has a quality that makes the eye slip, tractionless, over the surface, as per:

lower case
Lower case is easily read. Each letter has a different shape that gives traction to the eye as it alights the different words. Lower case is casual, accommodating to the reader, and natural. Lower case is 98.6 degrees. The different vertical space of each letter occupies has a distinctly musical quality to me, as per:

Sentence  case.
Like lower case,  sentence case is easily read. An initial capital separates each sentence as a separate thought or helps direct the eye to the beginning of a line. For my way of thinking, if you are not writing in complete sentences there is no need to use sentence case.

Wrap up
As designers, of course we use lots of different caps schemes all the time. There is no universal standard… just whichever works best for your application. Think contextually!

This is an enormous jar; when full, it will probably contain several thousand dollars.

I like the design on the front. It made me want to throw in a few dollars, which I did – happily. This design breaks tons of rules, including:

• numerous technical errors
• no mention  of the speaker, timeline, contact info, or other similar details
• no production quality – just a wrinkled piece of loose leaf and some tape

This makes me think with fondness of the pure love children have of animals, the fascination they have with money and with giant things (which this very sizable jar must surely be  to the person who wrote the note).

Thanks to Avenue Bread for supporting local animals. Why not stop by and throw in a few dollars to support a worthy cause?

As Becca and I establish new routines in our new downtown office space, we’ve been enjoying short walks we complete several times daily.  This summer we were reminded how delightful the change of seasons are in Bellingham – particularly the leaves and sky.

As part of our thinking about local color, we’ve been photographing a specific shot of Whatcom Creek in  Maritime Heritage Park. Every work day, typically around 10:30 we walk there to take our photo. During the next year we will be creating a variety of different projects similar to this to explore the interaction of light and color. Here is our first such project: a slideshow of September’s waterfall photos. We look forward to seeing the colors changing from the shades of green above to gold, orange, and the whites of winter.

PausePlayPlayPrev|Next

Thinking about where I invest my time and energy, I look at other artists and see what I can learn from the decisions they’ve made. Without a doubt, the best creative people I know are people who have made a life choice of doggedly exploring new ways of working and thinking about their craft – whatever it happens to be. As I embark on middle age I see the need to safeguard myself from complacency in the form of relying on doing the same thing over and over. The work we produce will be a public testament of our success in achieving this goal.

By and large, most experiments don’t work… at least not initially, so the cost of experimentation is coming to terms with failing. A lot. In terms of our professional work, exposing our clients to ongoing experiments would be bad marketing for them and us and is obviously unacceptable. Therefore, we’re obliged to roll up our sleeves and – like any self-respecting mad scientist – take the syringe of our dubious speculations and plunge it deep into our own skin, making our own company the unfortunate subject of our own investigations.

And, honestly, it’s totally fun. Here are two recent experimental projects we’ve completed here at our Shew Design office.

both sides, now

As you may know, letterpress printing takes a three dimensional plate, covers it in ink, and presses it deeply into the paper, creating an impression that is very similar to debossing. Where one side of the paper has a nice crisp impression, the other appears unsatisfyingly hazy and imprecise, “blurry” to the touch. People using this medium often design around this outcome, treating the back side as something to ignore by not putting any information on top of it.

the "crisp" side

In thinking about the invitation to our open house we gave ourselves the task of designing for the ugly side of impression. We tested the concept using plates we already had, combining it with laser printing, and creating a design that played to the idea of seeing the same thing from two points of view.

the other side of the same piece of paper, with far less crisp impression

The results? Partial success.  I had reservations about the design but the feedback we received from people we showed it to early on was very positive. Ultimately, I would agree with the bulk of letterpress printers out there who simply design around the backside. However, given the right project, this approach could still work out quite well.

tablet technology v0.1

We wanted to explore options for creating our own customizable oversize graphics in the office, but we wanted to avoid  spending hundreds of dollars each time we wanted to swap them out. A matrix of clipboards (45 in all) provided a perfect solution, making it possible to produce signage on our own laser printer. Swapping one “sign” for another takes a few minutes.

an initial experiment of using the clipboard matrix

The results? Very successful. The clipboards are the first thing you see when you enter the office, so it will be nice using it to set a scene for events or special  meetings. In addition, learning what designs translate well into this format will give us a new insight into anticipating how things look on screen vs. how they appear in reality. In terms of our own company’s marketing, I like how the display communicates how our company’s sense of innovation and adaptability play into the work we produce.

Developing an identity for the Bellingham/Whatcom County Commission Against Domestic Violence raised some challenging questions about design and marketing that we hadn’t encountered before.

The Commission works with a variety of community partners to detect, prevent, and help people recover from domestic violence issues. Their identity needed to reflect the organization’s role of understanding domestic violence in an abstract way (i.e. through statistics) while still being emotionally present in the human impact this issue has on our community.

The balancing act between rational and emotional is inherently tricky, and adding to that challenge was the powerful, extreme nature of domestic violence – a thing which by its nature is usually hidden from view.  In our explorations of the material, suggestions of violence usually came off as maudlin, corny, or voyeuristic where outright depictions were  blisteringly negative – probably the worst thing to show for an organization devoted to stopping violence. Can you draw a picture depicting the absence of domestic violence? Neither can I.

My comfortable little life of art books, typography, cats, and chamber music seemed utterly inadequate for the task at hand. Even my language seemed lacking, even darkly, comically, perverse. This was not a subject you could “take a stab at” or build a “killer app” for.

Divide and conquer, indeed. Our first major step forward was thinking about creating a solid, believable foundation for the brand. Fontfont’s Sanuk seemed a perfect choice. The handwriting based, endoskeleton of Sanuk seemed smart, precise, and slightly feminine to me, and its streamlined look made it look perfectly suited for a government agency.  Used in everything from reports to posters, Sanuk would help create a controlled presence for the organization that would stay fresh and relevant for years to come.

Sanuk, an elegant, versatile type family integrates all of Commission's materials

By itself, Sanuk would be coldly rational… too much so. A collage system would act as ballast to the type, contrasting the fluid precision of the letterforms with a rougher, imperfect, more colorful illustration style. Effects applied consistently to each would impose a coherent look among drastically different photos, helping them read more as symbols instead of actual things.

collage component: intervention

Our content selections were guided by four emotional touch points we identified: control, loss, intervention, and community – with the last concept envisioned as the culminating, positive  step of a sequence.

collage component: community

As a system, these pieces could be combined and recombined in a variety of ways to make covers for reports or other assets, website graphics, or other applications, creating a stable, but adaptable platform the Commission could use in its materials for years to come.

collage application - report cover

For the past year or so, our company has been gradually using more web-based applications as part of our daily work. So far, the process has been an unqualified success. Cloud computing not only allows us to work more efficiently but it has given us new resources that open the door to a whole new way of thinking about creativity and collaboration.

Google Documents is my favorite web based application because of its simplicity, flexibility, and safety.  We use it in place of Word as an online library for tracking task lists, process documents, and similar information. Because documents can be changed (and changes tracked), they can be used by groups to coordinate checklists, sign off on forms, and coordinate content development and revisions.  The files behave like familiar word processor documents; they are easy to learn and can grow and evolve if they need to. Also importantly – we can back up all of our documents locally in just one step.

The new workflows have transformed the way we coordinate projects, both internally and with our clients. It’s helped us have more focused, streamlined communication with our clients and helped us focus on the creative elements of our work. I anticipate a future where all of our work takes place “in the cloud,” until then, I’m appreciative to have such a powerful, easy to use suite of tools available free. Thanks, Google, for another great project.

design: Eric Shew

As with any transition, our company’s recent move has created opportunities to rethink how we do our business. After several months of planning and moving, I’m glad the transition process is nearly over and am delighted with our new space.

Having a suite of three rooms, our first thought of the office was rooted in the concept of ownership. (“This is my room; this is yours; this is the clients’.”) This concept was quickly turned aside in favor of thinking thinking about the function of each room – for meetings, for designing, for writing, etc. This thought later evolved into considering each room housing a particular type of conversation.

Our conference room, for example, has a large flat screen TV and conference table that makes it ideal for presenting visual concepts. Other resources – a whiteboard, scratch pads, etc. are on hand to foster a collaborative, spontaneous exchange of ideas. I’m convinced that the best work emerges from a dynamic exchange, and it’s exciting to me to see the instrumental role a thought out environment plays in bringing this about.

looking out on Cornwall and Magnolia streets, Bellingham WA

storage in the meeting room

Our creative workspaces are designed to foster a different type of interaction. We wanted to avoid the appearance of barriers between our clients and the creative work, so clients walk through our work space on the way to meeting room. Though the spaces are essentially just desks, they’ve been designed for flexibility. My workstation, for example, can swap between “design mode” and “illustration mode” in just a few seconds. In addition, it’s designed to be easily viewable by a handful of people for cases in which the client is directly involved with the creative process.

Eric's workstation

Becca’s workstation, similarly, includes tools of her trade (Pantone color books, cutting boards, corner rounders, etc.) so that we can quickly create design prototypes or explore options for how print production choices can contribute to the final result.

Becca's workstation

Having watched all of this unfold for the past month, it’s rewarding to see how it is coming together and watching how these new workflows and interactions contribute to the process. Creative work, I’m convinced, is stifled by rigid, abstract barriers; a (nearly) controlled collision of perspectives  in a creative, open environment is truly the only the way to fly.

creative storage

Thinking about structure in your marketing materials is about how you decide to use visual relationships to reinforce your message. It means thinking beyond what is being said, and exploring the how.

As always, the process begins with focusing on your message, ideally your one message.  Deciding on a core message is often the biggest challenge, especially if multiple decision makers are involved. However, once you have it, the rest is, in a sense, “just details.”

In the ad above, profitability is the key message; the function of the ad is to help the audience trust the company and the product it sells. Conveying trust is a task well suited to structural thinking, as is evidenced by the language of trust  (e.g. “a solid partnership,” “an upright citizen,” “a stand-up guy,” a “shaky deal”).

I think it’s easier to trust something that’s perfectly centered and perfectly straight, than a crooked something that leans one way or another. That was the reason behind conceiving the middle as a backbone for this ad. It connects the perfect vertical of the man’s weight bearing leg with the copywriting and the frame holding the various logos. I think of these organizational elements as power lines (like power chords), combining the function of support beams, taut string, and a live wire.  Not using them at all creates visual oatmeal, using too many is like a pile of glass shards.  A handful is just right.

Color provides another critical point of connectivity, in this case linking the message with the logo – a relationship reinforced by both elements using the same type set at the same size. Visually, we are prompting the audience to associate profitability with the Fireline brand. Conveying this message verbally and visually makes it more interesting and believable.

A final structural component is the consistent use of spacing between the various elements – depicted above through the lines and squares of equal length.  Building consistency into a design in this fashion subtly communicates a methodical, professional reliability into the message, but I think the real purpose is to be invisible. We don’t want waste the audience’s attention on these details. Their function is always to support – never compete with-  the primary message.

I’ve found that thinking structurally about design has helped us convey messages relating to corporate success, trust, reliability, and strength. However, there are times when a too structured approach ruins a concept by slowly draining the life out of it. The middle ground between too much chaos or order is different for every project or person. As always, the best strategy is to understand how the choices you are making figure into the final product.