When your watch isn't good enough

Visualizing time. On your iPhone of course:




Link

Font Fun

A sneak peek at the first typeface from Com-Vis:

Personal Work: CD cover

Cover for a folk-music group based in the Shenandoah mountains.

Personal Work: Race logo

A few logo designs from the Army Ten Mile race a while back.

When Suits Attack

It's always interesting to see the process other creatives use for their work, because we all approach problems differently. But in the case of this banner ad for Weight Watchers, the process is apparent in the final product, and the result certainly wasn't the doing of the creative team.

The writer--heck, probably even the person who named the new program--clearly wanted the copy to say "You don't need a diet. You need the momentum." It's catchy. It appeals to people who have tried to lose weight before, and have realized that they need a push to finally succeed. The point is clear to any savvy customer. The designer identified "momentum" as Weight Watchers' new product by using a different typeface, and even a duller white, for the rest of the text. The arrows even make it clear that this is a logo for something. As the ad was originally conceived, it's intriguing enough to click on, to see how Weight Watchers will motivate customers, or give them the momentum they need. The ad is clean and bold, and stands out on the screen without being busy, annoying, or slow to load.

But somebody just had to meddle. "They won't know it's a product," I can hear someone in a suit saying. "It doesn't promote the product enough!" So what do they suggest? "Add 'program,'" the suit insisted. "And it's new! So add 'new.' And make it bold!"

Here's what I think. The designer was already tired of these suits by the time this meddler got involved. So he or she totally capitulated. "Program" is teeny tiny and in a completely unrelated typeface. "New" is loud. Both are obviously tacked on. The designer shrugged his shoulders and just did what he was told. I bet he even left them looking tacked on so people would know he was forced to do it, and that it wasn't his vision for the ad.

Weight Watchers would be better served by giving its customers and potential customers some credit. If the ad campaign had been successful thus far, we'd all already know about the NEW momentum program and get the clever integration of the program's name into the ad copy. Even if you hadn't already seen the TV commercials that have been airing since Christmas (resolutioners!), there are enough clues to prompt action.

And I'd say it has been successful. I noticed, and I'm not in the market for weight loss assistance. I love the hairy orange monster named Hunger. Especially when he pretends his pizza is a laptop. Ha!

Old School Posters

Looks like ComVis has a new source for stylish interior decor. Check out these replicas of old WPA National Parks posters. A must-have would be our local gem, Shenandoah Natl. Park. With annual park attendance rising and budgets being slashed over the years, hopefully these romantic scenes won't be a thing of the past. 

Infographics and Mammals

An expert in Australia created this incredibly detailed chart showing, in a circular format, 166 million years back into the common ancestors of present-day mammals. It's so detailed that you have to zoom in pretty far to even see that there are words on this thing. Pretty cool. Download the PDF here and see a news story video about it here.