Author: Bradley Hotson for The Graphic Design School The Graphic Design School offers vocational training graphic design courses. Delivery is online, affordable and open to students all over the world to study in the comfort of their own home.

Neon Signs

Neon, Advertising & Vice

One message strongly signified by neon advertising seems to be vice. The enthusiasm shown by those in the alcohol, tobacco, gambling and sex trades for embracing neon to advertise their wares, services and establishments has been substantial, forming for many an indelible connection between neon signage and decadent commodities. The inherently bright and showy properties of neon make it an ideal choice for the cheerful yet pushy style so often adopted by vice-based industries, and by extension those simply selling cigarettes and Budweiser beer. So whilst there is nothing intrinsically trashy or risqué about neon, the sober and the luxurious sections of the business and cultural communities seem largely to have made their minds up, and decided it’s not for them. One recent exception has been London’s Wellcome Trust who engaged the services of London-based graphic design studio Graphic Thought Facility to create a “series of neon artworks based on the scientific models that represent the structures of proteins used in the treatment of HIV, obesity, malaria and cancer.” Images may be found here.

The connection between neon and the advertising of vice is undeniable. Peddlers of alcohol, tobacco, gambling and sex are well aware of neon’s attention-grabbing and brash potential. Image © Cheryl Goodwin.

Certain brands have subsumed neon into the fabric of their DNA. The flickering neon Budweiser sign has attained cultural familiarity through cinema and our own experience. Image © David Morton.

Electrifying in blue, and perfect to sit over the door of a nightclub. Image © Ian Muttoo.

As with vice, neon advertising has strong connections with the body modification industry. Image © Marc Weinreich.

I Never Knew That…

When used in tubes for signs, neon produces a distinctive red-orange light. It’s the other noble gases which when used emit the greens, blues and other hues commonly seen in signage, though all are commonly referred to as ‘neon’ signs. Neon signs are expensive to produce, the high costs due to the rarity of neon, and not the liquifaction process involved in their production.

During daylight hours, the neon sign drops back into the landscape, becoming a mere painted sign with a tubular exo-skeleton. Image © Patrick Boury.

David Warwick likes “the incongruously jaunty type” of this neon sign. Nothing murky about the establishment though; The Dungeon is a London-based art gallery.

Though often typographic, sometimes an illustrative sign crops up to amuse and delight. Image © Gerard Donnelly.

It’s the roman and Asiatic-type neon signs that have filtered through to our consciousness, but cyrillic and other-writing people make them too. Image © Dit is Suzanne.

Neon’s Influence on Future Noir

Whilst commonplace in our cities, it might also be useful to look at how a commodity like neon can have an influence on style and subculture. Neon has featured heavily in the work of film directors looking to project a dystopian vision of the future, signifying the particular un-organic look its fluorescence communicates. Throughout Blade Runner, Deckard, the detective who inhabits Ridley Scott’s Los Angeles of 2019, weaves his way through a neon-soaked cityscape. Here, neon signs advertise every kind of ware—legitimate and shady—in roman and Asian type of bright reds, greens and blues, as crowds hurry through fierce rain with neon-handled umbrellas. Scott’s idea of a future Los Angeles was based less on the LA of the time and more on Tokyo, itself a futuristic city teeming with neon.

Neon features heavily in science fiction filmmakers’ work, perhaps most notably in Ridley Scott’s 1982 future noir thriller Blade Runner, who’s 2019-set Los Angeles resembles a neon-drenched rain-swept Tokyo, itself a kind of future-city.

In Sum

A writer whose name escapes me once divided historians up between what he called parachutists and truffle hunters, meaning those who are driven by the broad sweeps of history and those who find meaning in the unexpected nuggets of stories often related by ordinary people. As designers we need to be both. We shouldn’t ignore the wider world around us—to take an interest in global trends will help improve our work as well as our character. At the same time we must nurture and cultivate a keen sense for the miniature of life, to zoom in to the detail of the everyday, pick an attribute of the environment and link it back to a wider cultural context. Neon signage is one such attribute, and there are countless others out there to explore. Ernesto Rogers (I don’t forget everyone’s name) once claimed that if you examine a spoon carefully you can understand enough about the society that made it to visualise how they would design a city. Whilst possibly stretching things with this assertion I believe he was on the right path. You will be too if you develop the visual awareness explained above, striding towards signs reading ‘Awards’ ‘Recognition’ and ‘Success’, in neon naturally!

“The baths are no longer there, but the sign was restored in a recent conversion of the building into flats” explains Herschell Hershey. Gorgeous.

DO: Keep your page structured

In the recent months we’ve seen an explosion of great grid layouts and css files. The most famous (in my opinion) being 960.gs and one of the cooler, more light weight grid systems being the 1kb grid. Following after the structure and balance of a great magazine/newspaper, these grid systems help lay out information in a structured and easy to follow format.

DONT: Just place boxes everywhere

We’ve all seen these types of websites before – 20+ boxes, all different sizes, nothing lining up properly and not on piece that actually grabs your attention because you’ve just ran into a whirlwind of craziness. if you’re a web designer and you cannot properly place items in a structured environment, well, I would’t really call yourself a web designer.

DO: Focus on what’s important

Are you building a website for a business that sells one specific product? If so, make sure that’s the focus of the home page. Allow yourself space on the inner pages to place calls to action for that specific item. If you’re building a blog that gives out freebies or writes tutorials, make sure they’re getting the proper amount of focus and attention. Websites like WOO Themes do a great job and putting forward what their main focus is – wordpress themes.

DONT: Place irrelevant ads across your page

If you’re going to try and make money from your website/blog, do yourself a favour and lay off the excessive advertisements. If your page loads and has 70% ads and only 30% content, odds are high that people will leave and never come back. Making your ads the #1 priority is a bad idea. Try blending them in and making sure they don’t take away from the content.

DO: Choose the right colour scheme

Knowing what your readers emotions are will help you in choosing the proper colour scheme. You won’t want a bright and ‘loud’ colour scheme if your website is in the meditation niche. You’ll notice that most punk rock bands have CMYK colour schemes (pink, yellow, black and blue), while a doctor/medical website will generally stick with a lighter, more ‘open’ colour scheme

DONT: Overdo it with 20 different colours

Having every colour that is inside the 64 set of crayons on your screen will not only look bad, but it will annoy your readers and drive them away. Your colours should blend well together, not clash. If you’re not good at picking colour schemes, I’d suggest a site like Colour Lovers which has user generated colour schemes posted. Find the right colour scheme (at most, 5 colours) and see how much better your designs turn out.

DO: Make it easy to scan your pages

People will not spend 5 minutes trying to figure out what your website is about and what it has to offer. The best way to ensure you’re getting the right information out to your reader is to make the page easy to scan. Use proper H tags (similar to how this post is using h3 tags) to focus on the important items. You can also use pull quotes, block quotes and images.

DONT: Write one paragraph per page that is 1,000+ words long

If there’s one thing that stops me from subscribing to a blog is that the posts are literally 1,000+ words and have no paragraph breaks. This, and they normally don’t even have blog words or any indication that there’s anything important inside their content. Break your content up and make it easier to read – please, and thank you.

DO: Keep it simple stupid

It’s a proven fact that sign up forms with more than 3 items (usually – name, email & one other item) will have a significantly lower sign up rate than the easier forms. People HATE doing things for too long – so don’t over complicate things. Make things as easy as possible for your readers by pretending a 4 year old will be viewing it. It definitely helps get things out in the open where they need to be.

DONT: Go on and on (and on) about nothing

Rambling, excessive LOL’s, too many smiley faces and random dribble will drop attention spans of your visitors. You want them to stay – act like it. If you have a personal blog where you write about your life, thats one thing, but to randomly post about what you ate, or where you went yesterday on your business website will definitely drive people away.

DO: Focus on killer copywriting

Words matter. Keep them short, sweet and to the point. If you have trouble writing copy that attracts the readers attention to where you need it to go, hire someone. Copy is just as important as the design of your website. Choosing the right words for sign up buttons, page headings, navigation items and calls to action can be the difference between 50% sign up rate and a 90% sign up rate.

DONT: Stuff your pages full of keywords

Google isn’t stupid. Neither are your readers. If your page has the main keyword for your site stuffed into each paragraph 30–40 times, it will not only read very poorly, but you’ll be penalised. Writing should flow naturally and should only mention your keywords where they fit.

DO: Set your navigation up properly

If you’ve got a sign up page on your website, maybe you’ll have your main navigation in a blue colour, while the sign up button is in a green colour. Regardless, you’ll want to make your navigation easy to spot and easy to use.

DONT: Make your readers search to find something

Your readers shouldn’t spend 30–40 seconds trying to find a contact or about page. They also shouldn’t have to click through three pages just to get to a sign up form. Get the important things out in the open. For the items that aren’t required to have a strong focus on your website, you might want to invest in a search box – I HATE when websites don’t have a search box. Web design 101 maybe?

DO: Optimize your load times

If there’s one recurring theme in this entire article it is the fact that visitors are impatient. You need to build your website with optimal speeds and allow your page to load in around 1–2 seconds. You can do this by making sure your css files are compressed, using the google hosted javascript files and ensure your page is coded and designed with optimal speeds in mind.

Someone like embed a video on their site. Then I will not suggest you to make it auto load or auto play, because it makes your site slow. If you do not know how to set them, I suggest you to use moyea flash video mx 6, because you can set the player’s profile in this software. The product site: video-to-flash.com.

DONT: Make everything on your page an image

Text on a website is there to be exactly what it is –text. There is no need to make the text blocks of your site jpg images. Also, making your website background 1MB or more in size will also cause your page to load very slow. I’ve seen websites also use 2 different javascript libraries and load 10+ plugin scripts for them in the headers and their websites took around 20 seconds to fully load.

DO: Choose the right fonts and sizes

I’ve only recently got into typography and have realised that it is a highly important aspect of web design. Making your section titles the right size and making sure the fonts you’re using will greatly effect the experience your visitors have when viewing your websites. Generally speaking, you should use one main font for the content and then you may switch the titles of the pages to a different font.

DONT: Have 5 different fonts in 10 different sizes

Picture this: Page titles are in times new roman, content for those pages are in Arial, navigation links are in comic sans and the sidebar is in impact (yes, that impact). How ugly does that look? Now, remember that vision the next time you want to build a website with 5 different fonts.

DO: Make your page visually appealing

The world may tell you that people don’t judge a book by its cover, but thats a lie. The first thing people see is the web design you’re branded with. That first impression better be a good one. Utilise textures/gradients that give your website depth and draw attention to the beauty of your design. I would strive to ensure each of your website designs are accepted to galleries like css mania.

DONT: Throw a bunch of crap together and think you’ll do well

Animated gif’s are your first no-no. After that comes the marquee scrolling text and the jumbled mess of text and graphics that resemble a 13 year olds myspace page. It isn’t cute and in case you’re not aware of it, it’s no longer 1980. Things have changed and people don’t expect to see something that looks like a 7 year old made it. If you’re a professional, act like it and make sure your designs are up to par.

Author: Abby Holmes for The Graphic Design School The Graphic Design School offers vocational training graphic design courses. Delivery is online, affordable and open to students all over the world to study in the comfort of their own home.

Recruiters – Do you need them to land a job?

What’s the job of a recruiter?

A recruiter is basically the middle man between you and an employer. There are many recruiters that deal specifically with design and advertising agencies. They’re in close contact with a number of employers, so they’re often the first to know about freelance and permanent jobs that are coming up. They also know exactly what’s going on at a large number of agencies; who’s hiring, who’s firing etc.

When a job brief comes through from an employer, a recruiter kind of does the ‘screening process’ for the employer, sending them what they consider to be the top candidates for an interview.

Recruitment agencies also have a wide network of contacts. So even if an agency doesn’t have many jobs on the books when you meet them, they may be able to get you in front of potential employers with a lot more ease than you could if you had to contact them yourself.

Should you get a job through a recruiter, they will also negotiate your salary and day rate, as well as all the details regarding your contract.

Whose side are the recruiters on? Image used with kind permission of Pogo. www.wemakepogo.com

Do I need to use a recruitment agency?

You may be looking for your first job. Or even a new job. Where do you start? It’s rare that you’ll find design jobs advertised. The advertising and design industry just doesn’t work that way. The industry is quite small, so often if an agency needs someone, they’ll ask people in the agency if they know anyone. Or they’ll go through recruiters.

This is not to say that you can’t get a job without using a recruiter. Many people ‘cold call’ agencies, asking if they can come in and show their folio. It’s a foot in the door. An agency will often say, ‘You can come and see us, but we don’t have any jobs’. Don’t worry about this. If they really like you, they might be able to find you some freelance, or maybe even a full time gig. Or if there’s really no work going, they’ll keep you in mind when a job does come up. After ‘cold calling’ a number of agencies and going into show my folio, I was offered two jobs in two weeks, just weeks later.

Throughout my career, I have used recruiters on a few occasions. A recruiter once found me a job interstate, which would have been very difficult for me to do on my own. And when I decided to go freelance in 2007, I found recruiters very useful in finding jobs, as they are the first people to get contacted when freelance work comes up. However, the majority of jobs I have found on my own. Once you’re in the industry, you build up a network of contacts, so you often find out jobs through word of mouth. And if mates in the industry know you’re looking, they’ll think of you when a job comes up. As soon as friends knew I was freelancing, I would be recommended if work came up at their agency.

Things to consider when working with a recruiter.

The most important thing to remember is – never rely solely on a recruiter to find you work. Going in and showing your folio to a recruiter and then sitting back waiting for the calls to come flooding in is not the way to go. You could be waiting a long, long time for that call. A recruiter may see your folio, but have no jobs at that moment. Then when a job comes in, they may call the person they’ve just seen and forget to call you. Or it could be a long time until the right job comes up. Maybe you slip their mind. Maybe they didn’t like your folio. They could have left the agency. Who knows? Perhaps you do get a call, but the job is totally unsuitable. Put yourself in control of your destiny. Don’t leave it in the hands of someone else.

Why? Because no one cares about your career like you do. Don’t think for a minute that anyone else but you truly has your best interests at heart. It sounds harsh to say, but it’s the truth.

A recruiter can help you get the job you want, but maybe they won’t. You need to be out there actively ‘cold calling’ agencies, working up your folio, showing your folio to as many people as possible and utilising all your contacts to get that dream job.

A recruiter is not a designer.

Sounds obvious huh? But think about this. Whenever you go and see a recruiter, they are judging your folio from a designers perspective. Then, based on this, they are putting you forward for jobs they deem you are suitable for and that they consider you have the talent for. Whilst some recruiters have worked in advertising or design, it’s mainly on the account service side. So the vast majority of the time, your folio is being judged by an untrained eye.

There have been countless times I have gone to see a recruiter and they sit there flicking through pages and it’s blatantly obvious that they’ve missed the whole idea or concept of an ad or piece of work. This is frustrating to say the least, as you know that a designer would never miss something like that. Recruiters just don’t ‘get’ your folio like a designer would. So in my mind, they shouldn’t be judging it as if they do. But they do and based on what they ‘see’, will put you forward for the jobs they deem you suitable for. This means you have no control over how you are been represented. Another reason why it’s dangerous to solely rely on recruiters to find you a job.

Does a recruiter see what a designer sees? Image used with kind permission of Irina Vinnik http://vinnik.net

Can I see more than one recruiter?

Yes. But how many all depends on the size of the city where you live. In Melbourne, approximately three to four recruiters is more than enough. In London, I’d say five at a minimum. If you register with too many, you will find that you end up having recruiters applying for the same jobs for you, which can get a little bit tricky. That’s because an employer will often give a brief to a number of recruiters, so every recruiter in town could be touting for the same job. You don’t want your CV to be put forward by two different recruitment agencies, as then there’s a dispute about who gets the fee. It can get very ugly.

Read the contract carefully.

A recruiter has scored you a freelance gig for few weeks. After being there a few weeks, they decide to keep you on indefinitely. Fantastic.

A couple of years ago this happened to a creative team I know. What started off as a great gig eventually meant they were let go to make way for someone they had found without a recruiter. Why? So the agency didn’t keep having to pay the fee to the recruiter on top of the freelance day rate they were paying them.

What they hadn’t done was read the contract closely. The contract stated that as long as the team kept freelancing there, the design agency had to keep paying the recruiter a fee for one year. This seems an awfully long time to keep receiving a fee, relative to what the recruiter has actually done. To add insult to injury, it was the recruiter that contacted the Art Director and in fact the Art Director than found a copywriter to work with. Yet, the recruiter got the ‘finders fee’ for both! After four months of working at this very small agency, the director just couldn’t afford to keep paying the day rate and fee to the recruiter for both the Copywriter and Art Director. So they were ousted for a team the agency found themselves. If I had been in this position, I would have tried to negotiate 3–6 month, rather than a year.

The point is, read the contract carefully. You can have a say about what is being negotiated. After all, it involves you!

It’s all up to you. Image used with kind permission of Victor Oritz. www.iconblast.com

Working with the recruiter to get the best deal for you.

Like an employer, the recruiter is trying to get you at the cheapest fee for their client. You in turn are trying to negotiate the highest salary you can. How do you get the best deal for you?

If you get freelance work, recruiters will ask what your day rate is. Tell them what it is, maybe leaving it open, with a ‘I usually charge round .….’. This tells them that you’re flexible to taking on the work at a slightly lower rate. Sometimes the client won’t pay more than a certain rate, so it’s better to have the gig at a reduced rate than not at all. But do not take work at a rate that is significantly lower than what you’re worth. The recruiter will think they can always secure you at this rate. And if it turns into a long time gig, you will quickly resent the pay you are on.

If you’re currently in a full time job, the recruiter will ask you what you’re on. Generally, people give a slightly higher figure than they’re already on. Then they will ask you what you want to be on — which is something around 15% more than that.

When I moved from my first to my second job, I effectively ended up doubling my salary. How? Basically, I had been in my first job for three years and was underpaid. So the salary I told the recruiter was what I really should have been on at the time. The recruiter was then able to negotiate a salary higher than this again, meaning I could move agencies and start moving up the career ladder.

You must do this with caution though. A couple of years later, a recruiter called me about work and asked what I was currently on. I stated a figure that was quite a bit above what I was being paid. As the recruiter knew the market value of someone in my position, he knew I couldn’t possibly be on that much and was none too happy that I had lied to him. You can exaggerate a little, but don’t push it.

A good tool to have.

So, back to the question of whether to use recruiters or not. Well, as you can see, they can be very useful to find work. They have inside knowledge of the industry, many inside contacts and the ability to negotiate your salary and contract for you. I guess, I like to think of them as one tool to use in any job search. In the end I think the best person you’re ever going to find to help you search for a job — is you.

It’s true. Our environment affects the way we work. I remember an agency where I once worked, I found it really hard to be productive as it was a bit like being in a science lab. Think; concrete floors and stark white blank desks – heaven forbid you had work on your desk! Although sleek and well designed, it was not conducive to creative thinking. As designers we hope our offices are designed in an inspirational manner. It is definitely easier to think and be motivated and inspired in such surroundings. Here’s a few creative spaces I would love to work in.…

Ogilvy

A boardroom that changes colour.

I’d be pretty impressed if I was a client sitting in this reception. Ogilvy in Cape Town is one of the largest advertising agencies in the world. No excuse for a lack of creativity in this building Oglivy

Three Rings Design

After the whole office gave input into their wants and needs for the office design, the theme for the space was decided on — Victorian / Steam Punk.Photo credit and interior design;LLC & Three Rings San Francisco

Mono

Mono Minneapolis

Nothing

The offices at Nothing are made entirely of cardboard. The idea being to create an office that is nothing, a blank canvas on which people can leave their mark.Pretty bleeding obvious it’s Amsterdam, what other country wouldn’t shut down this place for OHS reasons… Love the Dutch! Nothing Amsterdam

Parliament

Photos care of Lincoln Harbour Parliament Design Portland

Oktavilla

Photos care of Oktovilla Stockholm

JWT

Photos care of JWT New York

Michon

At Michon, they believe they work better in light and bright surroundings. They transformed what was formerly an old school into a creative agency.Michon UK

Design by Front

Design By Front Nth Ireland

Barkley

Exterior photos; Allistair Goodman, interior photos; Ron Berg

Got a great looking studio?

Please email us your pics and we will add them (reference:“The Best Looking Design Studio in the World”). Email: admin@thegraphicdesignschool.com