Visual communications are all around you

Look around and you’ll see examples of it everywhere – it being visual communications. Pictures, graphics, icons, symbols. These give us directions from where to enter to where to leave. In the past two months we’ve explored the visual world we share – from original artwork in cave paintings all the way up to how to make your visuals more meaningful.

Now, we take our exit from this theme, but before we do we want to thank our contributors:

• Laura Warner, Founder and Steve Luoma, Art Director of Warner Architecture + Design 
• Mike Glaser of Google’s Art, Copy & Code creative team

And, we thank the many professionals who are making a difference with visual communications that matter including: Edward Tufte and Ralph Keeling, as well as the Scripps Institute of Oceanography.We’ll start a new theme next week that takes us back to the beginning. Here’s a clue it’s a powerful four letter word that begins with W.

The Collaborative Services Blog Team

Welcome the Future

Today, we round out our month-long series on visual communications hearing from Mike Glaser who is part of Google’s latest technologically-advanced advertising venture – Art, Copy & Code. Designed by Google’s Creative Partnerships team, these advertising professionals have taken a big leap into the future of visual communications and are fueling a creative revolution right before our eyes by exploring the marriage of design, messaging and – you guessed it – technology.

Credit: Google

Upon visiting the Art, Copy & Code website, a promotional video launches showing clips tailored to your location, time of day, and current headlines. In an effort to leverage the massive amounts of data collected through the internet, Art, Copy & Code demonstrates the propensity for increasingly targeted advertising campaigns. For this latest advertising initiative Google has partnered with companies that share their vision to power new forms of brand expression through engagement. Burberry’s Kisses campaign and Volkswagon’s Smiledrive campaign are among the advertising campaigns being developed. Art, Copy & Code aides these companies in creating campaigns that allow their consumers to interact with and share their favorite brands.

Today, Mike shares with us how Art, Copy & Code is changing the future of storytelling through dynamic videos and is supporting brands to create new innovation and maintain a strong and unique presence today and into the future. Along the way they are showcasing the best practices for using code with brands and advertising. We welcome their insights.

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Credit: Google

Google’s first technologically-advanced advertising series, Project Re: Brief, launched last year. What is the goal of this project and how did this project get off the ground?
Project Re: Brief was an experiment that we launched in 2012 to re-imagine what advertising could be, and to push the boundaries of how technology and creative ideas could work hand in hand. In it, we re-imagined four iconic ads for the digital age–Coca-Cola’s “Hilltop,” Volvo’s “Drive It Like You Hate It,” Avis’s “We Try Harder,” and Alka-Seltzer’s “I Can’t Believe I Ate The Whole Thing.” We did this in partnership with the legendary creatives who made these campaigns in 60’s and 70’s. We also captured the process behind the magic in a feature length documentary, directed by Emmy-award winning director Doug Pray.

A year later, what inspired Google to develop the Art, Copy & Code series? What differentiates the two series?
Our Art, Copy & Code initiative evolved out of Project Re: Brief. We wanted to push the creative boundaries further, in partnership with advertisers and agencies. Fundamentally, Art, Copy & Code is still about exploring the role of technology and creativity working side-by-side, but comes to life on live creative briefs instead of iconic campaigns from decades past.

Credit: Camlin Technologies

Please explain how code is becoming integral to the branding and design process?
Historically, branding and design has been led by a core team skilled in art direction and copywriting. We believe that the new creative team involves a third member–the coder, engineer, or creative technologist–who is every bit as creative but fundamentally expresses ideas through a different medium. The pairing of those three disciplines–art, copy and code–is helping forward thinking brands and agencies unlock new creative and storytelling ideas that were never before possible.

We’ve watched the Art, Copy & Code film on a few of our office computers only a few feet apart and seen different clips. Can you explain how the film makes selections as to what we view?
The Art, Copy & Code film is context-aware, meaning that it updates every time the viewer presses play, using signals like time of day, location, and weather to customize the creative. In it, we see other elements like real-time news feeds from leading creative websites, as well as prominent creative professionals and their recent work. With this, we’re hinting at the future of storytelling through video, and the possibilities therein when we leverage the power of dynamic video content.

Google has partnered with some big name brands as part of Art, Copy & Code. How and why were these brands chosen?
These projects are a pivotal part of Google’s broader efforts to partner more deeply with creative agencies and brand marketers, as they look to create experiences that consumers love, remember and share. We’re committed to investing in tools over the long term to help brands and their agencies succeed not just today, but in a future that will look very different. For this project, we were looking for opportunities associated with a few specific technology and creative trends we’re observing. And so, to do this, we partnered with several global brands known for innovative marketing (and those who share our vision). Of course, every collaboration between Google and brands and agencies is an opportunity to innovate.

The Burberry Kisses campaign. (Credit: Burberry)

Code engages the public and allows us to participate in campaigns where traditionally we had only been spectators. What are some examples of how the public is able to participate in the stories Google and its partner brands are creating through Art, Copy and Code?
Last year, we partnered with Burberry to launch Burberry Kisses, a program that invites users to capture a kiss by using their computers webcam, or by actually kissing the screen of their smartphone. The user can then dress that kiss up in a Burberry lipstick color, and send it to a friend by using Google+, Google Maps, and Chrome. The aggregate story of all the users in the world sending kisses is then told on Burberry’s website. In many ways, it’s the actual public participation that truly brings Burberry’s campaign to life.

What are some best practices for using code with brands and advertising?
We believe that technology works best when it seamlessly operates in the background; when it fuels new creative ideas and brand experiences in an easy and user-friendly manner. To arrive at these ideas, we like to involve technologists at the very start of every project, as we’ve learned that they can help unlock new ideas–new forms of storytelling on the web.

What kind of feedback have Project Re: Brief and Art, Copy & Code generated? What’s ahead for Google’s re-imagination of advertising?
Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive so far, and we’re looking forward to releasing a new set of projects, in partnership with new and exciting brands and agencies, in the coming months. We want to find creative applications from all fields of computer science, and the list is growing every day. Please stay tuned!

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Our interdisciplinary team of communication professionals, graphic designers, and internet junkies were excited to learn more about the future of advertising. Many thanks to Mike for his insights.

What advertising campaigns do you think could benefit from combining the power of art, copy, and code?

The Collaborative Services Blog Team

Design Tip #4 : Does Clip Art and Stock Photography Add Meaning to Your Communications?

No. Here’s why. Clip art and stock photography are readily available for purchase and can be used by anyone for anything. For companies that sell clip art and stock photography to make money, the images need to be generic so that they are attractive to the widest audience and their variety of needs. Being readily available and generic, means that these images won’t add meaning to your communications. To be more meaningful, you need images that support your message in a way that is specific, authentic, and memorable for your audience.

Here are some examples – starting with the use of photography. Below, we have provided a stock photograph of a group of people in suits. It could be inferred that they are office workers and this image could be used to advertise a business. But, what does it really say? What is the message that the photo expresses? Who are these people, why are they together, where are they, and why are they there? As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. But, in the case of stock photography, a picture is worth a thousand questions.

 

Don’t let this happen to your communications. Work with a photographer to take photographs that are specific to the message and tone that will engage your audience. We have provided a second image showing one of our team members, Liz Faris. We know her and want our client’s to know her as well. It shows her performing a service we provide – customer surveys. It places her at a train station. Our firm specializes in communications about transportation systems. It shows her with a community member listening to what they are saying – a key skill for effective community involvement – a specialty of our firm. So, in context of our marketing materials this image expresses a lot about our firm by answering the who, what, where, when, why of what we do. In this case, a picture really is worth a thousand words.

Here is a compare and contrast of two illustrations that express time. One is clip art and the other is original artwork. The clip art is a clock with a happy face to express the emotion of the exclamatory copy below it: “It’s time!” but, time for what, for who, and why so happy? Why is “time!” important? These are unanswered questions that the happy clock cannot answer. The contrast to this is the graphic that we developed for a client that is on the right. It also focuses on time and provides specific information about how San Diegan’s can save water by answering the who, what, when, where, and why questions about watering a yard.

Credit: mychurchtoolbox.com / The City of San Diego Water Conservation Program

 

In short, art – be it illustrative or photographic – that is developed to specifically express the message and tone of your communication will make it both meaningful and memorable to your audience.

We hope you found this month’s design tips from Warner Architecture + Design insightful and useful. To learn more about Warner Architecture + Design visit their website or Facebook page.

Later this week the Collaborative Services blog will finish it’s series on visual communications. We will take a look into the future and speak with members of the creative team behind Google’s Art, Copy & Code advertising series.

Laura Warner, President & Steve Luoma, Art Director
Warner Architecture + Design

Design tip #3 – Why are Some Things More Important than Others?

Because they just are. It is important to be clear about what your main idea is when communicating, because your audience has limited time and is bombarded daily with information. So, you need to make sure that you grab their attention. And, once you have it, make sure to deliver the most important idea you want to convey. If they get interrupted or distracted, which is pretty easy to do these days, then you want to make sure that you got your point across. Not only that, you want to have engaged them so thoroughly that they must view the rest of your communication.

Once you figure out what your most important idea is, make the copy and/or art for this main idea the most prominent element on the page. One way to do this is to represent the main idea with the largest copy and/or art on the page. Or, you can use color. For example, representing the main idea with the brightest copy and/or art on the page will make it the most noticeable. Or, if you surround the main copy and/or art with a large amount of white space, it will stand out. This technique can also be used in the reverse such as a large black background with the art and/or copy in white. For added effect, you can also use these techniques in combination.

The supporting copy and/or art to that which expresses your main idea should be just that, subordinate. They should never, ever compete with the main focus of your communication or you will confuse your audience and lose their attention.

Here are two examples – one that clearly communicates what the main idea is and another where the main idea is not clear.  The examples below clarify this point proving that it is okay for some things to be more important than others.

Credit: Apple Inc.

Lots of white space in this ad makes the large art and copy elements stand out. The art and copy on the page are the name of the phone and an image of the phone. It’s hard to miss the point here – we want you to see the new version of the phone that you already have. We think the one you already have is the best phone out there, except for the new version of it. So, go get the new one.

Credit: Fry’s Electronics

The ad above is crammed full of photos and copy – not sure what is important here. We’re not even sure who is addressing the audience until one sees a very small web address for Fry’s Electronics at the top of the page. Once your audience is confused by your communication you have lost them. This is different then being provocative or intriguing which is often used as a technique to peak the audience’s interest.

Making ads simple and clear helps focus the audience’s attention. By using an obvious hierarchy that distinguishes the most important information from the less important information your communications will  stand out in a crowded media market and in a world full of visual distractions.

In our next posting, the visual communications tip will address why the use of clip art and stock photography should be avoided.

Laura Warner, President  & Steve Luoma, Art Director
Warner Architecture & Design

Design tip #2 – Why Should Art and Copy Be Married?

In a time not so long ago – let’s say the 1950’s “copy” – lived by itself. When “copy” was darn good and ready, it asked “art” to stand by its side. It wasn’t a marriage made in heaven as all the decisions about their life together had been made by “copy” without any consideration of what “art” wanted or could contribute if asked. So, the marriage limped along until the day that “art” was liberated and asked to contribute its ideas. This marriage was now a happy and prosperous one.

Today, we benefit from this thoughtful approach to make sure that the copy and art are developed together to maximize what both partners bring to the table. The blog posts this month will emphasize how art helps copy better express its meaning.

To begin, here is an example of a bad marriage between art and copy and a good one.

Credit: Chrysler Corporation/Plymouth

Bad Marriage: Art was clearly asked late to join this party.

Credit: Volkswagen

Good Marriage: Art and copy work together to cleverly poke fun at old
advertising strategies to sell cars

To identify the best way to express your message, engage your audience, and identify the most appropriate method to deliver the communication, i.e. e-blast, printed newsletter, airplane banner, we will share other tricks of the trade with you in the blog posts that follow. These tips will help your “art” and “copy” happily drive off into the sunset.  The use of hierarchy will be addressed in our next blog post.

Laura Warner, President & Steve Luoma, Art Director
Warner Architecture + Design

Design Tip #1 – Creating a Good Base for your Visual Communications

This week, we focus on a few tips to make your visual communications more effective. The first tip – know your goal, your message, and your audience.

Your goal is the single most important factor in communications. Your goal will lead you to good decisions about what to communicate and how best to deliver that communication. So, start with a goal statement,  then identify the best way to meet that goal. You’ll likely see some new, better options from the get-go when you put the goal first and you’ll have a touchstone to test options throughout the communications process.

Your message is the clearest, simplest version of what you want to communicate. Your message is a mixture of word selection, frame of reference, and clarity. Precision is what you are aiming for with your message so that the recipient of your message is sure of what is being shared with them and so that all that you are not saying falls away. The other goal is to communicate value – why is this message important? The best messages are simple and compelling. Good messages engage your audiences quickly in a meaningful way in what you have to say, share, or show.

But, who’s your audience? That’s the question you want to answer because who they are will impact many decisions. Where does your audience get its information. What sources do they trust? What level of knowledge do they have? What else are they hearing that could conflict with your message? The answers to these questions will lead you to more tailored decisions about how to attract and keep their attention.

When you get the message and audience right, your graphics team will have what they need to help amplify your communications to better engage your audience.

Stay tuned for tips from our in-house design experts Warner Architecture + Design. They’ll share their tips for transforming your message into visual communications to effectively reach your intended audience.

The Collaborative Services Blog Team

Climate Change – how you can make a difference

Yesterday, we continued our focus on infographics about climate change by providing information (“the 411“) on important numbers you need to know – 350, 400 and 450. Today, we focus on the choices you have in your day-to-day life to reduce carbon emissions. It’s true that climate change is a big problem that will demand big solutions. But the day-to-day decisions you make at home, work, school, and play will also make a big difference.

First, you can start by understanding how climate change and global warming works.  The more you understand the more you can help stop the spread of misinformation. You have likely heard of the greenhouse gas effect. This is what causes global warming. The greenhouse gas effect occurs when certain vapors and gases absorb the Earth’s heat energy, also known as infrared radiation, preventing it from being released back into space and making our planet warmer. The infographic below illustrates and further explains this process. This rise in global temperatures is what leads to changes in our climate and causes more extreme weather patterns such as a rise in sea levels, floods, drought,  the loss of food, and more intense storms.

An infographic explaining the Greenhouse Gas Effect.
(Credit: World Wildlife Fund)

Next you can change your behaviors to reduce your CO2 emissions. Today, we offer you the Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Change webpage for ways you can reduce your CO2 emissions. And, consistent with our theme of the month, you can find ways to do your part in the infographic below about the decisions you can make right in your life.

Credit: Enjoy Living Sustainably

Here are some easy ways, you can reduce your CO2 emissions every day:

Conserve water by:

• not letting your faucet run while shaving and brushing your teeth,
• washing only full loads of dishes and clothes, and
• fixing leaks in and around your home.

Use your car less when possible by:

• taking public transit or carpooling with someone to work,
• telecommuting, and
• riding your bike or walking to complete nearby errands.

Recycle, reduce, and reuse by:

• recycling paper and plastic goods such as newspapers and beverage containers and composting your food and yard waste,
• turning off lights in rooms you aren’t in and unplugging appliances when you aren’t using them, and
• buying clothing, books, furniture, and other house hold items second-hand.

There are many ways to be part of the solution. The infographic today puts them all in one place to be an easy reminder for you and your friends and family to reference.

We hope that you have enjoyed this infographic tour of climate change  – from what causes it to what to do about it.  We’ll be back next week with tips about this month’s theme of visual communications and the design process.

The Collaborative Services Blog Team

The 411 on 350, 400, and 450 ppm

Yesterday, we featured one of the most famous and important infographics in science – the Keeling Curve. When Charles Keeling started collecting measurements of the atmosphere’s CO2 levels in 1958, they were at 315 parts per million (ppm). Last year, climate scientists anxiously watched – as should we all – as these levels surpassed 400 ppm, something never before seen in human history. This makes the number 400 a symbolic infographic in itself.

Credit: EcoWatch

Why is 400 significant? It’s not just breaking the century mark. It is showing us that we are just 50 points to the next big number you’ll be hearing about – 450 ppm. At 450 ppm, there’s a 50/50 chance that the earth’s climate will be so changed that it will lead to dangerous and deadly consequences. Ralph Keeling, the son of Charles Keeling and who is also a  professor at the University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institute of Oceanography like his father was, predicts we will hit the 450 ppm reading in less than 25 years if we continue down the same path we are currently on. So, if you are 25 now, your 50 year birthday may include a radically different environment. If you’re 50, your retirement years on Florida’s beaches may not look like the place to be. And if you are just now being born, you may never know a perfectly temperate spring season.

 Those who will be most affected by climate change are the poorest people on our planet. The next 25 years could bring an increase in floods, extreme heat waves, devastating storms, and food shortages where the people most in need will also be the most exposed to these dangers.

In an attempt to limit damage from climate change, many countries have put in place a target CO2 level of 450 ppm. However, the world’s two largest emitters of CO2, the U.S. and China, have refrained from adopting their own binding national targets.

An infographic of the global climate footprint.
(Credit: Carbon Action)

Most environmental organizations in the U.S. endorse the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, also known as the Wasman-Markey Climate Bill and its stated goal of 450 ppm. This backing was due an assessment that 450 ppm is the most feasible goal for the political conditions. This strategy relies more on incremental reform, assuming there is time for national legislation and negotiations to bring about international cooperation and enforcement.

Credit: Grist Magazine, Inc.

As the numbers are showing, our climate is nothing to procrastinate about. So, there are counter groups that advocate for a more aggressive goal of 300-350 ppm. One of these advocate groups has made their mission their namesake – 350.org.  These advocates reason that climate change is abrupt and irreversible and that we should counteract this reality by being quick, vast, blunt, and global in our reduction of CO2 emissions.

Numbers are important and you’re going to see a lot of them in the coming years. These numbers raise issues like what do we need to do to change course and adapt? Great questions and the subject of our next post: infographics about what you can do to make a difference.

The Collaborative Service Blog Team

The infographic that curved the conversation on Climate Change

Last week, we introduced you to the art and science of infographics. These visuals communicate complex information in its most distilled form, which makes them often the most understood form. From a stop sign to a flow chart, valuable information is relayed to the viewer in these graphics. Where newspapers  told the story in the headline and caption, modern communication is more and more relying on these graphics to relay hundreds of pieces of information within the timeframe it takes you to glance at it.

This week, we present you with infographics about the most critical issue  – climate change. It’s easy to make a hard topic like climate change too complex to understand. What’s difficult is to make it easy to understand. This is where infographics can do the talking and very effectively so.

We start with one of the most well known and reputable infographics of our time – the Keeling Curve. Developed right here in San Diego by Scripps Institute of Oceanography’s Professor Charles Keeling in 1958, he started collecting the data shown in this curve and created the basis to project the increase in carbon dioxide (CO2). So important is this curve that if you flew across the country to Washington D.C. and walked into National Academy of Sciences, there you would see the same curve carved into its wall. Keeling’s son Ralph who works as the CO2 Director also at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography continues his work today.

The Keeling Curve (Credit: Climate Central)

What is CO2 and why track it? Well, CO2 comes from a variety of natural sources and human-related emissions. Since the Industrial Revolution when we started powering our lifestyles on the combustion of fossil fuels, we’ve contributed more CO2 to the environment than it can absorb. This extra CO2 along with other gases are trapping heat in the atmosphere and that is causing the climate to change.

The Keeling Curve is important for many reasons: it shows where we were at the time the curve was developed. It shows us where we were headed. It shows us how quickly we would get to where we were headed. It introduced us to an important number – the number 400. And within its graph, its red lines show annual spikes and dips of CO2 levels, as well as the continuous upward trajectory.

We estimate that you can look at the Keeling Curve and within seconds start to understand and gain the benefit of over a half a century of research. Within that graphic, daily measurements of atmospheric CO2 concentrations from the Mauna Loa Observatory on the Big Island of Hawaii are communicated to you.

You might ask, why Mauna Loa? The answer is many reasons. Keeling found the upper-north face of the Mauna Loa volcano to be the perfect location to track the atmosphere’s CO2 levels. It’s isolated location was free from human activity like factories and vegetation like forests that could influence the readings. And its sampling location is normally upwind of the volcano’s vent. This allowed it to take the most accurate samples from incoming clean breezes directly from the ocean. Keeling also perfected methods for detecting and correcting intervals with the wind blew the wrong way.

The Mauna Loa Observatory
(Credit: Global High-Resolution H-alpha Network)

Keeling spent his lifetime developing the data that the Keeling Curve allows all of us to see and know in moments. We thank him for his efforts and we thank this graphic for showing us our starting point, as well as our trajectory. We share many things and one of them is the environment we live in. The Keeling Curve gives us a  better opportunity to know what is happening with that environment.

Next up, more about that number, 400.

The Collaborative Services Blog Team

  

Full is Fun: Our Latest Public Service Announcement

As we continue our exploration of visual communications this month, we wanted to share a visual delight that our multi-disciplinary team of communications and creative professionals produced. Featured below is a 30-second stop motion public service announcement we developed for the City of San Diego’s “San Diegans Waste No Water” program. The purpose of the PSA is to provide a water-saving tip to thank San Diegans for their good work. The “indoor” tip of washing only full loads of dishes was selected. To communicate that in San Diego water conservation is an enjoyable way of life, the message “Full is Fun” was defined. The visuals in the PSA reflect that fun spirit. And without further ado, here is the City of San Diego’s most recent effort to encourage conservation during our region’s drought.

We hope you enjoyed watching this fun form of visual communications as much as we enjoyed making it. New readers, please stay tuned the rest of this month as the Collaborative Services blog team continues our series.

This summer we will transition from the ways we communicate visually to the ways we communicate with words. As professional word lovers, we will take a few months to share with you all things related to words including their origins, word choice, and slang, jargon or acronyms. Updates are posted weekly via Facebook and @CollabServInc on Twitter.