Adobe Offers CS5.5 and a New Subscription Service

If you're a designer on Twitter, it was hard to miss the promoted tweets from @CreativeSuite on Monday, announcing new CS5.5. Say what? That's right CS5.5. Apparently upgrades every other year were not enough, so now there's a 'half' upgrade each year in order to 'keep creatives at the forefront of technology'—oh, and to make some more money too. Did we mention that part?

Pricing
Adobe's new CS5.5 is at least a cheaper upgrade than it is to a 'full' version. The CS5.5 Design Premium is $399, if you're upgrading from CS4 it's $650. I can't remember what the price was to upgrade from CS4 to CS5 was, but I think it was around $500—maybe $600. (If you have better info on that number, please leave a comment or email me, thanks!) CS updates about every 1 1/2 years, so if you buy every version, you previously would have spent about $330-$400 per year, now you'd spend more like $500-$600 per year (assuming CS6 still releases less than a year from now). This isn't going to be detrimental to agencies, most small and mid-sized agencies (I'm not as sure about the big ones) don't update every version as it is. The people this is going to hurt is the printers—they need to have the latest and greatest because at least one of their clients is going to upgrade when the newest CS version comes out and they'll expect their printer to be compatible. They'll pretty much have to spend the extra dough.

But fear not, Adobe now has a subscription service! That should be more economical, no?

Subscriptions
Adobe's new subscription services guarantee you the latest software at no extra charge—as long as your subscription remains active. My first thought was 'Finally! A way for designers to have affordable access to professional programs on their personal computers too!' It's a beautiful idea in theory—not so much when you crunch the numbers.


Adobe's subscriptions prices and plans are as follows:

There are two plans, the yearly plan, which requires a one year contract at a time, or the month-to-month plan. Is it just me or are these ridiculously overpriced?

Let's stick with the Creative Suite Design Premium (CSDP) package I discussed at the beginning of the post as our reference point. While the initial upstart cost for CSDP is $1900, the upgrades are like $400-$700 depending on how many generations you skipped in between, but let's just say you like to be on the cutting edge and want the latest and greatest software when it comes out. If Adobe came out with a new version every year, your upgrade costs would be $400 per year. On the one year subscription plan you're paying  $1140 per year. WHOA. That's $740 more per year.

But wait, you say, you're not including that hefty $1900 initial software investment—well, let's crunch those numbers shall we? Let's take a three year period where you purchase the software and update twice (that would be assuming a new release once a year—more than that is just overkill) That's $1900+$400+$400=$2700. Over that same three year period, you'd spend $3420 on the subscription service and your access to the program ceases as soon as you're not paying anymore! How is that economical? I can see it only if you didn't own CS originally and you knew you'd only use if for one year or if you couldn't afford the initial start up cost—but seriously, at these prices, it's well worth it to ante up initially and own the software.

The month-to-month subscription is a little different. It allows you be a little more flexible. Maybe you're a sporadic freelancer who just needs the programs from time to time. The trouble is, at least for the standard design programs, it's still not cost effective unless subscribing only a couple of months a year, though I can see the month-to-month subscriptions useful when you need one program, like Premiere or AfterEffects, for just one short term project. The downside there is pretty much all of Adobe's products have a high learning curve so it's going to take you awhile to use them well anyway. Then once you're not subscribing, my guess is you no longer can open those files—which could be highly annoying.

I see extremely little use for Adobe's new subscription program. It's an interesting idea for design software, but as it stands right now, there is little financial incentive to go that route. Meanwhile, the 'half' upgrade software seems little more than a blatant attempt to suck more money from designers.

Am I missing something here? What do you think?

When Photoshop Gets Ugly

Photoshop is awesome. It does some truly amazing things to photos and give us creatives the freedom and ability to create all kinds of cool stuff. But overly photoshopping something can ruin something just as easily as it can make it work.

Retouching photography is one of the most prolific uses of Photoshop. It's done every day in the world of design and advertising, it's just part of the business. But when are you over-retouching? It's a fine line that, as an art director, I have to think about every time I'm using a photograph. On the one hand, you want the product to look perfect, but not unnatural.

When it comes to fashion adveritising however, things take a different turn. I was intrigued by a recent acticle criticizing Ralph Lauren for a print ad of a model who'd been retouched so drastically "her head's bigger than her pelvis." Well, Ralph Lauren tried to quiet the blogger, a combination of BoingBoing and Photoshop Disasters, by claiming copyright ingringement which really just backfired and the ad is now plastered with even more criticism in various areas of the web.

I understand minor retouching in any ad—to get rid of a flyaway hair that distracts or an odd shadow etc. but why are we retouching outragously thin models to be even thinner? It goes hand in hand with the recent debate in the fashion industry about models being too thin. There's an interesting story about the editor of Vogue accusing designers of providing sample sizes for photoshoots that are too small to fit healthy models thereby forcing the magazines to hire bony, too-thin talent. She goes so far as to say her art department retouches in some meat on those models. The designers came back saying it was the modeling agencies only sending them tiny girls for the runway. It's probably an all around blame game—especcially if you read this article about the editor of SELF magazine. Wow, what a warped way of looking at photography for magazine covers.

The odd thing is, there's been so much good press for having healthy models that it's confusing why it's taking so long for the fashion world to catch on that emancipated models aren't popular anymore. Why is Ralph Lauren taking an already very thin model and making her thinner? She actually looks kind of freakish in the photo. Personally knowing far too many women who have suffered or are suffering from eating disorders, manipulated photos like this make me feel sick. It's even worse when you see what some companies do to already beautiful celebrities like the Campari ads featuring Jessica Alba.

On the flip side, this Glamour article about a real size underwear model in their magazine is what women would rather see in their literature. It's a huge step forward for the fashion industry and I hope other magazines follow.

(Also see our follow up post: Ralph Lauren's Overly Thin Ad—Continued...)

New Retro First Aid Kit

Johnson & Johnson revisited their First Aid Kit packaging and I love it. It's reminiscent of the classic first aid kit blending retro with a new, unique modern shape that's also highly functional since it allows the kit to stand upright or lay flat for storage. It kind of makes me want to go out an buy one. Great stuff.

(via Extra(ordinary))

Wisconsin Bombs Rebranding

Large corporations aren't the only ones capable of botching a rebranding job. The state of Wisconsin unveiled their new logo today and there is only one word to describe it: horrendous. I have nothing positive to say about it. The font has nothing particularly appealing about it and that little flag thing in the middle of the W just bothers me. I expect it to be there for a reason and there's no apparent reason to it's existence except to make the W particularly difficult to decipher at a glance. The wavy N is just as distracting. Then the whole word has the distinct shape of unnecessary use of Illustrator's bulge warp tool. At the risk of sounding preachy, Illustrator and photoshop filters can be godsends or train wrecks and it all depends on your discretion in using them. The epic fail is when they're unnecessarily used to try to beef up an otherwise poor design (e.g. the logo above). It never works. Use them with extreme caution.

Beyond the bad font choice, the logo fails again between that tag line and the completely random silhouette handstand that isn't remotely integrated into the design. Both the silhouette and tagline look completely tacked on. The handstand has no real reason to be there, except maybe to illustrate the painfully generic tagline, 'Live like you mean it,' which ironically comes straight from Bacardi. I mean Wisconsinites like their liquor, but if you were going to steal from such an ad, 'Please Drink Responsibly' would have at least been a little more true to some of the distinctive characteristics of the state.

Megan and I are both native Wisconsinites, and having lived out of state I'm very aware of the not-so-exciting reputation Wisconsin has in most of the rest of the country. That's exactly why it pains me to see that this is the 'new' face we're going to show to try to ramp up tourism? Ugh. Wisconsin is much better than that.

As much as I'm sure this botched logo is at least partly due to decision by committee, I can't believe the state paid $50,000 for that slapped together looking logo and a ripped off tagline.

What do you think of the new logo?

2009 Rebranding Awards

We've been ripping apart a lot of brand redesigns lately, so on a more upbeat note, I wanted to share the 2009 Rebranding Awards so we can all look at rebranding done right. The most dramatic shift, and my personal favorite is the rebranding of ICFJ (International Center for Journalists). I love the new color palette and corporate identity. Looking at the before and after examples is like night and day.

Which one is your favorite?

(via Brand New)

Is That Really The Pepsi Logo Design Brief?

So remember when Pepsi came out with its new logos a few months ago? The varying 'smiles' of the Pepsi logo? Well, it appears that the Design Brief was leaked—a lovely 27 page document title Breathtaking. It does take your breath away too. I found myself gasping for air from laughing so hard while reading it. Honestly, at first glance the document seems so completely out there I was sure it was a hoax. An elaborate hoax, but still a hoax. Then I started digging a little deeper.

Oddly, no other blogs really seemed to think it was a hoax. Some of their commenters did, but overall the authors were all on board that this was a legit document leaked from Arnell Group, the agency behind the brand redesign and Tropicana's recent package design flop. I was still finding this a little hard to believe, but one blog directed me to AdGabber's post back in October when Pepsi unveiled its new logos.

In a brilliant move to debut their new line of logos, Pepsi sent 25 top bloggers a kit filled with a evolution of Pepsi logos and packaging, a DVD of Pepsi's history highlights and a set of new packaging with the new logos—everything these bloggers needed to announce Pepsi's new logos to the social media world. It really was a great move. In the DVD video contents from those original kits is a short video, posted on AdGabber and I've included it below as well. It shows an animation of the design process to make those weird 'smiley' logos. Check it out and pay attention about 45 seconds in (the music shifts there too). Then look at the selected Design Brief page to the right (click to enlarge). Uh oh, looks like this document might be legit after all.

You can see more excerpts at Gawker and Brand New or you can download the whole PDF at Fast Company. I'd recommend it, it's a good laugh.

Yes, I thought this was a hoax at first, but when you look closer there are a few legit parts in this overall relatively absurd document. They discuss Pepsi's logo and bottle evolution and there's a lot of talk of about the Golden Ratio, in fact they dedicated an page illustrating how the Pepsi logo smiles are same aesthetic geometry. I have to disagree since the end result smiles look more arbitrary than anything else, but the defense is there. It may be a bit pretentious and overstated, but we are talking about a huge brand here and no one pours millions into a brand without some justification as to what makes it great. Many large corporate logos, or even small business logos, have a lot more precision and thought behind them than the average person realizes—it's not intended to be elitest at all as much as it's just part of the design process of pushing to make just the right mark. The issue I have with the Pepsi brief is you can justify whatever you want with circle proportions, but that doesn't automatically make it good. Yes, the old Pepsi logo is balanced and aesthetically pleasing—the new ones, not as much, no matter how many circles within circles you draw for me.

The Golden Ratio stuff isn't what got me the most though. What really had me convinced it was a hoax at first was a little further on in the document where they start discussing the Pepsi Globe, where they compare the Pepsi logo's energy fields to the Earth's magnetic fields, and the Gravitational Pull of Pepsi diagrams, where they compare the gravitational pull of the sun to the gravitational pull of Pepsi. It's a little unclear what they're trying to represent there, but after looking at it for awhile I'm hoping it's referring to some kind of three dimensional in-store display and not that Pepsi is the center of the universe.

After looking through everything and writing this post, I'm pretty convinced it's a valid document, though probably incomplete. It is marked as a draft on the first page of the PDF. Unfortunately, valid or not, this is a PR nightmare for Pepsi and Arnell with all the negative criticism that's floating around about it.

What do you think? Real or hoax? Is the Design Brief too condescending?

Tropicana Abandons Iconic Image

Everyone knows the Tropicana image of the orange with a straw sticking out of it—it's been around forever. I remember as a kid actually trying to stick a straw in an orange and drink orange juice out of it. Seriously. However, on Tropicana's new redesigned orange juice packaging, they've completely scrapped that image! And I really don't understand why. That image has a lot of brand equity. Honestly, if you ask me about orange juices, the orange and straw is the first thing that pops into my head, followed inevitably by the the thought of Tropicana.

Unfortunately it seems Tropicana has scrapped it for what many designers are assessing as rather generic packaging—and I have to agree with them. It's nice generic packaging—it reminds me a bit of the simple and clean designs of Target owned brands—but it's still generic. Notice the new logo as well—also a sad generic version of the old one. Not much more than the word Tropicana set in Futura, dropping any tropic feel that the name or product might suggest for a colder, stoic brand personality.
Tropicana's new redesign isn't just their orange juice packaging, it's all of their juices. The overall effect is cohesive, if repetitive. Unfortunately in this particular case, the cohesive sameness of all of them makes me rely more on finding the text on the carton to get me the specific juice I want rather than a much easier visual cue. According to BrandWeek, Peter Arnell, head of the Arnell Group, the agency that redesigned all this, said:

""It's like having a glass come to your table. It's very elegant. We no longer wanted to work with assets or parts that were not clear to the consumer. They might have identified with the orange and the straw on the old packaging but no one new why it was there."

What? Isn't it there because we identify with it? Because it very elegantly and visually says 100% orange juice straight from the orange without actually having to say those words? Who exactly doesn't know why it's there? In BrandWeek's post Arnell also said:

"No one would ever write an article about Tropicana. Then you get rid of the orange and the straw and the whole world pays attention."

Yes the world paid attention, because the straw and orange is part of the brand. And a good part—people miss it. Update it, tweak it, rejuvenate it, but don't scrap it. I will admit, however, that I am a fan of the new caps. They are very clever, though not enough to make this package redesign a winner

Last year, Pepsi moved Tropicana from Element 79 to Arnell, and I can't say I'm impressed. Arnell is also the agency that brought us Pepsi's brand redesign a few months ago.

(Also see our follow up post: Tropicana's Sales Drop With Redesign?)

Pantone Is Optomistic This Year

Or maybe they're just trying to put everyone in a cheerier mood, because the color of the year from Pantone is Mimosa, a bright, beautiful and very cheery yellow.

As we posted a few months ago, you can get Pantone stuff for your house or apartment, like wall paint and fabric. Wouldn't this be a fun kitchen color?

AB InBev Logo Fails To Excite

Back in July we posted about Anheuser Busch being bought by Belgian brewer InBev and the subtle change in Budweiser's ads from the sale. No longer was Budweiser touting its US ownership, but just trying to enforce the idea without actually saying it.Yesterday AB InBev unveiled their new corporate logo and Brand New made an interesting point about the inclusion of the eagle in a post this afternoon. It's so American. The company is not. So why is this international company using such an American symbol? Yes, there's the argument that AB has quite a bit of equity in the eagle, whereas InBev's logo has little to none, but perhaps it's partially to make us forget AB is no longer American owned?
Honestly, I would have preferred the logo without the eagle. It's just plain ugly. It's has bad color choices and far too much gradient action happening. Yuck. And the type? Well it has an unnecessary, though slight, drop shadow on it. Enough said.

Another thing to note, why does the AB have such a different type treatment? I realize it's probably to separate the two different companies, but it really feels like two different logos with an eagle plopped on top. Thoughts?

And The Credit Goes To...?

Today I came across an interesting post about the mystery of the Major League Baseball logo designer and it brought up one of the interesting oddities of what graphic artists do for a living. Unlike fine artists we are work for hire, no copywrights for work, no royalties, no claim whatsoever. Those copywrights go to our clients that have paid us for the work. Withttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhout going into a long and never ending debate about copywright law, I'd like to discuss something that goes along with it: credit.

When there's no registered copywright, there's no registered credit. Even when the mark is first designed there's no byline or signature so the credit is unknown to many. How many of you non-designers out there know who designed the Nike logo? The post on ESPN is about two designers who both claimed to have created the logo. No, not two guys who worked together at the same agency or anything, two totally separate designers who both believed they designed it. Neither, however, have any proof. You can't really blame them though, the logo was designed 40 years ago. Who keeps their files that long? All Major League Baseball has is the name of the agency hired, not the individual designer. In this case, that information and a little math did the trick, but what about when the name of the agency isn't enough? Then you need agency files and people's memories to figure out who individually gets the credit. Even in this digital age, files can get lost, agencies can go under and memories can falter.

I have a few logos out there the I'm proud to have designed. Maybe they'll stand the test of time, maybe not, but I think I'll go back up my files anyway.

Have You Voted Yet?

AIGA invited designers across the country to participate in their Get Out the Vote 2008 poster campaign. There are tons of fabulous designs at AIGA's website and I've included a couple favorites here. So if you haven't voted yet today, get to it!

Hidden Heads on Cascadian Farm Packaging

A friend forwarded a link to me last week from Bread and Honey, a blog about all things food-related. In this post, they reveal a shocking discovery: Tiny, mysterious faces hidden on the packaging of Cascadian Farm-branded frozen broccoli. It's quite frightening, actually. (Click here to read the post and see the pictures for yourself.)

In the follow-up post it's determined the hidden countenances are friends and family of the Cascadian Farm brand, first put on the packaging by designers over a decade ago.

Kinda creepy. Kinda cool.

A Different Approach To A Car Commercial

I thought this was a pretty eye catching and unique car commercial. The art direction is wonderful and it sells a relatively mundane feature in a highly unique way, while the music and rythem just make it fun to watch. Check it out:

Type Is Art

I have a designer's love affair with typography. I find fonts beautiful. Well, maybe nor comic sans, but in general. The thing is, type is really just specific shapes that we recognize and you can form those beautiful shapes into art that has nothing to do with words. Take, for example, the mixed media work from one of my favorite college professors. (She taught a class called Reconstruction, Recognition and the Found.) Her work uses letterforms to create something new.

There's an interesting site called Type Is Art that let's you play around with the 20 different identifiable pieces of letters and use them to create art. Here are two little pieces I put together. Visit typeisart.com to see more work or to create your own!

2016 Olympic Bid City Logos

Here are the logos for the shortlisted bid cities for the 2016 Olympics and I must say, no matter who is picked it'll infinitely better than London's hideous 2012 flashback to the '80s. I think Rio is topping the list for me, but it's a very close call. What's your favorite?

Pantone My Apartment Please

English company W2 has created a number of Pantone items for the designer's home. Varieties of Pantone mugs and messenger bags are all that's available in their Pantone collection now, although it inspires me to think what else we could make Pantone for an apartment like mine. Pantone plates and bowls too? A Pantone KitchenAid? Pantone wall paint? Pantone fabric? Ooh the possibilites...

Wonderbra Takes On Real Women

Wonderbra is taking some cues from Dove, but taking it to a whole different level. Apparently Wonderbra ran a campaign in June (with an amusing little spot by itself) recruiting women to model in their bras for their now running D to G Cup campaign in the UK.

All I can say is I love it. From using real women as models to the mosaic technique, it's a well executed campaign. Using real women may have lost a little bit of it's edge since Dove has been doing it for awhile, but I'm very happy to see another major women's brand adopt the concept. Unfortunately, even though they're different markets they look kind of similar, thanks to Dove's models being shown in their underwear. At least the mosaic treatment helps separate the two. On the website you can zoom in on the billboard and see all the individual women's photos that make up the final picture. I'm actually surprised it took so long for another company to adopt it. Despite what some research may say, I personally respond very well to campaigns that use real looking women.

What do you think?

Ten Rules Every Designer Should Live By

This is from an article in Businessweek called the 10 Commandements of Web Design. I whole heartedly agree with them and think every designer should abide by them. Most web designers I know should pay special attention to #6... Some of these commandments also translate to, and should be adhered to in print design as well. They are as follows:

1. Thou shalt not abuse Flash.
2. Thou shalt not hide content.
3. Thou shalt not clutter.
4. Thou shalt not overuse glassy reflections.
5. Thou shalt not name your Web 2.0 company with an unnecessary surplus or dearth of vowels.
6. Thou shalt worship at the altar of typography.
7. Thou shalt create immersive experiences.
8. Thou shalt be social.
9. Thou shalt embrace proven technologies.
10. Thou shalt make content king.

FontStruct: Make Your Own Fonts Online

There's a new website out called FontStruct that allows you create your own font online for free. The font creation abilities are limited, but it's an interesting extension of Web 2.0 into the design world. After you design your font, you can keep it private or choose to share it with a Creative Commons license. According an article in Slate, this site is popular with all kinds of font enthusiasts, not just designers.

My personal opinion is FontStruct is it's pretty fun to play around with, but incapable of creating any fonts that I might actually use. You are limited to pretty blocky, tech-y and ultimately gimmicky designs due to how the program is set up and the shapes available to build with. I was really excited about the site at first, but as I tried to design a font, I just got frustrated and annoyed that I was unable to make any of the designs that I wanted to. Call me a font snob, but I really hate gimmicky fonts and was overall, unimpressed by the gallery of fonts generated by users. The Slate article suggested that this site is so overwhelmingly popular it's been crashing. That scares me a bit. There are already many horrendous fonts out there, do we really need more? I think I'd be on board with this site if it had more capabilities to produce a wider range of designs because right now they're all too obviously made by building block shapes.

The Slate article quotes a user stating, "all of us are going to be little Adrian Frutiger[s]!" Sorry, but this program is nowhere near capable of producing a font like Univers. Not even close...