Brendan Murphy

On October 15th, Brendan Murphy, a PSU alumni and senior partner for Lippincott, came back to Pitt State for a symposium. I was unable to make it to the symposium, but I’m sure it was very insightful and inspiring.

He originally came to Pitt State on a track scholarship and had taken commercial graphics as a safety net. I can kind of relate because, although commercial graphics is my primary career pursuit, I also plan on pursuing musical composition. Why not both? He also went on to say “when you’re trying to get established in your career, the craft that you learn is essential,” and mentioned that after your first year, your degree doesn’t really matter that much. Which to me, means that you have to know what your doing. Your work speaks louder than your resume. I really hope this is the case, not because I have a bad resume, I’m sure I have a good enough resume, but because I want the opportunity to let my work speak for itself. I want to be hired based on my abilities, not because of the school I went to or my past work experience. I also hope that is the case when I look for composition work, because I won’t have much of a resume for that, but I can still have a great portfolio based on my own work.

He also emphasized the importance of technical writing, saying, “Although my job is as a designer, I spend 75% of my time writing and about 5 to 10% drawing.” I can defiantly believe it, and it is good to know I’ll be making use of all this experience I’m getting with all these writing to learn classes that I can’t seem to avoid taking. He also went on to say “What Pittsburg gave me was an appreciation for typography.” I’ve defiantly learned to appreciate typography, though I wish I could take a typography class. From what I understand Pitt State used to have one a few years back, but I guess it got remove due to lack of interest. I think there is interest now…

I do find it pretty cool that he redesigned the handicapped symbol. It takes guts to redesign a symbol so well established as that one. If you think about, it is very similar to what Gap tried to do, and we all know how well that worked out for them. His redesign was received well, however, and you know he did good when a company as big and widespread as Wal-Mart adopted the design and stands at the forefront of a new idea.

He concludes with three main points. First he reminds us that technology is always changing and that we should work on our design skills and ideas, not just technological skills. I believe his exact words were, “Never fall in love with technology, because technology will change.” Well, I do love my tech, but I also love change and advancement in technology, because with every major upgrade in hardware, or new version of the Creative Suite, by design process is less hindered by the technology I need to complete my work. His second point is, “Problem solving is sort of an art. A bad consultant will give you answers. A good one will raise questions.” I suppose what he means is that a consultant should ask the client the questions that will lead them to their own solutions and ideas that they really want.

For his final point he says, “Any time there is change, you’re going to get opposition.” 

…How true is that.

Recruitment Notepad

 

Word Matrix

Thumbnail sketches

 

Rough sketch

Proof

     The assignment was to design a notepad to be given away to high school students interested in Pittstate’s GIT program. The only required specifications of the project were that it use only black ink, have 50 sheets perfect bound with chipboard backing, and it had to be designed to reach the high school demographic as an audience. After analyzing the target audience, I developed thumbnails and roughs that lead me to the design I chose.

     I thought about my experiences as a high school student, formulated a word matrix, and tried empathized with the current high school demographic. One category found in my word matrix that I could relate and empathize with was entertainment. This is a broad category that included games, movies, books, music, and commercials. I didn’t want the notepad to appear like it was specifically targeting high school students because most perspective GIT students who would see this are looking to the future beyond high school. I wanted to take a more subtle approach, so I looked at common themes and trends in entertainment that most high school students enjoyed. Several video games and movies lately have been about concepts of the future and technological advancement. Among these, some of the most popular are actually set in the past, or set in the style of the past, often to an early industrial era, or in the 1940s-60s, when the art deco was a popular architecture style. Industrial/ functional design is also a popular theme in media. I realize that I may have dug a little deep for my theme, but I think its potential is best proved in the popularity of games such as Bioshock, Fallout, and Halo and movies such as Avatar, The Dark Knight, Sherlock Holmes, and TV shows like Lost. 

     I combined the Art Deco and industrial themes and worked with it for a while until I came up with the design I created. I modeled it off of the Bioshock logo, which is a very popular game franchise currently building hype on their next release. Then I incorporated a modified version of the Kansas Tech Center aperture logo to my image for emphasis and to help create a focal point. Finally I added an industrial, riveted footer to tie the piece together and create unity and balance. I believe this design will reach many high school student demographics, especially gamers and many students interested in our GIT program.

Gap Logo “Fiasco”

       I’m not sure this whole incident with the Gap logo was really an attempt to change their identity, or simply refresh their logo. I believe it was a desperate attempt to save the company. First off all, the research I did gave no evidence of printing their new logo on anything; I think it was just a change of a file on the website. If there is a lesson to be learned, it’s that changing such a well established logo should be done with caution, but I’m not so sure this is a severe as it might appear. As for the new logo, I think I like it better than the original, It just received so much criticism because the original logo had become so well established and defined.

     My research gave no indication that their print media had been affected yet. They were probably just trying it out on the website first to gauge the public reaction. If they were fully committed to the new logo, there would have been reprints of their logo on everything, and it would have been released at the same time. It would also have been very likely that they would have announced the change before hand, if they were serious about changing it and forming a new identity for the company. I believe it was their full intent to encourage a public response, though maybe they wished it had been a little subtler.

      As I mentioned above, if there is a lesson to be learned, it would be to take great care and caution when changing logos, or design schemes for a company that has established its brand on a large scale. My first reaction to the news of the massive public outcry was that they severely damaged their brand and their company with this attempt to refresh it, but after reading a little more into the “fiasco,” I gained a new perspective. I had already assumed that this was a desperate attempt to recover their fading company, but what I hadn’t thought of before, was that maybe this was a success. Maybe they wanted this fiasco for the publicity. I remember hearing somewhere, “Bad publicity is better than no publicity.” This could have been, all along, just a publicity stunt. Further evidence to this conclusion is their “attempt to recover.” After the public outrage, they replaced the new logo with the old, and put up a contest on Facebook for the public to design logos, of which the best, or most popular would be chosen. They could benefit quite nicely with this event, with a new logo, new customers, and a significant increase in sales. 

     As for the logo itself, I liked the new change better than the original. The original was established, but not really much of a design, and they’re in a good place for a change right now. It took popular concepts and adapted it to fit their name. I like the new sans serif font better than the old. The old font was dated and fading in popularity. Sans serif fonts are very popular right now, and I totally agree with their choice in font. The title caps are great, and very popular. It defiantly appears less formal that the call caps serif of the first logo. This might make their product seem cheaper, in both quality and price, which may be one of the reasons people didn’t like this logo.The white-ish background is another good choice, as it is very popular (see apple).The square is fine; I do like the gradient and the placement. There is nothing wrong with this logo, in fact, it is generally quite appealing, but it conveys a completely different message than the original. The original says high class, but affordable. It could also symbolize products, in this case, clothes that are very conservative.The new logo makes the company appear much more informal, and the potential for a larger product line, as the word “Gap” is only partially inside a box and the majority of the word extends away from the box. It is more appealing to lower income groups, as it really doesn’t define which class it is designed for.

     All of these are signs that the company is broadening its target audience in an attempt to increase its customer base. I can see how its current customer base could be upset, but I think, in their current state, it is more beneficial to try to draw in more demographics. The retaining of the square in the new design was put there strategically in an attempt to retain its current customer base. This could be a major problem for the company, but if it is a publicity stunt, it could be genius, and could save a company that is fading away.