Alternative marketing thinking

Yes, banks are jumping on to the design wagon. Barclays, for instance has just rolled out a new branch in Manchester post its makeover. This branch gives you the feeling that you’ve just waked into a high street store. Be it an illuminated globe with rolling film footage suspended above its entrance or a designated play area for children, Barclays claims to have “listened” to its customers and arrived at this design. The lady behind this makeover, Deanna Oppenheimer has experience in revamping retail banking previously too. While at Washington Mutual, after studying ways to draw customers to branches, she and her team came up with the Occasio concept. These branches did away with traditional tellers and their windows. They were replaced with khaki-clad “concierges” who direct people to where they need to go according to what the customers need. They may be directed to one of the “teller towers,” circular help desks where they can conduct their own business or talk to an employee, or may end up at one of the touch screen service areas where they can research products and services or at a computer that will help them conduct online banking. Or they could plunk themselves on one of the private chairs and tables set up so employees can meet with customers to discuss issues that require privacy. So why so much attention to branches when everyone’s doing all that they can with mobiles and the Internet? Because the most expensive of banking products, like investments and insurance are sold over the counter, we’re told. More here.

For the sixth year in a row, Logo Lounge has their annual round of logo trends. And unlike in the past where a new trend would emerge when Photoshop or Illustrator would unveil a new filter, this year is different. So here goes logo trends 2008.

After bringing the Card Lab, Capital One Financial Corporation has now tied up with Flickr to bring the first ever Capital One Image Card. Customers can either choose pictures from Capital One’s gallery of images or upload one of their own. The company claims that personalization will help customers create cards that are distinctly them. Users have to follow a simple online procedure to get their own cards. Last November, Capital One launched the Capital One Card Lab which provides consumers with a new level of transparency and choice in credit cards. Customers are offered a series of interactive choices related to interest rate, annual fee and reward options, where they can click to select the combination of features that are most important to them. As choices are made, the tool narrows the options in the remaining categories, eliminating options that don’t work together. For example, consumers who are willing to pay an annual fee can earn rewards faster. So while banks are focussing on the many benefits that they think will attract customers, Capital One is probably doing something better by going on the creative track. Read what some bloggers are talking about the latest offering by Capital One here.

Some banks look at the most unconventional ways to satisfy their consumers. Wells Fargo roped in Pentagram to design a new User Interface for all its ATMs. Straying away from the usual screen that aligned task buttons only on the left and the right, this new UI saw the entire screen being used up with new visually simplified buttons. The new ATMs have two main features that got everyone raving about them. First, the fact that customers could deposit a stack of checks without sealing them in envelopes made processing time shorter and lowered costs. Up to 30 checks can be inserted at one time, and all checks will be scanned individually and be updated with status. In case the scanning identifies an error in a certain check, the customer is asked to fill in the missing amount. All steps can be reviewed with the history button that allows for a look at the previous steps. The second outstanding feature is an upgrade of the existing Quick Cash button. This feature has been allowing Wells Fargo customers to withdraw an often used amount in one single step, instead of going through a multi-step procedure. Designer Holger Struppek, part of the design team that worked on this in Pentagram talks more about the new ATMs here.

Interesting logic on why many graphic designers hate to get themselves tattooed. According to this poll however, there are more designers with tattoos, than there are ones without.

Editorial from the August 2008 Issue of How Magazine by senior editor Megan Patrick.

I’ve been wondering for the last few months what kind of effect Web 2.0 and social networking might have on design, both online and in print. It feels like there’s a huge shift just percolating under the surface, but I wasn’t able to articulate what was coming until now. I just got back from the 2008 SXSW Interactive Conference and the ideas all of the speakers shared are starting to gel in my brain.

What we’re facing is a radical shift in the roles designers play in our culture and economy, a shift from creators to facilitators of participation, conversation and collaboration. And it’s already starting to happen.

Check out the Poetic Licence website. Instead of creating a single look for the site, the designers instead made an engine that allows users to customize their experience. Not only that, but if you play with the site enough, you’re rewarded with a coupon for a 10% discount.

In the fashion world, NikeiD lets users create their own shoes. But not everyone has been happy with their creations, so Nike developed a NikeiD Studio at Niketown in New York City, complete with computer stations and design consultants. And in the realm of product design, the Japanese company Muji solicits new ideas from its customers, who then vote on which items should be put into production.

So how might this play out in other kinds of design? There are several scenarios. How about a customizable brochure that contains only the specific information each customer wants. As print-on-demand technology improves, this is becoming more and more possible. Even easier would be a customizable PDF. The user could choose from a selection of text and images to create a totally personalized magazine or newsletter. The possibilities are endless.

And that’s exactly the role designers will play in the future: as engineers of possibility. So don’t worry when amateurs mess around in Photoshop; it’s just a tool. And don’t close yourself off from consumer feedback; dialogue with your end customer will make your work that much stronger.

There’s an uncomfortable but exciting tension right now between creator and consumer, creativity and technology. That tension shaped the stories in this issue, which focus on the role of the handmade in design. It’s a trend that’s been building for the last several years, but even more interesting is the trend of using technology to bring a handmade or customized feel to a mass-produced object.

It’s an exciting time to be in the business of communication, and I look forward to seeing how Design 2.0 develops.

The British coins now have new designs, selected from a highly publicized competition that had attracted over 4000 entries. Matthew Dent, a 26 year old graphic designer won the competition by using the Royal Coat of Arms in an interesting split of coins where each represents a specific element and when placed together horizontally, reveal the shield. The 1 GBP coin is the key coin uniting the design. Read more on this and see the designs here.

Vice Magazine, the 14 country glossy is running a glow in the dark ad. While a normal picture greets readers; once the light is turned off, an ad for BMW emerges from within the cover. See it here.

Legendary Graphic Designer and founder of Duffy Design has a deep and interesting post on the logo.

And-I-Still-Persist blog has done a Gapminder style visualization of the current sub-prime crises that’s destablising the global financial markets. The presentation takes in all kinds of data that US banks have to file with FDIC and uses a new age data visualization tool like Boomerang. There are charts that show how much the top banks are effected by people not able to pay their loans, and when the rot really started to set in. The creators of the blog have promised more data in the weeks and months ahead. So maybe you want to bookmark this link. Still on the subject of mortgage crisis is this chilling clip from BBC of how many tent towns are springing up in the suburbs of the US, of people who have lost their homes, unable to pay back their home loans.