This past weekend I attended the Y-Conference at University of San Diego. This annual conference is a great place to meet designers and other people involved in the design industry from all over the world.

In addition to all the great networking, the event had many strong speakers, including Brigid McCarren, Art Director of HOW Magazine. This is possibly the number one design related magazine in existence and they are known for identifying and displaying the best work from all over the country. I found her presentation on design trends of 2011 to be particularly interesting and wanted to share with you some of the key takeaways. The top 6 design trends she shared with us were:

• Lighter color palette: For years we saw the use of bright color palette in all design materials, but this year we will see more use of pastel colors in collateral, packaging and web design.
• Light texture: This means we will see print designers using paper with light texture to enhance the textile quality of their work. For web designers, we will see more light texture (aka noise background) applied to designs in order to create an interesting look and feel for site visitors. This texture also helps create depth and field to the flat dimension of an on-screen design.
• Patterns: The use of patterns creates an intricate look to a design piece. Most luxury brands use patterns in their packaging or collateral materials to make their products feel even more exclusive.
• Recycled: Designers are doing a good job of promoting sustainability by using more FSC certified paper and post-consumer materials to execute design works. And the idea of recycling doesn’t only apply to print. Take the new Nike commercial where they recycled clips from their old commercials over the years to create the most recent spot.
• Infographics: In 2010, the use of infographics (the visual representation of stats) exploded exponentially and they don’t appear to be getting any less popular. With so much information out there, both online and off, people rely on infographics to present them with the information they need in an easy to consume manner. To see examples of quality infographics, check out Nicholas Felton’s work. He has done some amazing infographics and the ones that inspire me the most are his Annual Reports which he has been publishing since 2006.
• Nature inspired: The use of nature inspired line art on collateral materials creates a design that is an intricate and interesting visual. Many web designers are also turning an eye to nature. We will continue to see many websites with nature backgrounds or that display nature inspiration with nature textures. This design aesthetic creates a friendly and fresh look for the work.

Lighter color palette	Light texture	Patterns
Recycled	Infographics	Nature Inspired

In addition to sharing her picks for 2011 graphic design trends, Brigid also shared the thought process behind the 5-column grid that HOW Magazine uses. For those of you who aren’t graphic designers, the grid system helps designers make better decisions on where things should be positioned. It can be an extremely beneficial tool for any designer, especially designers for magazine layouts or websites. There are many variations of grids that vary by the number of columns in the grid structure. For a simple design, a designer could use a 2-column grid or they can choose a grid structure with a larger number of columns to expand their layout choices.

Brigid shared that she uses the 5- column grid because she believes that constraint is freedom. I couldn’t agree more on this. That being said, I will never choose an odd number for my layout. Why? I just love even numbers too much and then you can divide it by 2.

Brigid touched on one last point about color trends, which was interesting for me. She told us how fashion has influenced color trends in graphic design for many years and Brigid suggested that graphic designers should also follow fashion trends because they change frequently. You can check out this year’s color trend here.

As a designer, it’s important to keep up with the trends and evolve along with them. Knowing the design trends helps us make better design choices and, more importantly, when you watch trend cycles for long enough, you are able to spot potential trends before they happen, execute them, and then become a design trendsetter.

Social media isn’t exactly new to museums. We’ve talked quite a bit about how social media strategy factors into marketing for the arts and have even shared with you a bit of our own social media work with the San Diego Museum of Art. But over the past couple of months, you may have noticed Museums worldwide that are taking an even bigger leap in getting creative with their social media strategy.

The latest example of this comes from The Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. The museum recently announced its first-ever social media contest where one lucky person was challenged to live at the Museum for the month of November in return for a cash prize. In an interview with The Huffington Post, the Museum’s president and CEO, David Mosena, said he and his staff wanted to attract a younger audience. They wanted to take a chance with the campaign. And that’s exactly what they did when setting out to accomplish the 30-day social media stunt with chosen 24-year old Kate McGroarty.

When asked about their strategy behind the 30-day social media adventure, Museum staff answered that they were looking for a new way to market the respected Chicago institution and attempt to shed an image that even the museum’s CEO acknowledges had become a little stodgy. The plan aimed to bring people back to the Museum to view the 14 acres of exhibitions with a fresh perspective.

The titled, “Month at the Museum” campaign, began with a contest to choose one person to live at the Museum for one month. Kat, from The Museos Unite blog, explains each applicant was required to send in a 60-second video, a head shot and s 500-word essay on why they wanted to live at the Museum. There were more than 1,000 entries for the position. The lucky winner would then be assigned to blog and engage in all things online, while also living alongside the exhibitions.

The Museum’s new tenant, Kate had her own Youtube channel where she answered commonly asked questions and provided a behind-the-scenes perspective, creating buzz online for the Museum. Kate’s videos received nearly 40,000 views and at the end of her stay, she’d built a strong community online for the Museum.

In addition to the 20 plus videos Kate produced, she also blogged daily about the various exhibitions, and her last post received 44 comments from people who followed her entries daily. Rob Gallas, chief marketing officer for the Chicago Museum, best summed up the social media experiment when he stated that Kate had become a human exhibition, on display for the whole world to see, thanks to her frequent tweets, posts and Facebook updates.

All in all, the Museum reaped the benefits of major exposure for the unique “Month at the Museum” campaign and I give them kudos for personalizing their social media engagement through a third party spokesperson. Kate reached the Museum’s target audience, and accomplished its goal of attracting a younger crowd. The lively participant was eager about the exhibits and artifacts, just as any other 20-something year old would be – ultimately, making the Museum more approachable to the average person.

Tell me, how do you think this bold social media experiment will change the game for marketing the arts? Do you think it’ll spark other similar spin-offs within the industry?

With social media, it’s all about opportunity. There are new platforms sprouting, old platforms dwindling and changes in the middle.  It’s a constant research project, where those running brands have to be aware of what’s happening before anyone else.

A few months ago while sifting through my Seesmic stream I came across a new hashtag under my search for “museum,” #askacurator (This, along with other real-time searches, allows me to monitor hot topics and new opportunities for both BG and our clients). I responded to the tweet on behalf of our client, The San Diego Museum of Art saying that we’d like to participate. After a few email correspondences with the coordinator, we were officially signed up for an event where John Marciari, Curator of European Art and Head of Provenance Research at the Museum, would take over tweeting for one day.

On September 1, The Museum took part in the international Twitter event, #askacurator day. Following the success of #followamuseum day, the initiator, Jim Richardson from Sumo in the UK decided to take it from a proactive stance to a reactive one, encouraging museums and institutions to put a curator in the Twitter seat for a day allowing followers to connect in a new way.

While this form of communication is nothing new to any social media strategist, the outcome was impressive. Over 300 museums in 23 different countries partook in the event, putting art fans in direct connection with the top curators around the world. A few hours into the day, #askacurator was the #1 trending topic in the world.

While Mr. Richardson is still collecting data on the success of the event, we’ve put together our own data from our experience with #askacurator.

We’d have to agree with Jim Richardson’s assessment that Twitter may not be the best tool to use for the back-and-forth conversations moving forward, but the overall movement did create new opportunities for us to be introduced to international art fans, be recognized as a leading institution in social media and establish our curators as knowledgeable and accessible.

Most participating institutions chose to only respond to tweets that were directed to them through a tweet, and didn’t go beyond the designated 140 characters within their answers. John Marciari preferred to give a full response using the Museum’s blog, The Gallery. This way, individuals unable to partake in the event are able to see the questions and full responses whenever they’d like.

And the outcome:
Traditional Media Coverage: LA Times and San Diego CityBeat were among a few publications that included The San Diego Museum of Art as a participating institution. This inclusion helps the Museum gain recognition as a leader in social media and acts as an introduction to a new audience.
The Gallery Blog Views: From September 1 through September 3, there were 140 click-throughs to the blog from Twitter and Facebook.
New Followers: In three days, SDMA acquired 200 new followers. While other more recognizable institutions may see this growth regularly, we’ve been growing at a steady pace of about 200 followers every month.
@Replies and RTs: We didn’t notice much of a difference in the interactions geared toward the Museum, however many participating individuals only used the hashtag and didn’t direct questions to specific institutions. Perhaps as more museums join the platform and marketers like Jim Richardson look into new facets of museum marketing, we can hone in on direct communication. During the day, with so many people using the hashtag, it was easy to lose track of a conversation. We will say that the quality of tweets geared toward the Museum was on a high caliber and for that, we are appreciative.

Overall, I’m optimistic about the outcome of this event. I think Jim Richardson is really onto something and it’s refreshing to know that common misconceptions regarding the availability and accessibility of curators is changing due to tools like Twitter. In the meantime, I’ll continue to keep my eyes wide open for more opportunities that present themselves within the social media sphere.

If you happened to be on Twitter this weekend and follow the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (@LACMA) you may have thought their account was compromised – and you’d be correct. With tweets stating such things as, “My new sculpture is displayed in the 2nd floor men’s room. It’s made of feces & shaped like a big poo. #Rainn,” it’s hard to imagine that the institution’s director gave the thumbs up on a free-for-all of tweets. However, there was a method to the (sometimes disgusting) madness. It was actor, Rainn Wilson’s turn to take over the Museum’s Twitter account for the weekend as part of “Cell Phone Stories,” a summer-long “series of narratives and essays circulated exclusively via mobile phone technology.”

As a new initiative for LACMA, the series is overseen by artist, Steve Fagin.  Wilson is among the list of writers, fashion designers, artists and critics all scheduled through September 6 to mix things up on Twitter.  Though Wilson’s specific series was titled “I Hate LACMA” and his tweets offered a list of reasons to never go to LACMA, he happens to be a member of the Museum and has spoken highly of the institution.  He also happens to be a major player in the Twittersphere, with almost 2 million followers on his own account.  While I can respect an institution that doesn’t take itself too seriously, I’m still a bit baffled at how his tweets would lead to foot traffic. I suppose if anything, Fagin must have been optimistic about a new set of eyes and followers carrying over from Wilson’s to LACMA’s account.

If I were to plan a Twitter hijacking for one of my clients, here are the items I’d check before approving:

1)  Audience: who are my donors, supporters and greatest demographic? Will an initiative such as this lead to quality content my current followers will appreciate?

2)  Sample tweets from appointed “guest” tweeters: There needs to be some control over the content and the director should probably be aware of what to expect, both from the guest tweeting and the reaction of the brand’s current followers. Art writer for the popular blog Modern Art Notes, Tyler Green, put this stunt on the worst idea of the weekend, saying LACMA should have pulled the plug early on.

3)  Goals for an initiative such as a Twitter Hijacking: Is LACMA looking to stir things up and create controversy to gain publicity? Are they trying to drive foot traffic and sales? As noted in any other social media guides we’ve provided, always have a clear idea of your goals and objectives.

Do you think LACMA’s onto something allowing guest tweeters to take over their account? Or do you think, even with an increase in followers and interactions, that this may hurt the institution’s reputation over time?

One of Bailey Gardiner’s company values is creativity. We even have the word in our logo treatment. Clients rely on us to be creative, but sometimes our ideas don’t come as easily or are blocked. What do we do when our creativity seems to dry up? How do we fill our creative wells?

Although human beings are naturally creative, American culture does not nurture the creative process. We are born with the ability to learn, experiment and cope with life, yet by the time we are 10 to 12 years old – parents, peers, and certain education systems have had a negative impact on our creativity.

As it turns out, there is a process to being creative. For a work environment to be creative, it must allow for this process and empower employees to think, feel and contribute ideas. Here are some of the typical steps you’ll see people take to keep creativity flowing

Preparation – This is where we focus the mind on the project to explore the project’s scope and do research and development. Creative briefs and brainstorms at Bailey Gardiner are essential to get projects started.
Incubation – This is where we allow the unconscious mind to process the research and development. This can make those who are not involved in the process be nervous because it looks as though nothing is getting done. It also takes time, which is often in short supply in the marketing and advertising industry.
Insight – This is where ideas bubble up from the unconscious into conscious awareness. This is the “Ah Hah!” moment and can happen spontaneously while driving, taking a shower or even in a dream.
Verification – The idea is consciously acknowledged, developed and put into action.

On a personal level, filling the creative well is about self-care and inner and outer exploration. I need to take care of myself, eat right, get a decent amount of sleep and exercise. Inner exploration is drawing and painting, journaling, sewing, listening to music and mediation. Outer exploration is taking myself on an “Artist Date” which is all about answering the question, “If you were a child what would you want to do for fun?”

How do you keep your creativity flowing?

What the heck are raster and vector graphics and why are they different?

Computer graphics are produced in two ways. Raster graphics are created with pixels and are referred to as bitmap images. Raster files are best for photography and continuous tone images. When a raster graphic is scaled up on a computer screen the pixels can be seen as squares each with their own color and value (dark to light).  They cannot be scaled up in size without losing image quality. In a public relations campaign photographs may be sent out to print publications. It is best to know the magazines’ technical print information. An image will print blurry in the magazine if the photo is sent out with a dpi that is too low.

Vectors, on the other hand, are resolution independent. They are created with paths (points, lines, and bezier curves) which are based in mathematical equations. Use of vector graphics is much more flexible. They can be scaled up and down without losing their crispness. Line art (illustrations), type, and page layout programs all use the vector format. Logos are best when created in the vector format because the art will always be clean and not bitmapped. Vector graphics are used in both print and web design.

Have you ever gotten a call from your print rep saying there is something wrong with your output files? With deadline pressures and a budget to stick to, it can be a truly stomach-turning experience. Print publishing software such as InDesign has excellent pre-flight tools which help graphic designers to check/prep a document to print correctly. But sometimes there are problems pre-flight doesn’t catch.

For instance: a rogue color is left over in a linked Illustrator file when the project started out as PMS colors then was switched to CMYK mid-project. Pre-flight will tell you how many channels of color that are in the document but it won’t tell you where those colors are. That PMS color is probably underneath another layer and invisible. The graphic design document should only be four color, but you still see an extra PMS color listed in the colors used palette. That additional PMS color will mess with the print plate production.

If you can’t see the extra PMS color in a regular printout then try this neat trick I discovered:

Print out the project in question directly from InDesign with separations turned on. You will get black and white print outs of each channel or “plate” of color so 4 pages for the CMYK colors and additional pages for each PMS color. From the print out you can pinpoint the location of the rogue PMS color. You can then go back into your graphic design documents and eliminate that color. Simple solution for a major headache.

Press checks are an important part of any print advertising job. Press checks also require many steps to ensure that everything is printed exactly as it is supposed to look.

Before starting a graphic design project that will be printed by conventional or digital methods, establish a good relationship with your printer. Discuss the project, budget, expectations and deadlines. The printer will probably have some great input that will enhance the design and cut down on cost.
1. For the press check bring the final proofs, dummies, ink and paper swatches and any other paperwork to confirm paper and color specifications.
2. Check overall appearance of the press sheets.
3. Number the press sheets as you receive them to keep track of color changes.
4. Check the typography for shifts in copy flow, broken type, and type that may have defaulted.
5. Verify that the last proofreading edits are done.
6. Check color registration and/or color matches. Check color trapping and ink coverage.
7. Check photography and/or illustrations for placement, scaling and cropping.
8. Verify bleeds and the finishing elements; such as foilstamping, diecutting, embossing, drilling and perforations are properly indicated.
9. Mark any imperfections, hickeys or blemishes. (If you go into a press check and do this first, the pressmen know you are an amateur).
10. Finally, sign and date the approved press sheet and thank the pressmen (and presswomen) that worked on your project. It wouldn’t happen without them.

Doing a press check on a graphic design project is part of the service we provide. Using this checklist will help ensure your project turns out beautifully.

In general, museums of all kinds are often viewed with a certain stigma of being stuffy and academic.  To be honest, it may be well-deserved for the most part because of common stereotypes we associate with them and the type of people who go to them.

I am here to tell you that there is good news for museums.  I bet most museums share a similar goal in that they want to expand their customer base and attract a younger audience.  After all, this younger demographic is tomorrow’s museum member and donor, and which museum doesn’t need that?

In order to attract this younger demo, museums must go beyond their traditional ways of operating and reach out to the younger audience (ie Males/Females 25-45) in the places they frequent, which is online.  Smart museums are also catering to this younger demo by creating new events that appeal to them to get them in the doors.  An example of an event catering to a younger demo is The San Diego Museum of Art’s Culture & Cocktails.

We have been entrenched in the challenge of utilizing the tools the Internet provides to accomplish various goals for our client, The San Diego Museum of Art.  We have recently rebranded the Museum and will also be unveiling a completely new, revamped website in a few short weeks.  There were many objectives that were taken into account during the website redesign, but I’d like to focus on just two. First, we wanted to utilize high quality imagery to showcase the awesome works of art on display in the Museum and second, incorporate social media tools so that people who wish to interact in that capacity can do so.

Bailey Gardiner has worked with several museums in the past so we understand the challenges they face in marketing themselves.   We redesigned the website for the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.
Two years ago we also rebranded and designed new collateral for our client SUSHI, A Center for the Urban Arts last year (see an example below).

THE NEW BARBARIANS

Our most recent undertaking is with the Balboa Park Online Collaborative (BPOC) to redesign the website for Balboa Park. This new website will encompass roughly 85 organizations in San Diego’s famous park, including several museums and be the main portal for visitors to gather information.

Are there any museums out there that you’ve come across that you feel are innovators in regards to interacting with people and showcasing their various offerings?  I’d love to see who you think the leaders in this space are.

The Art Alive invitation package for The San Diego Museum of Art is printed and will drop in the mail this Thursday. The Museum and patrons loved last year’s award-winning design so much – they wanted to use the same concept. Since repeating a design is boring both for the designer and the viewers, our challenge was to improve on the idea. Last year, Kelly shot the brush parts as giant, macro pieces. This year we shot the brush parts close-up to get a different look and feel. This project was started with a sketch of a full page ad (see Image 1.) with three brushes. Once we had an idea of the three brush shapes to be produced, we then did photography of the paintbrush parts.

Here are some of the steps to producing the red brush. Images 2., 3., and 4. show the raw photographs of what were used for the paintbrush handle, brush tip and petals. In Photoshop, I made selections of the elements using paths to drop out the backgrounds. Image 5. shows the five pieces that make up the entire brush. Image 6. is the composite of all the parts with a little more work done on the handle to make it fuller through the center like a real paintbrush. All the elements are on separate layers in Photoshop and work together to create the paint stroke and the brush. This modular approach to the paintbrush production allows the art to be manipulated to fit the many different layouts (image 7.) required during the Art Alive show at The San Diego Museum of Art. What do you think of the results?