As long as I’m sharing work, here is a server diagram I made this week, with a few specific titles removed. It was another last minute request; “Got plans tonight? Too bad. It’s 5pm now. If I can get this by 10am tomorrow, that’d be great...” I didn’t edit the information architecture much, but I used the creative style to pay homage to one of my favorite video games of all time, Zaxxon.
Mike Cravey, Patrick Fox, and I did some work a few weeks ago that was out of the ordinary for our standard job responsibility, so I thought I’d share. We usually do web work, so a print piece is rare enough. A chance to do illustration and creative information design is even more rare.
Although I’m not 100% happy with the project, overall I think it turned out well. I’m especially happy how the planning meeting went. Typically, a request would come in from the other office, we’d research and create a solution and explain our reasons to the project manager. The project manager would then misinterpret our intention and present our work to the “decision-makers.” Instead of effective solutions, the project would usually erode into crap because the decision-makers want it that way and we should do whatever they want.
We received this diagram, and others, on Wednesday, two weeks ago. The request was, Make them better.
Within a few minutes, I had sketches to show the Managing Director (MD). Because of the short timeline, we presented the sketches directly to the MD instead of channeled through the Project Managers. Picture a conference table with three designers on one side, and an MD surrounded by Project Managers on the side. After presenting our initial idea, one project manager actually said, No, you can’t do that because our consultants gave us these diagrams, the client is used to seeing it this way, and they won't understand it if you change it.
She wanted us to window-dress the squares.
I responded, I don't you’re giving the client enough credit. They already figured out how to read these confusing diagrams, so if we can make the diagrams more intuitive and logical, how will that confuse them? Wouldn’t better diagrams make the concepts easier to understand?
Luckily, we convinced the right person and got the approval to do the diagrams. They needed to be done the next day, so we worked from 1pm to 11pm that night. We divided the work and decided on a consistent style. I worked on the icon set (enlarged for web resolution) while Mike and Patrick laid out the final diagrams.
The completed diagram is pictured here. The main difference in the information architecture is the circular path (from the applicants’ request to their receipt) instead of the back-and-forth, roundabout path from the previous diagram. Keep in mind that this is for a print proposal, not for web. The high-resolution vector prints look much smoother than their web counterparts. Yes, I realize it is not color-blind friendly, but what’s done is done...
From CSS 2.0 Programmer’s Reference (C’mon, I’m at work. Give me a break.) by Eric Meyer:
First, if the property
widthhas a value ofauto, replace it with the intrinsic width of the element.
Corbis is giving away an Apple-a-day (that’s a Mac G5 and 23-inch Apple Display) every weekday in April. This isn’t a joke, but the catch is, you have to be a professional graphic designer, art director, creative director, art buyer, copyrighter, photo editor, or a related positions in which you are authorized to purchase, evaluate, or use graphics, images, or motion footage from an outside vendor.
Sweet. The odds are better for me.
Doug and Dave stole each other’s site designs. Those thieves! How dare they!? Second place: multiple jokes on the WaSP.
Google announced Gmail, a new web email service. I haven’t read everything, but the main reason it looks fishy is the “Google approach to email” which says “Search, don't sort.” and “Don't throw anything away.” The main reason I think it might not be a joke is that they announced it before April 1st — I saw it for the first time yesterday — and it wouldn’t be very funny if they cheated. Also, it’s not implausible that Google would offer a web mail service. Anyone know for sure one way or the other?
Update: Gmail appears to be real. Google had another April Fool joke today.
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