This is the emergency evacuation sign up on the wall of a classroom in a local educational institution. Note Step 4.

Food and drinks (except water) are actually not allowed in classrooms. Was this deliberate and well thought-through? Who knows.

But it was funny. Very human. And definitely unforgettable.

Can you do something similar with a piece of your business communications?

Artist Matt Siber’s Compare To… project is a neat visual illustration of product category and brand signifiers beyond the logo. We don’t need much info to know what these everyday products are.

Such a situation is possible because of the highly commoditised nature of these products. Brand recognition is arguable less powerful a buying incentive as is price and availability.

I came upon these two “No Thinspiration” blog posts recently while doing some research on eating disorders*:
The stunning size 12 model branded ‘too fat’ for TV competition
Marianne Berglund from ‘Make me a super model’ TV show

The comments are quite telling - so many (presumably from their names) female comment posters seem to support and look up to these unwell-looking ultra-thin models, and don’t really …

It’s a microwave, with a TV and DVD-player built-in.

Why?

How long does a microwave TV-dinner(!) take to “cook” anyway? The time it takes most DVDs to play through the mandatory anti-piracy rant and painfully animated menus perhaps…

Then what? You stand there in the kitchen holding a burning hot foil tray to watch the rest of the show? Or you move the food, and the disc …

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
ISBN-10: 0439813786
ISBN-13: 978-0439813785

A beautiful combination of novel, graphic novel, and movie. Selznick has really created a new approach here to the idea of a book. And it is a great story to boot.

Here’s a “deleted scene” from the book on Amazon, typical of the beautiful drawings therein.

The author’s passion and dedication really showed through. I …

Here’s another bad sign. Can you make out the prices?

Granted it is home made by the looks of it. But given the attention paid to the montage of products, and the careful use of strokes and colours, some though and effort has gone into this.

So why oh why is the most important information set in such an illegible font?

Just because you can do something …

When you sign the front of a building, the key bit of information users would want is the number. This is especially true on a long main street such as Elizabeth Street in Sydney.

Despite it being executed on a flat surface, designing effective signage requires an appreciation of 3D space. It is more than graphic design.

This sequence of photos shows the unfortunate results of what happens when a …

Tom Murphy gives away his cool and fun fonts freely on his website.

Why? “…because I would be making fonts regardless of whether I was distributing them or not, and because I know that people benefit from the fact that I give them away. I take enough stuff for free and it makes me feel good to know that I …

When I clicked on the Compare Products feature on the Sony site, this window popped up. It only took up a quarter of my screen. There is obviously quite a lot of content.

OK, I will make the window larger so I can better scan through the table and make the comparison. And … I get the annoying stupid result shown below….

Have you got a folder full of electronic files of your logo and other branding material? Are you about to engage a designer and want to know what file formats to get your logo delivered in?

The table below aims to enable you to quickly learn when to use which file format to get the best results. It is distilled from my 15 years experience in design and print …