The whole can sometimes be less than the sum of its parts. This happens most often when those parts don’t fit together properly. Which occurs when a project’s objective is not to be good, but rather to accommodate some trendy bell or whistle.
You can imagine a film studio where the producers know a project needs to be in IMAX 3D before they have a script. The writers are inventing reasons for their characters to lunge toward the camera when they should be developing a plot. Before you know it, the film isn’t interesting enough to fill a 60 second trailer.
Graphic design can at times be no...More
Last summer at the Boston Design4Drupal conference and again at DrupalCon Chicago I had the pleasure of watching Jared Spool speak about web usability. He is the kind of presenter that sneaks up on you with a dry subject matter but leaves the crowd rolling with laughter as he quips his way through examples of UX failures.
Among the lessons learned from Spool was the idea that there is sometimes a gap between what users know, and what they need to know to operate your site. That is where we call upon design to bridge the gap.
Unfortunately, I feel that many have simply opted to eliminate the...More
Brands are like people in the sense that they can be related to each other. And like people, those associations can open doors or become a burden. I feel like this latter point if often missed when organizations consider rolling out a new product as a brand extension.
I recently put together a strategy presentation for a client to explore this topic using Coors Brewing Company as my example. I thought it might be of interest to those considering extending their brand.
Let me begin by explaining the concept of a brand extension. It is essentially just adding another member of the family. In...More
