Design with a side of Slaw

I admit it I’m a BBQ-aholic and a sucker for good design. Recently, I have started to combine those two passions and have found they have a lot in common in their methods and approaches.

When getting ready to BBQ and design you need to follow a few steps:
1. Plan ahead
2. Prepare
3. Use the right tools
4. Expect surprises
5. Adapt
6. Present the final product

1. Plan ahead
Before you start to BBQ you need to plan ahead. You need to know what you’re cooking, who you’re cooking for and the amount of people you’re cooking for.

In design you need to do the same. You need to know what you’re creating, who your audience is and how big your target audience is.

2. Prepare
Once you know if you’re cooking brisket, pork, ribs or chicken you have to procure the items in the correct amount for the number of people you’re feeding and then prepare it, whether that is trimming the meat, marinating it, rubbing it or whatever.

When you design you have to create sketches, decide colors and prepare copy, along with other things. If you do plan and prepare it makes the whole job much easier.

3. Use the right tools
This one should not be a big surprise.

If I’m smoking 32 pork butts for an event I know I’m not going to use my little backyard smoker that can hold, maybe, six pork butts. Or if I’m cooking for family I’m not going to fire up the huge smoker that can do 32 butts.

If I’m creating a presentation I’m not going to use Indesign or Illustrator, I’ll use Keynote or PowerPoint. If I need to create a brochure I’m not going to use Word, I’ll use Indesign.

Using the right tools will save you time and energy as you don’t have to work as hard when you do.

4. Expect surprises
When I BBQ I always expect something will happen that I didn’t think of. I might not have enough wood, the cooker isn't heating up as fast as I would like, it's raining, or a myriad of other things. Each surprise that happens can effect the time of the cook and the outcome. Planning ahead helps to minimize this but some things are just out of our control and you have to adapt.

In design the client might change their mind, give you the wrong copy or specs, the wrong logo or the wrong images. Again planning ahead can help mitigate these problems but if they do arise you need to be able to be flexible enough to change things and adapt.

5. Adapt
When surprises happen you have to adapt your plan. You may even need to call in help. If your cookers temp is too low due to weather you can add more fuel to stoke the fire. If you find your temperature is too high you know your cooking time will be shorter so you need to plan what to do with the meat if it's done early.

Over the course of a project ideas and needs can change and as a designer you need to be ready to adapt your design to those changes. To correct things the client wants. Design is not about you and your body of work but about what the client needs and wants.

If you receive the wrong specs you can rescale everything to a larger or smaller size. If you have the wrong colors you can change them out.

Communicating with the client will help to ensure you have what you need and also help to make sure the project is exactly what they need.

6. Present the final product
Once the BBQ is made you have to serve it up. When cooking for family it is a simple, put it on a plater or in a bowl and let them at it. If you are doing competition you have have to present it and depending on what type of competition will determine your presentation. In one type you have to serve the judges at your cook site, show them your cooking process and give them a dinning experience. In another, you have to send the meat into a panel of judges placed in a standard box so it looks nice.

Once you have your final design you need to present it to the client. Depending on how you and the client decide it should be presented you may need to mount it on matt board, send them a PDF or give them a color digital proof. But whatever way you do it, it needs to be professional and ready for their sign-off.

As you can see both BBQ and design processes share much in common. Part of the pleasure I find in design and BBQ is the process you have to go through to get to the final product. Each part gets you a step closer to the final and once you get there you can enjoy it and know that you have a job well done.

What's on your shelf?

Recently My wife and I did some rearranging in our game room. We wanted to move some bookshelves around to make some more room and change where the tv was located. This meant removing all the books off the book shelves and going through them.

We removed a few to donate to local libraries and other places which made more room for the books we kept. It made it possible for me to have a graphic design book shelf where I can actually see what books I have.

I have two binders from HOW Conferences which are full of great info I like to refer back to. The next book is Political Graphics which deals with WWI to cold war era propaganda.

I have two versions of the GAG pricing and ethics guides. These are always useful when trying to price work or needing a contract or other form a designer or artist would use.

Next is a Logo Lounge book, I wish I had more of these. These are great reference materials to see what logos are out there and also to see some of the best logos being produced.

Then there are the two books by Von Glitschka. One is a texture book the other a pattern book. Both are great and they come with a DVD of art you can use in your work, not to mention Von is a pretty cool guy.

There are two books by Jeff Fisher one on identity design and the other on how to run your freelance business. Both of which he has been doing for years.

The other two books I will mention are the Caffeine for the Creative Mind and Group. These are great to get you out of a rut. If your stuck and need a fun project that will help you to think differently about things these two will do it. If you work with a team you can use them for team building excersizes.

The rest of the books are ones that I have found interesting or useful in growing myself as as designer. There is also a section of notebooks and sketch books containing ideas from over the years.

So what's on your shelf? What books have helped you in your design career or have inspired you? Leave a comment about them.

Building Creativity

LEGO. Those small blocks our kids leave on the floor so in the middle of the night we step on them with bare feet thus waking the household. Oh, the memories. I grew up with LEGO. Never knew a day without it. My parents were studying language in Switzerland many years ago and invited some friends over for dinner. As was the custom, they brought the hosts a gift which happened to be LEGO for my older brother. That was when the collection started (40+ years ago).

Ever since I can remember, I have played with LEGO. It was always my brothers until I turned four. That was when I got my very own set. It was a small blue rally car, probably supposed to be a Fiat. I built the car and played with it, slept with it, did everything with it… for about a week. Then I pulled it apart and started to create new things with it. It was swallowed up by my brothers LEGO, but that was ok. Since that point until much later a birthday just wasn’t a birthday unless I received one LEGO set, large or small it didn’t matter.

My imagination would run wild with LEGO. I built cars, ships, houses, forts, castles anything I could think of. Then they started to release the theme LEGO. Castle LEGO, space LEGO and city LEGO. All those cool parts just waiting to be explored. I would get the set build it according to the directions play with it for a bit and then tear it all apart and build something bigger and better.

My buddies and I would build Star Wars ships (yes, this was before Star Wars LEGO) and reenact scenes from the movies. We would have all out wars with space men being knights and races with cars we built. My brother and I even built a LEGO chess board.

Now my kids and nephews play with the LEGO and when they are playing and I’m around I get, “Uncle Steve will you play LEGO with us?” I’ll sit down and find a bunch of random parts and start building. One Saturday one of my nephews actually called me to ask if I would come over and play LEGO with them. They are in awe of whatever it is I come up with. Sometimes they ask me where the instructions are and I answer, “In my head.”

Playing with LEGO as a kid has helped me to think a bit differently, to imagine and create. It has inspired me as a designer. The LEGO set you get in the box is fun. You can build it, set it on your shelf and play with it every now and then, but the true fun of LEGO is to build the set then tear it apart and make something new.

Design is similar. You have to learn how the basics of design work, how your corporate and branding guidelines work before you can break it apart and create something new. Your basics of design and guidelines are your building blocks that you can put together infinite ways. Like having one LEGO set you get certain bits, but you can create and put it together infinite ways. It takes time, but as you build new designs and play with the blocks you have, you get better.

Got to go. There's a pile of bricks waiting to be turned into something cool.

Design for the Why

Recently I watched a TED video about how great leaders inspire actions. One of the things he said really struck me about advertising. We shouldn't design for the “what” but for the “why.”

I also watched “Art & Copy” which is a movie about advertising and inspiration. As I watched it I noticed that some of the best advertising campaigns and tag lines hit the “Why?” on the mark. A couple of the ads they talk about are the 1984 Apple ad, Nike’s “Just Do It.” and “Got Milk?”

The Apple ad is a classic. Not once does it show the product in the ad but it does show the logo and introduces us to the resonating idea behind the Macintosh, a change, freedom from one system the ability for anyone to use a computer. The rest of the Apple ads hit the why also; i.e., "Think Different" and the "Get a Mac." The why of what they do is behind all their ads.

Nike’s “Just Do It.” got to the core of what they, as a company, are about. Getting people out and exercising, preferably wearing Nike shoes. There ads focused on people doing not on what they wore. At the very end of the ads they showed the shoe. In “Art & Copy” they discuss how the “Just Do It.” phrase effected people and how it gave people the courage to make a change. It motivated them to get up and do “it.”

The third slogan “Got Milk?” goes to that fear you have each morning with a bowl of cereal or in the evening with a rich slice of chocolate cake. The original ad of the guy getting the prize phone call and not being able to answer because he is out of milk hits the mark. They do mention the product but they get to the “why” of the “what.”

Too often as designers we focus on the “what” when we should be focus more on the “why.”

Low Country Gold

I'm on a BBQ competition team and every now and than I get to do some design work for it. Recently we decided to custom label a sauce and I designed the label. Projects like this are great, as I love both design and BBQ and can do my own thing. Ultimately the owner of the team has sign off so I do have to make sure my design fits his vision.

Once we decided to label a sauce we had to come up with a name. We had chosen a mustard style sauce that fit well with the low country style of the Carolinas BBQ. We suggested names to each other as we brain stormed some were decent, Carolina Gold, some not so much, Butt Juice. We finally settled on Catchafire for Q Low Country Gold.

The name sounded good and I figured the hard part was done. I was wrong.

As I approached this design I wanted it to be specific for the product but generic enough to use the design with other possible BBQ sauces, rubs and hot sauces. I also wanted the design to stand out among other sauces. Many sauces have a similar look to the label design so they don't differentiate themselves when sitting on a shelf. Buyers shop with their eyes first.

So I turned to my sketch book. I find I have better results if I work in analog before I go digital for this type of work. I also find I am working through various designs in my head too. During this project I had a brilliant idea for the label when I woke one morning. I sketched it out and then created on the computer. It didn't translate well for the look I wanted.

After a couple more days of sketching and letting the ideas percolate, it hit me. I did rough sketch of my idea so I wouldn't forget it and when I had time later I created it in the computer. At first it wasn't working for me but after looking at it and tweaking it here and there it started to coleus into what my vision was.

You may purchase a bottle of it over at the Catchafire for Q web site

Thinking Different

I came across this image on FFFFOUND! today. FFFFOUND! is a site I like to go to when I need some inspiration or just need to look at the world in a different way. Some of the pictures are risque (so be warned), some are frighting, some are odd and many are just plain interesting.

When I saw the boat table I thought, "Now that's innovation." How often are we asked to create something with what we have on hand. We have to look at what we have and see it in a different way. Just like the guy riding the table boat. He had an obstacle (the water), a boat engine and a table. He solved his problem of crossing the water by looking at the table in a different way and using "Design Thinking."

Instead of being overwhelmed by a problem and thinking we can't do it because we don't have the resources, we should look at what we do have and find new uses for it.

Why should we let a little thing like water stop us from doing what we need too? Flip that table over, slap an engine on it and go full throttle.

Design Thinking

The other day I was listening to the Reflex Blue Show from 36 Point. They were interviewing Bill Grant and he used the term “Design Thinking.” I had never heard of it before. Being a designer, it piqued my curiosity so I did what anyone else would do. I Googled it. I came across the Wikipedia entry and they defined design thinking as -

“Design thinking is a process for practical, creative resolution of problems or issues that looks for an improved future result.[1] It is the essential ability to combine empathy, creativity and rationality to meet user needs and drive business success”

After doing some more research, I found there were various number of steps for the process ranging from four to eight. Also the process when applied is not a start and stop process but a continual one. The final step leads back to the first step so there is constant improvement and refinement.

I laughed to myself as I thought, “Hey that’s what I’ve been doing for a while now and never even realized it.” In fact it is part of my design process. When I started my design business I knew I needed a process or a way to explain how I work. After much thought I boiled it down to four words, each encapsulating a different part of the process - Imagine. Explore. Design. Create.

Imagine. Defining the problem. Identifying the audience. Determining the goal.

Explore. Examining solutions. Creating options. Considering and researching possibilities.

Design. Brainstorming options. Refining and selecting the direction. Putting ideas on paper.

Create. Reviewing the goal. Choosing the best design. Executing the final product.