The new year represents a new start, a time to reflect back on the past with an eye towards the future. It’s a time to be thankful for the many people in your life. It’s a time to clean out the cubbards, for me I’ve been purging through 20 years of samples, mostly printed pieces. Going through the samples made me realize just how much change has occurred within the design industry over that span. For me, each piece had a person, a story attached to it. It made me realize the many blessings, the struggles, the achievements. It made me realize how CS Designworks has adapted to change and managed to pick itself up after each and every adversity.

So this leaves me with a heartfelt thought for the new year.

2010 = HOPE

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I recently hooked up with an old college mate in LinkedIn who has his own design agency. His website was designed in Flash. The site was gorgeous, well designed, clean, simple, great typography and showcased his product offering elegantly. BUT, there was not a hint of optimization to be found.

I recently went to a well-known SEO guru’s website who must get a gazillion hits per month and was visually-offended by the lack of design on his site. Design was such an afterthought on this site that any respectable designer would puke. BUT, the content was amazing and is now bookmarked on my computer.

So who is more successful? The beautifully-designed website or the beautifully-optimized website? Can design and SEO co-exist?

It is in this designers opinion YES.

Content is king in this day and age. And good content is a balance between quantity and quality. Quantity is beneficial to robots (search engines) and Quality is beneficial to humans. And good design, especially good typography, assists the reader in reading your great content.

Good design orchestrates the entire process. It navigates the reader, it speaks. For example, if you we’re having a human conversation and spoke in a monotone manner how would you be perceived regardless of your content. On the other hand, if you ever listened to a dynamic speaker like Tony Robins, you will notice that his delivery is anything but monotone. The variations in his delivery reinforce his message. He raises his voice, he lowers his voice, he weaves and bobs, he pauses. This is all to reinforce his message. This does not mean the monotone guy has nothing important to say, it means that Tony Robins or a Tony Robins-like delivery resonates better.

So effective design and SEO are inextricably linked. And isn’t the point of great content to be read. Imagine the best of both worlds where you have great content, optimized with killer SEO married with great design. AWESOME.

Another significant issue addressed in the 2003 redesign were the changes made for those visually impaired. A specific color-shifting ink on each denomination helped to distinguish between each bill. Still with these recent changes little has been done to address issues for the blind. There has been a landmark ruling for the blind this year! In May 2008 a federal appeals court ruled that the U.S. Treasury Department is violating the law by failing to design currency that is distinguishable to the blind. Although this ruling might be overturned, it brought the issue into the public eye and might be seriously considered in the next design.

Perhaps in the new design we look to other nations. Several countries not only think about the blind and security but how they want to be represented culturally through imagery. While addressing all these issues, the Swiss Franc is far ahead of the U.S. with their high tech francs. This is one of the most beautiful currency designs with great detail towards the overall look. The security measures are integrated flawlessly and enhance the design. What I love most about this currency is that it ultimately celebrate the arts by choosing musicians, artists and one of my favorite architects – Le Corbusier. And it even somehow finds space to fit a biography of each in microtext. Look at these francs of perfection.

In 1974 AIGA and the U.S. Department of Transportation worked together to develop a system of signs to be used in airports, other transportation hubs and at large international events. They organized a committee (including such designers as Massimo Vignelli, the designer of the 1972 subway map and Seymour Chwast) to develop a system of signs that would become the standard for 50 common symbols to address different ages and cultures. These symbols are available online as a free download: http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/symbol-signs

Perhaps over time there will be a universal signage system that we use throughout the world to make traveling overseas a little less intimidating.

Awesome work, especially considering the pace at which a weekly magazine works. And it wasn’t just the design and the conceptual take on the subject matter; it was the photography (no stock!!) and the illustrations. One artist’s work in particular struck me: Sam Winston. He does a lot of work with words, and letters.

These pages from the NYT magazine were especially intriguing (scroll down past the cover on his site). I haven’t been so amused by looking at words in a while. Granted, it’s unlikely that this sort of solution will work for anything I’m currently assigned to, but it was refreshing to think about using text in this crazy sort of way. However, it’s possible that an element, a piece of it, could work it’s way in somewhere…

We get into our routines, and sadly, can easily get into a rut. It’s just good to be reminded that there’s always another way of looking at things.

Okay, there are images of cables, plugs, and even fiber optics (and those are kinda pretty). But: 1. when we get tired of those …? And 2. Does the viewer identify and connect? It’s hard to be specific. I’ll admit, sometimes when I see these images I process it merely as “something techy.”

And by the way – did you know that blue is the unofficial color of tech? (Is it that fiber optic pulses really ARE blue?) 90% of stock images representing tech, data, or internet concepts are some shade of blue. At left is one example of a techy collage, in blue. And further down is a very, uh, clear example of what an online money transfer looks like.
Well, there is the good ol’ visual metaphor. (Blurred speeding train, anyone? Backlit spider web?) This works in some instances–they can really enrich the viewing experience and strengthen the message. It all depends on the project. And conceptual imagery comes with its own set of challenges. Again, will the viewer get it or is it too removed from the subject matter? Does it tie in with the copy? Do these images get tired too? (Padlocks=data security, for example.) Gotta keep brainstorming.

It may be as we move away from print and even static images in any media context, video can represent these ideas better. But until then, what’s a designer to do?