Thursday, February 10, 2011
The Creative Industry today - Chris Jaques
This interview with M&C Saatchi Asia CEO, Chris Jaques, provides some honest insights and in some parts an awakening message. Do take a look at it and reflect on it if you understood where is he coming from. It is very true and we are glad that our worries are similar.
Source: Marketing-interactive.com
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Intelligent Design for Communication
Observations on today’s role of graphic design and business communications
We have been observing the blurring on the roles of Art and Graphic Design in today’s graphic designers. There have been many arguments on which is more important and what role should a graphic designer play to evolve as a professional. Should the aesthetic value of the finished project be the key indicator of performance or the effectiveness of the finished project to be valued higher?
Most designers gauge their own performance by the aesthetics value and they strongly believe in breaking boundaries to create something of their own. Only this way would they feel appreciated and respected as a top notch professional designer. There would be a smaller group who would put their client’s interest above their own and feel satisfied by communicating ideas effectively through their designs.
Both types of designers are important to execute beautiful and effective design, so which is more important? In this article, we will explore the various key components to help facilitate your conclusion.
Differences of Art and Graphic Design
Art is basically an expression of an artist, while Graphic Design’s primary role is to translate ideas through visuals effectively for commercial communication.
Art is created primarily to entertain people, through thought provoking works, humor, surprises and emotions. Whereas Graphic Design is focused on selling a product, create brand presence, communicate brand values and ideas. The different intentions are one of the key components in their differences.
The value of the individual discipline has its differences too. Art is valued by the quality of itself and its creator but Graphic Design is valued through its effectiveness to sell an idea or product. If Art does not entertain it does not achieve its purpose and becomes valueless, if Graphic Design does not sell an idea or product but entertains, it becomes Art. When most of the graphic design works does not perform effectively, designers become a bunch of artists whom just seeks to entertain through their works and that’s not the function of a design agency.
You may try a simple experiment by asking yourself the following question honestly. Before you start a design project, do you ask yourself ‘How’ first or ‘What’? If you are asking yourself ‘How would the end product look like?’, you are in the Artist category but if you ask yourself ‘What can I do to help my client achieve their objectives?’, congratulations you are in the Graphic Designer category and you may be a 100 times more effective than many designers in the market.
Conclusion
A communication design agency’s role is primarily to help clients in their business communication; therefore there is always the economical factor in the picture. Whether Art or Design is more important, it really depends on the intent/purpose and value to be created for the various design projects. Great artwork and graphic design could co-exist to entertain and sell at the same time but designers have to be very clear with what they plan to do and what they are seeking to achieve. The client’s interest has to be the top priority over the designer’s self interest to create beautiful artwork. This is what ‘Intelligent Design’ is about and 1 picto design is proud to work with a group of highly rationale graphic designers. They would always put their client’s interest first and they work hard to provide intelligent design solutions for our client’s complex design problems.
We have been observing the blurring on the roles of Art and Graphic Design in today’s graphic designers. There have been many arguments on which is more important and what role should a graphic designer play to evolve as a professional. Should the aesthetic value of the finished project be the key indicator of performance or the effectiveness of the finished project to be valued higher?
Most designers gauge their own performance by the aesthetics value and they strongly believe in breaking boundaries to create something of their own. Only this way would they feel appreciated and respected as a top notch professional designer. There would be a smaller group who would put their client’s interest above their own and feel satisfied by communicating ideas effectively through their designs.
Both types of designers are important to execute beautiful and effective design, so which is more important? In this article, we will explore the various key components to help facilitate your conclusion.
Differences of Art and Graphic Design
Art is basically an expression of an artist, while Graphic Design’s primary role is to translate ideas through visuals effectively for commercial communication.
Art is created primarily to entertain people, through thought provoking works, humor, surprises and emotions. Whereas Graphic Design is focused on selling a product, create brand presence, communicate brand values and ideas. The different intentions are one of the key components in their differences.
The value of the individual discipline has its differences too. Art is valued by the quality of itself and its creator but Graphic Design is valued through its effectiveness to sell an idea or product. If Art does not entertain it does not achieve its purpose and becomes valueless, if Graphic Design does not sell an idea or product but entertains, it becomes Art. When most of the graphic design works does not perform effectively, designers become a bunch of artists whom just seeks to entertain through their works and that’s not the function of a design agency.
You may try a simple experiment by asking yourself the following question honestly. Before you start a design project, do you ask yourself ‘How’ first or ‘What’? If you are asking yourself ‘How would the end product look like?’, you are in the Artist category but if you ask yourself ‘What can I do to help my client achieve their objectives?’, congratulations you are in the Graphic Designer category and you may be a 100 times more effective than many designers in the market.
Conclusion
A communication design agency’s role is primarily to help clients in their business communication; therefore there is always the economical factor in the picture. Whether Art or Design is more important, it really depends on the intent/purpose and value to be created for the various design projects. Great artwork and graphic design could co-exist to entertain and sell at the same time but designers have to be very clear with what they plan to do and what they are seeking to achieve. The client’s interest has to be the top priority over the designer’s self interest to create beautiful artwork. This is what ‘Intelligent Design’ is about and 1 picto design is proud to work with a group of highly rationale graphic designers. They would always put their client’s interest first and they work hard to provide intelligent design solutions for our client’s complex design problems.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Design Means Plan, Not Just Style
(Design means plan, not just style) by Daniel Will-Harris. Good reading for graphic designers who are beginning their career in the design industry. Please follow the source link below to find out more.
Friday, December 3, 2010
VIP cars
If you are bored by the way your car look, realistic enough to not spend too much on enhancing the power of your car and love a luxurious looking car without busting your pocket on expensive european cars, we would like to share with you one of the interesting hypes on the road today with 'VIP' styled cars.
Some of you may see cars with large chrome rims, blings blings and lowered to only few inches away from the ground. This is a trend which originate from Japan and is catching fever in Singapore today. Visit the link below to find out more about this trend, hope you like it.
link: http://www.zerotohundred.com/newforums/the-vip-style/119607-vip-style-cars-luxury-indulgence.html#post1757060
Monday, November 1, 2010
Is Time Travel for real?
This film clip was apparently from a 1928 movie. What makes it so interesting is that you would see a woman walking and talking on a cellphone in this film. There should be no phone network available, now how would she be able to call out? Phone without network but with access to calls, emails and time travel, now that's cool if this is the future of tele communications. Haha..
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Why understanding the difference between Style and Design is important.
sTyLe versus DESIGN
I would like to share an article from Jeffrey Zeldman. He talks about the importance to understand the difference between style and design in today's design industry.
Style and design are 2 very different entity and yet it gets blurred in today's design practice. We too have debates on the importance of both and how we should not get consumed by self indulgence and give our client's the very best functional design that could solve their design problems and expectations.
It is a combination of both we felt that should be balanced well. What do you say? Think about it. If you are a designer and you look back at what you have done previously, have you been self indulging yourself by mimicing celebrity designer's styles in client's projects or have you genuinely look at a design problem and solve it by applying design principles, creative concepts with solutions and design aesthetics which will relate to the intended target audiences according to your client's needs so that it can optimise their ROIs.
Just a personal thought, if i were to spent a few thousands of dollars to hire a designer to help improve my company's brand awareness and to increase our ROI, I certainly won't settle at just something beautiful, I would want to know how do I achieve my objectives with the beautiful design. I guess that's only fair to me ain't it? I totally agree with Jeffrey and I have the similar worries as him, read to find out more.
Style and design are 2 very different entity and yet it gets blurred in today's design practice. We too have debates on the importance of both and how we should not get consumed by self indulgence and give our client's the very best functional design that could solve their design problems and expectations.
It is a combination of both we felt that should be balanced well. What do you say? Think about it. If you are a designer and you look back at what you have done previously, have you been self indulging yourself by mimicing celebrity designer's styles in client's projects or have you genuinely look at a design problem and solve it by applying design principles, creative concepts with solutions and design aesthetics which will relate to the intended target audiences according to your client's needs so that it can optimise their ROIs.
Just a personal thought, if i were to spent a few thousands of dollars to hire a designer to help improve my company's brand awareness and to increase our ROI, I certainly won't settle at just something beautiful, I would want to know how do I achieve my objectives with the beautiful design. I guess that's only fair to me ain't it? I totally agree with Jeffrey and I have the similar worries as him, read to find out more.
Yours Humbly,
Charles Ho
Charles Ho
Monday, October 11, 2010
WE ARE HIRING NOW!
We are looking for Web/Print Designers to join our small family.
You should have the following requirements to be considered:
- Adept in Adobe Creative Suite (PS, FLA, HTML etc)
- Basic knowledge in actionscript
- Good knowledge and can work fast on Freehand/Illustrator
- Good time management and an organised individual
- Able to take instructions
- Strong work ethic and responsible
- Pleasant personality
- Able to work as a team and independently
- At least 1-2 years of working experience in Web/Print Design
- Singaporean and PRs only
If you think that you have met all the criterias, send us your portfolio, resume and expected salary to admin@1picto.com.sg. Only shortlisted candidates would be notified. Good Luck!
Position CLOSED.
You should have the following requirements to be considered:
- Adept in Adobe Creative Suite (PS, FLA, HTML etc)
- Basic knowledge in actionscript
- Good knowledge and can work fast on Freehand/Illustrator
- Good time management and an organised individual
- Able to take instructions
- Strong work ethic and responsible
- Pleasant personality
- Able to work as a team and independently
- At least 1-2 years of working experience in Web/Print Design
- Singaporean and PRs only
If you think that you have met all the criterias, send us your portfolio, resume and expected salary to admin@1picto.com.sg. Only shortlisted candidates would be notified. Good Luck!
Position CLOSED.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Ouch!
Our poor art director hurt his toe and spent $70 on medical bill while trying to simulate a kungfu master kicking an enemy for a health product to enhance healthy and strong growth of nails. Unfortunately he didn't have enough of the products, his toe nails broke. Totally uncool man... but you have our respect! Try kicking with the other feet when you're back from MC.
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