It seems only yesterday that we were getting annoyed with the vuvuzelas in the opening game as “Bufana, Bufana” announced the first African World Cup, but as we now approach the 2010 World Cup final we have become accustomed to the noise.  Hearing that buzz reach my ears stimulates excitement, the association that two of the best teams in the world are about to play out 90 minutes.

Alas, we are but days away from this event coming to a close, four long years away from the next.  Of course there will be replays and archived footage shown for months to come, the Blackstars’ dancing celebrations, Frank Lampard’s goal that never was, and of course Van Bronckhorst’s screamer against Uruguay.  But if you want a real lasting memory of the 2010 World Cup you should get yourself over to eBay and bid on one of these absolutely incredible pieces.

Oh, and did I mention all the proceeds go the Nelson Mandela’s 46664 Foundation? – a charitable organisation that aims to build a better world for everyone.  This campaign is a series of ‘Live Quest’ paintings.

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It comes as some kind of eco-irony that when Starbucks put out an open brief to “reduce the number of non-recyclable cups that are thrown away every year by creating a more convenient alternative to the reusable coffee cup”, that the winning result is not actually a cup at all, but (essentially) a blackboard. The Karma Cup has arrived.

What is actually most impressive about it is that the designers have considered what most would neglect, and approached the problem from the point of the view of the user, rather than Starbucks’ sole approach of looking to reduce waste. Fortunately by encouraging the user to change their behaviour this solution offers both and will (probably) successfully achieve the latter too.

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A designer friend of mine claims to be a ‘novice’ when it comes to typography, stating there are other much more experienced and knowledgeable typographers out there. We completely disagreed, especially when we discovered he had created a ‘Fonz‘ character out of the Garamond type family!

Welcome Fontzarelli – monday, Tuesday… Fonty Days!

Many design blogs are full of helpful howto guides and tutorials on using Photoshop Illustrator, Flash, etc. This is great if you have a design in mind that you wish to accomplish. But how do you actually design something?

Design concepts explained

The design concepts explained series aims to explain various processes of design. If you’re itching to use those Photoshop tutorials but are stuck for inspiration, if you wish to find out what a ‘designer’ actually does, or if you are a seasoned pro who wants to refresh their memory, then read on!

Affordance

This week we focus on the concept of Affordance. Designers in many different specialties use it, but we mainly concentrate on its use in graphic design, user interface design and game design.

The term ‘Affordance’ has a strong basis in psychology. It describes the understanding of how we interact with an object. To see this process in action, imagine a two-year-old child with a pile of shapes and a hollow box with silhouettes of those shapes cut into it. To play the game, the child must fit the correct shapes through the correct holes. This seemingly fun game is actually a trick – it’s not there to entertain, but to educate. It’s teaching the child how objects interact with other objects, and helps build on their understanding of how the world works.

Affordance in game design

So how is this concept used in design? The game ‘Chronicles of Riddick’ manipulates our understanding of a real-world object to give us a clue of how to interact with the main menu.

Thanks to toy designers tricking us into learning during our childhood, we can understand that this cube has six sides and when an option is selected, it rotates to display different options. Our understanding of how this object works in the real world allows us to use this menu intuitively.

Affordance in iPhone apps

Let’s use a different example, this time from an iPhone application. In just a few seconds of seeing this interface, we intuitively know how to turn each setting on and off. This interface has been designed to afford pushing and afford switching to manipulate the controls, without any instruction to the user.

Affordance in web design

Affordance is used abundantly in web design. Perhaps it is used a little too much, especially when it comes to those 3D buttons! Below are a few examples used on well-known, popular websites.

Summary

Before seeking out the Photoshop tutorials on how to make buttons with bezels, tutorials on how to use gradients to give the appearance of 3D buttons, or guides on how to make those shiny reflective round buttons that look lickable, remember to ask yourself “why use affordance?”

The examples shown above help users understand how to interact with the interface. At the end of the day, design is all about the user and these concepts should be used for their advantage, and not clutter, complicate or hinder the interface.

Further reading

Book (link to Amazon UK): Interaction design beyond human-computer interaction
This book covers many aspects of interaction design, of which affordance is a small part. A recommended read for anyone involved in interaction design.

Video (link to iTunesU): RWTH Aachen University, Designing Interactive Systems
These videos give a strong introduction into interaction design and cover many concepts, of which affordance is one of them.

Finally I unearthed this advertising poster that I saw over a year ago then completely forgot it’s location. I’m sure you’ll agree it’s very clever, very minimal and very memorable. A good example of “Less is more”.

At this moment, your bum is completely exposed. If it were in a sexy pair of Jeans, it would attract attention all the time!

Full credit and roundup from Underconsideration.com, thanks guys for the fantastic resources!

We follow on the theme of rebranding by major brands by having a quick roundup. Following on from the calamitous Pepsi rebrand here are 20 rebrands that have taken place over the last few months, let us know what floats your boat.

Starbucks, Back to the Future

Howard Schultz returns as CEO of Starbucks and has unleashed an unprecedented wave of brand nostalgia by deploying the original Starbucks logo.

Kraft Foods, making today delicious

With a new purpose and values setting a fresh direction, Kraft Foods also gave its corporate logo a facelift to more clearly deliver “delicious.” Starting today, people around the world will begin to see the new identity that deliciously features a smile, the natural reaction to delicious foods and experiences, and a colorful flavor burst. It signals to employees, consumers and investors what the new Kraft Foods is all about.
— Press release

Hudson’s Bay Co.

Hudson’s Bay Co., founded in 1670 by King Charles II, is a huge Canadian retailer with over 600 retail locations all across Canada.

Sci Fi becomes SyFy

When networks present their new programming, sell big chunks of advertising and announce any major changes — the 16-year-old Sci Fi Channel announced that on July 7 it will change its name and identity to Syfy.

Jack in the box

The old logo had all the fixings of a classic American fast food chain logo: red and quirky typography. Plus years of equity. The new logo is a very contemporary departure from the original, which is par for what’s been happening to fast food logos, and the new, custom script is quite attractive and dynamic. And, pending a press release, I’m pretty sure the tail of the “k” is meant to be a smile.

Citroen

Designed by Landor, the new logo comes as Citroën celebrates its 90th anniversary (founded in 1919) and as it unveils new models of its DS line

Air France

Operating since 1933, Air France has become one of the biggest and most recognized airlines in the world, traveling to nearly 100 countries. A new identity, replacing its last update since 1975, has been designed by Brandimage.

Asian Football Confederation

Hosted by the Asian Football Confederation, Asia’s governing body of soccer, the annual AFC Champions League features the best clubs from each country competing for Asian soccer supremacy. This past December they unveiled a new identity aimed towards the new and growing generation of soccer enthusiasts.

Sprite

Just in time for the NBA All-Star’s Slam Dunk contest which Sprite sponsors they are putting into use a new, dynamic and active logo that, in context, is actually quite decent.

My Fonts

With an ever growing library of more than 62,000 typefaces from more than 400 foundries and designers, MyFonts has been one of the most comprehensive shopping spots on the web since its launch in 1999.

Sandisk

SanDisk / Pound for pound, letter for letter, ligature for ligature, the best redesign of a wordmark that retains the essence of the original while pushing the company into the new, young century.

Ford

Ha! Only kidding. Making sure you’re paying attention.

Pepsi

Pepsi Rebrand, absolute waste of millions of dollars.

Capitol One

Capital One / A swoosh in 2009? And, even by swoosh standards, a crappy one at that?

Xerox

Xerox / Taking the marble-lowercase trend to the extreme. And sucking at it. Barclaycard came in close second in this category.

Barclaycard

Barclaycard / My sister works for them so I best be nice.

Roundup

Pepsi takes the crown for worst logo rebrand in the category years 2006-2009. Our personal winner has to be Citroen, simple, shinny and French – Au revoir!

Full credit and roundup from Underconsideration.com, thanks guys for the fantastic resources!

Several million dollars, and almost half a year later the new Pepsi logo was finished by the fine designers at the Arnell Group.

Time to mock

Personally we think they have failed in their attempt at a “Quantum Leap” in their new logo and branding for the drinks industry, so we feel it just deserving that we gather this funny collection from around the web to indeed ‘mock them’.

Pepsi logo blow at life

Copyright: Lawrence Yang

Alice in Pepsi land

Psilocybe

Pacman

Credit: All illustrations and Pepsi logo copyright to their respective owners.

My agency 9xb recently moved premises and required a full refit. Part of the existing setup was a rather blank white wall with a red fire alarm top center of it. This area was to be the reception wall that clients and guests would see when entering the building so we decided to go crazy and generate some artwork to fill the space and brighten the room up. The simplest thing to do would be to paint it, but we’re not like that here, we don’t mind taking risks and thinking outside the box.

Before the refit started we took a couple of shots of the wall from different angles and mocked up a few ideas.

Options whittled down

Option 1: Millions of sheep

An illustration of hundreds of sheep with one cheeky-chappy chilling out.

Option 1: Millions of sheep – closeup

Option 2: Crazy phychodelic sheep

Seriously bright, seriously mental.

And the winner is…

The crazy phychodelic sheep of course!

Another angle mocked up

The final file ended up being 1.4gb in size, measuring 3.5m by 2.2m. Sheep image from istockphoto, printed out and an industrial high res scan created, merging a phychodelic rainbow as a Photoshop Smart-Object then sent to printers who came a week later to fix it to the wall. I’ll get a real photo uploaded asap.

Previous digital art for 9xb

View 9xb digital art post here

Want a powerful font management application that works on both Mac and PC? An app that allows you to manage, store, shop and discover new fonts? A font management app that’s FREE? Then Linotype FontExplorer® X is for you! The PC version has been available for a few years now but the MAC version has just been released this year. I have tested it over several months now on MAC OS X and I’m more than happy to recommend it.

Official Introduction from Linotype

Following on from the 9xb digital staff portraits, new starter Gyles Seward has had his very own created. After suffering hours of digital torcher in Frog’s special Frankenstein-esk Lab this hideous creation appeared.

See this in action on the 9xb site.