Some days ago, Xavi Boronat invited us to give a Chill Laus conference. The Chill Laus are a series of events organised by Spain’s Art Director Club ADG-FAD, where notable designers or studios present themselves.
Martí Sáiz and Miquell Munill
Reduced video (in Spanish) here:
You can see the full conference here (Spanish).
Today we want to talk about a commission which will never win a LAUS or Art Directors Club award. We do like the award winning kind of projects, but many times they seem to be made mostly to appeal to other designers, and sometimes even can make graphic design look like a frivolous profession.
Some time ago we designed a book named “Viu l’envelliment actiu”, “Live ageing actively”, for Obra Social “la Caixa”. As the title says, it’s a book about the ageing process and its possible, or probable, effects on our physical and mental abilities.
I remember when Lourdes from Obra Social “la Caixa” first explained the project, and gave some specific requirements: big font size, good chromatic contrast, weight, size, and so on, all about good readability for seniors.
It was a complicated job which lasted over almost a year. Each and every graphic decision was made taking in account optimum readability. At some point it resembled more an investigation than a job, and stretched the budget to breaking point. But looking back we feel a special satisfaction: graphic design at its best, fulfilling a social function.
Famous publicist Luis Bassat from Bassat Ogilvy & Mather, in 1994 estimated that the number of visual stimuli a person is exposed to amounts to 2.000—daily. And that was 17 years ago.
Studio Smack of Breda (Holland) has taken a taken a walk through a city and has then isolated the graphic design elements found on the way. The film’s name “Kapitaal” invites a critical refecletion on the plague of visual stimuli in our time.
As graphic designers we have the responsability to avoid unnecessary graphic noise and streamline visual communication to make it more effective, for the best of our clients and innocent passer-bys.
What do you think? Which one of these two logos has a better graphic design? Ryanair’s, a logo with a “cheap” look, lively colours and imperfect kerning? Or Lufthansa’s, designed with Helvetica —a typography revered by graphic designers— with perfect spacing?
From a traditional Graphic Designer’s point of view, the better design clearly is Lufthansa’s. But… which logo stands for the company which has changed the rules of the flying business? Ryanair’s.
We dont want to discuss which design is more beautiful, or better resolved. We just wanted to visualize the power of Graphic Design to represent a company’s values with Corporate Identity’s minimal expresion: a logo.
So we played around a bit and changed the code.
Here’s to the power of Graphic Design!
Inspired by “Blinds in the supermarket” by Julia Font.