An identity challenge presented to me by a local client required the incorporation of an English heraldic tradition, but with a contemporary twist. The resulting identity package included a set of impressive print pieces, guideline document and electronic templates.

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Silver engraving and cotton stock were used across the entire stationery set. Engraving was applied on the square envelope flap, back of business card and front of the letterhead, and the letterhead and business cards utilized a full bleed pattern on their reverse. This pattern was also inspired by the heraldic tradition of the client (family estate).

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The guideline document was not without a dramatic flourish (shown: interior page).

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A close-up view of the silver engraving. Actual final size is slightly larger than one inch in width.

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What began as a famous myth in Club Penguin (Ninjas) became one of the most popular Club Penguin games. I was involved from the beginning in this comprehensive, long-term project for Club Penguin. I was able to contribute design direction across core identity work, online and offline game products, interfaces, official guidelines and some packaging.

The scope of Card-Jitsu includes a set of Club Penguin Flash games that integrates with the Topps trading card series, the Card-Jitsu Handbook by Grosset & Dunlap (Penguin Books) and a board game (not released).

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A portion of the interface that combines card inventory and levelling progress.

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Some important visual anchors of the Card-Jitsu experience are the amulet design and Sensei character (complete with jade stamp signature). I can’t take credit for the amazing Sensei, but I was able to provide direction for the character signature as well as the graphical structure of the amulet.

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The official guidelines includes the content you would expect: logo use, colour palette, and typography etc. What makes it especially useful is the design of the document itself, which is brimming with the secretive and ancient traditions of penguin ninja. The guideline can be imitated as well as ‘obeyed.’

The second draft of this document (an entirely different concept) resulted in a job offer from Disney Corporate Brand Management  (I declined). The draft wasn’t quite up to snuff for our internal approvers, so my project partner and I went back to the drawing board.

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The end result of our collaboration is an innovative dual booklet showcasing an immersive child’s experience in Club Penguin in one signature, and the brand analysis and principles in the other.

The cover is a complex die cut featuring blind emboss/deboss and clear foils. Both text signatures are perfect bound and french folded. In the middle is a sleeve containing business card, DVD with brand assets and a pocket with postcards to help recipients share their newfound enthusiasm for the brand.

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The design of the identity is based on a grid pattern with occasional, random anomalies. The result when held is almost always an unintentional hunt for these little treasures. Thankfully, you can put them down without getting mud under your nails.

“If we are going to succeed as teams and as designers, we must learn the art of inspiring trust.”

Some time ago, my director took a group of my peers offsite. We went through some conversations and exercises around our need to trust and rely on each other. It was valuable and revealing. The conversation was inspired by a Harvard Business Review article about high-performing organizations, which are characterized by a high level of trust.

It’s hard to trust others when they are different than us. But if we are going to be a part of a high performing teams and businesses, we need the full spectrum of strengths and abilities of a diverse team. As a designer trust is especially important in client relationships. We rely on our clients to be vulnerable with us and give us their full story. Clients rely on us to help them solve their problems and deliver good work. We must work as a team.

It was pointed out that to trust or not trust is a decision, not a feeling. Either party jumps off the cliff or they don’t; however, we all know that this can sometimes be hard. Making the leap can be especially difficult when others don’t trust us. How do we resolve this?

We must learn how to extend trust to others, and inspire them to trust us.

Trust is inspired by the actions of others and grows like currency or ‘equity’ that builds over time. After this, it can be extended (this is where the decision comes in). It is not static or one-dimensional, but personal, changing and deeply felt: trust is marked by the belief that someone will not take advantage of us when our back is turned.

Based on hours of observation and discussion, the following eight rules of inspiring trust rise consistently to the surface:

1. Maintain positive enthusiasm. If your world is bright, it will draw others in. They will be more likely to open up to you.
2. Be honest and transparent. If you hide your motives, it’s harder for people to believe the best of them.
3. Communicate often. People tend to trust what is familiar. Being visible and sharing your thoughts often helps you appear as reliable.
4. Be confident. Few things inspire more readily. And, if it appears you don’t trust yourself, others will join in.
5. Communicate your successes. Others are eager to know if you value the same things they do. If you’ve succeeded in something that matters to you, they will be more likely to rely on you.
6. Do not demand trust. If people cannot feel safe with you, they will have a hard time extending trust. Demanding it, reduces it.
7. Build others up. Give them complements, show them you care. Knowing you have their well-being in mind will alleviate a lot of anxiety.
8. Keep your agreements. If you create a history of broken agreements, it will be very difficult for others to extend trust.

Without trust, it is impossible to have high performing businesses, and impossible to do great work.

What would you add to these eight rules?

A couple of items from my family’s story, complete with  signs of their use and age.

Our culture is increasingly defining itself through story: appearance of age, Instagram, weathered surfaces, distressed type, Facebook Timeline, Path, Twitter; the resurgence of tattoos. All of these speak to the histories, hardships and events that shape us. Events in time and place. Sequence.

‘Story’ can take on many forms: the rise and fall of ideas and empires, the coming and going of friends. Microblogging; the birth and death of dreams. The realization of hope. Point A to point B—anything that proves there is change. We have story because we have movement.

Increasingly designers are encouraged to ‘tell the story’ of products and brands. Tell it visually of course (leave words to the ‘word people’)—but by all means give the story credibility and impact.

I think the design community in general has been pretty intuitive about the importance of underlying story, and we generally strive to preserve it.

So now, let’s bring into focus the problem: often we design for authenticity, which leads us in the direction of historical accuracy and ‘brand truth.’ We naturally strive for consistency which ends in static layouts and static brands.

Herein is the issue—’static’ does not equal story.

So here’s a daring prediction. And a prescription to go along with it.

The coming trends for print are the pieces that fit together in a sequence and invite the reader into an unfolding of events. Outdoor will increasingly rely on multi-part campaigns. Web will be a tool of empowerment for audiences to tell stories, to intertwine their story with that of consumer brands. Cross-media campaigns will showcase ideas in formation and draw increasingly on audience feedback loops; brand evolution propelled by the masses.

Everything will begin to take on a multi-state stucture to infer time, transformation and movement. In order to preserve meaning in our design we must not only tell the story, but draw our audience into it.

We must no longer describe, but invite.

Covering Letter-April 2012

LinkedIn profile

@_schnee_

It is selflessness thrust upon you
like a corset of steel
It shapes you and you loathe it, but
you are better off
It is a crucible lit by fatigue
It
is a labour of love.

I live in Kelowna. It is an incredibly beautiful place. However our city occasionally has a small-town perspective on creative services, especially advertising and graphic design (although I believe we are slowly coming around).

In response to a recent article by the Kelowna Capital News. I wrote a letter to the editor. Since the paper did not publish the letter (soon enough), I decided to publish it here (it was subsequently published by the Capital News).

Dear Editor

The article published on March 5 “Tapping into our younger generation can pay dividends” was a shocking reminder of pockets of ignorance in Kelowna’s business community towards the creative industry, and business ethics in general. While the author tries to be even-handed,  there are some important perspectives missing from the article.

It is a generally accepted principle that when someone provides a product or service, they get paid. However the business described in the article is apparently happy to join the numerous other internet businesses that pay a shockingly low price to one lucky winner in a crowd. The others who worked equally hard are paid nothing. Losers.

Imagine if a man were to enter a restaurant and announce that he would pay the server for whatever entrée he fancied; but, “please make one of each so I can sample them all. If I don’t like them I’ll go next door.” Or imagine someone commissioning an artist for ten paintings, but pay for only the one they liked the best? It is the same for those who would pay for one logo when numerous others are rejected.

Proponents of this business model (contest-driven design, aka ‘crowd sourcing’) will point out that participation by the designer is voluntary. If there was no benefit, why would they agree to work for nothing? Surely no business person in his/her right mind would spend their valuable time on a high risk, low return investment? The answer is that the contributors of these graphics are not, as the company asserts, “professional designers” in the sense that we would expect.

Crowd sourcing of design relies almost entirely on inexperienced designers who are unable to get work in ‘real’ jobs or get established with their own client base, or as the article alludes to, designers who fall into the category of ‘cheap foreign labour.’

How is this group less likely to plagiarise or be misinformed about copyright law?

Good design is a long-term investment that forms around a lasting relationship and a deep understanding of client needs. This is how great brands are built. Not every designer is going to deliver on this promise, but least of all a desperate designer who is willing to treat their expertise and experience like a pull on a slot machine.

As someone with nearly a decade of experience in graphic design and brand building for companies and agencies with global reach, I’m appalled that this business is praised to the whole city. It’s an embarrassment to our business community and an affront to all the creative people who live here.