Must Reads | The Magnetic State Blog Dept.

Why You Need a Responsive Website

March 13, 2014 by Dan Redding 2 Comments

Responsive design is the modern and future-friendly way to create websites that look good across all devices and platforms. If you’re creating a website for the first time, or if your business is using a standard desktop website that was created before the proliferation of mobile and tablet devices, then responsive is the solution for you.

Responsive website from the Magnetic State portfolio

For further definition on the term, here’s the description that Time magazine used when it launched its responsive redesign: “All the pages of the website will now automatically resize to fit all computer and mobile-device screens.” To see a responsive design in action, check out this resizable demo.

The bottom line is this: responsive web design is good for business. Ensuring that your site provides a pleasant user interaction on any device means extending a welcoming hand to all users. That means your audience is more likely to interact with your site, follow its calls to action, proceed to checkout, and more. Upgrading to responsive design can dramatically increase conversion rates (that’s the conversion of casual site visitors into users who are performing primary site functions like making a purchase or filling out a form). Some brands that made the transition have enjoyed an increase in conversion rates of up to 100%. That’s huge.

responsive-ad

Here at Magnetic State, we know responsive. Recent responsive web designs include a complete magazine CMS for Coldfront, a custom feature article for Women’s Health, and a WordPress artist’s portfolio. Contact us to upgrade your existing site, or to create a new one that will work wonders for business. Send an email to [email protected] and we’ll discuss your needs.

Subconscious Meaning in Logo Design

March 15, 2013 by Dan Redding 4 Comments

Just like a good movie, a well-designed logo is capable of communicating on a variety of levels.

In New York City, a simple stroll down the street carries with it a barrage of dozens – even hundreds – of logos. They all seek our attention, remind us of products or experiences, and ultimately, plant seeds of brand meaning in our minds. Logo design can be a deceptive art – it often seeks to give us thoughts we didn’t know we had. Advertisers believe that repetition of a brand identity (a brand’s name, logo, and meaning) can create trust among consumers. In other words, if you simply see enough Pepsi commercials, you might be more likely to reach for a bottle of Pepsi during that split-second decision in the aisle at the store. Your experiences haven’t changed, but your beverage preference has been branded. Just like the hot iron a farmer uses on his cattle, an allegiance has been stamped into your brain. Sound creepy? I agree. Drink water. It’s free (not the bottled kind – Pepsi owns that).

So my question is this: how often are we aware of the impact a logo has had on us – or the brand essence it has instilled? Let’s look at one example.

This is not a banner ad.

I noticed a baseball game on television while I was in the gym (I’d never be watching baseball game under other circumstances). There was a huge Delta Airlines banner emblazoned on the wall right behind the batter.

I spent the next fifteen minutes of my workout critiquing the logo in my head. Yes, it’s true – nerd alert! – graphic designers like me spend much of our days walking around thinking about logos (a professor of mine once said, “There is no office for this job; this job is in your head”).

So I found myself scrutinizing the Delta logo, and I wondered, what does it mean? On first glance, without any fancy design jargon, it’s a triangle that says ‘Delta’ next to it, right? WTF is the purpose of that?

The Delta logo conveys meaning on a variety of levels – both conscious and subconscious.

Let’s start with some definitions. This logo is a combination mark, meaning that it is a logo consisting of text and an image. The image, in this case, is a triangle. More specifically, it’s a triangle that’s bisected (by a stripe of negative space) into two shapes: one, another triangle, the other, a sort of arrowhead shape. These two shapes appear to have a shadow on one side, which makes them appear three-dimensional. When considered as a three-dimensional object, the shape appears as a pyramid instead of a triangle. It can appear two-dimensional or three-dimensional, depending on how you want to look at it. Therefore, the dimensionality of the shape takes on the effect of an optical illusion, which is almost always a welcome effect in a logo.

Delta, the fourth letter in the Greek alphabet, is symbolized by a triangle

When considered on a figurative level, the triangle could represent the simplified shape of wings or a plane itself (if you imagine a plane from birds-eye view, facing vertically).

When considered on a symbolic level, the triangle represents Delta, the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet. I was unaware of that fact until I researched the logo (check out this evolution of the Delta logo).

When considered on a poetic level, the abstract shapes in the triangle suggest ascendancy. All angles point upward, lifting the eye vertically through the simple shape. It is an arrow pointing up. The idea of ascendancy implies flight. It also implies superiority, greatness, the pinnacle.

The typography in ‘D E L T A’ is loosely kerned so that a lot of white space is opened up between the characters. This gives the word an airy feeling, like it’s floating. Flight, ascendancy, and the sky are implied.

Belushi at Delta House, Greek Delta, Delta Airlines

Despite all this theorizing on my part, my guess is that if you approached a random dude on the street and asked him what he saw in the Delta logo, he might say: it says ‘Delta’ next to a triangle. And he’d be right. Maybe he’d say “it looks like a pyramid” or “it looks like a plane,” or, if he were ever in a fraternity, “the triangle means Delta.” Most people aren’t design nerds like me and they don’t sit around philosophizing about this stuff – they’re not supposed to. Corporate logos are designed to communicate with everyone; in fact, many of them intend to breach broad cultural and geographic boundaries. But what’s the purpose if no one in the audience knows what they’ve seen?

The purpose is that those ideas of ascendancy and greatness and flight have been implied – on a subconscious level – in the minds of millions of viewers who haven’t given it a moment’s thought. They don’t have to think about it, and it’s supposed to be that way. Sure, there’s a different impact of meaning from one person to the next – that’s the beauty of art.

We make judgments based on subconscious visual information all the time: you might meet someone who you feel that you can trust simply based on her smile, or you might click away from a website that’s poorly designed without knowing what repelled you.

The Delta logo conveys meaning on a variety of levels, which gives it depth and strength. It prefers implications over proclamations. It is subtle and austere. I’m not saying it’s the best logo in the world – it’s rather dull at first glance – but I do think it’s effective. Its meanings are all subjective and open to interpretation. This is a strength.

Director William Friedkin (left) used subliminal imagery in ‘The Exorcist’

Subconscious communication is so effective because it’s inherent in our lives. We’re used to it. We communicate subconscious meaning with body language all day long. Movies manipulate our thoughts and emotions with music, cinematography, and all of the other tools in a filmmaker’s arsenal.

One of the best examples of emotional manipulation in movies is The Exorcist, a.k.a. the scariest film ever made. In his masterpiece, director William Friedkin utilized what is often referred to as ‘subliminal imagery.’ There are terrifying images of demon faces that appear onscreen for a fraction of a second several times during the film. They are only visible for a flash, and the result is that you feel almost as though you’ve seen an apparition, or something that only appeared in your mind. It’s part of the reason why this film continues to disturb and frighten audiences so thoroughly. The film works on conscious levels with its use of makeup, character, and dialogue. But its effects on the subconscious lend it further, deeper resonance: it almost feels as though the film’s evil powers intrude on parts of the mind that lesser films don’t have access to.

Logo designs don’t need to function on more levels than one. A cute logo of a cat is exactly that. But even a logo like that will derive meaning from your associations with the endearing qualities of animals.

Artistic meaning is an elusive critter. This is partly because art is capable of tapping into subconscious areas of the mind that can defy logic and reason. Beneath the surface, we all possess emotional reactions and associations with imagery. The best graphic design will take advantage of that.

Advancements in Identity at the Brand New Conference

November 18, 2010 by Dan Redding 1 Comment

During the past few decades, brand identity has come to life, walked off the page, and danced. The days of the static logo are over, and on November 5th, some of the designers responsible for the liberation of identity gave presentations at the Brand New Conference in New York City.

Motion and animation emerged in identity during the 1980’s when brands like MTV and Nickelodeon adapted their identities for the television format. Those themes have only recently become dominant factors in the industry. Today, identity is adapting to a variety of emerging and evolving formats: 3D and the handheld web among them. Here’s a look at some of today’s advancements in identity design that have the potential to grow into major themes.

Click here to read the rest of this post.

Eddie Opara and the UCLA Identity

September 11, 2010 by Dan Redding 2 Comments

Last week, it was announced that Eddie Opara, formerly of Map Office, is the newest partner at Pentagram’s New York office. According to Pentagram, Eddie is a “multifaceted designer whose work spans interactive and graphic design, strategy and technology.” I greatly enjoyed one of his design presentations (video below) and I thought it would be a good time to discuss his work – specifically the fascinating case of the maligned identity for UCLA’s Architecture and Urban Design school.

This case study is fascinating because transformation and motion are dominant themes in identity design today; see Luke Hayman’s SECCA identity for another recent example.

The ‘Transformative’ UCLA Mark

‘Transformative’ is a word that emerges often while Eddie talks shop, and the theme is certainly manifested in this daring identity.

Eddie’s original mark (two variations above) is architectural and so abstract that the letterforms almost become a secondary realization: the acronym emerges after a moment of viewing the bold shapes. It’s very hip, bold, and implies three-dimensional structure.

However, according to Eddie’s tale in his presentation, this identity was (mostly) abandoned by the university after about a year in favor of what they have now (“It’s Optima Slanted,” Eddie laughed, “…you could have done it in about fifty minutes”). Here’s where things get interesting.

Eddie side-stepped the University’s abandonment of his identity by transforming it into a sort of incognito post-identity. He designed an iteration of the identity that takes abstraction to the extreme: the letterforms are now gone. “It doesn’t say UCLA, does it, eh?” Eddie says with a smile. “It doesn’t say anything!” Visit the architecture school’s homepage and you’ll see a video of the transformation of this revised post-logo.

I’m impressed by Eddie’s cleverness and tenacity in finding a way for this identity to live on in its new, subversive reincarnation. Some might say that there was a fundamental problem if the client was unhappy with the identity in the first place (Eddie says the Architecture school fought for it but the University decided against it). Whatever the politics of the situation were, this project is the work of a designer who is willing to take risks and strongly believed in the results.

Another theme that resonated with me was Eddie’s discussion of designing imagery that references the past. He says that these images should be “contemporary and nostalgic.” I loved this way of describing the necessity of updating the past and viewing it through a contemporary lens (instead of merely regurgitating history).

View Eddie’s presentation below or read Alissa Walker’s Eddie Opara article and interview at Fast Company.

A Modern Branding Context for Logo Design

January 29, 2010 by Dan Redding 6 Comments

In the context of contemporary branding, what is the meaning of a logo? The short answer is that it has greater power than it did several decades ago.

I just read a quote from graphic designer hero Paul Rand that really made me think. Rand is quoted in this Smashing Magazine article about logo design as defining a logo thusly: “a logo is a flag, a signature, an escutcheon, a street sign. A logo does not sell (directly), it identifies. A logo is rarely a description of a business. A logo derives meaning from the quality of the thing it symbolizes, not the other way around. A logo is less important than the product it signifies; what it represents is more important than what it looks like. The subject matter of a logo can be almost anything.”

This view on the meaning of a logo is no longer true. In fact, it has been reversed.

Again, Rand is my hero and I look to his work for inspiration regularly, but his most well-known designs were created during the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. Corporate branding has evolved drastically in the decades since.

According to Naomi Klein’s No Logo (published in 2000, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in branding or corporate identity), “The astronomical growth in the wealth and cultural influence of multinational corporations over the last fifteen years can arguably be traced back to a single, seemingly innocuous idea developed by management theorists in the mid-1980’s: that successful corporations must primarily produce brands, as opposed to products.”

In other words, Nike’s corporate identity – including, but not limited to, its ubiquitous ‘Swoosh’ logo – carries much more value and meaning than any pair of sneakers. In fact, that pair of Nikes will wear out in a few months (and you might purchase whatever new model they happen to be hawking at the time), but the Swoosh will remain untarnished as an image emblazoned on the side of billions of products and ads – and more importantly, as an idea in the minds of countless consumers.

Mr.Rand says that a logo derives meaning from the qualities of the thing it represents. But what about the generic package of cheaply-produced shoelaces that bear the Nike logo on the label? Surely consumers pay more for these shoelaces because the product is deriving meaning from the logo, and therefore, the brand.

During Mr.Rand’s career, the logo existed to support the product. For many of today’s megabrands, the product has become secondary to the idea of the brand and the logo’s symbolization of that idea.

The challenge for us graphic designers is to use this powerful tool for good and not evil! If you have skill and talent as a logo designer, use it to strengthen those brands and companies whose goals and motives you trust and admire (a.k.a. not Nike).

If Mr.Rand were still with us today, I’m sure he’d be at the forefront of developments like these. Here’s a classic interview with the endearing, no-nonsense designer for old-time’s sake.

Interview: Google Designer Ryan Germick

August 14, 2009 by Dan Redding 12 Comments

Ryan Germick

Welcome to another Magnetic State Blog Dept. interview with a creative professional. Today’s interview subject is Ryan Germick, a designer at Google as well as a cartoonist, web designer, Indiana native, and Prince enthusiast. Ryan and I became friends while attending the BA/BFA program at the New School together; we both graduated in 2003 with BFA’s in Illustration from Parsons School of Design and BA’s in Writing from Eugene Lang College.

Ryan’s got a dedicated work ethic and his creativity seems limitless. He comes from a family of numerous talented Germicks; you can check out their multimedia art empire Germart here. Also check out ryangermick.com and Ryan’s comic, Gomance: My First Kiss. Last week, Ryan and I shared a cross-continent conversation about his storied Google career, the future of the internet, design inspiration, and T-Pain. Enjoy! [Note: this interview was conducted in January, 2009, and was previously published at an earlier incarnation of this blog and in excerpt form in Parsons Re:D Magazine]

Dan Redding: What is your job title and place of employment?
Ryan Germick: I’m a Web Designer at Google. But really, I don’t do any web design; actually now I’m more of an illustrator.
There was a book published recently called What Would Google Do? Let’s settle this once and for all: what would Google do?
(Laughter) Google would organize the world’s information and make it universally useful and accessible. That’s the mission statement – like, verbatim. Sorry. I’ve drunk the Kool-Aid. (Laughter) And they wouldn’t do it in an evil way!
That’s the Google motto I’ve heard quoted, right? ‘Don’t be evil’?
Yeah, I think they’re pretty legit about it… I think at the top of the company there is good in the hearts of the ones running it.
Is Google CEO Eric Schmidt a nice guy?
I think so! He said my video was the funniest thing on the planet. So we’re totally cool. It was really flattering.

Ryan stars in Google’s first video for the Google Maps ‘Street View’ feature.
View more Google videos that Ryan wrote and/or starred in here, here, and here.

And yet Google is so ubiquitous, you guys seem to come under fire a lot… It was recently alleged that performing two Google searches can create the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle and that the global IT industry generates as much greenhouse gas as the world’s airlines.
I noticed that the official Google blog did have a post that sort of tried to explain their power consumption… I know that Google does have a lot of care for their carbon emissions, and like even being around the company, we just got rid of plastic water bottles, you know, to try to be eco-friendly. We’re getting composting. More to the point of people complaining about Google, when anyone’s big, people complain about ‘em, you know? I mean, you could complain about T-Pain, but the truth is, T-Pain is money.
Oh, and I will complain about T-Pain. I was on record today complaining about T-Pain and his ridiculous hats.
That’s why they call people like you a hater.
Google has a search robot named Googlebot. Have you ever met him?
(Laughter) I’m not at liberty to discuss. But I will say, it was consensual.
You have drawn some of the Google holiday illustrations that can be seen on the homepage periodically. What does it feel like to have your drawing viewed by more people than one can fathom in every nook and cranny on the Earth?
I don’t think about it that way. I just try to have fun with them and hope people enjoy them. I’m really grateful that I get paid to draw.

Ryan's illustration of new year animals was visible on the Google homepage on January 1st, 2009.

What do you think the future holds for Google’s open source mobile platform, Android?
I will tell you that I’m talking on an Android phone right now and it’s pretty sweet. I’m a believer. It’s pretty darned open source, and I’m a believer in open source. That’s kind of a crazy concept that web applications and development can be that democratic that anyone can have their input. I think it’s great! To bring it back to Google, as far as Google is concerned, they just want people using the internet. People are using the internet on iPhone, people are using the internet on Blackberry, that’s cool, because Google is in the business of selling ads, right? If people are using the internet, there’s a good chance they’re using Google… so they’re happy.
I wonder if the future holds the potential for geniuses whose genius is code. When you think of geniuses and masterminds of the past, you think of artists and inventors. Now in the technology industry, there are brilliant entrepreneurs, of course, but I wonder if there will be someone who comes along and revolutionizes the whole design of the internet.
There is, man! There’s millions of them, and a bunch of them work for Google. The guy who invented the language Python, he’s a code genius, and he works for Google now. There’s amazing people there. They’re out there, it’s just a little less glamorous, because they don’t shoot themselves in the stomach… they play World of Warcraft till the wee hours. There are definitely code geniuses out there. You should look up the Computer History Museum.
Yeah, you’re right, that sounds really boring. (Laughter)

“My proudest accomplishment at Google is designing the animated poop emoticon.”

From Android to Google’s browser Chrome, there always seems to be something new in the works at Google. What do you think is the most exciting venture in the works right now?
Well, I can’t talk about anything that hasn’t been released, but I think Android is really exciting and I think Chrome is really exciting. I was just talking to somebody about this on the Google Shuttle. I think Google Reader is the most underrated Google product. I think Google Reader is really cool. Google Reader lets you collect all the blogs and news sources that you read in one unified place, and then it lets you share what you like to read with your friends, and it’s very well designed and very simple and very effective. I think Gmail is a great product, too.
I totally agree.
Yeah, and they have Gmail Labs now, so there’s all these cool new features coming out. I don’t want to toot my own horn, but – can you put in a pull quote that my proudest accomplishment at Google is designing the animated poop emoticon? There’s a poop emoticon in Gmail, and that’s my proudest accomplishment.
I’m gonna see to it that that’s what it reads on your tombstone.
They’re gonna animate my tombstone anyway. (Laughter)
When do the machines plan to rise up and wage war on us humans?
It’s a goal for mid-2009. If Obama doesn’t give us reason to not start the coup, then it’s on.
Why do you say ‘us’? You’re on my side!
Oh, right, humans. Go humans.

Robot drawing by Ryan.

Are you on Twitter?
No.
What is your favorite website to visit for fun?
I really like the Sorry I Missed Your Party blog.
What site do you visit for news?
I go to the New York Times, to the Huffington Post, I read tons of blogs through Google Reader. I probably keep up with like fifty blogs. I’ll give a shout out to my friend Ryan, who runs the Electric Ant Zine blog.
What do you think is the future of web design?
I think the future is going to be information-dense, lightweight, a lot of information through things like RSS, getting things on the go…
Things are getting too small: a favicon, and an emoticon, and a 140-character Tweet…
Basically the future of web design is gonna be on a little tiny screen. That’s okay… In regards to Twitter, I don’t get it, exactly, but I know people are into it. I’m visual, so I like Flickr, I like having photos and comics and stuff that people do. But it’s really cool that a site like Flickr has everything universally formatted, and I can have RSS feeds for it. It’s not the prettiest presentation, but it’s so efficient that you’re basically mainlining information. And that’s where it’s at and that’s where it’ll stay… I think the internet’s built for, you know, the information superhighway. I coined that phrase. Tons of information all the time. And if you can set it up in an efficient, lightweight way, then you can really get your fix.

Ryan talking.

What is the most important thing you learned in design school?
Time management skills and life balance are really good things to have.
There are a few quotes from Parsons professors that still ring through my head quite often. Like when Viktor Koen told me, “you say you love type, now it’s time to make love to type.” Do you have any quotes that you are often reminded of?
Yeah, there was this professor Richard Waxburg, he was awesome. He said three things that I remember very distinctly. He was the first person to use the word gestalt that I knew of. He talked a lot about the overall feeling of something. It’s like another way of saying, ‘does it work or not?’ But gestalt is so much more German and nice. I like saying that. He also said that you have to take things on their own terms. That concept is the basis of a really constructive critique. You start to say, ‘what is the artist trying to do?’ And you really empathize with the artist. That to me is the basis of constructive criticism and I can thank Richard for that. (And the third thing I learned from him) was that you gotta be ruthless. Ruthless in the sense that if you’re drawing a figure, and you really get into the details of the knuckles, and you feel really, really good about the knuckles, but if you aimed to draw the figure, and it turns out that you screwed up the arm, you just have to be willing to suck it up – to meet your goal, you gotta erase the knuckles, you know? You gotta just wipe it out. You gotta be willing to be really hard on yourself, and not be precious, and do what needs to be done to make it happen. He was really into that. He’d get on his knees and yell.
I remember how crazed his paintings could be. He was a walking gestalt.
He was a walking gestalt. And what else could you hope to be?
Any artists that you’ve been deriving creative inspiration from lately? I forever love Osamu Tezuka. Another artist who I love dearly who recently passed away is Fujio Akatsuka. And then also, two of my friends whose work I really love and are a continual inspiration to me are Bay-area cartoonist Hellen Jo and Calvin Wong. I’m constantly surrounded by inspiration.
What’s the last great graphic novel you read?
I just read Watchmen. I thought it was good. I really appreciate how many levels things were working on. There’s lots of dense layering of symbolism…

Ryan at the Alternative Press Expo 2008.

When and why did you decide to become a vegetarian?
Well I’m not, I eat fish still, so I guess I’m a pescatarian. I decided in a Dairy Queen in the summer of 1993, before ninth grade. I ate a burger and I was like, ‘This is disgusting, I feel terrible… I don’t wanna eat this anymore.’
What was the most profound change that came from your experience living in India?
There were several things… I saw people who were poor but pretty content. The pace of life was – if you showed up somewhere, people stopped what they were doing and just chilled out with you. Here I am thinking that Americans have it all figured out… But really, these people are the ones that really have time, because they don’t have the ‘resources’ to ruin it.
You’ve been an outspoken Prince fan for many years. We know what Google would do, but more importantly, what would Prince do?
(Long sigh) Um, I’ll tell you what I would like Prince to do. ‘Cuz I don’t know what Prince would do. I wish Prince would go back to basics. I have this fantasy of having, like, a Court TV show where my favorite artists who have disappointed me would be put on trial. I thought of this idea with my friend Peggy. It would be a court show where my favorite artists get put on trial, and I would sentence them to a project that they’d have to complete to get out of a prison. And I wanna put Prince in prison to make him come out with a four-track jail album, where he can’t use a lot of cheesy synthesizers… he’d have to use really simple materials to make a straightforward good song. He can’t just rely on his old studio tricks.
Would it be a purple prison?
That’d be fine. That’d be great.

More Interviews by Dan Redding:
London Artist Supermundane
Photoplay Owner Michael Sayers