Sunday evening I joined the design geeks in the DC area and went to see a film about a font. This sans-serif font is both loved and loathed. It is Helvetica. Massimo Vignelli says it's one of three acceptable fonts in this world. Stefan Sagmeister says it is uninteresting and screams "I am boring". I say it's clean and legible. It communicates information clearly, thus I love it.

Overview
Because Helvetica is easily read, straightforward, and friendly, it has become ubiquitous in signage and “power logos” around the world.

Helvetica Stats

• Born: 1957


• Parents: Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann


• Grandparents: Haas Type Foundry, Stempel and Linotype


• Bio: Helvetica was born into a world of hand-lettered type, nuptual scripts, and ornate serif fonts. As a young sans-serif, Helvetica had trouble making friends. With the help of it's grandparents, Helvetica was pushed into the limelight. In it's 20s, Helvetica could be seen with government logos (like NASA), global brands (like Microsoft, Panosonic, and Nestle), and general signage. Helvetica turns 50 this year and is taking life less seriously. Recently, the sans-serif has been spotted on billboards and posters with scantily clad women (American Apparel).

The Film
The producer/director Gary Hustwit started the night off by welcoming the sold out crowd. It went something like this (not a direct quote) – Thanks for showing up. It’s amazing that you people will stand in line and pay $10 to see a film about a font. If I hadn’t made the film, I would be out there in the crowd with you. There’s Q&A after the film. If you are going to ask dumb questions like, ‘Will your next film be about Times New Roman’ you should leave now. Enjoy!

Overall, the film was pretty good. The crew traveled around the US and the UK interviewing designers and getting their thoughts on Helvetica and why it is so ubiquitous. Their personal feelings about the font are often involved in the answers to those questions. Here's the jist of what some of them said:

• Michael Bierut - Helvetica is everywhere. It's like air. You can't help breathing it in.


• Paula Scher - Helvetica is the font of the Vietnam war.


• Erik Spiekermann - Helvetica is awful. It's widely used and carries no meaning.


• Massimo Vignelli - Helvetica is king of all fonts. Everything was fine until this disease called post-modernism spread.


• David Carson - Helvetica has no emotion. It doesn't say caffinated!

The film will be back in DC on September 13 at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. This time there will be a panel discussion and Q&A with the director and designers! Check out all screenings.

If you can't make it to the next showing, at least view the trailer/clips.

I Am a Geek Because I:

• Arrived at the movie theater an hour early to get a good seat. I was happy to see that I wasn't the only one.


• Got very excited when I saw (on screen) famous designers whose work shaped my design aesthetic and education. The list includes: Erik Spiekermann, Matthew Carter, Massimo Vignelli, Wim Crouwel, Hermann Zapf, Neville Brody, Stefan Sagmeister, Michael Bierut, David Carson, Paula Scher, Jonathan Hoefler, Tobias Frere-Jones, Experimental Jetset, Michael C. Place, Norm, Alfred Hoffmann, Mike Parker, Bruno Steinert, Otmar Hoefer, Leslie Savan, Rick Poynor, Lars Müller, and many more.


• Laughed and booed when Hustwit said he hoped someone would make a parody film based on Helvetica, but using the dreaded Comic Sans. Hustwit – “The audience focus will be 3rd graders and soccer moms.”

I recently participated in a UIE webinar on personas. The presenter was Steve Mulder, consultant for Molecular, and author of The User is Always Right. Here are some of my take-aways.



DEFINING
A persona is:

• A realistic character sketch


• An archetype to represent your users


• Based on research


• Defined by goals and attitudes

Benefits of personas:

1. Bring focus to team and organization
   Rather than trying to please all users, your organization can focus on primary and secondary users through identified personas


2. Help build empathy
   Personas have “real” names and photos, making them seem like real people. It’s easier to relate to a persona than a spreadsheet of stats.


3. Encourage consensus
   It’s simple - Would our persona named Carol like feature X?


4. Create efficiency
   When making decisions, your team doesn’t need loose time rehashing stats, user testing, etc. Just refer to the personas, which are based on all of your research.


5. Lead to better decision-making
   See 1-4.

RESEARCHING
Why both field studies and stats analysis? What people say is not always what they do.
Steve told a great story about an electronic company who did tons of research, focus groups and user testing for a boom box they planned to sell. They had narrowed the colors for this boom box down to yellow or black. Their focus groups finally came to agreement on yellow. Their audience was saying, “Yes, the boom box should definitely be yellow. It’s vibrant and energetic!” When the focus groups were done, each person was rewarded with a boom box. On the way out they could choose a yellow boom box or a black boom box. They all chose black.

Field Studies – what users say
Based on field studies like user interviews, user testing, and focus groups, you can glean information regarding:

• Goals
  What are people trying to do on your site?


• Behaviors
  How often do they go to your site?
  What other sites are they looking at?
  What sections do they visit most often?


• Attitudes
  What is there perception of your organization?
  How much domain knowledge do they have?

Stats – what users do
Because people do not always do what they say, you should also review the site traffic stats. These stats will allow you to back up the personas with hard data. Helpful items to review: entry pages, exit pages, common paths, feature usage, search terms, conversion rate, duration, and frequency

CREATING
You’ll create a couple of different personas. When defining your different personas, focus on key differentiators (examples: job, experience in the domain, etc).

The actual document should be one page and include:

• name for the persona


• photo for the persona (preferably not a stock image)


• quote from persona


• personal information (age, job, hobbies, personality)


• business objectives as they apply to the persona (what do we want the user to do)


• user goals (why the user comes to the site)


• persona priority (primary, secondary)

USING
As your organization moves forward and makes decisions, you can always check them against your identified personas.

Use personas when considering:

• Business strategy


• Features and functionality
  Prioritize what you build for users


• Content development
  Write articles, instructional text, and error messages in language that your personas would understand


• Usability Testing
  Recruit based on personas

"Cowboys all know you can't brand nothin' till you tie three of its legs together, slam it to the ground, and sedate it."
- Bart Crosby, brand designer

This is the opening to a new book that the UX+D team recently added to the library. Branding for Nonprofits by DK Holland is directed toward non-designers, outlining:
• the definition of a brand
• how to build a brand team
• the anatomy of a design brief
• the designer's role
• the branding process
• implementing the new brand

Overall Holland does a good job of explaining the complex idea of branding in a simple way. For clients interested in rethinking and redesigning their brands, this book is a great place to get started, siting case studies and valuable insights from designers who work with nonprofits. Holland makes it clear that you cannot create an effective brand without fully understanding the organization, it's goals and it's audience.

When determining a brand's strength, she stresses
reputation: How well is the brand known by its audiences?
esteem: How highly do its audiences rate the brand?
relevance: How much do the brand's audiences care about what it does or stands for?
differentiation: How different is the brand from others? Are other brands similar?

One thing that Holland does not emphasize is the difference between a brand strategy and a visual identity. Brand strategy involves the essence of the organization and what message is conveyed to it's constituents. Visual identity (logo, color, typography, etc) is a vehicle for communicating the brand strategy to both the organization and it's constituents . This book focuses primarily on visual identity.

A brand is about more than a logo. It's about how the brand resonates with the constituents. Think about the companies that resonate with you. When you're in the aisle, which brand do you choose? Why? What does that brand convey? How?

Holland touches lightly on the role of websites within branding. She mentions websites in the context of a cohesive visual identity (along with brochures, letterhead, signage, etc).

All in all, this is a good, quick read for anyone interested in learning more about branding. It's a refresher for designers and a good intro for non-designers. My favorite part? The appendices that include branding guides from Aish, AIGA, BAM, Governance Matters.

While we're talking about brands, here's a NY Times article: What We Talk About When We Talk About Brands

While researching online project management, I came across a website that lists many project management software applications. Brand recognition may be difficult with software and websites with such similar names, but rest assured our brand and logo will be superior!

Check out: web-based-software.com

I pulled together a sampling of logos from competitors.
Download alphabetical listing of logos
Download logos grouped by color