Thoughts on Digital Life

Part 4 of my summer blogs on visual design: pictures. Pictures to me are photographs, but also infographics, video and such. Because photography is the biggest thing related to pictures, my focus will mainly be the photography. Emotion A photograph captures emotion. Many of the pictures we know well capture an emotion. During my research the picture below appeared to be the most famous photo. I always thought it would be the lunchtime on a skyscraper (Charles C. Ebbets, 1932) or the napalm attack (Nick Ut, 1972) - but it appears to be this picture of an Afghan girl by Steve McCurry taken in 1985. Before you read below the image, picture an emotion with this photo and then read on to find out if it was captured as you felt it was. This is Sharbat Gula, 13 years old at the time of the picture. Her parents had died in the Soviet bombing of Afghanistan and she was living in a refugee camp in Pakistan. Doesn't matter if you got it right or not - you can most certainly...

In my previous blog-post I explained I am blogging all through the summer about Visual (Web)Design. This is part 2, where we'll focus on typography. Typography According to Wikipedia typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. I feel typography is not often valued correctly. Typograpy is one of the key aspects to Visual Design. It helps in setting an emotion, when done well it helps in brand recognition. Looking at webdesign there are more things to take into consideration. Emotion Typography sets an emotion. Often people frown when I say this, but showing one particular font helps explain my message. Yes, I am using Comic Sans in this blog post! Which of the two words above looks more important? When you're using Comic Sans for the word 'help' I wonder how many people see the urgency of your request. When using the Impact font (especially in all-caps) it looks mo...

This summer I want to bring you a set of blog posts about Visual Webdesign. Recently I started noticing basic design knowledge is lost in the digital world. In the responsive era many webdesigns have become... well... kinda boring. Its all colored boxes. Many sites look quite similar. The only difference between the wireframes and the design is color. And I think Visual Webdesigners can do better. We've become lazy. This series is intended to stop designers for a single moment to realize we can do better. Visual Design is so impressive and so valuable to every project - that you need to get the basics right. Visual Webdesign I think there are 5 elements to visual webdesign: color, typography, shapes, pictures and motion. I want to dive into these elements one by one. My aim is to put a blog online weekly for the next 5 weeks - diving into one of the elements every week. This week we'll start with Color. Color There are many aspects to color. Did you kn...

Last week I was invited to visit the Hieronymus Bosch show currently showing at the Noordbrabants Museum. I was involved with the concept and realisation of the campaign website for the exhibition so I was invited to visit this amazing exhibition. Hieronymus Bosch As I stood there, alone, in front of a masterpiece I had seen on my screen over a hundred times in a period of just a few weeks I was amazed how interesting it really is. Hieronymus Bosch died 500 years ago this year. He lived from around 1450 till 1516. The paint on those paintings, the concept, the realisation has been made over 500 years ago. Yet, if you look at the big success of the exhibition, people still find his work amazing and want to see it. After 500 years it still matters greatly. Webdesign It's a big contrast to my work. My work is always fast and temporary. A website, app or anything else I create is not timeless. The campaign website for Hieronymus for instance runs from Jan 1st until the end...

First of all I'd like to apologize for the delay in posting. I've been pretty busy (freelance) and I was doubting this blog for a while. It played a part in me losing my job, so I was a bit reluctant to post again... So my apologies, excuse me and let's give it another go. TV shows for kids Something struck me over the past weeks, something I noticed in TV shows my kids were watching. When I grew up there was Teddy Ruxpin, Fraggle Rock, Gummi Bears, Mask, Dungeons & Dragons and He-Man. There were more, take a look at some of the intro's here . Quite nostalgic to me, pretty dated when my kids look at them. I've seen a lot of more recent shows together with my daughter and my son. They watch shows like Dora, Diego, Bubble Guppies, Blaze and the Monster Machines, Paw Patrol, Ni Hao Kai Lan. All of these more recent shows have something in common. Something the old shows I enjoyed didn't have. Character interaction Dora, Diego, Kai Lan and all...

Over the past days I've seen a lot of blogs about design. I've read about digital design, mobile first, dynamic design, content first... Every blogger or company seems to have found a different approach or name for design. Is it all new then? Simply put - I don't think so. The term Digital Design for instance is a bit funky when you consider all printed work has been made on computers for the past 2 decades (at least). So design has been digital for a while. Obviously they mean the output will be viewed digitally - but to call it Digital Design to me is a little bit odd as that name covers more than intended. So why do we have to invent all these new names for the old fox called Design? I think a lot of it is down to being noticed. Companies and staff, now more than ever, have to be present. You have to be present to get more business, find clients, attract new staff, be noticed in the big field of players. Have an opinion and be noticed. The importance of design I t...

New Year Resolutions are often a bit strange. As if you haven't done something correct this year and need to change for the better the next year. Well, maybe you didn't do anything wrong this year. But I'd like to put some thoughts forward for 2015. 1. Think first, act after In my previous post I was already raving about Design Principles. Next year I will try implement those more often. Sometimes projects were so small this year that I simply couldn't sell Design Principles as part of the project. Next year I will always set Design Principles for every project - even if we can't charge it to anyone. They should be a part of the project. 2. Quality When you've been working in the business for 16 years there's the danger of routines. In the past I've seen people get stuck into a routine that worked and I have always vowed to move out when that happens. I'd feel like you put a coin in me for me to dance. Dance monkey! As I do every year I vow...