Richard Prince's cowboy series of photographs were based on the Marlboro Man commercials

This week the Australian government announced that it would be the first country in the world to enforce that cigarettes be sold in plain packaging. The plan is that by 1 July 2012 cigarette packets:

• will feature no logos,
• will feature no brand imagery,
• will be uncoloured,
• will not be allowed any promotional copy.

The brand name will have to:

• be a standard colour,
• in a standard position,
• in a standard font,
• in a standard size.

As well as this the graphic health warnings will be updated. The new packet non-design will be tested for its effectiveness, but it will look something like this:

How the generic pack of cigarettes will look. Image courtesy of the Sydney Morning Herald

The tobacco industry will of course mount a legal challenge but I am more curious about how they will respond to the design challenge. How can a brand with no colours, mark, typography or imagery distinguish itself? I expect tobacco shops will start selling more branded cigarette tins and that the tobacco companies will start giving away promotional and durable packets within weeks if they are able.

Much of the space on supermarket shelves is taken up with products that are almost identical. Products might smell a bit different but the distinguishing properties are by and large to be found within the packaging design. With no cigarette branding it will be interesting to see how many cigarette brands survive.

How do you think cigarette brands will respond to this ultimate design challenge?

I just watched a video on TED (which I would heartily recommend) and rated it. I expected to indicate my rating by interacting with 5 blank stars. Instead I was presented with a list of words to select from, after which I saw a tag cloud rating. This is such a lovely twist on ratings, and a smart use of tag clouds. Watch the video and check out the ratings mechanism. The rules are that “you can choose 3 words, or vote for the same word 3 times“. Voting for the same word 3 times gives the user a chance to get their opinion across emphatically; and limiting the choice to 3 words keeps the rating meaningful.

I have never noticed this feature before, but it was part of the 2007 site launch (TED was designed by Method who have a short case study on the project). Funnily enough, while writing this post I went to take a screen shot of YouTube’s rating system only to find that they have changed how they do things. YouTube have forsaken the 5 star rating metaphor for a simple Like/Dislike mechanism.

Techcrunch wrote a short piece on the ratings subject after YouTube opened up the dialogue with its users about the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of the 5 star rating system, in its September 22, 2009 post Five Stars Dominate Ratings. YouTube’s Product Manager Shiva Rajaraman explained the predominant trend was for users to prescribe either a 1 star or 5 star rating. Clearly this has lead to the design decision to offer 2 choices. There is a good discussion (19 March 2010) about the YouTube rating redesign on IXDA.

The Famous London Tube Map

I watched “Cracking the Colour Code” last night on SBS.  (Here’s a review.) The program was about the science of colour which I was taught in design college, rods and cones and the mechanics of how the eyes see. It reminded me of an important step in the web design process.

We have all heard the arguments around accessibility. So we think about design for the visioned and the readability of code for the blind. But there are a significant number of people who are colour blind, one million Australians according to the program.

A man who is colour blind was speaking about design and how people should be mindful of what they produce.  He highlighted just how important colour choice is in design, particularly web design. People can have red/green colour blindness or blue/yellow colour blindness. So much information can be lost to these people.

Theory breaks design into the fundamentals of colour, line, texture, shape and space. But when it comes to web design I think we must prioritise hierarchy to denote importance through size and think about contrast.

It’s simple to test and tweak a design for better contrast. Just greyscale your final design.

Tube map in grey (Demo purposes only. Of course the Tube provide a high contrast black and white version)

If you missed the program, it was part one of a series so watch it next Wednesday on SBS at 8:30pm.

I don’t know about you but I know the client rarely takes responsibility for their part, and I think this is much worse when you are an internal supplier. So what to do?

Step 1. Don’t start with the design
Take a leaf out of the web development process and instead present a “wireframe”, a black and white blue print of the information only. The client, in this step need only focus on proofing the copy.

Step 2. Prepare a design presentation
Show and explain your creative process. This is something I learned from Pete Ottery (of News Digital) who gave a presentation called “So You Think You Can Design” at webDU 2008. Pete’s talk was on the principles of good web design, but he also made the point of how important the presentation of a design is. Pete’s design presentations include the process by which he comes to the final design. In the margin of each page important aspects of the design are explained in friendly, plain language. He shows the rejects from the design process; and how he justifies and changes creative decisions based on the success or failure of designs in user testing.

Showing how you arrived at your final design will help justify your design decisions, and in my experience can shorten the iteration process. It wil lessen the internal client micro-managing the design — make the logo bigger, move that over to the  left sorta thing. Importantly, it will also show the effort you have put in to your client’s project.

Step 3. Avoid email
It’s a necessary evil but inboxes are time sinks. Your internal client will view your email with that all important design or design presentation attached, give it a quick once over and say “looks fab” and then go on to the next item in the inbox.

Send your designs in an email but also arrange a time for a quick meeting about the design — so you can present it!

If you can’t be face to face with your client, as is the case with my friend, I would recommend online presentations of some sort and a good ol’ conference call. There are cool online conferencing tools like Adobe Connect but you can just as easily use Google Docs, Slideshare or the prettier Slide Rocket to show off your wares, or simply, walk through each page of a PDF.

Step 4. Proof the feedback
If you are lucky your client may be an Acrobat pro and annotate your PDF so you know exactly what text to change and what to move where. But usually people are lazy and will spill out their feedback on the phone or in an email. I always scored highly in comprehension tasks at school but I would need the added skill of mental telepathy to understand the intent of some of the feedback I have received.

Collate all the feedback and annotate your design with the comments. Get the client to verify that your notes are what they intended by their comments and represent what they want changed.

Step 5. Incorporate feedback

Step 6. Rinse and repeat.

Of course these steps may be overkill if your client is in the next room, or if you are presenting a business card based on a set template, but you get the point. Colour, pretty pictures, fancy fonts, all get in the way of proofing the actual content. Test the content, verify the feedback and hopefully reduce the risk and angst of the design process.