Kenneth Grange is a bit of an unsung hero, which is probably why you haven’t heard about him until now. I can however assure you that at some point in your life you have sat in, used or walked past one of his designs. 

Kenneth Grange is an industrial designer known for designing in a friendly manner – Grange has said that he wants his products to be a ‘pleasure to use’. He sort to eliminate ‘contradictions’ in design that failed to make the products easy to use. In this respect, he reminds me of today’s digital UX designers, striving to make the web a better place.

Kenneth Grange has never had a particular style – he’s moved with the times, but what stands out for me is his repeated use of rounded corners, making his products seem refreshingly different yet still maintaining a familiar status. He makes use of the rounded corner on some of his more impressive portfolio subjects – iconic everyday British objects like London’s black cab, the InterCity 125 train, Kenwood food mixers, Thermos tea flasks and Kodak cameras.

Today, web designers use rounded corners in a huge array of their work – the introduction of CSS3 has made it easy for rounded corners to be implemented (in decent browsers) and the technique has been hugely popular amongst web designers, but there is a fundamental difference towards the use of them in their work compared to Kenneth Grange’s legacy.

Grange developed rounded corners to make his products fresh. Whilst it is true that web designers using rounded corners in their work are differentiating web designs from the straight edge of the days before CSS3, the rounded corner alone cannot make a website seem refreshingly different. As more and more websites take on a rounded corner effect, the less effective it becomes in seeming refreshing.

Take the black cab for example, the design is so distinctive and different that you can pick out a black cab with ease in busy London traffic. I know that the black cab has a lot more to it than rounded corners, but the curvature of the design plays a big role in giving the cab it’s persona, it is unusual but still inviting – something that is incredibly important to a taxi. If every car in London had that same curvature, it wouldn’t be as easy to thumb down a taxi.

It’s not just online that our everyday lives are getting rounder and rounder. Just by looking around my room I can demonstrate this. Jony Ive and Apple’s design team have put rounded corners on everything, and in some cases have made new models even rounder than before (the new Macbook for example). PlayStation and Xbox models are rounder than ever before (remember those old straight cut models). Rounded corners are modern.

To conclude, the use of the rounded corner in web design does make devices seem more inviting and friendly, but rounded corners should not be used as the main concept to make a design look fresh.

Photo credit: Jonathan Burr

Radio 4’s “Book of the Week” is Simon Garfield’s “Just My Type”. A fascinating read detailing the qualities we associate with a myriad of fonts. It might make an interesting stocking filler for any hard to please designer types out there!

On my day off I decided to reproduce the Dusted logo through CSS. CSS3 properties have allowed us to reproduce some images and icons purely with code — whilst it is pretty cool, it also has some disadvantages.

From left to right: The original JPG, CSS and CSS — but without border-radius. As you can see, the creation has been pretty successful, I used two key CSS3 properties to help achieve this. Setting border radiuses and gradients of several elements.

The finished product

Technically it wasn’t that hard to produce — a couple of CSS3 properties and we can achieve the below. The tricky bit is getting the shapes and curvature to match the image. It needs a fair bit of trial and error and you could spend hours perfecting it. Matching the typeface took longest — luckily we don’t use a font with serifs.

If you look closely, you will see a small imperfection with the highlighted layer — it should be straighter, but that was the best I could get it. Anyone got any ideas how I can make this line look more accurate? Perhaps by rotating the element slightly?

Whilst this is quite cool, is it the right thing to do?

Semantically I don’t agree with inserting empty HTML elements like divs, although I’ve inserted nbsp in some tags for this example, we really shouldn’t be inserting blank content into these elements — they exist to hold objects like text, not to be styled to look like text. HTML5 Canvas is the current web tool that we should be using or starting to use when drawing 2d elements and graphics. This is just an experiment.

Canvas however, is not supported by ‘less distinguished’ web browsers and that is a problem for developers who need to produce these 2d objects and make them appear consistent across each and every browser. CSS3 tools like border-radius and gradients are also not supported by these browsers — meaning our developments will look like the far right icon above. Here our D appears as an pixelated O — quite cool as it happens, but suicide for the brand. I’m hoping I don’t get shot for that.

For now we can just use images right?

Yes, at the moment images are just fine. If you’re really desperate to produce something with pure code, have a crack at Raphael.js — something which is accessible for all browsers. You can also do a lot more than just draw with it.

The Dusted “D.” device are registered trademarks of Dusted Design Partners Limited.

This article originally appeared on My Blog.

Photo credit: Flickr user sATEK

Students completing degrees in creative subjects could be forgiven for feeling pessimistic about their chances of getting a job straight away, particularly as most are expected to undertake work placements for very little or no money, just to obtain the experience they need to get an actual job.

So why aren’t universities teaching the skills that students need to get a job straight away? Most people who have worked for several years in the design industry will say that they didn’t really learn anything at university and that the education really began when they were thrown in at the industry deep-end. I don’t think this is strictly true.

At university you will be taught how to approach problems and how to think as a designer. You will then be given three years of creative freedom to create all manner of things, using a variety of mediums. During this time you’ll likely be given opportunities to learn various software, but mostly you will muddle through and get yourself to a workable stage in the relevant programmes.

When you start working, you realise that what you knew might not be particularly relevant or efficient in the ‘real world’ and you quickly learn on the job (and from your new colleagues who hopefully have the time to impart their advice), thus creating the foundations of your skillset. What you have to remember is that this skillset will back up the creativity and thinking that you learned at university, and it simply isn’t possible to have one without the other.

The iconic luxury brand, Orient Express, launched its first Stateside digital awareness campaign last week and Dusted were responsible for a key part of the development. Working alongside Chandelier Creative and Criterion Global in New York, Dusted built and integrated a microsite and various social media channels, featuring nine short films, which follow the travel experiences of an eclectic and engaging cast of fictional characters and real life staff members reside.

From the sparkling canals of Venice to the ‘Lost City’ of Machu Picchu, A Journey Like No Other, follows Duke, Lauren, Penelope and Max as they travel Orient-Express’ world of iconic hotels and unique experiences. This family journeys in style, seeking out adventure and enjoying their time together in their own individual ways.

Properties selected from within the diverse portfolio to showcase the Orient-Express hallmarks of authenticity and character are a romantic journey from Paris to Venice on the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express train, a celebratory visit to Hotel Cipriani in Venice, a vacation at the Copacabana Palace in Rio de Janeiro, and a trip to Cuzco, Peru, to explore the delights of Hotel Monasterio, Machu Picchu Sanctuary Lodge, and the Hiram Bingham train.

The videos have been produced by Swedish film-maker, Kalle Gustafsson, who is renowned for the style and class he brings to his fashion photography and work with luxury brands. The Orient-Express films are artistically graded and set to commissioned music with voice over by renowned actor Bill Nighy.

Orient-Express is currently ranked first in its competitive set of 12 global luxury hospitality brands in the areas of service and emotional intelligence by Leading Quality Assurance. A proud association for Dusted.

Brands and, more specifically, their guidelines have been evolving as new outlets for said brands are invented. Large brands have to consider all these various endpoints — small-scale print, large-scale print, video/television and the web being the most common. However that last one doesn’t play brand ball like the others do, especially as of late. Print and video are 100% controllable in terms of the final deliverables. In print, inks, stock, in fact all elements of the design process can be controlled, giving the brand nowhere to run. The same is true for video, with it’s fixed safe areas, ratios and colour reproduction. The same used to be almost true of the web at one point, if you take a thin sliver of it’s short history — specifically the bit after it became possible to have fine control over web page layouts and just before the wide-scale adoption of CSS3.

Most respected web designers would currently frown at that period now, with it’s table-based layouts and spacer GIFs. But in terms of a brand’s visual language, there was no better time. Web developers would pride themselves on getting a web design looking identical across several browsers on several different platforms — that was holy grail of web design and development back then. If your site looked the same in Internet Explorer 4, 5 and 6 and Netscape Navigator your job was done — you’re a good web designer, and the brand’s visual language was safe.

Fast forward to the present day and what is broadly believed to be great web design is something very different. Now it’s good practice to pander to the user’s browsing technology — a practice known as responsive design. It brings a fresh challenge to designers. Now, instead of making a site look identical across various browsers, the key is to play to the browser’s strengths. This approach makes total sense. The browsing landscape has never been so diverse — not only different desktop browsers as there have always been, but we now have numerous mobile devices, tablets, netbooks, etc. We aren’t so much having to think about what piece of software the user has, but what capabilities their software and hardware have.

Responsive design is about creating a design that is fluid in terms of it’s presentation — it will change depending on the user’s software/hardware capabilities. To sum it up, dowebsitesneedtolookexactlythesameineverybrowser.com. This practice could potentially put web design on a collision course with traditional brand guidelines. It is most apparent when you look at how responsive design would suggest you approach the differences between old and new browsers using what is known as progressive enhancement. Lets take the example of the humble rounded corner. Support for the CSS needed to put rounded corners onto a box is quite prevalent now with the exception of Internet Explorer (versions 8 and down). Unfortunately IE still accounts for a hefty chunk of the browser market — therefore a large number that would not see CSS rounded corners. Responsive design proponents would say that if a browser can’t natively do something then it’s no big deal, let it fall back to a default (in this case, square corners). It makes total sense, if you discount any brand visual language. Something like rounded corners would be integral to a brand’s tone of voice as much as the colour palette is. In my experience it’s tricky to sell in this dynamic approach to design to clients and brand guardians although, to me, it makes a lot of sense.

Rounded corners (used here to simplify the argument somewhat) is one of the more basic examples of modern web techniques that can not, without adding extraneous mark-up, script and imagery, be achieved consistently across all delivery methods. So do brand guidelines have to evolve as the web has? Do we build these differences and other modern web techniques into guidelines? After all, there is so much more to web design now than just web pages and layout, and all these elements become part of the fabric of a brand. For example, animated interactions as much as colour can relay a tone of voice, but they certainly aren’t universally available to the end-user. So do we simply not use them, opting for a consistent, lowest common denominator approach for all, or do we let those users that can view them experience that part of a brand’s language? I don’t see why not.

Luckily, this particular issue of progressive enhancement is getting smaller with most browsers now playing ball with the majority of advanced style and interactive elements available to web designers, but the web isn’t a still millpond — at times it can be white water rapids, and brands need to ride them rather than build dams to hold back the flow. The sooner they embrace responsive design the better, giving their customers a more delightful experience, no matter the technology they use to interact with them, as well as giving web designers a fresh challenge to replace the out-dated practice of consistency across platforms.

This article originally appeared on Design Assembly.

Photo credit: Flickr user kaibara87

Last year, Harrison raised the standard by recreating a ‘market stall’ as their stand, complete with boxes full of fresh vegetables, rustic backdrops and homemade giveaways.

This year they wanted to go even further, and recreate the dining rooms that feature in their schools. Day one was a reminiscent of a traditional school hall, with paneled walls, long tables and benches, an honours board and old master portraits that aren’t quite as they seem at first glance.

In complete contrast, day two was a ‘cafe culture’ sixth form common room, with a rapidly emptying food counter, students playing pool and cafe tables and chairs. Both were representations of school sites that Harrison currently operate in, showing the diversity and flexibility of their service offering in that particular sector.

Probably the most complex stand at the exhibition, with two false walls to encompass four flat-screen televisions, two sets of wall visuals, furniture and different giveaways on both days, the Harrison Catering stand caused quite a stir amongst those who visited it.

News of their piccalilli pots and cookie dough mix free gifts, spread amongst the delegates and exhibitors alike, and the videos incorporated into the walls on both days were a big talking point.

Watch this space next year for something even bigger and better.

IBM are currently celebrating the success of their latest super-computer. Its name is Watson and it won Jeopardy. Jeopardy, for the non-US based amongst you (and the rest of you that haven’t seen Groundhog Day) is a long-running gameshow where contestants are given the answers. Their challenge is to guess what the question is. Watson’s task is the same but ultimately its goal is to be the first step on the road to a machine that will be able to learn and understand what humans are really asking them for.

Now being a super-computer there are a lot of complex although boring (visually and emotionally speaking) processes going on. So whilst I’m sure the IBM engineers would’ve be on the edge of their seats watching their computer trouncing its opponents via a command line on TV, the rest of us would’ve probably become uninterested within minutes.

For this reason IBM gave Watson a face and a voice – humanising it to a certain extent.

For the visual composition of the screen, you don’t want to have, person, person, and a void

Harry Friedman, Executive Producer, Jeopardy

They auditioned several voice actors, with the successful candidate getting to record 1,000s of phonetic sounds and phrases. For the face of Watson they turned to digital artist Joshua Davis. Davis has plenty of form with turning mathematical processes into beautiful living art pieces. Davis wrote several scripts to convert Watson’s “emotions” into visual representations, so at a glance you can gauge its happiness – how well its doing, and its confidence – the probability it places on its current solution being correct.

IBM and the producers of Jeopardy recognised the importance of user experience – the need to bring some emotional connection between the viewer and the technology. This applies just as much to online communications as it does to a super-computer playing on a gameshow. I’m not suggesting that every website or app should have an avatar (Miss Boo anyone?) for the user to relate to, but you should apply the right “face” and “voice” – face being the visual elements, voice being your copy and messages. Get these right and you may not win any gameshows but you certainly stand more chance of engaging with your customers.

Dusted USA continues to gain a foothold in the American market and just before Christmas, saw the launch of Donald Haack Diamonds & Fine Gems (DHD) – the highly respected jewelry store based in Charlotte, NC. Dusted were commissioned to redesign and build a new site for DHD, who were looking to update and drastically improve their online presence before venturing on a market push this year.

While the redesign was of great importance, the need for a Content Management System (CMS) was also a priority. Due to frequent changes in their product inventory, DHD required the ability to update their website catalog and content in-house.

In addition to the website build, we were also tasked with managing their social media presence (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) and providing an e-mail marketing platform that would enable DHD to easily create ‘e-blasts‘ and analyze the associated data (open rates, click-thrus, etc).

Alongside the online development, DHD were also planning their retail space with Dave Temple and Mike Jeffcoat of Temple + Jeffcoat, a Charlotte based creative firm who developed The Proposals, a series of DHD videos. With just four months until Christmas, we all had our work cut-out to communicate effectively and successfully deliver a new off and on-line brand.

As the project kicked-off, it quickly became clear that in order to successfully modernize the website and develop a social media offering, the existing identity needed a refresh. Luckily, our creative resource has a flair for typography and we were able to offer several solutions before moving forward with a new layout that translates very well across other digital platforms. This new identity is also soon to appear at their retail location, which will improve their visibility and attract new customers around the South Park area of Charlotte.

Although attracting a new, ‘modern’ audience was high on DHD’s list of priorities, maintaining their tradition, ethos and existing loyal customer base was also a top priority. It was vital that we adhered to their core messages – one of quality, knowledge and trust – whilst incorporating several attributes that would provide a fresh, modern approach.

In order to communicate this message, and encourage online customers to make contact, it was important to produce high quality product photography for the catalog. The shots were taken by Steve Cook who did a great job in capturing the essence of the jewelry and providing the photos which worked within the redesigned website.

The new website has been live for two months now, with an immediate upturn in visitors, pageviews, time on site and a drastic reduction in bounce rate. The email marketing platform has also successfully kept their customers up-to-date with the latest offerings and helped to communicate the revised identity and encourage brand recognition.

Moving forward, we will continue to work alongside Temple + Jeffcoat to manage the DHD brand and support their growing online presence.

We live in a society that is dominated by rank and accreditation; every industry seems happy to be judged and critiqued by the ‘leaders’ and ‘experts’ within that profession. The design and advertising industry is no exception – there are countless awards and competitions to be entered, and hundreds of ‘top 10′ lists to strive to be part of.

But does it really mean anything?  Okay, so a nod from fellow piers is always appreciated, and followed generally by a little bit of self-smugness; but it gets a bit counter-productive when people start producing work that is geared towards winning those awards and hitting that all-important top 10. The focus on reaching the right solution to a brief suddenly becomes a little unclear – all because of competitiveness to be ‘the best’.

So does it stem from a society-wide insecurity and the need to have a pat on the back every now and then? Or is it just ambition – which can sometimes be mistaken as ‘greed’?

Photo credit: Flickr user terren