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We all know about the trend of big size pictures – you see them in advertisements (online + offline), on websites or in editorial designs. This trend clearly focuses on transporting emotions because a good message alone („buy 3, pay 2“) does not really convince people to buy a product anymore. Emotions sell. This trend has not even reached its peak yet, I believe. Meanwhile, another new trend is getting bigger: The power of simplicity. You see that more and more often in editorial designs for example: A lot of blank space that gives the copy space to „breathe“. As an advertisement that does not look like an advertisement is more promising to companies, print advertisements become simpler too. (Facebook shows how to do it: Promoted posts in between your friends’ posts in your personal newsfeed don’t look like an advertisement at first sight.) A lot of blank space, a short text and a significant product picture or an outstanding graphic – this is all it takes for an advertisement that stands for simplicity at its best. Furthermore, a lot of blank space makes people curious. „What exactly is that? Hm, let’s see, I’ll download this app now.“ This is how simple advertisement works, nice and easy. #advertisement

The amount of graphic designers out there is huge. It is not always easy for companies to choose the right graphic designer. One of the main problems is: Many who bought a Photoshop license (or downloaded it illegally) call themselves a graphic designer nowadays. I think I don’t have to go into too much detail about the drastic differences between them and professional graphic designers who have expertise. I think this flood of „graphic designers“ is damaging the value of this business. But let’s face it: A graphic designer has a design mission. The job is to use know-how and expertise to create a design that makes the design consumers feel or act a certain way. This is the job of a graphic designer. The design shall work and lead to the desired outcome. It is not the job of a graphic designer to draw nice pictures that look good but don’t serve the purpose of a good design. The client would invest into something that has no ROI (Return of Investment), meaning: wasting money for nothing. If a client says „but I (!!) have to like it because I pay for it“, it clearly indicates that he wants to have something beautiful for himself but completely ignores the target group. Such a client should invest into an artist or painter to create something nice for his living room wall. A good quote of a graphic designer: „People have to walk through shit to understand how much shit smells.“ I think, that quote is very true. When speaking with designers, I often hear that clients working with dumping price graphic designers and/or ignoring the design mission explained above, come back to them moaning about the outcome and the waste of time and money. Companies can save time, nervs and money if they work with professionals right from the start and understand the design mission.

Photoshop and colour selection effects of modern cameras make it possible: The black and white photography is having a comeback (or was it ever even dead?) and combined with smart colour selection. This creates a great photo look and the viewer’s eye is led towards a specific photo area (or the product on a billboard). Here you see a few examples: #colour #advertisement

Today I would like to talk about three good creativity methods (no, we all know brainstorming already) that help break thinking barriers. These techniques are really useful here and there. SEMANTIC INTUITION The semantic intuition makes you go from the end to the start. Words related to each other are combined in an unusual way until you have a name for a product that does not exist yet. Once you have the new product name, it is time to think about what this product can actually be and how it can look like. This picture gives you an example of a new product for the kitchen area (left: food, right: kitchen devices): THE OSBORN'S CHECKLIST The US-American Alex Osborn invented a checklist with many questions that make you think very thoroughly and in detail about an existing product. This shall lead to ideas for new products. Here you see a short excerpt of questions for a new product coming from the computer mouse: The Osborn’s Checklist contains many more questions. You can read more about it here . THE DISNEY METHOD The Disney method goes back to late Mr. Walt Disney. A Walt Disney biography written by Robert B. Dilts speaks about three characteristics of Mr. Disney: the dreamer, the realist and the critic. The Disney method makes you see a problem or a product from different perspectives. 1. How would a dreamer (enthusiastic, creative) think about this? 2. How would a realist (analytic, practical) think about this? 3. How would a critic (looking for error sources, critical) think about this? 4. To make this creativity method work in practice, you need to add a fourth person or a fourth point of view: the neutral observer. You can work with the Disney method in a group or – when you have some imagination and acting skills – as a single person. #creativity

Again, a social media platform has a new design: This time it is Google+. What is new? At first sight you will recognize the similarity to Pinterest (Pinterest has become one of THE visual social media platforms over the past years). The photo and video posts are very big and Google+ has paid attention to the latest design trends. This is a definite pro compared to the old design. As regards branding and company/brand pages, the old Google+ design was not really a burner. The new design has even impaired here. Even though you can still see a cover photo of a Google+ profile, you will have to scroll up now to see it. When going on a Google+ page, you are automatically located at the beginning of the posts (beneath the cover photo). Google+ allows the user to instantly see the user bar showing the name of the company, but this is all you see at first sight, apart from the posts. Well, here we go again: Content is king and this is what social media is made for. The next new thing are the so called „related hashtags“ that are similar to hashtags on Twitter. Use the # sign to tag key words which shall make finding relevant content on Google easier. Be careful: Even though it sounds tempting, don’t spam your posts with keywords, you don’t want to risk your users to have a bad user experience. Even though the branding possibilities have impaired, I find the new design of Google+ very well done because content definitely is king – especially for social media platforms. If the similarity to Pinterest has a positive or negative impact on the image of Google+, is yet to be seen. #socialmedia #google

You might not want to believe it, but there are still publications out there that have copy with horrible full justification. See this example: Weird letter spacing and big gaps between some words have a very negative influence on the reading flow. A short piece of text is still readable but a long piece of text will probably not be read. There are different kinds of justification: - symmetric justification (full justification) - asymmetric justification (left- or right aligned) - centred - text in shape (i.e. text in a circle) If you work with full justification, it is best to use hyphenation. Fully justified text without hyphenation kills the reading flow. In addition, you should always manually check the hyphenation at the end of every line (you will be surprised how some software programs hyphenate words!). Generally, centred copy should only be used for very special text parts, such as quotes standing out of the main text. Also, for invitation cards, centred copy looks very good. You can find out more about typography by clicking here . #typography #fonts #justification

After Google+ has launched a new design, Youtube has launched a new design too (again) on 5 June 2013. The name of the new design: Youtube One Channel. WHAT IS NEW AND GOOD? - correct banner design size / correct channel design on all devices (iPhone, Android smart phone, iPad, Samsung Galaxy, laptop, PC or TV). This is called „cross device branding“. - an optional channel trailer for all users that have not subscribed to your Youtube channel yet. WHAT IS NEW AND BAD? Unless you are a close Youtube partner, nearly all branding possibilities have been removed. A big individual background picture is not possible anymore. Now, you only see a simple banner. But don’t underestimate this banner! It only shows you a small part of a big picture that is completely visible on a TV screen. Example old: This was my Youtube channel with the old design: Example new: This is my Youtube channel with the new design: When uploading banners on Youtube, make sure these banners have twice as many pixels as you would normally have for ordinary PC or laptop screens. Retina displays show pictures in a resolution that is twice as high and those Retina displays are becoming more and more popular! #youtube #socialmedia

When Indesign CS5 (and shortly after that, Indesign CS5.5) came out, many advertising agencies jumped at it. "You can create App magazines with that, great! Let’s get the new Indesign!" Something like that may have been the motto. Companies hoped to jump on the App hype train and get their piece of the market share. However, there are massive regional differences as regards to the daily usage, as well as the acceptance of tablet PCs. Many advertising agencies here (Austria) have invested a lot of money in updating their Indesign licenses. And if you have an Adobe program, you know how costly such a software license can be – especially when you multiply it with the number of employees, It all sums up! When the hoped-for App magazine boom hit the big consumer publications (but neither hit middle-sized magazines nor specialist magazines), the disappointment among many advertising agencies was big. As an alternative, there is now the Adobe Creative Cloud. It gives you an update to the latest version of various Adobe programs without extra payment. However, you have to pay a subscription fee. You can either go for an annual or a monthly subscription plan. A monthly subscription fee of USD 49.99 per user is not cheap, especially for companies with many employees. Adobe try to at least contribute to eliminating software piracy, I guess. Time will show if that works out. I have been working with Indesign, Photoshop and Illustrator CS4 and have always been quite happy with that. But I was curious how the Adobe Creative Cloud would work for me, so I subscribed for the 30 day free trial. I have thoroughly tested Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign CS6 and I have to say that there really are some very useful new features. My favourite new features are the improved ways of generating patterns in Illustrator, the new blur effects and the new cropping tool in Photoshop, plus of course the numerous animation and App functions in Indesign CS6, combined with the DPS (Digital Publishing Suite). The question now is: are those new features really worth the price of a regular, costy software updates outside of the cloud? No. Besides that, I have to say that only the Single Edition of the DPS is included in the Adobe Creative Cloud! The Single Edition only allows you to publish one magazine onto the iPad. That is it. If you want to offer more magazines within one App and/or offer the App for more devices (iPhone, iPod Touch, Kindle, Android ...) you have to subscribe to the DPS Professional Edition, which costs you USD 495 per month. Well, this investment has to be thought through carefully. Companies that produce many monthly App magazines work with the DPS Professional Edition and the license really pays off for them. When the demand for App magazines grows more and more in Austria, this software license will pay off for advertising agencies here too one day. #indesign #ipad

A font should transport information in a beautiful way that is easy on the human eye. I have picked my (current) 24 favourite fonts out of my font "stock", which is comprised of about 1300 fonts. Today you see part one, next week you’ll see part two. I have ordered the fonts alphabetically, not by my personal taste. ABRAHAM LINCOLN (Elegant, reminds of the good old days.): Example: Abraham Lincoln served as a basis font for the logo of a fictive luxury food brand named Little Luxury. (Distinctive characters have been made even stronger.) AFTA SERIF (Good readability, slightly playful, the serifs are a matter of taste though. The k-minuscule is an eye-catcher, the double O-minuscule however looks a bit strange. The kerning could be better.): AGRAFA (Timeless, elegant, technical, transmits precision, only suitable as a dark font on a light background.): ALEGREYA AND ALEGREYA SC (Elegant, reminds of handmade things, i.e. in the food industry.): Example: I used Alegreya SC for an exclusive olive oil packaging. ANGILLA TATTOO (Great handwriting, suits the Vintage look.): BILLIE BOB (Hard, rough, but still offers a good readability.): BODONITOWN (Fantastic readability, elegant, timeless.): BOMBARDIER (A great handwriting, good readability, strong but still good looking, great for technical purposes.): Example: I used Bombardier for the headers in an infographic on commercial vehicles. BRAWLER (Good readability, but still edgy and hip.): CAMBO (Good readability, optimistic and happy font.): CHAPARREL PRO (Very good readability, transports a feeling of being grounded, offers a pleasant reading flow.): Example: I used Chaparrel Pro as the main font for a test editorial design. CODE LIGHT AND CODE BOLD (Looks great in combination, strong, elegant, the I-serifs are a bit too heavy maybe.): Example: I used Code light and Code bold for the corporate design of Randall Records. #typography #font

Today I show you part two of my (current) 24 favourite fonts that I picked from my font "stock" of 1300 fonts altogether. I ordered the fonts alphabetically, not by my personal taste. DANIEL (Great handwriting, good readability and supports fast reading.): ENRIQUETA (Very good readability, a bit edgy but still timeless.): GEARED SLAB (A high grey level but great for headers, short text, quotes etc.): HEADLINER NO. 45 (Rough, strong, loud, a real eye-catcher, also suitable for Vintage projects.): MAGESTA SCRIPT MIX (Mysterious, suitable for Vintage projects.): MARLON BOOK DB (Very good readability due to high minuscules.): METROPOLIS 1920 (A font that I have seen quite often lately. Used with care, it looks elegant especially with 2-coloured projects.): MISSION SCRIPT (Clear, strong, great handwriting.): Example: I used Mission Script as an eye-catching design element in an online advertising campaign for a newsletter as well as a landing page. MOSAIC LEAF (Goes well with nature themes on big billboards.): PEA CARRIE SCRIPT (Very good for food packagings – natural, healthy products. The minuscule height in relation to the majuscule height is interesting here.): PUPCAT (Minuscules and majuscules have almost the same height what creates an interesting effect.): Example: I used Pupcat for an exclusive olive oil packaging to support the nature theme. SAHARA (The shadow creates a 3D effect, great for headers, a good choice for Vintage projects.): #typography #font

If you look at Facebook, Youtube and Google+, you’ll find out that different profiles almost look the same at first sight. Several design relaunches in the past two years impaired the branding possibilities. Youtube, Facebook and Google+ only offer a banner picture for being in line with the corporate design. Only Twitter still offers individual, big picture backgrounds. Speaking from a graphic designer’s point of view, I find the decrease of branding possibilities and individual designs in social networks sad of course. However, you have to see social media as something as it is: a network to communicate. It is about content. Of course, hashtags (#) are very useful for that, Twitter used to be the only social network to have hashtags. Now, also Google+ and Facebook feature hashtags. But branding is not limited to the visual appearance (corporate design) only. Branding also means that you have a certain way to communicate – I’m speaking of corporate language and corporate behaviour here. How do you deal with client feedback (positive and negative!)? How do you address your followers/fans (formal or informal language)? What do you post? What language do you use (dialect, way of saying things)? All that has a lot to do with branding. So: Branding goes from the visual to the content more and more in social networks. More quality content and active communication with and among the followers/fans is the key. Happy networking! #socialmedia #branding

I want to give you some impressions of my Morocco holiday here in my blog. a lake in the Atlas mountains of Morocco green tea, anise stars, coriander seeds, cardamom seeds, Berber tea, peppermint tea and lemon grass tea the Strait of Gibraltar The beach of Agadir is probably the most beautiful beach of the country. The motto of Marocco: God, fatherland, king #morocco #holiday