Live from SXSW

So my coworker David Mead and I made it out of Cleveland apparently just in time to avoid one of the biggest blizzards in recent memory in our fair town. My wife informs me that the snow is up to her hips in the back yard. She promises to send me a photo, yet I have the digital camera with me here in Austin, so I am not sure how she will do that.
I am just sitting down in my third session here and so far have had mixed reaction to what I am hearing. Part of that is my own fault for choosing poorly the session that I started my day with today. After that, I did have a much better experience for my second session.
Right now I am sitting in Ballroom B in the convention center in Austin and anticipating a good session called Great Design Hurts. I will try to file something post session to fill anyone in who might be reading this.

Inspiring clients to take risks and stand out

Over the last several years I have done probably hundreds of web designs. Here at Optiem, we typically we do at least two different designs to present to a client. First of all, our contract usually states that this is what we will provide, but on a more practical level, it really gives the client something to compare and contrast when they are looking for a new design.

If we have done our job correctly, we already have a very strong understanding of the client's "aesthetic". So our designs are targeted to reflect that. But as designers this can sometimes leave us wanting... wanting to push the envelope more... to stretch our wings.

So recently, on those projects that have the potential, I have been trying to provide a third look. But I try to make that design something that is really out there. Something that no one else in their industry is doing. Something that really sets them apart and is a differentiator. But these are usually hard to sell to clients.

How do we comfort clients enough that they are willing to be more aggressive in the design of their web sites? For many companies, taking a conservative, "proven" approach is the safest and easiest path. And when dealing with a larger group of decision makers, it is much easier to get consensus on something a little more traditional.

My goal is to get our clients to see the web with different eyes. With a twist. To take a "risk" and put a site out there that is a really different approach or concept. To be a leader in their respective industry. To have something that no one else has. So when someone visits their site they say (or at least think) "now this is different. Who are these people?".

This requires some forward thinking by the person or people picking a design. But I feel in the long run this kind of thinking could really pay off. Being a trend SETTER as opposed to a trend follower is what really makes for success. Sony created the Walkman. They set the trend in personal music devices. Of course Apple has really run with that in recent years. But Sony enjoyed a great deal of publicity with the whole Walkman trend. They launched a whole new product line.

I guess there are people out there that are uncomfortable sticking their necks out to be different. To take that "risk". But the gains can be really worth it. From a marketing and brand standpoint, this has the potential to elevate a company into a whole different realm.

I remember back in the dot com boom days that kids were starting companies in their parent's basements. They would design really hot web sites with flashy logos and give the illusion that they were really something. And in fact, many of them BECAME something. Of course there is far less risk in being a kid in your basement and acting like you are a multi-million dollar company. As opposed to a multi-million dollar company pretending they are a kid in their parent's basement. But too many multi-million dollar companies are unwilling to look less than polished and buttoned up. Too bad.

I digress a little here. But this is just to say that we want to try to get our clients to look at opportunities to stand out. And doing the same old thing as everyone else is doing isn't enough anymore.

The beauty of the web is that you can change it immediately if it isn't working for you. It isn't like you have printed 100,000 brochures and all of a sudden the company logo changes and those boxes of brochures become door stops.

So, take a risk or two with your design. Push the limits of what you have done before. Use the limits your competitors stopped at... and start there.

Why Wireframes are Bad for Designers

Recently I have had a ton of design work cross my desk. And despite my previous post regarding the use of our new Creative Brief format, many have come and gone without the benefit of that document.

In some cases I have instead gotten a "wire frame" drawn up by the account executive or by the project manager. And although I do greatly appreciate their efforts on behalf of our clients to get all of the important information into the interface design, wire frames come with a certain risk that as a designer, I always hate to confront.

Wire frames by their nature IMPLY design. When putting information onto a page and moving it around, the person creating a wire frame is in essence suggesting layout. And this is where I take issue with designers seeing wire frames. In fact, I would say showing these wire frames to clients may give them an unrealistic impression of what the final design will look like.

A designer can not help but feel beholden to the various locations set up by a wire frame. If the wire frame shows navigation on the left then the design will most likely reflect that. Especially when the client has seen the wire frame and has an expectation based upon it.

To really allow our designers to design, we have really tried to put the wire frame out of our staff's reach. As a company, we still do wire framing to help with usability issues and also to help us assess functionality. But as far as design goes, we are trying to quash the wire frame entirely.

Instead we are now working with a document we call a PDD... or Page Description Document. These PDDs help up prioritize the information required on a page, but do not imply location in any way. The PDD is created with columns that are set up to allow the project manager or account exec to set PRIORITY levels for various elements. In this way, we can use our ability as designers to create a usable interface design while keeping the client's needs in mind with the relative priority of each element.

I am curious to know what other design firms are doing in the realm and how they use various documents to impart information to designers without implying design. If you have any thoughts or feedback on this, please drop me a line or respond to this post.

Beauty and the Creative Brief

As anyone who spends their days in indentured creativity can tell you, being creative day in and day out, on demand, under deadline, is a very hard thing to maintain. One of the things that we as creatives rely upon is a well written creative brief. A well crafted on can indeed make our work "beautiful".

Recently, I have set about reworking our Creative Brief template here at Optiem. As times change and we adapt new ways of doing things, these documents need maintenance in order to stay up to date with what we do. From specific questions about content management systems to how optimized for search a design should be, there are questions that as designers we need to know in order to produce a quality product for our clients.

Our creative brief document has indeed grown over the years. However we have tried to keep it simple and matter of fact. We rely on the Account Executives or the Project Managers here to complete these documents. And in fact, most of the questions on it are just that.. facts. We have purposely written the document to take out as much of the subjectivity of the person completing it as we can. This is important because unless the client themselves are filling out the document, we can't be sure that we are meeting all of their needs. So the actual questions don't leave much to guess.

Creative briefs are nothing new to the advertising industry. But in my experience, I haven't seen them applied often to the Internet. Be it a web site, email or otherwise. I think that is because most of the web companies are spawned by technology, not by creative. That is alright, but not really an excuse. If you are responsible for taking a client's vague vision of where they want to be positioned visually and with messaging and branding, you need a creative brief if you are going to touch them creatively.

Staying on message, staying on target (audience), and staying in budget are all things that are crucial to the process. Without a document to guide you through these obstacles, you are simply guessing at creative direction.

As a creative director for several years now, I have become pretty good at the guessing process. And often, frankly, the client really doesn't have a firm grasp on what they ultimately want anyway. We are in the somewhat luxurious position of helping them to find that. Branding, messaging, positioning, and creating exciting creative. But doing that in the vacuum without a creative brief document is like driving without a license. Eventually it is going to cost you.

If you aren't using a creative brief document to build your Internet products, I suggest you look into it. At the very least it will help you focus your creative vision. And that will always increase your chances at beautiful design. Write me and I will send you a copy of our document. It could serve as a good place to start for your very own process.

Whats Next? I will talk a little about wireframes (and why I hate them) and why designers should NEVER see them let alone create them. Also, at Optiem we use something called a PDD. Find out what THAT is and how it helps us keep our design work on target.

XHTML Services and the Future

At Optiem, we are always keeping our eyes out for talent. As the Creative Director I am charged with keeping our work visually appealing, on message, within brand and under budget. We also must be creating pages that are high-quality, cross-browser compatible W3C Valid XHTML with fully realized CSS markup. A tall order for a designer.

We have a great staff here at Optiem, but finding this kind of talent in Cleveland, Ohio has been no easy task. And as I talk to my local counterparts I find that they have similar issues as well. We see great designers, but they have no experience (and in some cases no desire) in coding. And although we are indeed a specialized area of design, there is a constant need for this type of cross developmental thinking. We also see a fair share of developers who would be designers... if only for this little thing called "talent". Not something you can pick up in a Web Design for Dummys book at Borders.

Recently I have seen a lot of these ads for Design to HTML services. One of them that I visited recently (http://www.psd2html.com) offers a complete, validated and fully compatible coding service for as low as $153. That is hard to ignore. Especially, when factoring our relative workloads here, the desire to stay on message and create COMPELLING design, that development of these more mundane parts of a web project can be costly... not only monetarily but also creatively.

This smells a lot to me like the off-shoring did a few years ago. On some levels, it is repulsive and takes away jobs from people right here in Cleveland. Or at least some would argue that. But on other levels, I can see the reason why people would want to buy cheap, clean OVERNIGHT code for their web sites.

In the case of PSD2HTML they deliver the coded page in EIGHT hours. Now frankly, and our clients know this, we have to schedule in time to work on the variety of projects that we work on. So coding up a proof of concept for a client could cost us eight hours of OUR time. I won't get into what that costs our clients, but it is considerably more than $153.

This all leads to the value question. We provide a service to our clients that is customized. And although design to code shops spend specific time on individual projects, they don't know the end client or their specific businesses. I don't know how important that is one the message and design parts are established. But I do know what we do is of value to our customers.

Would we go to a design to code provider for work? I wouldn't rule it out in a pinch... of course that can be said about most things. But I think in general, we like the control we have to make our client sites perform the way we feel they should. And our clients deserve that.

No disrespect to the code for hire guys at all. But you will always be able to find someone to do almost anything cheaper and faster than the next guy... the question is, when does the quality suffer?

The Web 2.0 Awards

It was with great interest yesterday that I scrolled down the list of award winners of the Web 2.0 Awards. Admittedly these were given in May (and this is July) but I had just seen a link to it recently.

I also forwarded the link on to my coworker and friend David who remarked something to the effect of.. "I use a lot of these sites!" Perhaps Dave should start his own awards site as well. But he brings up a very good point in that simple statement.

Web 2.0 is really about usability. Taking all of the things that we have supposedly LEARNED over the past 10 years and applying them to clean, well thought out interfaces that are all about community. And the simple rule is, you don't gain a community without making it easy to use. All of these sites excel at that.

David is a member of a lot of these communities. As are many of us. The court of public opinion could decide these awards very easily in many ways. However it doesn't always work that way. You won't notice a single award to MySpace. Thankfully.

Anyway, look down the list of winners, check some of them out. Join some of these communities and see how they work for you. These are sites that we should be trying to CONTINUE to learn from. I am praying that we don't have to endure a Web 3.0 and on and on... but simply just start adding what we are learning today to what we build tomorrow.

To me, the whole Web 2.0 term is just a short way of saying that we have finally started to recast the very foundation of the Web. To dig new footings and pour new concrete that we can REALLY build on this time. These sites have rebuilt this strong foundation on the Web that will indeed allow that growth. Check them out.

Managing Creative People

My creative direction style has always been as much hands off as it has been hands on. I have been on the receiving end of some very aggressive creative direction in my time and it has always had the opposite effect on me... draining my creative drive and killing the really great feeling you get from simply being creative.

So I read with interest this article at HOWdesign.com about managing creatives.

It has given me some insight into how I work, but also how those work with me. Of course there is always room for improvement. And my player/coach style has always been one that can blur the line between what my staff does and what I do. Which can be both a good thing and a bad thing.

The key is communication of course. Learning to LISTEN to what the creative people need and finding ways to help them get it. I am big on morale. Happy workers make good work. Plain and simple.

Anyway, the article was good and thought I would share it.

Peace.

SEO vs Design... again

Back a few years ago, before SEO was an issue, us designers had to grapple with other enemies... like browser-safe colors (for you youngsters, we could only use about 216 of them), or page load speeds on dial-up connections.... or making our pages work in the ridiculous AOL specific browser.

Then, a few years after that, SEO came. In fact, it came just as some of those other things were going away. Just when you think things are getting easier, more fun things always seem to come into play to challenge and infuriate you. SEO did just that for designers.

I remember the first site I built that had to be SEO "friendly". We placed a bar at the top of the page that had a nice descriptive bit of text in it. It came at the very beginning of the code. Our thinking was that this would make this page more relevant than others that didn't have such genius foresight. Perhaps it did. But what it did for sure, was have an impact on design. And it is still having a very profound one today.

Recently, I have been working on a tweak to a client's site. They perform very well in the search engines due to the concerted efforts of the SEO/SEM staff here at Optiem. But when it comes time to refresh or even redesign a site, the SEO people get a little sensitive. They don't really like us to REMOVE things from the page. So the effort to streamline or simplify a design that has lost it's lustre over the years is somewhat thwarted by the need to stay the course for SEO.

So this recent project has me trying to "clean up" a client's design while not removing any of the stuff the SEO people think is helping. So we are asked to keep these elements but retain them lower down on the now scrolling home page. To me, this is killing any chance we had at a graceful design solution.

As a designer, this offends my design sensibilities. I know we need to accommodate SEO. Like I said, back in the day we used to put indexable text all over the page. I used to tell our clients that it was like a teeter-totter... which direction would you like to lean? Toward design? Toward Search Engine performance? Or kind of hover in the middle. Today it isn' that simple. And we do have other options now that let us do better design (CSS, AJAX, Flash) and still maintain some very good SEO results.

But I feel like I am jousting with windmills here sometimes. Where the Search Engines are the windmills and I am the lonely rider doing battle... never to win.

As designers we have always had to take into consideration the delivery system for our message. In print, we were concerned with paper quality... or with Pantone colors. And, we have always had to work within the specifications of our clients. If they want it brown, then it is brown. No matter how much we hate it.

SEO has definitely taken a bite out of design in the last several years. But as we find ways to work WITH the search engines and not have to be so literal in our interpretation of their needs, I think we will be able to continue to do quality design and serve the needs of Google.

Has anyone else had similar design experiences? When you start a new design for a client, do you have to determine what level of SEO you are going to design the site to? How has SEO affected the WAY you design? More indexable text? Better tagging? More creative CSS? AJAX?

Our old nemeses are retired now. The 216/256 color palette. The crackle of the modem. But new ones have taken hold. And these are ones that don't seem to be going away as readily.

And so, the battle continues in design departments across the land.

Stop the stopping... NOW!

So the other day at a party we had a very humorous discussion about something none of us could figure out. It is an every day household item that someone apparently found the need to "invent"... a Wine Stopper.

I mean.. really... who STOPS wine. I say we need more wine. Not something to stop it. And frankly, if you don't like wine enough to drink the whole bottle, share it with a friend. Which is what wine was invented for in the first place! Or, better yet, if you don't like wine enough to drink the bottle down, don't buy it.

But for God's sake, don't STOP your wine.

Apparently there is a whole market out there for people who are stopping wine. Stop the madness! States have gone to all kinds of ends to regulate alcohol, but I want to live in a state where they outlaw wine stoppers. California should do this. They make a lot of wine there right? I would think they would want to encourage wine drinking. They should make it illegal to sell these inhumane devices.

This leads me to the relevant part of this blog post, at least design wise.

We need to stop inventing things that are useless. Useless design is all over the place. I invent useless things all day long that look good, like the snowflake wine stopper above, but have no place in the world (or world wide web for that matter).

I am talking about frivolous design elements. Sometimes these take the form of icons. Other times they are other design elements simply created to look good but don't do anything to increase actual usability.

I have fallen into this trap many, many times. Going to my pile of icons to search for just the perfect icon of an envelope or a printer. And sometimes, these things can help usability. But other times, they simply add to the visual clutter of the page.

One of the best things to come out of the whole Web 2.0 thing has been the simplification of design. Clean pages with meaningful interactivity courtesy of AJAX has really made designing fun AND useful. But I am really starting to feel a rebellious feeling about all these icons. And Web 2.0 sure uses a lot of them. All shiny and reflected and soft and fuzzy.

So I resolve that in a future client design, I am going to challenge myself to do an icon-less page. That means no little pictures, but also no little triangles, tri-dot tidbits, or other random bullets. Maybe it is time for Web 2.1.

One of the things I really took away from my recent trip to South By Southwest was the power of good typography. Old books didn't have the luxury of little icons all over the margin. Yet they existed with such a pure design elegance that is lost from most design today.

It is the same elegance that is contained in most bottles of wine I have had the pleasure to enjoy.

Frivolous icons are like wine stoppers. They stop the elegance. I say, let the elegance flow... and stop the stopping!

Heather Locklear Design

Recently I read an interesting post from Jason Santa Maria about working with clients that have difficulty seeing our vision...

"I’m a bit of a stalwart optimist and I’ve always considered that I need bad or, more appropriately, challenging clients. I’m not talking about clients that withhold respect, try to do my job, or undermine recommendations based on fear. No one wants those kinds. I mean clients that push us to create better things and to be better designers. Clients that want to learn, and want to question."

Now I have of course worked with a wide variety of clients just like Jason has. And I certainly have had my share of challenging ones. And the truth of the matter is, every time I get overly excited about one particular design I have done, the client never sees it the way I do. But I ask you... just as Jason has asked... is that a bad thing?

I recently did a design that I really felt would push the envelope for the area this particular client was focused on. The other sites in this arena were plain and simple. We really wanted to elevate this client's site and take it to a new level well beyond where its competitors were. It was a risk to present this kind of design to this particular client, because they were probably expecting something more in line with their industy's standard. However, we presented 4 designs, ranging from very simple and clean to a very intense, graphically dynamic one.

As a designer, I was drawn to the graphically intense one for many reasons. And I started praying almost immediately that they would choose that one. Of course they didn't. However, they DID choose one that will still be a fine addition to our portfolio and is much better than anything else their competitors have to offer.

My question is this. How do we keep pushing the "design envelope" and hoping our clients "get it" while almost always they are unwilling or unable to take the risk involved? Do we keep pushing ourselves to do designs we know they won't approve? How do we keep our intensity level up?

For me, I think it is just the possibility that one day, a visionary client will come in and say... "YES! WE GET IT! GO FOR IT!". But this is like me waiting for Heather Locklear to call me. I mean, I have been waiting for like 30 years now.. and still nothing.

It keeps me waking up in the morning. Not Heather, but the possibility that each day holds at my job. Doing something innovative, cool, a new idea, a never been done before design solution.

One day, the Heather Locklear of clients will call. In the meantime... Heather, please call me.