It frustrates my wife no end how I can come home and not notice that she has cleaned the entire house or that the boys have strewn every toy all over the house, yet I will notice and get annoyed at the smallest design flaw in something.
Explore our historical blog articles for nuggets of wisdom (and random musings) from our crew.
I’m constantly amazed by how many businesses seem to love to play hide and seek with there products and services. Having been involved with and overseen a vast number of companies over the years, I have too many examples of places that have exceedingly great products and services but seem to want to make sure nobody knows about them!
There are many reasons I have chosen to live in the South West of Western Australia, and being a lover of the great outdoors the relatively untouched, natural beauty of our beaches and forests definitely rates high on the list. Understandably then, it irritates me when people blatantly pollute this natural environment. Whilst passing tourists do contribute to the litter on the side of the road, the type of pollution I am most concerned about is that created by local businesses – namely in the form of excessive and poorly designed signage.
We see it happen all the time. A client comes to us with a new business idea or is ready to re-position an existing business and they want a fantastic brand and/or website. They invest time and money getting us to create something stunning but then when it comes time to start trading they wonder why no one knows about them. What they have forgotten about is creating a business plan and having a promotional plan in place to promote their new look.
Part of our philosophy at Jack in the box is to help the future design stars of tomorrow. Almost any given week we will have up to 3 senior high school or university students in the strategy or creative room soaking up as much knowledge as their minds can absorb. All of us here are happy to help because we know what it was like to be starting out and we too have our own mentors to thank for passing on their valuable knowledge and time.
So it was when a family friend asked what I thought is the most important aspect of design they can learn while at university if they want to become a designer.
My answer is in two parts: what to learn and what not to worry too much about.
Everyone loves an item that is well designed. Whether it be a piece of packaging that catches your eye, a business card you’ve received or perhaps a magazine you’ve picked up. The question is why though. Why do you like it? What attracted you to it?