Give it up to a franchise like "The Simpsons" for not only have the confidence to look introspectively, the merchandising industry but simultaniously jamming their thumb in the eye of capitalism all at once. This would in most circles be thought of as brand suicide but I guess that's just another day for Matt Groening.
I happen to like Daniel Craig as James Bond, I relise that I'm in the minority about this but I like the humanity he's brought to the character. Look, know one beats 'The Connery' we all know that but I dig Craig's groove. Let's move past this and go to what we've come here for graphic design bliss. All designers can all agree that the two things they'd love to do more than anything would be design a progressive paper sample book and the opening sequence to a movie of a client that would give them the creative freedom to do so. The first time I saw the opening to this film I was only upset it was in the theater so I could not rewind it and watch it again. N-Joy.
"Project Management Software (PMS) is a term covering many types of software, including scheduling, cost control and budget management, resource allocation, collaboration software, communication, quality management and documentation or administration systems, which are used to deal with the complexity of large projects." ~ Wikipedia
Have you heard someone say "that file's in Basecamp?" Well, they weren't talking about a tent somewhere on a mountainside filled with frozen flash-drives. They were talking about a PMS. More often than not, a PMS is browser-based software that acts as a location where projects are developed, built, tested, approved, tracked, QA'd and ultimately released to be launched.
"Well this is a web thing, Justice. We do mostly print and television, this doesn't apply to me. Go on! Run along now."
OK, so rather than have a place that all your PDF comps live and the client can speak to them in a linear fashion, you'd rather push them back and forth by email, cell phone calls and endless WebEx meetings. And in that time, you've never deleted an email have you? You've never had a client approve something verbally only to tell you, "I never said that." You've never had scope creep or been pinned to a deadline with no way of proving that they did, indeed, delay production by not getting back to you by an agreed time? Well I invite you to submit a change order to those moments and tell me how it goes. <evil grin>
Are you starting to see that a universal repository for all communication during the approval process not only protects the client but protects you as well? If you're new to this thinking because 'this is the way it's always been done,' I invite you to try one project within any of the outlined systems below and see if you can find benefit. Look, change is hard. It sucks and your staff will hate you for it initially, but they hate you anyways 'cause you have a nicer office and cooler mustache, purse, seashell collection or whatever. The bottom line is whether you're a single-person freelancer that wants to manage your accounts better or you're a LARGE agency that needs to get everyone back into a structured environment, I would highly recommend you look into a PMS without delay.
The benefits are endless:
What to look for in an PMS:
Full List Of PMS With A Comparative Chart
A Quick-Hit List Of PMS's:
Sharepoint Based PMS:
Issue-Tracking (AKA: "Debugging") Systems Comparison Chart
Collaborative Software With Comparison Chart
iGoogle – http://www.google.com/ig
First let me begin by telling you that I [have] to use an RSS or Feed reader like iGoogle to keep on top of so much data. There's simply not enough time in the day to go and look at each website that I think has value and try to pass these nuggets onto you. Therefore, I would go a look at what RSS feed reader/aggregator makes the most sense to you. Oh, and if you have an iPhone or an iPad, you must use Pulse -- it's a beautiful intuitive aggregator.
Aardvark – http://www.Vark.com
I stumbled on this site after reading what former Google executives were doing with their winnings. I'm what you would call a "helper." I like to help. I think it feeds my co-dependant nature to nurture beyond necessary reason. That being said, Aarvark is a profiled Q&A site. You set up a profile and answer questions and ask questions to people that match your topics. It's fun and fast and you can get or give as much as you would like.
Advertising Age – http://www.AdAge.com
This is the part of the awards ceremony that the guy says "and this person needs no introduction"; that holds true with Ad Age as well to members of our business. Ad Age also has an iPhone/iPad app that I would also put my seal of approval on. A great industry overview, very current and topical. Be sure that you get your office to pay for a subscription.
Ad Freak – http://www.AdFreak.com
This website is as fun as it is insightful. A myriad of great writers look to find the most bizarre and innovative advertising and poke fun at it. Frankly, there's so much advertising out there that we never see, so it's nice to see Ad Freak give attention to all sorts of campaigns, not just the larger brands. There's plenty to enjoy here.
Advergirl – http://www.Advergirl.com
Leigh Householder is a Digital Brand Strategist at GSW Worldwide and author of this blog. Householder is incredbily insightful, not simply from an industry perspective but from a female perspective. Her thinking ranges broadly and there's not a post that I haven't learned from. I highly recommend keeping an eye on her content.
Brand Freak – http://www.BrandFreak.com
As you would expect, much like AdFreak, BrandFreak does a great job in serving interesting and often humorous perspectives on the world of brand. While not as snarky as AdFreak, it is still great content and should go on your list.
Cool Hunting – http://www.CoolHunting.com
Among my many interests are things that I and others find "cool" and thus my preoccupation with cool/trend hunting. Mind you, it's not easy to do in a city like Orlando where Asian men can pull off wearing a hot orange hunting jacket in the middle of summer and every other dude thinks "mandles" are in. With that said I like to see where the trends are actually taking place, not simply taking vacation.
Cool Hunter – http://www.thecoolhunter.net/
See above.
Fast Company – http://www.FastCompany.com
If you're worth your salt, this should be on your list. Fast Company is globally recognized as staying progressive when it comes to the entrepreneurial spirit, among other things. It has also fully embraced the design community and, as a whole, has great information. It, along with soon to be outlined "Inc.," are in a class by themselves of making our world quickly digestible from a business sense.
Gizmodo – http://www.Gizmodo.com
To say that I'm into gadgets is like asking Anthony Bourdain if he's into wine. The only real thing that revents me from buying, playing with and testing every cool new gadget that comes out is the lack of funds and the firm understanding that I would be doing it as a single father if I was to choose such a path.
Inc. – http://www.inc.com
As I said above about Fast Company, Inc. is a great magazine with outrageously good content. Admittedly, at times it's a bit more business than I think I savvy, but that's why I read it. It pushes me to think more like a business. I'm sorry to say that the dream of sitting around and coming up with "pretty pictures" is also tied to the ruthless reality that you'd better be prettier than everyone else or you will be assisting janitorial at a truck stop.
Jalopnik – http://www.Jalopnik.com
There are many great things that I love when it comes to design: fonts, logos, layouts, great concepts -- that carries further over into industrial design and interior design as well for me. With that comes a long time love addiction with the worst fiscal hobby ever – automobiles. There was once a day that I (and my wife respectively) was "fast and furious" and with that came a extrinsic love, not only for all things fast, but a deep appreciation for the design of transportation as a whole. This site's a great read and hits a lot of hot spots.
Linkedin "Answers" – http://www.linkedin.com/answers/
Much like Aarvark's website, Linkedin "Answers" are a bit more custom tailored to your particular interests. All you need to do is search topics or drive down a bit into an applicable category that you contain expertise in and away you go. Believe it or not, it can be a great place to meet like-minded companies, create leads and get answers published as content. I've seen many a reporter/writer aggregating content for their materials there.
Mashable – http://www.mashable.com
I should call this site "the Mothership." It's like one-stop shopping for all things current and topical in multiple industries and hits my interested square in the head with a hammer! From Social Media to viral to development and mobile, they have great writers that are very aggressive. It's no wonder this site is at the top of the heap and will stay their if they don't get greedy or lazy.
MediaPost – http://www.mediapost.com
From the mothership to the Costco of content – Media Post has a ton of stuff. But like Costco, I don't always need a 5 gallon drum of peanut butter or a barrel of rice. With that said, if you take the time to sort all of Media Post's RSS feeds and make them their own page, you can drink from the firehose with a great amount of success.
Smashing Magazine – http://www.smashingmagazine.com/
For the designer/developer, this is very much your Mashable.com. It's an awesome accumulation of great inspirationally-driven posts with long lists of visual examples to not only talk and discuss design and developmental trends, but show them in practical application. This site is a must -- even if you're not a designer, it's a great read.
The Social Path – http://www.thesocialpath.com/
I was fortunate in my career to work for an agency named Luckie & Co. in Birmingham Alabama. Among their richly talented staff was a small but able social department headed up by David Griner. David and the team at Luckie have had enormous success in their social campaigns and between he and David Stutts at http://luckierethinktank.com/, they can provide a great deal of valuable FREE insight. Additionally, they're both a big fans of plagerism of their work, so I would highly advocate you copy and paste anything they have to say and claim it as your own.
Wired – http://www.wired.com/
If you've never picked up a Wired magazine, then you're either totally uninterested in the technology/scientific culture or you're just a hater of all things nerdy and cool. That being said, Wired, as we all know, has on the forefront of technology content since its first publish date in March of '93.
Just got done reviewing the attached slide share from Made By Many's Tim Malbon and Stuart Eccles' presentation at Planningness. Now mind you when (if) you should dive through these slides you do have to do it in a way that is a bit presumptive on the content. Nevertheless, I found that I still manage to get a great deal from SlideShare documents and highly recommend them as a resource.
Takeaways:
Presentation Summary:
Recently, I told many of you on my Facebook page that I was going to do a post about the newly released Guggenheim show "Play" that's a partnership between YouTube.com and the museum franchise respectively. I must say that I'm disappointed in show. But first let me support my opinion with some caveats. There is indeed an amalgam of wonderful work here, the Guggenheim simply miss the understanding that by allowing YouTube to be the platform so should the content be from the people. Pure user generated content (UGC) is what most of YouTube is actually filled with. Instead we got filmmakers (all do respect going to your ability and craft) using YouTube to submit work. It felt like most of it was slickness over core content. I wanted raw and I got polish. I guess (I hope), that this is the transition into using social platforms as a vehicle for art, so they sought the safe route in so doing. Ergo we received the most digestible content. But sifting through the majority of it feels like a bag of animation student demo reels, project short films from advertising agencies and music videos that MTV simply won't play anymore. I'm very bummed.
And for haters to my opinion I can say honestly "no" I did not watch ALL the videos and I'm not trying to say that I disliked the content. I disliked the outcome of what (in my humble opinion) SHOULD have been driven by art using technology and venue. Not a venue using technology as a submission form. Some of you might be asking yourself "what's an ad dick know about the fine art community anyways?" Well I was born of two fine artists. Both former professors at the now Ringling College of Art & Design. I've curated shows, hung shows, witnesses countless gallery openings and have embraced my local art community as based I can at this time. It just didn't see anything that shook me or touched me like witnessing powerful work for the first time.
I just feel that it should have embraced the artist with minimal means as "a tool to express." Indeed there is a miniscule amount of that work in the chosen selects but not enough. The opportunity to create something that could be seen on a stage such as the Guggenheim is once in a lifetime I agree. But the body of work felt as though it choked out soul-stirring content for standard television fodder. We received nothing short of the Guggenheim/YouTube film festival. Too bad.
Monday, October 11, 2010 at 1:20PM