Design as a Problem Solver

Just how much power does design have?  I have already argued that it is a language, a means of communication, and even a conversation.  But I recently ran across this article that suggests that design is even used to solve the problems of the world. 

Graphic designers create signs all the time.  For example, all of the street signs and highways signs have all been designed for the purpose of communicating and informing drivers and travelers.   But in 2004, a group of graphic designers noticed that a change in font on the highway patrol signs could increase “legibility” and “reaction times.”  Because of this, the Federal Highway Administration authorized the switch from Highway Gothic to Clearview.  According to the article, this change improved the reading distance especially at night by an additional 80 feet.  There was also a significant 14 percent increase in legibility by elderly drivers.  Just by changing the simple font of these highways signs, and thanks to graphic designers, driving on the highway was made safer than ever before.

Design has the power to solve problems, and it even has the power to improve human lives.  Because design is everywhere in our modern day world, we can always be impacted by it—for better or for worse.  Technically this article would be a basic example of design impacting the world for better, and hopefully more often than not, that is the case.   Because after all, is that not one of the most important intentions of designers?  Designing to make the world a better place. 

http://blog.nerdstargamer.com/2007/a-new-typeface-for-road-signs/

Design as a Conversation

Design is a language of its own.  It has the power to send a message all across the planet, crossing over many language barriers.  Thanks to symbols and other images, people can understand each other in ways they never have before.  But also with design, people can communicate with each other in a brand new way, because design is also a conversation.

Look at advertisement as an example.  Here is a simple ad for an iPod.

http://www.designlessbetter.com/blogless/posts/
weekend-ponderable-self-fulfilling-prophecy

Notice there are actual words in this ad.  Yet there is no confusion as to what it is for.  This can be used universally, and everyone understands it.  Design has the power to do that.  In advertisement, design can be a conversation between the designers/ creators and the consumers (or quite honestly, us).  They use this conversation to tell the consumers which product they should buy, as well as why they should buy it.

Thanks to the invention of blogs and the modern day Internet, the design conversation has also been transformed.  Now when a design is released, conversation is almost immediately stimulated among people.  In a previous entry, I blogged about Pepsi changing their logo, and if you look for twenty seconds on the Internet, you will easily be able to find people’s responses to change in logo.  Do people like it better? Or do they think its worse?  People’s opinions and responses can now be found all over the Internet.

Because the conversation has become so prevalent on the Internet, designers now are able to answer the responses of the consumers.  Design truly becomes a back and forth conversation that allows consumers to give input into a designer’s creation, while the designers can reconstruct and redesign pieces to make them more relatable than ever before. 

Compare and Contrast

Companies redesign and transform their logos every once in awhile.  Especially companies that are as well known as Pepsi tend to go through at least a slight transformation every ten to twenty years.  This is one of the recent Pepsi logos released in 1998 in honor of the company’s 100^th anniversary.  

http://www.logoblog.org/pepsi_logo.php

Then ten years later, in 2008, Pepsi released this as their newest logo:

http://logotalks.com/2009/03/05/new-pepsi-logo/

Design-wise, both logos really seem to be very dated from the decade that it was released.  The older of the two has that overlapping layout, while one of the most important factors in the newer logo is its spatial composition.  This logo uses the negative spaces to contribute to making the logo look cleaner and more modern.

But then looking at the first logo, texture is extremely important.  Both the actual circular design and lettering have shape and shadow that help make the logo appear actually three-dimensional.

Out of all of the transformations that the Pepsi logo under went over the last century, the transformation between these two was one of the most dramatic.  However while there are those blatant disparities, there are still some similarities that help the consumer still recognize the product.  After all, isn’t that what is most important?

First of all, the color scheme is exactly the same, but I think that the Pepsi designer would never change the logo quite that drastically.  And while the circular part of the design was transformed slightly, they are essentially the same thing in both logos.  (Again, here the second may appear more modern than the first because of its flatter and cleaner design.)  Also if you look at the scale of the circular design in comparison to the actual letters, the proportions are similar for both logos.

Corporations and companies changes logos all the time.  Sometimes they'll look very similar to the previous ones, and sometimes they'll change significant characteristics.  Some will also look better, while unfortunately some will look worse.  But even if they do take a turn for the worse, I'm sure designers will switch it up again soon enough.