It sounds mad in this day and age but only a handful of people get to work with for a master. On Tuesday night at the the EDO event in London Fernando Gutiérrez talked about his time with Tibor Kalman and the legendary pictures only issue of Colors magazine. I actually heard someone behind me gasp when a few of the pages came up. It was obviously news to him in away to many of us it, and Kalman, are part of art and design folklore.
This is a discussion I had over recent weeks with my colleague Dan Ichimoto of Heaps Magazine. A culture magazine made in New York and published on iPad for a Japanese audience. He wanted to know what was going on in London with publishing for digital mags.
Or, why user-focused questions are the only way to make successful products
What could content brands be asking themselves about their customers before, and whilst, making and iterating their products?
I work with both large and small brands and I think that design that focuses on the user is neither new nor the exclusive territory of big brands with research budgets and huge dev teams. Every scale of operation can make a picture of its customers and their needs. What is important is that teams are analytical and involved in ways of thinking about the situations in which people buy and use their products to be successful.
No matter how new the medium we still tell stories using familiar principles, components & references: iOS7 is set in Helvetica Neu designed in 1983, the hierarchy of The Guardian app echoes that of the print, Instagram evokes a passed most of its users didn’t experience, a photo always has a crop and a colour, Responsive design uses movable type – you can’t get more heritage than Gutenberg. More on this at a later date.
ideas/forms/functions 