BRAD'S BLOG

2006-02-25T20:07:00.000-08:00

Advertising, the art of persuasion and the graphic designers endless moral battle.

Graphic designer’s, we give birth to the skin of every corporation and their endless advertisements. A great graphic designer nurtures every creation with meticulous care as if it were a piece of them being sent out into the world.

Advertising, can we live without it? We all hear it, see it, and sometimes even feel or smell it. Although its been tricking us, deceiving us, leading us to financial problems and corrupting our societal morals, it still works. Advertising continues to effectively persuade people despite its constant struggle for integrity, trust, and an obvious goal to get our money via a product or service.

Between a Rock and a hard place! Graphic designers are torn by their love for the art of visual communication and selling their soles to the devil. The corporate community needs the creative minds of designers and their love for a well-polished design. Our visual space is increasingly polluted with advertising. Advertising will need to be more convincing to the user. The most successful advertisers of the future will be ones that gain the trust of consumers and who’s advertising has integrity. Traditional authoritive advertising will not be good enough. Consumers need to be more integrated with products and services available; they will need to experience it to believe it. Human interaction with screens and virtual reality will be a means of delivering this Ad Nouveau to consumers. For example, long underground corridors can simulate long beaches in Cancun, Mexico for just $ 695.00, Sitting on a train can be like test-driving the latest Smart Car.

The reality is advertising is here to stay and should be a more pleasant and interactive part of our world. Visually pleasing graphics and authoritive content will not be enough to convince the consumer of the future. The bombardment of authoritive advertising needs to stop, advertising requires integrity, and graphic designers need to sleep better at nite.

Pleasure to the people!

2006-02-07T18:34:00.000-08:00

The rapidly growing use of portable document device's (or PDA's) signals the beginning of an exciting new generation in mobile computing. webmania on CTVNews. An important tool in building and designing for mobile devices is Flash Lite 1.1 and 2.0. An alliance of tech companies have alredy put their heads together to bring us better PDA capabilities. This alliance of high roller and high tec companies is called the Mobile DTV Alliance.

As this technology unfolds and innovates right before our eyes it is hard to say what direction this industry is headed, and the kinds of trends that people will embrace. As a Flash Designer I feel that Flash Lite 2.0 is a excellent start to delivering visually appealing User Interfaces (or UI) to consumers in a relatively fast and efficient way. macromedia.com/software/flashlite/ . A visually appealing UI will enhance the users experience and often determine the users overall satisfaction with the product. Sometimes an appealing or unappealing UI can make or break a product, granting its eventual success or failure. Flash Lite allows designers to control graphics hiding the complex and inhuman programming that exist beyond their interface.

As the technology grows there will be room for new ideas and experimental work. The driving force will be to make money from gadgets, gizmos, and applications that claim to make our daily lives more entertaining or efficient. For example live traffic cams on your cell phone, subway maps on command, or multiple player games right on your cell phone. A new genre of the internet and possibly a technology dictator such as Bill Gates is likely just on the horizon.

Target markets for the promotion of mobile devises are important to consider when determining what new features will “fly”. For example, I’m my opinion, the primary users and frequent buyers of new technology is people working in the business sector, mainly men and young adults eager to play into the latest technology available. These target markets signal two paths for mobile devices to take, a time saving tool for business use, and a “funky” tool for personal entertainment. All mobile devices will continue to play on the idea of technology as fashion objects already proven by the widespread use of the Apple iPod.

Considering ones cell phone as a portable hard drive has powerful potential. The iPod Nano already offers 4GB of space in an incredibly small volume of area. The iPod Nano from Apple. The use of GPS technology in mobile devices is another dimension designer’s and developers have to work in when developing new products. It is important that GPS technologies on mobile devices be explored beyond advertising as it has the potential to bring versatility to a mobile device. There are both major advantages and disadvantages to GPG technology on mobile devices. One can only imagine the possibilities if you, your friend, or a third party could determine you and your friends geographic location. Some uses of GPS on mobile devices are location specific spamming, faster emergency response time, or networking people based on an instance of their geographic location.

One thing is certain, the industrial design of your cell phone will change as its function changes beyond a verbal communication and text messaging device. Perhaps a mobile hard drive tracked by GPS, slips into the USB port of a screen or projector, enables file sharing, and starts your car from a remote location during a Canadian winter.

2006-01-16T14:06:00.000-08:00

Some might argue that the web is increasingly inhuman and hinders our ability to think on our own, perhaps, but this may become less so. Maybe the web is enabling us to better express ourselves like never before. It has never been easier to mass-communicate and share our own ideas with others.

The launch of Napster was one of the first examples of mass sharing and community building. Napster became such a shock to the way we distributed and shared music that it was subject to government regulations. More recently, we can not only share our music but create our own music, videos, artwork, etc. and share it with anyone willing to listen.

Podcasting has created a more formal environment for us to broadcast our ideas. Amateur broadcasting has become main stream. Lack of regulation by any government agency has partly attributed to its success. People want free rein in expressing their opinions, research, or artistic endeavors, among other things. Mainstream Podcast such as those from the BBC, CBC, and the NDR remain reliable sources of information, like online radio. I think that the real advantage of Podcasting is to give birth to other ideas outside the main stream media.

Being stuck behind a computer in an artificially lit room for several hours has become a sad reality to many people. Undoubtedly, a time will come when we are no longer restricted to a bulky screen and hard drive like a ball and chain. Portable devices have been in use for years, and nearly everyone has a cell phone with web capabilities. But we haven’t yet fully developed the potential of portable devices. Also, the ordinary person will refuse to bee seen with a kitschy gadget on the street if it’s considered “uncool” or “cumbersome”. More effort is definitely needed on the part of industrial designers, interactive designers and marketers to develop portable devices that people carry with confidence. The most powerful example of this is the iPOD!!!. Its obvious success (like most other Mac products) can be attributed to the innovative industrial designers at Apple, with close attention to detail and marketing.

I would also like to mention the melding of applications on and to the web. As the web expands companies merge, and other companies get into the web authoring biz. For example, several free applications already exist that achieve similar objective as non web applications, and even offer more flexibility and efficiency for the user. Such example are http://www.backpackit.com/, a project management application that works similar to MS Projects but with the ability to set notifications to yourself or others. Also, http://del.icio.us/ “A social bookmarks manager. Using bookmarklets, you can add bookmarks to your list and categorize them”.

As we become accustomed to these technologies the evolution of web 2.0 will become more apparent and cost efficient to the average person.

2006-01-10T14:29:00.000-08:00

This is the grand opening of Brad's Blog.