I’ve been reading Just My Type by Simon Garfield, and along the way I’ve discovered countless intriguing stories behind some of my favorite typefaces. Who knew that Mrs. Eaves left Mr. Eaves for John Baskerville? Or that furniture giant IKEA actually caused a public outcry when it changed its primary typeface from Futura to Verdana? Don’t even get me started on the GAP’s recent social media publicity stunt.

Typography is one of those things that can fade into the background. While clients often have strong opinions on colors, images, and even the layout of a design piece, type decisions sometimes slip under the radar. Most people view fonts in a long list from a dropdown menu as a part of their personal computer. Few stop to consider the colorful history and the hours of time spent creating each individual character.

Enter graphic designers. Most of us went to school and studied art history, or maybe even took a class on the history of design. We don’t just like type, we’re obsessed with it. Why, then, do we so often take its history for granted? When was the last time you chose a typeface for a design based on its historical context as well as its aesthetic and marketing value?

I challenge not just my fellow designers, but everyone who has ever written an email or created a PowerPoint presentation – research your type. You’ll learn what subliminal messages your font choices are sending, and you just might discover an extraordinary story. If nothing else, you’ll never look at an advertisement, magazine spread, or roadside sign the same way again.

Last month we attended BarCampPhilly for another inspiring year of unconference learnings. Throughout the day we attended sessions on game development (a big thing in Philly right now), crowdsourcing, redefining the public computer space, Internet art, and even gender issues in our industry. The few times we were interested in overlapping sessions, we could follow along with the lively event hashtag. 

As BarCamp wound down, we were refreshed and invigorated, ready to do great work for our clients and for ourselves. Then along came this week’s TedXPhilly, the second year the Ted speaker’s series that describes itself as “a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading” has come to Philly.  

But here’s the thing – we couldn’t attend TedxPhilly. Didn’t get tickets, and though we’d have loved to go, we didn’t sweat it too much, because we knew we could follow along via hashtag. And wow, were we glad we did. The speaker lineup featured an impressive array of (young!) people representing an array of backgrounds and interests. Poets, a transportation technologist, an architecture critic, canning enthusiast, physician, movie makers and mural painters, amongst others – all with one thing in common: an interest in improving our local community. Hours before he would win re-election, Mayor Nutter stopped by TedxPhilly to kick things off. And after all the inspiring talks we heard and followed via Twitter hashtag, we hope he was listening as he begins his next term. 

Because if we have theses great people and great ideas working for Phil

For more details, and to glean some of the presentations and words of inspiration, follow the TedxPhilly hashtag here.

One of the most common things we hear from small business owners is how overwhelmed they feel by the marketing process. Selling your business requires an incredible amount of effort, and can be quite a challenge for those entrepreneurs who would prefer to concentrate on creating and perfecting their craft rather than selling it.  

We recently met a young woman (Not a client. Yet!) who was starting her own business in Philadelphia. A smart woman with a great idea for a service to parents, she was experiencing some early success with her newly opened business. Her chief complaint was that she never estimated the amount of time it took to market and sell her business, which she could only do in the hours when she wasn’t actively running the business. All to often the small business owner isn’t prepared to think of marketing and branding beyond the storefront and logo.

No one ever said the life of the entrepreneur was an easy one. Or a 9 to 5 one. But we’re firmly of the camp that marketing should be an important a part of the business plan. A trusted marketing partner will help you understand how your business will be different from the competition, and how you can/should/will communicate this messaging to your target customers. 

Many small business owners we work with have a name in mind, and probably a color scheme. It’s our job to evaluate and determine how these colors fit the “brand” (that doesn’t exist yet), and how this color is represented by competitors. (Things clients who are focused on their big idea don’t even think about. And nor should they.) 

Next we’ll help them establish a web presence. Go ahead and grab all URLs and user names of relevant social media sites whether you know you want to use them right away or not. Not sure what to put out there? Should you blog? We’ll help with that too. And we haven’t even gotten into the actual advertising yet. Most small business owners are frustrated or overwhelmed with the idea of creating ads, emails, radio spots, etc. We love holding hands and helping these entrepreneurs get their business into the eyes and ears of consumers. 

All these nuances of marketing help play into the bigger picture. And now that consumers have more power, and are part of the marketing conversation online, it’s more important than ever to make sure you’re putting your best voice forward.

Congratulations! 

Navigating the working world is awesome and exciting, but can be a little daunting if it’s also your first time joining a “professional” environment. Fortunately, many of the skills that helped you succeed in your retail or food service job (you’ve had at least one of those, right?) will be applicable here too. Show up on time, greet and treat the customers with personality and politeness, and make your boss look good. You already did all that while serving awesome blossoms or ringing up cash registers, right?

An internship is your opportunity to be a sponge. Ask lots of (smart) questions (that show you’re developing an understanding of the work or process), attend meetings, and don’t just offer to “help” your boss. Name a specific task that you believe you have the capabilities and understanding to handle and offer take that on. Because here’s the thing with being an intern. Your supervisor assumes you’re there to help, but your supervisor also has to bill hours to client jobs and also knows you’re in and out in a finite amount of time. She has to decide whether it’s worth her time to train you and bring you up to speed, or whether she should just do that particular task by itself. It’s a delicate balance, and it gets weighed every time a new crop of interns comes in. We sense the ones who really want to be there and the ones who are here because they have to be. Don’t be the latter.

We love interns. We love the bright-eyed eagerness, the dedication to changing the world, and the boundless energy. We’re on the other side now and we’re a little threatened by you, but we’re also excited for you to come in and shake things up a little. We certainly understand that it’s a lot harder to figure out what you want to be doing for the rest of your life, than it is to figure out what you don’t. We’re here to help. That’s where all those smart questions come in – if your boss is someone whose career/skills/outlook you admire, make it your goal learn as much about how they got there as possible. Obviously you must wait for an appropriate time to lobby these questions, but you’re a smart cookie. You’ll figure it out. 

So what happens when you’re internship isn’t the dream you’d once imagined? Whether it’s the culture, the work or the people, you’ve decided that your temporary employer isn’t a place you could picture yourself turning permanence. That’s A-okay. What’s not okay is slacking off during your obligation period. Since we’re speaking from an advertising/design perspective, we’ll guess that your environment may be pretty flexible and understanding – ask your supervisor if you might attend meetings for projects you’re not working on so you could learn more, and be exposed to more. Are there software programs you could be more proficient using? At the very least, learn, absorb, practice the way the business culture works. Understanding personalities and culture and how to deal with them in a professional environment will serve you in spades. 

Surely you’d still like to leave with a recommendation and a few new LinkedIn connections. Networking will be key throughout your career and making a good impression early in your career is more valuable than ever given the importance of social connecting in today’s business world.

We love having interns. We love the bright-eyed eagerness, the dedication to changing the world, and the boundless energy. Don’t lose it. 

Maryland Terrapins uniforms. 

And if you weren’t part of this conversation, we’ll show you why everyone else was.

Designed by Baltimore-based Under Armour, the Terps uniforms paid homage to the Maryland state flag, which just happens to be one of the busiest in the Union. From a graphic design standpoint, OMGHEADACHE and okay, maybe it looks like the end of a very long design and review process when your tongue tastes like coffee and you think you can’t possibly submit any more designs. 

But sports aren’t always about great design. They’re about aggression, intimidation, strength and pride. And on that front, we think the uni’s are a win. We’d certainly hate to play on the field against them. And the bilateral symmetry designs would be interesting (re: tough and horrible) from an on-field vantage. We’re imagining a 2-face scenario all over the field.

And perhaps most important of all, they’re a win from a marketing perspective. We love watching Under Armour’s next moves. We love that the scrappy startup from Baltimore, Maryland, (the CEO and co-founder played football at UMD, no surprise) is now competing with the likes of Nike… and in some categories winning. We like how they’re shaking up the industry and along those lines, the crazy, ugly, awesome – whatever you call them – Terps uniforms are a win for Maryland and a win for Under Armour.  

Check out more opinions collected from Twitter during the game and re-shared by the Huffington Post. 

Photo via Rob Carr/Getty Images.

The game becomes even more tangled when agencies and clients try to partner with their target consumers, done mostly via bloggers. Many, many brands send products to carefully selected consumers for their review and feedback. By “carefully selected” we mean influential bloggers with large followings. While this can be wildly successful, it can also backfire, as ConAgra found out recently. 

The blogger lashback from the dining event made one thing very clear: in order to get bloggers to be on your team, you gotta let them know up front who your team is.  When you set expectations, you must meet or exceed them. Promising a four-star, celebrity meal and showing up with microwave dinners is not how you execute either of these examples.

In another recent example of the power of the consumer, came last month when bloggers responded to a t-shirt being marketed to young girls with a message “I’m too pretty to do homework, so my brother does it for me.” Within 24 hours of sharing the outrage, JCPenney reacted and pulled the controversial shirt from its website Certainly by addressing the issue head-on and immediately, JC Penney’s consumer snafu will be buried quickly, and soon forgotten. Unlike Barbie-gate, which was easily recalled many times throughout the incident.

Of course, the voice of the people can also have a positive result. One man’s take on the challenge of putting his kids to sleep spread like wildfire across the internet. Fast forward a few weeks and his quirky little bedtime story was printed and being sold for real. 

The power of great packaging cannot be underestimated – many business operators (wrongly) believe the hard part is finished once the consumer walks into their shop. Packaging offers an additional touchpoint to turn a happy customer into a loyal one; and in the age of social media, where customers have more power and voice, as designers we love the opportunity to extend a brand identity into packaging.

One of our favorite packaging examples was for a special limited-edition soundtrack for The Simpsons movie. By coming up with a unique and engaging execution that aptly appeals to this audience, the design team created a must-have collection item that certainly couldn’t be replicated by purchasing the soundtrack via Mp3. How’d they do it?  An incredible “why didn’t we think of that” unit shaped like a donut box, making the soundtrack CD a smile-worthy strawberry-sprinkled treat inside.

Incredible, eye-catching packaging doesn’t have to be fancy or call for special occasion.  Any designer coming out of school would LOVE to work on an iconic, global brand, but as we get deeper into our careers, we realize that the true opportunities exist in differentiating the everyday brands, and even better: the local products and services.

We’re partial to Kleenex’s specially shaped and designed boxes from 2009, “Slice of Summer.” Great packaging helped Kleenex stand apart from competitor “tissue” brands during the hottest months of the year, and it’s definitely refreshing to see a brand mostly associated with illness taking on a lighter approach. Another favorite was voted Best in Show from the 2010 Dieline Awards. We’re inspired by the simple beauty & perfect execution of Help Remedies by ChappsMelina. 

Of course, we would be remiss not to mention Apple products. Hardware packaging to shopping bags branded only with the iconic apple logo and Myriad typeface appropriately reflects the company’s overall dedication to clean, simple design.

As practitioners, it’s our job to create packaging that makes our clients stand out from the competition and catch the attention of consumers. As artists, we should always keep an eye out for interesting and well-executed packaging in our everyday lives, in order to freshen our own creative thinking for the next project.

We could go on about packaging for paragraphs more, but we’d like to hear from you. What are some of your favorite packaging examples?  

Photography via www.thedieline.com

We’ll set the stage with a comparison many people can relate to: Facebook. Let’s say you’ve just accepted a friend request from an old high school acquaintance; they’re curious about what you’re up to, so they look at your information page to get a little background and see that your career seems interesting and successful. Next they go straight to your photos. Unfortunately, one of the first photos that comes up is that embarrassing photo someone “tagged” you in from [fill in the blank experience], but that you didn’t care too much about because it was one day and the rest of your Facebook page shows what a great person you are. Boom. Your new connection has an instant impression.

Now we’ll get back into websites. Not every company has the time or budget for a photoshoot, and not every web redesign requires custom photography (e-com sites excluded, naturally); however there are plenty of options for finding existing artwork and photography that reflect your branding in both era and in design.

Technology and fashion are the first and most obvious giveaways that your site’s photography may be in need of an update. Are the smiling, happy people on your website wearing clothes or hairstyles that went out of style a few years ago? Are they talking on cell phones, using computers or driving cars that are no longer new to the marketplace?

Seemingly small details that can leave a major impression. And not a good one. With the right collaboration and design team, your website can achieve a visual identity that feels bespoke.

Always look at your website through your target customer’s eyes. Business may be up, and your product or service may not have changed, but you still may be losing a bigger opportunity to bring in more business if your website has one or more elements that “scream” out-of-date. Like being “tagged” in an unflattering or embarrassing photo on Facebook, don’t let your business’s digital photography and imagery send the wrong message to consumers.

From navigation to message, design and imagery, if these elements don’t reflect your business today, it may be time to consider a website refresh. 

Are you creating a user-friendly, engaging experience for your website’s target viewers? One look at the site statistics should tell you clearly. What pages are your visitors using? What browsers? Are you delivering the content needs of today’s viewers or for the viewers when your site last launched?

Content, visual design, and navigation are the three critical elements of any website. Are you sharing new content to keep current and interested viewers coming back? Does your design reflect your current brand personality? And are users able to find what they’re looking for as intuitively as possible?

Not long ago, it was enough just to have a web presence. Buy the URL, stick the company logo on there and an About Us page. No longer. Today’s Internet user will access the web while she eats breakfast, on her way to work, at work, and then at home before going to bed. Obviously ecom and news organizations know the value of updating web content in real time; but even the most conservative companies can be held back by ignoring their web presence. Content must be searchable, and the navigation should be updated for a mobile-viewing audience.

We’re proud to help small companies create a valuable web experience, and we spend a lot of time finding our our clients’ needs before we even begin working on their site. As you’ve notice, we recently took our own advice and updated the Push10 site. We’ve added new clients, case studies, and even some new services. As always, you can visit the Creative Attic twice a month for new blog posts where we share what we’re looking at, thinking about and talking about in the office and on the Internet. We’re proud of the new look at Push10, and we look forward to helping other businesses evolve their digital experience to meet the needs of today’s web browser.

This isn’t the first time Twitter has made an everyday person an instant celebrity. Connectivity + instant (unfiltered) sharing is the perfect formula for creating such magic. At any time, all of us are just one Tweet away from sending a message that could change our lives forever. So we were quite impressed with the way Stephanie Gordon worked her instant fame to forward her goal of “Looking to broaden my career in event planning and social media” (as per her Twitter profile). Way to work it, girl!

Another one of our favorite examples happened when Conan O’Brien joined Twitter last year and decided to follow just one person. Conan randomly chose Sarah Killen from Michigan, whose stream was filled with normal twenty-something’s topics, like her wedding plans, her job and a charity that’s important to her. Sarah isn’t famous, didn’t have any (seemingly) aspirations to become famous, but just being followed by Conan O’Brien was good enough for 40,000+ new people to begin following her Tweets as well.

Not every Tweet (self published or having your name mentioned in someone else’s message) is welcome. Over the weekend it appeared that a personal photo was shared from New York Representative Anthony Weiner’s Twitter account. Included in the same message was the Twitter handle of Gennette Cordova, a young woman living on the West Coast. As happens with any non-sequiter behavior, the hounds began circling, trying to determine why a married political figure might send a private photo to a Twitter follower. In the process of finding out, the young woman’s personal life was poked, prodded and dissected.

The last 36 hours have been the most confusing, anxiety-ridden hours of my life. I’ve watched in sheer disbelief as my name, age, location, links to any social networking site I’ve ever used, my old phone numbers and pictures have been passed along from stranger to stranger.

The woman went into damage-control overtime for an incident she was (as it turned out) innocently involved in. While her bank account may be safe, she might be a victim of a new form of “identity theft” where random users are targeted for nothing more than reputation damage.

Twitter and other forms of social media have fast-forwarded the news cycle to warp (and warped) speeds. As we saw in the “Botox Mom” story picked up by Good Morning America, shocking “news” took precedent over fact checking.

If there’s one thing that social media teaches us – there are no takebacks. Our culture craves news, and prizes being the first to deliver. We saw that with the NASA tweet, the Hudson River tweet and we’ll see it again. The Twitter democracy means that we could see it from anyone, anywhere at any time. And as practitioners, it’s (all) our responsibility to ensure truth before speed.