Recently Xdesign was honored by the Better Business Bureau at their 11th Annual Torch Awards Banquet when it received the Douglas Manship, Sr. Torch Award for Ethics in Business. While I’m extremely proud of our company, that’s not the topic of this post, just a shameless plug to set the stage.

The Awards Banquet was held at the newly renovated Renaissance Hotel, which is beautiful I might add. It was a very fancy affair, white linen tablecloths, fine silverware, gorgeous center arrangements, and 5 star all the way. As I was enjoying the dinner, I noticed a small white spray bottle at each place setting. I picked it up but was unable to read the label because the type was so small and, no it had nothing to do with my aging eyesight, it was literally 4 point type. Anyway, it didn’t matter what it said because I already knew what it was…spray garlic. I know this because I have a bottle of it in my refrigerator, same exact white spray bottle, but larger, with larger type. So I assumed this must be the sampler size.

I began with spraying a small amount on a dinner roll. Yuck…it was awful. I thought maybe the ingredients had settled so I shook the little bottle up and applied it again to another roll. Shaking had not helped at all. About that time our general manager Christine leaned over and whispered “what are you doing” to which I replied “trying this spray seasoning.” With a shocked look on her face she informed me that the product was called “Swamp Juice” to with I replied “yeah, and the product is as bad as its name, good luck to whoever is trying to sell this stuff.”

Christine then informs me it is insect repellent. Now I’m real confused. Why would a fine banquet serve insect repellent with its meal? Turns out Troy Landry, the star of Swamp People was the guest speaker that evening, and someone must have thought that little bottles of “Swamp Juice” would be an appropriate item to place on the table. I still don’t get the connection, but I do get the fact that anything poisonous should be clearly labeled and should not be set on the table next to the butter dish and creamer.

In hindsight, I guess I’m glad they didn’t ask Mike Rowe to be the guest speaker.

-Martin

Another great day, saw Dean Kamen, who besides looking a bit like Phil from Modern Family, is an amazing speaker, and had my jaw dropped for nearly his entire talk. Saw a few more talks, but another that really stood out was Bootcamp for a UX Team of One, which gave some really great techniques for sketching and testing user testing applications before launch. Going to keep this one short because another talk is about to start. Never mind. It was a random French guy walking up to the mic to play two notes on his harmonica. Fair enough.

First, let me just start by saying I really hate daylight savings time. Lost an hour, so getting up bright and early was now getting up bright and earlier, and even still went to a marathon SIX sessions. The best of which was Jeffery Zeldman of A List Apart and Leslie Jensen-Inman’s Go Forth and Make Awesomeness. That oft talked about “sun” finally came out today, and the day was absolutely beautiful. Had some time to walk around town lake, and watch the sunset on a dock. Not too bad! Headed to Esther’s Follies for Bob’s Burgers Live with Eugene Mirman, Kristen Schall among others. Hit up the PBS Sherlock party met Stephen Moffat of Dr. Who/Sherlock fame (season two is about to air, watch it!), and headed home.

Woke up way too early (6 AM!) to drive in and get good parking, and grabbed some free breakfast from the Today shows food trucks. Headed to Frank, which I’ve declared my defacto home base. The first panel up was “The State of Browser Development Tools” with Brandon Satrom representing IE, Paul Irish from Google for Chrome, Mike Taylor for Opera, and Joe Stagner for Mozilla. One of the highlights was after all the other browser representatives spent 10-15 minutes showing their wares, Joe Stagner pulls up the awesome Tilt from Mozilla Labs, says, “Boom.” and ends his demo to a room full of applause. It was great to see representatives for most (Safari?) of the major browsers there discussing the Web.
The next session was “CSS for Grownups” with Andy Hume from The Guardian, who put forth some pretty good, if not a little controversial ideas for creating maintainable CSS.
After the days sessions, I headed to Mondo’s SXSW gallery opening, where while standing in line I met Drew Goddard (Cloverfield, Lost, Alias, Buffy), who was really nice. After standing in line for a few hours, I finally in and scored a couple of prints, one of which was Tyler Stout’s The Wrath of Khan. After the show I ended the night at Top Chef winner Paul Qui’s Uchiko which was just awesome. Went home, hit the hay for another early morning and long day.

I think SXSW now stands for SXSoakingWet, because today was a nonstop downpour the entire drive from Baton Rouge to Austin. Arrived at 3pm, and promptly dashed over to the registration line, which ended up taking two hours, which was to be blunt, not ideal, but you’re surrounded by so many cool people that it’s easy to strike up a conversation to pass the time. We spend so much time in our little bubbles that it’s easy to forget that there are other people out there, doing really amazing things, and I think that’s one of the greatest parts of this conference. After registration, I only had time for one panel, which was Software Alchemy and the Arc of Technology with Alan Cooper, author and founder of Cooper in San Francisco, who among other things discussed letting the people creating, designing, and writing the code take more of a lead in the direction of their projects, since they are the ones most familiar with it, and are actually testing it with users. After the panel, I grabbed some free drinks and food (if you have to pay for anything as a SXSW attendee, you are doing something very wrong) and sloshed home in the rain, but not before stocking up on ponchos and an umbrella for what looks to be an equally wet day tomorrow.

When reading or writing, people tend to focus on the message of the words rather than what the words look like visually. Because of this, most people believe that the font they use doesn’t matter.  In reality, the visual appearance of words has a strong effect on how a document is understood and received.

Typefaces and fonts have a personality. They establish a mood as well as create an atmosphere. It is these traits that lead a designer to choose and combine typefaces depending on the audience or project at hand. By selecting appropriate typefaces, designers convey what is important as well as the order a document should be read, also known as the hierarchy of information.

Knowing a few things about typography will aid you in selecting the typeface that most effectively communicates your message and any additional meanings beyond the words themselves. With this post, you will learn the basics of type anatomy and typefaces as well as things to consider when selecting a typeface. And it’s your lucky day! With this post, you also get an awesome Xdesign typography poster that you can refer to in the future. Print it, hang it, and share it with your friends and coworkers.

So here it is… your crash course on typography.

You can download the poster here

Anatomy of Type:

Base Line: The Base Line is the line that all the letters “sit” on.

Cap Height: Cap Height is the distance from the top of the capital letter down to the baseline.

X-Height: The X-height is the height of the main body of lowercase letters, or the height of the lowercase “x.” Some elements  might slightly extend above or below the x-height.

Descender: The Descender is the portion of some lowercase letters that extends below the baseline.

The Ascender: The Ascender is the “stem” that extends above the x-height.

Serif: The Serif is the stroke found at the end of the main vertical and horizontal strokes of some letters.

Typefaces:

Sans-Serif: A Sans-Serif typeface refers to any style of type that is without serifs.

Serif: Serif typeface refers to any style of type that has serifs.

Slab-Serif: A Slab-serif typeface refers to any style of type that has thick, block-like serifs.

Script: A Script typeface imitates calligraphy or handwriting.

Decorative (Display): Decorative typography, or sometimes known as display typography, refers to a style of type that is more artistic and embellished.

Things To Consider When Selecting A Typeface:

Mood: Your Typeface’s Personality: Mood refers to the implied meaning or impression. A typeface can have a cheerful appearance that applies humor or happiness, a dynamic appearance that conveys motion, or anything in between. Mood is very powerful, and it can either strengthen your message or send the wrong message entirely. To successfully illustrate and represent your design’s overall message, you must match the typeface’s personality to the intended emotional response or meaning of the message. Also, keep in mind the meaning of the words themselves when picking a typeface. Experimenting with the same phrase in different typefaces and styles is a good way to find the typeface that suits your message the most. The example below demonstrates how the headline, “Pump It Up,” would be more appropriate in a Sans-Serif bold typeface rather than a soft, Script font.

Legibility and Readability: For large bodies of text, pick a legible typeface that is easy on the eyes and can be easily read. As seen in the example below, decorative fonts can be great for headlines; but, they don’t function as well for body text when there are large amounts of text to be read.

Also, make sure there is enough contrast between the text and background colors. For example, black text on a white background can be easily read where as yellow text on a white background is not. Can you read that? Probably not. As you can see, picking a contrasting text color and background color is important in readability.

Hierarchy: Your font choice, as well as layout, plays an important role in the hierarchy of your design. In one design, you might need multiple typefaces and fonts in different sizes, weights, and styles to make the distinction between headlines, sub-headings, quotes, and main body copy. Use the example below as a guideline on how to handle headlines, quotes, and body text.

As you can see, headlines, usually largest in size, tend to be a bolded Display or Serif typeface. Quotes and call-outs are usually an italic Serif. Body copy can be a serif or non-serif, depending on whether it is a printed material or document for the web. While you can use both Serifs and Sans-Serifs for printed pieces, it is recommended to use a Sans-Serif for smaller text on the web, like Arial or Verdana, due to the fact that some displays do not cleanly render serifs.

Use a Limited Palette: There are thousands upon thousands of typefaces available for use, with more being added and created everyday. Just because you have a multitude of options, doesn’t mean you have to use 10 different fonts in one design though. Although some designs call for multiple typefaces, a good rule of thumb is not to exceed 2-3 fonts in one piece. Too many typefaces can be distracting and decrease readability rather than enhancing the design and complimenting the overall message.

I hope this post helps you in the future to successfully illustrate and represent your design’s overall message through your selection and combination of typefaces.

Design on.

- Tiffanie Pitre | @tiffaniepitre

Is it just me, or have you noticed an awful lot of poor advertising in our market recently? Television spots in particular. I’m talking about ads that have no concept, no content, and little or no production value. Who’s selling these spots and more importantly, who’s approving them? I realize advertising budgets are tight these days, but that is no excuse for cutting corners on concepts, and remember, no amount of money spent in production can save a bad concept. I have always lived by the philosophy “Great advertising is priceless, and poor advertising is worthless.” So why is there so much worthless advertising going on…because few advertisers are willing to take the risk necessary to rise above the crowd and break through the clutter.

Perhaps it’s because we have created a society adverse to risk taking. And why not, we are taught early on to avoid risk, “put that stick down before you poke your eye out” “don’t play with the fire” “don’t talk like that” and the list goes on.

Avoiding risk has become the new norm. I hear it all too often – “we can’t do that” or “it’s too risky” or “let’s just play it safe.” One thing I know for certain, if you aren’t willing to take some risk with your advertising, then don’t expect a return on your investment.

If you want your advertising message to stand out, then get creative, take some risk, break some rules if you want to break through the clutter…after all, isn’t that what great advertising is all about?

-Martin

Proofreading involves MORE than just pressing “spell check.”

How do I know this you ask? The past 10 months of my life were devoted to planning a wedding. With my now husband being an architect and myself being a designer, it was important to us to do a lot of the projects ourselves — from chopping up discarded trees limbs for making centerpieces to designing and screen-printing the invitations. It was during the process of designing the program that my proofreading skills were put to the test. And now I reveal my almost embarrassing mistake…

Yes, I almost asked my guests to give each other the “Sign of Peach.” And no, my wedding was not Mario themed. “Peach” was not corrected by spell check since it was spelt correctly. I obviously meant to say, “Sign of Peace,” but as you can see, the message is wrong. Imagine our guests following along with our program. We have just exchanged our vows and everyone is praying together. As they read what is next – Bam! That intimate moment of prayer and reflection is ruined as they chuckle and point to “Sign of Peach” printed before them.

Correct spelling is important, but correct meaning cannot be assumed when you are relying solely on spell check. In fact, one wrong word could completely flaw your message. For example, NBC’s @BreakingNews tweeted in July that President Obama would be making a “personal” statement the next day. If he really was making a statement about his personal life or health, then that tweet would make sense; but, the President was actually making a statement about “personnel.” Correct spelling, wrong message.

In a world where life and work are so fast paced and multitasking is a must, there are bound to be spelling and grammar errors, especially in the world of social media. On social channels such as Facebook and Twitter, gaining your audience’s trust is key to success. It is this reason that it is imperative to proofread your messages for clarity and spelling errors. And I’m not saying lose those slang terms and abbreviations. Social media is meant to be more informal; just make sure you use those slang terms and abbreviations correctly. Two wrong letters can completely skew your message, leading to a confused audience who are now skeptical of your future tweets or posts. People say there are no rules to social media and only trial and error can discover the most amazing uses of social media channels. But, make spell checking and proofreading your one rule — you can’t go wrong.

No one is perfect, and here at X we have our fair share of mistakes. But, first impressions are important. Don’t let them be ruined by something that is under your control. Take the time to spell check AND proofread your work, as well as getting a second person to do the same, before your work ever reaches a customer’s eyes. Misspellings and simple grammar errors can be viewed as laziness or sloppiness by your peers, clients, and potential clients. So take the time to avoid simple spelling and grammar errors by slowing down, reading your work, and asking a co-worker to read it also. The next time you are working on a project, sending out a tweet, or posting to Facebook, remember these proofreading tips:

1. Spell Check. Go ahead, it will find all misspellings. Don’t rely on it though.

2. Come back to what you are working on. Fresh eyes can reveal grammar errors and spelling mistakes that tired eyes cannot see.

3. Read out loud. This will force you to read slowly and purposefully.

4. Use a second set of eyes. You’ll be surprised at what you missed.

I hope this post helps you develop your proofreading skills and leads to fewer revisions and happier clients. Just remember that spell checking is only a part of proofreading. And of course, “Peach be with you.”

-Tiffanie/ @tiffaniepitre 

Author’s Note: This post was spell checked, proofread by myself, and then proofread by a co-worker.

It was about two months ago that I received the incredible news that I won a contest to attend one of the top digital workshops in the country. I have to thank the The Denver Egotist for giving me a $2,000 seat at Making Digital Work in Boulder Colorado. It’s a workshop put on by Colorado University’s Boulder Digital Works. The two-day conference hosted some of the top of minds in the advertising industry. It was one inspiring presentation after another from digital rock stars like: Mullen’s Edward Boches, Goodby Partners’ Gareth Kay, Arnold Worldwide’s Matt Howell, Made by Many’s Founder Tim Malbon, and Google’s Ben Malbon to name a few.

It’s been a little over a month since the workshop ended. The dust from MDW’s August session has settled. I’ve stopped myself to reflect on what I learned in those two short days in Boulder and if we as an agency at Xdesign, Inc. are actually putting any of the lesson into action. It’s been a challenge. However I was warned it would be. Edward Boches even said it as we were leaving at the end of the day: “You’re going to go home, back to your office, you will find yourself put on a deadline, and the energy of what you learned will pass by” He was absolutely right.

In my first weeks back it was just as he predicted. Being away from the office for a few days left a long list of work to catch up on, deadline after deadline days and weeks went by. However, we’re making the time to make changes, it’s too important not to.

Aside from freelancers, I represented one of the smallest agencies there. I got to meet great people, not only the 10 incredible speakers but also professionals from across the globe of every age that came as students of the industry representing some of the biggest agencies in the world. That’s no exaggeration. Helayne Spivak sat next to me for the two days and was my partner in some of the breakout sessions.

There were so many lessons learned.

As the workshop ended, there were two ways to board the plane to return home. I could have been discouraged. I could have said well, this would be great if I was flying back to New York, Chicago, Boston, LA or any other large city. I could say, none of this will ever work in Baton Rouge at a small agency, the clients won’t buy into it. Or, you accept the challenge, you acknowledge there is a gaping hole in our market for the digital mindset. Sure, some agencies around town are working with social and digital media, but as a city, there’s a huge opportunity to do something. Something remarkable. It’s a challenge we are taking head on at Xdesign.

I realized something in Boulder. A lot of it is excuses. We as an industry are constantly making them. Excuses as to why something won’t work in the real world, or why the client won’t buy it, or why we shouldn’t do it; whether it’s time, clients, or your personal life; it’s just a lot of excuses. Jason Fried says it best in his book  “Rework” “The real world isn’t a place, it’s an excuse. It’s a justification for not trying.”

Since I’ve returned to Baton Rouge after leaving Boulder I’ve started teaching for the Mass Comm department at LSU teaching Creative Advertising Strategy with a heavy focus on digital in addition to the role I play full time at Xdesign. My lessons at work and in my class are inspired by what I learned in Boulder. I’m learning as much from teaching as my students are. It’s exciting to be with students on a weekly basis to prepare them for this great industry. The students will be making regular posts, generating original content and begin building a community with their class blog. I hope that you learn as much from them as they will from you.

My mornings start earlier now, and nights go later. I’ve learned to work more efficiently and smarter. I’m making less excuses. Your future is entirely up to you. As an agency we’re adopting some of the lessons of thinking small and staying in beta that were stressed in Boulder. It’s a start. Rather than spending 3 hours on the day I returned to the office from MDW to go over everything I learned, we are instead weekly discussing each of the many lessons taught at Boulder. We’re starting small. We’re finding some of the ideas are fitting us better than others. But that’s the point, you’ve got to start to see what works, with smaller decisions we can afford to change and adjust them along the way. If it doesn’t work, we ditch it, and we haven’t invested so much time in it that it hurts, we just learn and move on.

There’s never a perfect time to start. The perfect time never arrives, there’s always an excuse. It’s entirely up to you to make it happen. At Xdesign we’ve talked about having a blog for years, we’ve  always put it off because we didn’t have the time, or didn’t know what to write, or wanted the design to be just right. It was all an excuse.

So here we go. It’s our blog, it’s in beta, and it will stay that way.

Get started. Don’t worry about failing. There will never be a perfect time to start. The longer you wait, the farther you’re falling behind.

The most important thing is to begin.

You’ll be hearing more from us,
-Hunter / @hunterterrito