Without a person at (or near) the helm who thoroughly understands the principles and elements of Design, a company eventually runs out of reasons for design decisions. With every new design decision, critics cry foul. Without conviction, doubt creeps in. Instincts fail. “Is this the right move?”

When a company is filled with engineers, it turns to engineering to solve problems. Reduce each decision to a simple logic problem. Remove all subjectivity and just look at the data. Data in your favor? Ok, launch it. Data shows negative effects? Back to the drawing board. And that data eventually becomes a crutch for every decision, paralyzing the company and preventing it from making any daring design decisions.

More at: Goodbye Google

I’ve enjoyed using WordPress as a content management system.  The new templating system is relatively easy to use, and gibes well with what I’ve learned from my professional experience with web sites.  I think it’s a great lesson in CMS development as well – determining what’s dynamic vs. static, what’s styled in CSS or structured in HTML code, and what the various colors and fonts need to be to make the site readable.

Advantages of using WordPress vs. static updates include:

• Word-like text editor to enter and edit content, without the need to know HTML.
• Automatic ability to push new pages to multiple news feeds.  Write a post or page, tag it with keywords, click “submit,” and it automatically goes out over Google News.
• Fancier functionality.  No more manually updating the right column; I click “post” and all the links update.
• Individual pages.  Let’s say you Google “Pray for Priests magnets” – you get http://www.serraboston.org/news.php, but you have to scroll halfway down the page to get to the relevant content.  With the new site, each page of content should appear as its own web site, with links to similar articles.
• Fancier functionality than my current blog, which also needs an upgrade to the latest version of WordPress.

I’d post a preview, but I hope to have the fully dynamic site online in a few days.

What I like:

• His About page is near perfect – enough information to give you a sense of who he is, with compact clusters of information bunched around the page.
• The Blog – it’s centered and simple, with little “asides” on the left and right.
• The dates and tags appear as small links on the top.  I’ve been wondering about this for my blog – as of this writing the categories take up a huge column on the right side of the page.  I much prefer his centered column which puts the content front and center.
• The search is awesome – I like the subtle effect that happens when you click on the text box and it turns black.
• Great use of fonts. The explanation of his logo serves as a great example of what CSS can do, and what he can do with it.

I’m not 100% sold on:

• The title appears on the left of each post, so you can’t scan the headings vertically.  I must admit it’s easy to scan the page and see what each post is about, and it’s an interesting break from almost every other blog design on the internet.
• The white space gets a bit overwhelming (I still like gray backgrounds to focus the eye) but the centered blog design works well with the “calligraphy” theme he has going on.
• The footer at the bottom of each page is a bit wonky, but since he seems to be involved in so many web 2.0 groups it’s probably inevitable.

Odd, because it better matches Chris Glass’ blog as well as an upcoming redesign for this blog.  I chose a gray background because I think it makes the content pop better – your eye gets drawn to the images and colors in the content, not the background of the blog.  I also like gray better than total white, which does use whitespace but makes the content get lost in a sea of white (like WordPress, in my opinion).

An interesting trend in web 2.0 design, I guess.

One ridiculously minor issue – the indented bullets give the columns an off-kilter feeling, instead of being left-aligned.  This chart was clearly created for his own benefit but the left-aligned columns could be easily fixed if one were to present it to someone else.

This is a much-needed improvement to the site, removing the broken images, broken portfolio links, and outdated items on the old site (see screenshot below).  Having a simple site is better than having a broken one.

The idea for the old page was to link to multiple projects in my “portfolio,” and to list major web projects on the right.  I am proud of the first two items here (The Jardin de la Nina Maria and Kerryandwillie.com) but www.joesanswers.com is never updated, www.joannanddan.com is now defunct.  The MPRP Apostolate is worth a look but should be higher on the page.

Also, there are a bunch of basic mistakes with the old page:

1. Gigantic broken images in the center of the page
2. E-mail with @ sign listed on the front page – hellooooo  spammers!
3. Portfolio items on right take a long time to produce and add
4. Loads of broken links – the idea was to link to items in a dynamic Drupal site, but Drupal appears to be WAY too high maintenance (at least for me).
5. Lots of images; not as optimized for search engines as it could be.
6. “Bad” code – lots of tables, some CSS, not great structure.  I’d like to put my newfound coding abilities to the test and create a site that’s visually appealing but still shows off some coding ability.

My new approach: put up a simple site, and keep adding features/graphics/ideas over time.

Today is day 1 of the new design; I’m looking forward to implementing the rest of my ideas!

Typographica has some nice comparisons of the old and new font, and it even has its own web site!

Johnson Banks has a number of words which match my own limited experience with design and media. I also like the cool “mind map” feature of the navigation, though it doesn’t remember where I’ve been on the site between sessions.

It’s official. The age of the static brand is coming to an end. Organisations, companies, institutions, even charities are realizing that having identity schemes that ‘flex’ and adapt to circumstances are more appropriate in the multi-channel, multi-lingual world that brands now inhabit.

Over-controlled brands are starting to look stiff and old-fashioned, but not all clients (and certainly not all design companies) have yet woken up to this latest shift.

…the benefits of developing fluid, flexible systems to encompass everything from fonts, to colours, to words, to images, to logos are enormous – with a bit of hard work and a good idea an organization stops being about just a logo and gains a complete visual and verbal language.

More here.

Johnson Banks has a pretty sweet web site of their own showing how to minimize the logo while showcasing their ability.

Interesting to me, as I rethink this web site (yet again). How best to communicate the “Jobriga” identity on a blog, a wiki, a portfolio, and an about page? The icon I’ve used for Flickr and other online resources actually seems to translate well – it’s not reducible to business card size but I like the play of black and white on the left and color on the right. Not sure if it’ll translate to a full visual identity for this web site, but could be a useful starting point.

As Speak Up points out, the brand itself does feel very MTV circa 1980s, but the accompanying video and variations in the graphic treatment of the jagged colors showcase an overall branding initiative rather than a single logo that will dominate. Here’s a video of the London 2012 brand in action here.

It interests me that the logo itself is only part of a multimedia branding initiative. There’s the logo, but there are undoubtedly guidelines on the way the colors move, the types of colors and high-contrast patterns that can be used, and enough flexibility to use the brand in multiple situations.

I’m reminded of the new NBC News campaign, discussed at length at Brand New:

I rarely say this about campaigns, but this is borderline brilliant in two respects. First, it creates a simple parallel: What is as numerous and varied and as the news? Color. Second, it poises msnbc.com to own color. Every color. Not just Target red, or Starbucks green, or Wal-Mart blue. Every single color from lavender to burgundy to black. Not even monopolian Pantone has been able to do this — and their business is color.

Because of its extreme media reach, devoted audience and daily relevance, msnbc.com can engrain the color spectrum idea into the consciusness of the public. And when you own the full color spectrum, the possibilities for a vibrant, memorable campaign are almost assured; there is a color in there for everyone!

That seems to be the branding goals in 2007 – you can’t just create a logo for all media, you have to create sound, images, movement, treatments for all media and all senses as well. Can patented brand odors be far behind?