5 Principles of Good Design (via Shillington)

This is taken from the Shillington school of Design Theory, in New York, and we couldn't agree more. Great graphic design doesn't happen by accident. It needs architecture, structure, rigour, discipline. Then you must add a dash of creativity.
You can read more about Shillington and their courses here.

The Malaysia Design Archive

1920's luggage lable for E&O Hotel Penang
The British marketed Malaya as an exotic getaway, using the romance of the Far East with its colours, smells and beauty as an antidote to an increasingly urban and industrialized UK

The Malaysia Design Archive is a website that tracks the history of design in Malaysia, from Colonial times through Japanese Occupation, Independence and beyond. 

We fully support and encourage this site, it's great to see a small and passionate group of people who are devoted to the study and support of Malaysia's own design ethos. 

It's also a fascinating record of the diversity and change that Malaysia has undergone in the last 120 years, capturing visually and graphically the explosive growth and demographic changes in the country.

The below is just a small selection of the historic designs that are available on the site, to give you a feel for the breadth of social and cultural history that the site covers.

Ten dollar ‘Banana Money’ currency

Issued by the Japanese during their occupation of Malaya between 1942 and 1944. The front of this rare note features a tree bearing fruit, with the obverse featuring a depiction of a ship on the horizon.

Banana money is an informal term given to a type of currency issued by Imperial Japan during the Japanese occupation of Singapore, Malaya, North Borneo and Sarawak and Brunei, and was named as such because of the motifs of banana trees on 10 dollar banknotes.

Japanese War Leaflet, 1944

The leaflet above was dropped by the Japanese in both the Malay and Chinese languages. It addresses the Malayans as “brethren” and asks that they inform on the British and Americans, It offers rewards for worthwhile intelligence. Some of the text in Malaya and Japanese is:

The Japanese Army is your friend unlike the foreign British and Americans. We are all of a common ancestry and are Asian brethren. As such, we have a common enemy in the British and Americans.

If you see any British or Americans, please capture or report them to the Japanese Army and do not let them escape. If you can transport them to the Japanese Army then do so.

The Japanese Army will not harm you and you will be paid a reward.

Signed: Japanese Army Commander.

As a Brit in Malaysia, obviously this is spooky, imagining what this must have felt like for the British forces that were in Malaya at the time. 

Straits Times Annual, 1957
Featuring Datuk Maria Menado, apparently the most beautiful woman in Malaya at the time
http://www.malaysiadesignarchive.org/magazine-the-straits-times-annual-1957/

The Station Hotel, luggage tag 1950's
The Majestic Hotel KL, just opposite the station shown here, re-opened under YTL in 2013 after years of neglect, showing a trend for nostalgia and historic experiences that offer more than the modernised tower-block, cookie-cutter hotel.
Note the use of the oversized 'O' in the header to give the font a distinctive feel.
http://www.malaysiadesignarchive.org/emergency/

Malaysia-Singapore Airlines ad, 1969 promising the 'finest food aloft'
Proof that airlines always have been - and always will be - key media spenders. An interesting angle for a product or aircraft shot, not seen often these days. The rear 3/4 view, rather than showing a side-on or in-flight shot. Suggestive of immediate departure or travel. There is plenty still to learn from the ad-men of the past (this written having worked for 2 years on Malaysia Airlines here in KL).

http://www.malaysiadesignarchive.org/advertisement-the-707/

All images here courtesy of http://www.malaysiadesignarchive.org/

Please share this site widely and donate. Thanks to Ezrena Hussain for making us aware of this great resource.

More on what3words...

I had blogged previously about what3words before here - and great to see their new video, which explains very well what they're about and how they work. Love the concept. Scared by how complex it must have been to setup, but such a great simple idea. Here is a company that makes the world a better, easier place to be. Truly useful technology, that gives back - unlike so many apps and .coms out there...

An unusual business card...

Here are the bespoke business cards we designed as part of our brand development for roKKi (AirAsia's in-flight wifi & connectivity service) - and how cool are these? The stencilled 'rock on' hand icon is die-cut to grab the attention. It works really well when you hold it up to sunlight, as per the picture. Just the beginning of some great stuff from a brand that we helped conceptualize & name from scratch. More to come about roKKi on this blog soon, in the meantime, if you're interested to find out more about roKKi's services, have a look here

Keep up the good work Benoit & Sami!

Is your brand guest-centric?

Steve Jobs the Adman

This video is taken from an Apple internal meeting in 1997 (thanks Harinder Singh). Steve Jobs had only just returned to the company after his period of 'exile' at NeXT. It shows - in a most candid way - his instinctive grasp for branding and the central role he gives it in the turnaround plan for Apple. Jobs understood that despite all their technical ability, if Apple couldn't communicate simply and clearly their values, they would not be successful. It also shows, through his eloquent and powerful presentation, his ability as an adman himself - I doubt there are many in the industry today that could present this work as well. Clearly he was heavily invested in the production and success of the campaign. What a fascinating insight into one of the most famous campaigns of all time. And most astonishing....that all this was completed in 2 months' time. The result of this hard work? By 1998 Apple was back in profitability after almost going bankrupt.

Big in China?

Illustration by Daniel Mitchell http://www.daniel-mitchell.co.uk/

Sometimes you just have to say ‘yes’ and worry about the consequences later…an email arrives saying we, G.A, have been invited by one of our biggest clients to speak at the Asia-Pacific Hotel Design Association’s 4^th annual conference in Dalian, and am I free to do this?

The first thought is: what would I say? The second thought is: I have so much going on. The third thought is: where on earth is Dalian? The third thought, after a quick bit of Google mapping, tipped the decision in favour of a ‘yes’.

Dalian is pretty close to North Korea, a “2^nd tier” city (‘only’ 6 million inhabitants – about the size of greater Kuala Lumpur - and everyone in Dalian refers to how ‘small’ the city is). It has an interesting history, having been founded by Russians, invaded and taken over by the Japanese, Russian again after WW2 then ‘gifted’ back to China as a sign of friendship between the two Communist countries.

I had never been to a “2^nd tier” Chinese city before, and was interested to see a new part of this giant country. The conference, coming hot on the heels of our G.A rebranding and the opening of our Shanghai office would also be great exposure for the company. So it was a ‘yes’ then and let’s worry about the rest when it happens – necessity is the mother of invention, after all.

It was later I discovered there were no direct flights to Dalian from KL. This meant flying China Southern airlines from KL to Guangzhou (4 hours), then transferring on a domestic flight across from Guangzhou to Dalian (3 hours)*. 

'View' of Guangzhou coming into land. I have been there twice. Whenever I have been there it was covered in this soul-destroying pollution. For more thoughts on that, see Why we should be thankful for the haze

After a near-miss at customs in Guangzhou, I arrived at Dalian at night. I was greeted with a full bouquet of flowers and whisked off to Starwood’s 300-key Castle Hotel, part of its Luxury Collection, designed by HBA and only opened 1 month ago – the venue for the APHDA conference. The hotel was a reinterpretation of a French chateau, replete with marble flooring, chandeliers, grand staircases and reproduction furniture – a style very popular in China to denote ‘luxury’ and ‘success’, but distinctly odd and a bit Disney-esque to my British eyes. I can understand, however, why this kind of design is so popular in a country that has laboured under grim public/civic-minded architecture for so many years.

The Castle Hotel, Dalian

I was immediately impressed by the scale of the event, about 1,300 delegates were in the audience – and the way it had been set-up to include the biggest names in the industry, from across China, Hong Kong, Singapore. Previous guest speakers had included Tony Chi, Peter Remedios and Jean-Michel Gathy – so no pressure then.  And I was one of only a handful of Westerners in the room.

View from Dalian's main square (the biggest in Asia). The world's biggest and flattest half-pipe skatepark. And a giant unfinished bridge mid-construction in the background. Smog wasn't as bad here, but still noticeable.

The theme of the event was “Future Hotels”.  I am a fan of future-gazing, like most people, so this theme attracted me and I wrote a speech focused on what the hotel design of the future would be like. I won’t go into it here, but if you are interested I will post a separate link to the video of my speech when I have it.

The speech went down well, mainly because of G.A’s reputation in the region thanks to our great work on projects like W Taipei. For that I can only say again what great (and hard) work our team is doing around the world.

It also went down well because of the student-based audience – I suspect that not many event speeches in China encourage the audience to think and participate in a dialogue. I was nervous about doing this, given my experience in Asia in general is that people are very reticent about asking questions in a public forum. However, on the advice of Susan, my brilliant translator, we decided to go ahead and open up the discussion.

It was only after the speech, that I started to get a sense that ideas like ‘crowd-sourcing’ and group participation, discussion are considered more radical perhaps in China than elsewhere, especially amongst a large group of students (and to the back-drop of the student civil disobedience in Hong Kong).

I sensed there was a formula which they had been expecting – design firm principals turn-up and show their portfolio, talk about the past, how they ‘made it’ and got to their current position etc. Given that I am not a designer, I was reluctant to do that, so focused more on a group session trying to define the future of hotel design, using ideas harvested from the G.A global family and examples of our current work as stimulus.

What I certainly didn’t expect was to be mobbed by students, suppliers and clients alike for the rest of the conference. One man approached me asking us to work on a boutique 60-room hotel project apparently attached to the Great Wall of China (!)

Seemingly everyone wanted pictures, signatures or to exchange business cards. After nearly an hour of this, it was frankly a bit overwhelming. I suppose everyone is due their 15 mins of fame, but it also got me thinking….is there something in Chinese culture where role-models are held in very high esteem, perhaps without the criticism or cynicism you would find in the UK? Or maybe our work was just that inspiring…I hope the latter. Either way, it seems that G.A is now ‘big in China’. For all those in our team that worked on these projects, I wish you could have been there to see it – I am sure it would go some way to make the long hours and effort worthwhile.

*A footnote about China Southern Airlines and an example of the general statistical craziness of China…. I learnt this during my days working with Malaysia Airlines on the launch of their own A380 services from KL to London. China Southern Airlines is, I am told, the only airline in the world to fly profitably Airbus A380s (the huge, double-decker ones). Why? Because China Southern flies their A380s converted almost entirely into economy-class seating, more than 500 people being flown this way in one plane. But here’s the killer – they fly them exclusively domestically. So whilst in the UK we may have invented the concept of the double-decker bus, in China, they created the double-decker plane. Literally bussing Chinese around their country from city to city.

Our new cards

So our new cards arrived - as part of the G.A rebranding that we have been working on for...well...a long time (more on that soon). I know cards are old-fashioned, but you can't beat the feeling of having a well-produced card that matches what you are doing, your philosophy and company ethos, to present to clients. We trialled them last night at a client event and they gathered a lot of talkability. Each card is digitally printed with our own selected imagery on the reverse. This creates a talking point with new contacts or clients - automatically breaks the ice - leading to a better introduction. We like!

From Sales to Sails - John Lewis Southampton Print

This is great work. Old fashioned print, I know. But you can't beat the power of an idea, no matter how physical the format. For those not in the UK, Southampton is a port town on the south coast of the country. So what better way to launch the opening of the new John Lewis store (a famously British brand), than by taking objects for sale there and making them, in some cases, literally into sails....deceptively simple and powerful. Well done, Adam&EveDDB (images taken from their website: http://www.adamandeveddb.com/) - this is work that makes us envious!

Creativity - the well versus the spring

So we work in an industry where clients often come from financial backgrounds, their lives are run via targets, their days split rigidly into meetings, financial achievement and delivery (aka "performance") is often (and rightly so) the 'be all and end all' of their working existence.

The creative agency, on the other hand, comes from a different perspective. Days are often less structured - and deliberately so. Creation of the freshest, most on-brief and original ideas is the objective. Financial measurement, at least for the creative department, is less of a priority. Instead, the equally stressful objective of achieving stand-out creative work is the goal.

These two views are very different. Generally - clients are from Mars, creatives are from Venus. The genius often lies in the combination of the two perspectives. And this is the sadly much-maligned role of the 'account management' people - or suits. They are like translators or mediators - they need to facilitate the communication between the two sides, to ensure the goodness and validity of arguments from each perspective are heard. By building consensus, a better solution for both sides is achieved. This is frequently an uncomfortable, awkward and thank-less process.

Whilst acting as mediators, the account management team also need to know when and how to say 'no' to clients. Creatives often stress this leads to better work - by standing up for good ideas when push comes to shove and preventing dilution of great ideas. Saying no to a client is often the hardest thing to do for the account person. However, the really great suits can do this often, whilst making the client feel like they are getting something bigger and better than their original request.

Too often, from the agency perspective, clients treat creativity like a spring rather than a well. What do we mean by this? A well is a source of fresh, delicious, clear drinking water. A well is like the creative's mind. You can dip into it, but if you keep on dipping, pulling bucket after bucket, then the well will eventually run dry. The well needs time to refill. Due to the ongoing nature of client relationships, clients can make frequent demands, change briefs or alter work piecemeal during the course of months, sometimes years. This leads to dry wells on the agency side. Motivation runs short and the ideas and execution suffer. This is because the client feels that the creative product is like a spring - ever flowing, full of freshness. If only that were the case....

So the other crucial task of the great account management person, is to ensure at all costs that the relationship stays fresh. That the clients understand the precious nature of their 'well of creativity', that buckets are extracted carefully and are fit for purpose, which means briefs are accurate and agreed up-front, without using the creative process to define the strategy.

Of course, the creative department and their ability to conjure great ideas and work is central. However, the account management team, when properly run, should rightly feel they have as much a part to play in the creation of great work. And of course, how many agencies credit their clients? Because at the end of the day, every great idea and piece of work, needs a great and brave sponsor.

We do wonder sometimes, who is training and teaching the future great account management people in the industry? And who is leading the example on the client side? I have been lucky enough to work with Coca-Cola, who truly have a remarkable appreciation and understanding of the transformative power of creativity. Partly because they have actively hired agency-side people to bring them over to manage their marketing function. We would love to hear from any other clients who feel they can match Coke in this regard :)

Rubik's Cube Google Doodle - 19.05.14

You know that we love Google's Doodles and have posted on them in the past. But how cool is this? For the 40th anniversary of the Rubik's Cube, today, Google recreated the Cube in digital form inside their Doodle. Amazing. Rubik's Doodle

We love the way the Rubik's image uses subtle colours to spell out the Google logo on the home screen (blue-red-yellow-blue-green-red) - see image directly below. When you have a mark that is so ubiquitous, so famous and well-known, you can play with it in referential terms like this. It's similar to some of the recent Coke graphic work also posted on this blog: http://ga-brand.blogspot.com/2014/05/brilliant-work-from-coke.html

Just to think, if the Cube had been created in the 21st century, it may never have been a physical object - it probably would have a been an app or digital game, with high-speed scores shared real-time on social media to your friends. Just goes to show how far we've come in 40 years. However, digital or physical, one thing hasn't changed, I still can't complete the damn thing :) 

GA Design wins Best Hotel Interior Asia-Pacific

Congratulations to our parent company GA Design who took home 4 x awards at the Asia-Pacific Property Awards in Kuala Lumpur last week, including the coveted "Best Hotel Interior Asia-Pacific" for St. Regis Osaka.

The winning projects were St. Regis Osaka, W Taipei and the Palace Hotel Tokyo. W Taipei and Palace Hotel Tokyo collected the Best Hotel Interior, Taiwan and Highly Commended Hotel Interior, Japan respectively.

The belle of the ball on this occasion was the St. Regis Osaka who not only won the Best Hotel Interior, Japan but then went on to win the Best Hotel Interior, Asia Pacific.

St. Regis Osaka will now be put forward to the final round of awards to see if it can win best Hotel Interior in the world.

Check out more images of St. Regis Osaka here: http://ga-design.com/st-regis-osaka/

The Rare Trumpeter Swan

Happy to say we found our 'rare bird'. Still the criteria for a great creative director. 

If you are working with an agency that doesn't have a 'Trumpeter Swan' leading its creative output, time to call us :)

Brain Crack (Explicit Version) - ZeFrank - or getting ideas to reality quickly

I like this is a lot - warning for those of a sensitive nature regarding the explicit language. But ZeFrank's point is hugely relevant. Don't suffer from Braincrack. Get those ideas OUT early. Make them real. It's ok if they're rubbish at the beginning, you gotta start somewhere. And the scary thing is - you have to work on this continuously, it's so easy to fall back into bad habits....

Dan Reisinger: a graphic life of colourful design

This post focuses on the work of Dan Reisinger. Reisinger was born in 1934 in Serbia, but immigrated to Israel in 1949. He is famous for his work as a graphic artist that often expressed his political views associated with his Israeli nationality and experiences during the Holocaust when he was growing up. His EL AL series of posters which commenced in the late sixties and continued through the seventies, were radically different to the prevailing trend at the time. For reference, look at this pre-Reisinger EL AL 'London' ad. Simple and clear, but how would this stand out in the marketplace?

By contrast, Reisinger's poster for London introduced a new and playful approach, improvising on the visual theme of the El Al logo.

Graphic, simple, bold, block colour and instant cut-through versus the clutter of standardised photographic shots being used at the time. In fact in some ways this style was almost a harking-back to the original travel posters of the 40's and 50's, with their vivid used of illustration and colour.

Once Reisinger and El Al had struck the theme, the campaign was seemingly endless and spawned a number of different destinations. The typographic play could be on the L of the EL such as below ads for Amsterdam, Rome, Vienna or the USA:

Note the clever and suggestive use of colour in his work, each colour chosen carefully to represent the character of the destination - for example the metallic aluminium feel to the grey background of the USA poster reminiscent of the polished aluminium finish of the Greyhound long-distance coaches and the metalwork of Detroit's automobiles; likewise the orange backdrop to the Amsterdam poster reflecting the Dutch national colours.

His 'typographic rules' however were not set in stone. He could also play with the A from the EL AL. The rules were flexible and in service to the idea of the campaign - seemingly however best to bring life those particular destinations:

Sometimes he would work on both words EL and AL as per Istanbul - each time and each execution does not sacrifice the legibility of the logo, nor the impact and clarity of the destination's allure.

And sometimes he wouldn't even play with the logo at all:

What had been created was such a powerful and vivid CAMPAIGN IDEA that the audience could take part in the game, spot the next ad and wait to see what typographic plays, destinations and designs would appear next.

But in our mind, best of all was when Reisinger added some thematic messaging and copy to his work. As in the case of the launch of the Boeing 747 service 'Rainboeing the skies'. What a wonderful line and vivid imagery - although of course this is all coming from an era with less awareness or concern about envrionmental issues such as global warming. An image such as this today, would be impossibly naive, but then, like all art, it is a product of its times.

Reisinger continued to produce work and is still alive today. Some of his later offerings include this poster from 1986 and he even branched into environmental design with this Tambour Paint factory in Israel and packaging design:

Testament to a great graphic eye and design philosophy. To find out more about Dan Reisinger, please visit http://www.danreisinger.com/

Seize the Moment

Great copy, bad typography - makes me wonder if this is for real or someone trying to just mock up a concept - most likely the latter. Still worth sharing!

Charlie Chaplin to Jacques Tati to The Artist

Two clips here below from 'Mon Oncle' by Jacques Tati (1958), ideally to be watched in sequence. A wonderful film. It portrays a very French fear of a very modern future. Tati plays the traditional Uncle who doesn't conform to the modernist view of the picture perfect, bourgeois lifestyle. His character struggles to adapt to the automated kitchen.

I love these clips. I love the 50's feel of the film, the use of colour, the way grey is used to represent the prison-like effect of the modern family's pursuit of suburban, material bliss.

Simple film-making that reminds me of Charlie Chaplin at his peak. Whilst mostly silent, 'Mon Oncle' does use music and sound effects, but with light touch. We have become so used to after-effects in cinema, sometimes simple physical humour carefully crafted can be so powerful.

It makes the recent film The Artist - another of our favourites - so special. And shows us that true creativity is about thinking out of context, not following the 'norms' of your genre or group, but finding the path less travelled, the path overlooked in the fashionable rush. A timely reminder for all of us striving to create breakthrough and original work.

'Wich Cross Section Sandwiches

I stumbled upon the branding for 'Wich whilst researching branding for cafes. The logo for 'wich is not what impressed me. It is the photography. Being Asian, I am not a sandwich fan. It is just not food per se in my culture. It is rather sad to be eating a sandwich. It is something on-the-go or for eating in front of the computer working. There is much more joy in a bowl of soupy noodles.

Anyway, I never thought of how to showcase sandwiches or wraps. And 'Wich has done it beautifully by showing the cross sections. What a clever idea. Of course I want to know what is in my sandwich or baguette. 'Wich has made sandwiches sexy for me in this case.