Design Yearbook has an interesting experiment about which typefaces use the most ink when printed. The fat boy on the block is Impact who will happily drain your ink cartridge without a second thought. At the other end of the scale is classic, well tempered Garamond which prefers sips to gulps.
The experiement is ingeneous in that they use standard biros to draw out and colour in large scale renditions of the fonts. This led to a particulaly nice infographic:
While the results are, perhaps unsurprising it is unusual for Comic Sans not to be the villain of the piece.
It seems like an eternity since the iPad was announced – rather than the couple of weeks it's actually been. This is partly due to the fact that so many of us have been waiting so long, read so many rumours, seen so many 'prototypes'. It's also down to the gigs of commentary that have hit the web since the launch.
The overall verdict seems to be that the iPad sucks. It doesn't have this feature and that feature, it won't multi-task etc. (Similar to the verdicts on the iPod and the iPhone when they launched.)
All valid from a technophile's point of view. And all completely irrelevant to the iPad's chances of commercial success.
The iPad is not about technology. It's about experience. Pure and simple.
The iPad will succeed if it captivates people's imagination – if it conveys a compelling story about how we will all use these kinds of devices in future.
When you watch the launch video and Steve Jobs and co's presentation, it's a story about intimacy. It's about the removal of barriers between the user and the device. No keyboard. No mouse. Touch and gestures. This is the really important thing.
While the launch video is interesting, the best example I've found of what the iPad experience is likely to be like (and what it may evolve into) comes from BonnierR&D in a video created with design company BERG (a month before the iPad launched BTW). They present where the evolution of the magazine is heading and show a possible user experience.
Maybe it's just me, but I find it incredibly seductive. See what you think.
Get a group of agency people in a room for a while and at some point the conversation will drift towards the topic: Clients from hell. They will proceed to try to outdo each other with tales of work that should have run; unreasonable requests (normally resulting working through the night); and behaviour worthy of committal to an institution.
Of course, just round the corner, a group of clients will be having their own conversation about the agency from hell. They will list the prima donna creatives, exorbitant costs and the excessive hand-holding they had to do.
I have been remarkably lucky during my career. For the most part, my clients have been decent people who have been willing to listen, give honest feedback and who want a creative answer to their marketing problems. The few that have got close to the ‘client from hell’ moniker have for one reason or another been relatively short-lived.
Of course, if you are a client, you might be forgiven for asking why it matters to you whether your agency thinks you are good or not. Let me answer this with a short story.
A non-horror story
Some years back, I began working with a professional services client who would send teams into large companies to help them get their employees engaged with where the business was heading. To live the vision, mission and values of the organisation.
The first thing to stand out about this client was their passion for their own business. They loved what they did. They were evangelists for the cause. Their enthusiasm was infectious, pretty soon we were all excited about what they were doing too.
They also understood how to collaborate. They gave honest constructive feedback but also understood that they were paying for our expertise. This meant that they listened to our advice and worked with us to get the best result for their brand.
But no one is perfect. They could be quite demanding and weren’t always great at leaving enough time for planning and execution. This meant that quite often we’d end up pulling some late nights to get stuff done on their jobs . On one such occasion, as we settled in for a long night, a courier turned up with a parcel. Inside was a range of snacks, some beer and a thank you note. I can honestly say that after that, we would do anything for them.
Getting the best from your agency
So why should you worry about being a good client? Well there are a number of compelling benefits:
Your agency will care about your success as much as you do
You will get the best people clamouring to be on your account
You will get the best work they are capable of
They will think about your business even when the clock isn’t running
The day-to-day experience will be more collaborative and more enjoyable
And they will dig you out of the crap when you really, really need them to
Swissmiss has just posted an excellent video of Michael Bierut of design giant Pentagram discussing clients, good and bad. It’s about an hour long (35mins presentation followed by a Q&A). Well worth the time to watch whichever side of the fence you sit on. Embedded below.
Here's a question for you: with the general decline in TV advertising, where do all those creatives go who's real ambition is to make short films? Simple, they make short films on the web. And, freed from the conventions of the 30" spot, they do a pretty good job.
Video is everywhere. It seems like every brief I look at right now has a video/animation component. And long may it continue.
A couple of recent videos from Google caught my eye. The first features ninja's unboxing the Nexus One – like they do.
The second has been around for a little while and is a charming showcase of Google Chrome.
Now, if I was going to be picky, the ninjas (while being cool as only ninjas can) are just simple eye candy from someone who's watched Kill Bill one too many times. While the Chrome one doesn't really make me want to move away from Firefox. But as short films go, they are pretty nice.
NOTCOT points to a very cool installation Intel has been showing off at CES. It has a really nice touchscreen interface that I'd love to get my hands on. Lots and lots of possibilities.
The specs for the geekier among you:
Two – 7x7 – 1920x1920 resultion – double-HD, double-touch touch screen glass walls. Each wall is powered by a single all new 2010 Core i7 processor w/ Intel Hyper-Threading technology and Intel HD graphics.
Its rendering 576 live links of information, pulling from 20,000 different content sources and over 20 live feeds from global news sources and networks like Flickr, Twitter, YouTube and intel.com.
Monday, 8 February, 2010 
While the results are, perhaps unsurprising it is unusual for Comic Sans not to be the villain of the piece.
