If Hick’s Law, Ockham’s Razor, and Chunking elude you, but you’re interested in understanding the basics of design, there’s only one book to own.
Universal Principles of Design, by William Lidwell, Kritina Holden and Jill Butler, is a joy to have nearby. Organized alphabetically and categorically, the book guides you with words, photographs and illustrations that [...]
Entries Tagged as ‘Creativity’
April 11, 2008
The One Design Book You Should Own
April 4, 2008
Mobile Wireless Air
Naming a high-tech company is among the more delicate chores for marketers.
At startups, company founders can have strong feelings. Engineers can be obssessed with product function. Marketers balance reality and emotion. Some go with a default name that’s safe. Here are 3 popular examples of that naming convention, according to the CTIA website exhibit roster.
Mobile + pick a noun or object (Mobile Complete, Mobile Future, [...]
March 24, 2008
Great Ad for a Great Cause
Watch this spot and test yourself. If you haven’t seen it, really concentrate. You don’t want to get the number wrong! Once done, share your thoughts.
March 18, 2008
Time to be Decisive
Marketing blogs tackle words, images and ideas (this blog included). Their stock in trade might be brand analysis, PR dissection, or community commentary.
What gets lost is human nature. And by that I mean how marketers (you) move forward with the tools available. The most important marketing tool you have is you.
So be decisive.
If you’re part of a corporate marketing team, it’s imperative. If you’re managing a marketing agency, [...]
March 5, 2008
Logo Play: Searching for Weight Loss
I just happened to see an ad for alli during a morning news program this week. The logo immediately made me think another prominent one that features the same primary colors. I thought of online search, not weight loss. Here are this week’s logos that seem too coincidental.
Font with serif in red, blue, yellow, green. Double [...]
March 4, 2008
5 Ways DKNY Can Adopt Bicycling in a Campaign
A month ago, DKNY thought it stylish to dot Manhattan with 70 neon orange bicycles chained to street posts and anything else of permanence. The orange color was garish but drew attention to DKNY’s fall 2008 line. The bicycles also served as a guerilla marketing signal to the company’s campaign promoting two wheels as a mode of transportation and urging New Yorkers to ”Explore Your City.”
Only one problem: The bikes (unintentional, [...]
February 28, 2008
Signal-to-Noise Ratio: Dialing the Right Message
If you work in marketing, PR or journalism, you’re reading constantly. Email. Websites. Text messages. Blogs. Project briefs. Ad copy. Scripts. Court filings. Government documents. Speeches. Talking points. Press releases. White papers. Case studies.
Time permitting, you probably read books and magazines. Possibly you groom your screenplay or novel (the most ambitious of you out there).
Words come at us through pixels, [...]
February 26, 2008
Learning by Doing: Makes Good Sense
At first glance, this post on the Google blog would appear to be high-brow coming from a writer whose title is Chief Economist. But its premise is simple: Google does well because it has been “learning by doing” the past decade.
Makes good sense.
So does the timing of the post and its 7 generic references to ”competition” or alternative search engines. That’s no [...]
February 25, 2008
“We are the third place in the lives of millions of our customers”
Starbucks knows we have homes and most of us work, so I assume that the ‘third place’ in some of our lives is, well, at Starbucks, standing in line before that morning commute, zipping into a drive-through on a summer road trip, or just hanging out with friends and family.
Tomorrow night as the coffee giant holds its training for associates in [...]
