Category: graphic design

What’s easier, selling books or flipping burgers?

Here’s a fantastic infographic that presents a visualizes the answer to the following question: How Much Do Music Artists Earn Online? If you think those results look abysmal, try publishing a book.

Here’s a book publishing case study to consider. A couple of years ago I worked on a 72-page book. The book features one-color illustrations on the text pages and full-color cover. The cover price is $5.99. It costs $1.58 per copy to have the books printed and delivered to the warehouse. You’re probably thinking that’s not so bad. There’s a $4.41 profit and the author (assuming the author receives a 10% royalty) walks away with $0.44 per copy sold. Not really impressive is it?

The publisher has to ship inventory to booksellers (online or brick-and-mortar) and that costs quite a bit. For example, let’s say the publisher receives an order from Amazon.com and one product is ordered. It costs the publisher $0.97 to properly pack and label the order and $2.13 to mail it using USPS. So far, the publisher costs for one book sold through Amazon.com is $4.68. That reduces the profit margin to $1.31 per copy. Like most retailers, Amazon.com buys books at 55% off the cover price: $2.70. You’ll notice that the publisher is running a deficit. It literally costs the publisher $1.98 to sell a $5.99 book title. The author receives no royalty.

If the publisher sells the book through its own web store, then the net profit is $1.31 for one book sold. The publisher pays the author $0.13 per copy sold.

All that to say, the author of the book in this case study needs to sell 2,240 copies on the publisher’s web store to earn the same amount of money that an employee at Hardee’s (earning minimum wage) earns in a 40-hour week.

kchung85: Daily Inspiration #427 | Abduzeedo | Graphic Design Inspiration and Photoshop Tutorials

(Source: http://abduzeedo.com/daily-inspiration-427?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+abduzeedo+%28abduzeedo+blog+-%29&utm_content=Google+Reader)

nikography:

i went to school for graphic design, and did not spend my nights getting drunk. instead, i worked my ass off, spent most of my outside-class time learning/trying/doing as much as possible, and then got an awesome job after graduating.

protip: if you’re lucky enough (and i mean it when i say lucky) to be in college, you should be spending all available time learning, trying, making things, messing things up, experimenting and READING. (seriously. they make sketchbooks with words in them already. they are just called books.)

i didn’t waste a single day. and neither should you. build your momentum and go with it.

for the but-i’m-an-artist’s: you want money? learn a technical skill related to your field and get good at it. then get better at it. jonathan harris built wefeelfine on the weekends while working a full time job. just sayin’.

final note: i had a BLAST in college, and miss it like crazy. working hard does not mean no-fun-allowed, it means relax harder 🙂

orginal image via synecdoche

(Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/workerman/4285870664/)

Dieter Rams: 10 design principles

jibboom:

via DesignApplause

Good design is innovative
Good design makes a product useful
Good design is aesthetic
Good design helps us to understand a product
Good design is unobtrusive
Good design is honest
Good design is durable
Good design is consequent to the last detail
Good design is concerned with the environment
Good design is as little design as possible

Dieter Rams (born May 20, 1932 in Wiesbaden) is a German industrial designer closely associated with the consumer products company Braun and the Functionalist school of industrial design.

In 1993 I asked Dieter to speak to the Architecture & Design Society at the Art Institute of Chicago. The society recently had a name change: “design” had been added. We joked ( ahem ) at the time that the real estate economy was so bad that the Architecture Society needed new members. We needed a credible and passionate design icon to speak to this group. Dieter became the first designer to speak under the society’s new name.

What I remember that night and again recently while watching the Objectified movie was Dieter’s 10 design principles. Honestly, I can’t tell you for sure that these are the same principles. Hoping Dieter will set the story straight.

I think I like the earlier stuff better. Maybe it was the materials or maybe it was so different than the pack at the time. The first Braun product I remember making a design connect to me was an electric razor. Much of Dieter’s work has long seemed more connected to brutalism than minimalism. Let’s say beautifully, brutally, minimal.

A poem is not poetry. A designed artifact is not design.

change order

Tips To Avoid Designer Block

From Spoonfed Design:

1. Warm Up

2. Always Get Inspired

3. Move on to Something New

4. Work Somewhere Else

5. Get Outside

15 Tips To Avoid Designer Block

This is starting to sound like symptoms of adult ADD.

// i just stumbled through a few mountains of self-published books. FURcryinoutLOUD! UG-lee. hire an editor and a graphic designer.

Presidential Campaign Typeface

Optima vs. Gotham

The Obama camp chose Gotham. Conceptually this chose could be a bad move (i.e. think of a future dystopian America or simply think of the south side of Chicago). Gotham is a fairly new typeface designed my Tobias Frere-Jones who was inspired by mid 20th-century architectural signage. This could swing two ways; 1) Obama could be considered as too trendy, new, inexperienced and 2) Obama could be considered as recycled material from the 1950s rather than a truly progressive. Gotham is classified as a geometric due to its lineal monoline circles and rectangles providing a modern feel. This could be a challenge for Obama if he’s trying to secure the parties base which started voting in the 1950’s.

The McCain camp chose Optima. Conceptually this chose could be a good move (i.e. think optimistic or Optimus Prime). Interestingly, Optima was designed by Hermann Zapf as one of the first digital typefaces for desktop publishing in the 1950s. This could date McCain as a dinosaur or cast him as a futurist. Further, Optima is classified as a humanist typeface due to its calligraphic elements. This could be a bad thing for McCain if he’s trying to secure the Christian vote.

(Other font thoughts from Steven Heller here).

Graphic Design History

When describing what you want in a design, make sure to use terms that don’t really mean anything. Terms like “jazz it up a bit” or “can you make it more webbish?”. “I would like the design to be beautiful” or “I prefer nice graphics, graphics that, you know, when you look at them you go: Those are nice graphics.” are other options. Don’t feel bad about it,you’ve got the right. In fact, it’s your duty because we all know thaton fullmoons, graphic designers shapeshift into werewolves.

Ways to drive a Graphic Designer mad. #5. (via yyoyoma)

My new favourite is ‘I’d like it look more designed”.

(via misssnowwhite)

What is your book cover trying to tell us

“The surface of graphic design”

1) “the equal footing on which everything lends itself to art”

2) “the surface of conversion where words, forms, and things exchange roles”

3) “the surface of equivalence” between “the purity of art” and “forms of life.”

Link

 

Love ’em/hate ’em — poetry book cover designs

Gary Sullivan on poetry book cover designs:

“Stephen Paul Miller’s Skinny Eighth Avenue… has enough design problems to send me quickly in the other direction…. screams not just DESKTOP PUBLISHING but PRINT ON DEMAND.

“In the 60s and 70s, amateurish often meant a simple type on a white cover with a hand-drawn black & white image. These items often have a kind of funky charm, and sometimes even elegance, to them…. With the rise of desktop publishing in the 80s, things began heading south. Link

Avoid scaring off potential readers with “desktop publishing/print on demand” covers and hire me a professional graphic designer.

People buy bookcovers, not books

From Brand Autopsy:

“Borders recently tested a front-facing display strategy where more books were stocked with their covers, not spines, facing customers. Sales increased by 9.0%. The strategy was so successful, all Borders bookstores will be switching to the front-facing strategy in the next couple of weeks.” Link

From Rands in Repose:

“Anyone who has ever been in a bookstore knows that you’re not browsing books; you’re browsing covers.” (via Brocatus Link) Link

Silly me. I thought people bought books because of the words contained inside the covers.

Is design transitive?

Hugh Graham writes that “design is too often about the transitive and the temporary.” (Transitive—the word comes from the Latin and means “passing over”) Consider how quickly designers have to change and adapt to generational demographics.

Brand Noise offers this:

“According to Princeton sociologist Robert Wuthnow in a new book titled After the Baby Boomers the key differences between Gen Y and Baby Boomers include that the younger generation is ‘spending more time in school, remaining financially independent… and changing jobs more often.’” Link

Now consider the Baby Boomers (again from Brand Noise):

“They comprise nearly 24% of the population, have a buying power of $3 trillion, and include many of the country’s current business and political leaders. But marketers misunderstand—and inefficiently target—this country’s 78 million baby boomers.” Link

Designers, by the nature of their craft, are communication experts and should be able to articulate ideas, brands, and identity to various changing demographics successfully providing they are supplied with reliable research. Hugh Graham agrees that change is the new norm, but pushes beyond that and proposes that “there’s a new form of change on the horizon; we’re heading into a constrained environment where the designer’s artistry and craft will have to encourage what lasts, what matters, what sustains.” Link

Can design be both transitive and sustainable? Only time will tell.

Vanessa Boyd : Hunger : Digipack Design


Copies finally arrived. Actually, they arrived more than a week ago, but I’ve been rather busy and I am just getting around to posting about its arrival.

The Hunger CD design was completed months ago. The design process was completed via teleconference (Vanessa Boyd living in New York City) and digital transfer (i.e. emailing art/corrections/finals via high-speed internet). It’s nice to see the final manufactured product. Click on the image to see the inside and back of the package design on my Flickr photostream.

D’licious Magazine release party a success


large crowd at release party

great food

great beverages

great entertainment

Hot off the press!

They arrived yesterday–thousands of them.

Last night I received copies of the debut issue of D’licious Magazine. There’s something special–magical–about holding months of hard work, long hours and gallons of coffee in the final form of the printed product. Join me Saturday night for the d’licious magazine release party!

Here’s the details:

Saturday, August 5, 2006 from 7:00pm– until
Contact: D’licious Magazine at info@dliciousmag.com

D’licious Magazine will debut its premier issue. Come experience a taste of Asheville’s cuisine, entertainment, breweries and wineries at the Haywood Park Ballroom (1 Battery Park Ave., Asheville, NC 28801) underneath the Haywood Park Hotel in the heart of downtown Asheville.

Food and beverages provided by: Belly of Buddha Catering, the Flying Frog Cafe, the Frog Bar and Deli, Biltmore Estate Stable Café, Thai Basil, Hannah Flannigans, Skully’s Signature Dine & Drink, Digable Pizza, Greenlife Grocery, Sweet Monkey Bakery & Catering, Clingman Ave. Coffee and Catering, Zuma Too: Chef Oso’s Culinary Passport, Haywood Road Market, Sclafani Distributors, the Biltmore Estate Winery, Hanover Park Winery, the French Broad Brewing Company, Highlands Brewery and the Pisgah Brewery.

Additional sponsors: The Westville Pub, Kabloom, 96.5 WOXL, and the Art of Microbrewing by Stephen Patrick Boland and Kevin Marino.

Entertainment by: David Stevenson, Cabo Verde, Free Planet Radio and Jen and the Juice.

Purchase tickets today: The Haywood Park Hotel, The French Broad Brewery, Greenlife, Hannah Flannigans, Clingman Ave. Coffee and Catering, Skully’s Signature Dine & Drink, The Haywood Road Market, Orbit DVD and Diggin Art.

Tickets are $25 in advance and $35 at the door.

Marketing campaign incentive and the power of suggestion

This ad pops up a lot when accessing my Hotmail account.

Advertising design has three golden rules that always work when selling products:
1 – beautiful women
2 – puppies
3 – cute babies

That’s the shortlist of golden rules. There are other rules to eye-catching ads like using colors red, black or yellow for maximun impact.

This ad gets one and a half (because the dog isn’t real). But, come on, who really wants to get a free pink stuffed dog with the purchase of Victoria’s Secret products.

Clearly this ad is not targeted toward my demographic. What am I going to do with a pink puppy? Maybe some of my female readers could enlighten me as to why this would be a good incentive to purchase Victoria’s Secret products.

However, when planning customer incentives, the marketing campaign director should have considered: Does this marketing incentive (a pink fluffy dog) fit the Victoria’s Secret demographic? A free pink fluffy dog might be a buyer incentive for FAO Schwarz customers.

According to this article, they are targeting a younger audience:

“We wanted to capture the spirit of the young with Pink,” said Anthony Hebron, spokesman for Victoria’s Secret

and further

“The Pink collection is an excellent idea because it caters to a different customer than the company’s core, slightly older shopper. The college crowd was sort of a white space for Victoria’s Secret that it needed to address…”

Do college coeds like pink fluffy dogs? Seriously, doesn’t a free pink fluffy dog incentive seem more like Victoria’s Secret is targeting a younger than college age demographic — like teens or tweens?

As a designer of ads and a father, this marketing concerns me a bit. I recently designed an ad for a local brewery that targets responsible adults. But I would not design beer ads that appeal to juveniles.

The visual power of suggestion is a very potent tool among art directors, graphic designers and marketers. It should be used effectively, efficiently and responsibly.

This is going to date me a bit, but the “Keep America Beautiful” public service campaign commercial starring Chief Iron Eyes Cody in the 70s challenged people to live responsibly by not polluting the landscape. Visually effective and efficient, it suggested that Americans consider not our own generation but the generations to follow. I need to remember this principle when designing ads or other materials. I hope I am not alone in trying to design responsibly.