...sign language

Awaiting my number 12 bus to arrive on a cold January morning my attention was caught by a poster advertising cereal. Not because cereal is a delicious meal any time of the day and a good source of vitamins and minerals, no, but because I saw an ubiquitous pictogram of the iPhone we've all become rather familiar with; the logo which depicts 'Available on the App Store'. I was admiring its simplicity, how such an uncomplicated shape - a rectangle within another bevelled rectangle with just one line and one circle either end - can signify such complexities beneath the graphic. I also wondered what I'd have for breakfast when I got to work.

Along came the bus. I got on.

My bus journeys are currently being expedited by Deyan Sudjic's The Language of Things, a remarkably digestible read on the objects around us, the design behind them and together, what it all means. Unless Deyan suddenly turns it into an erotic crime thriller, I'd recommend it to anyone, including nanas - with a revealing eye and easy turn of phrase it reflects upon not just design but social issues which I imagine very few avoid brushing against in this flipping complicated world which we live. Discussed are some everyday objects around us and how their carefully considered shapes, forms and functions have made them the archetypes we're familiar with - even when in their most modern form they bear little visual relation to their predecessor. Take for example the first Bakelite telephone, designed by Jean Heiberg, with its silver dial and distinct ergonomic handset. Although pretty much out of popular use today, the pictogram to which it's associated is still an internationally recognisable symbol for telephone (for how long is arguable, given a generation of kids will never likely use or let alone see the Bakelite telephone for a reference point). However, although stuff gets superseded, when the item in question creates a culturally significant mark it does so in a collective conscience. This 'old fashioned' phone is hard to forget even after being upgraded and turned to scrap. Sure, there were other telephones before this particular model, but Heiberg's design hit the mark which elevated it to live on as a popular visual metaphor for telephonic communication.

Another example is the Deiter Rams calculator. Designed to be the most perfect form of this particular mathematical instrument it was purposely shorn of ornament and crafted to ascend such transient things as fashion. Rams' goal to ultimately remove any need for another calculator. As a result, this timeless object inadvertently formed an archetypal idea of what a calculator should be. So much so that Apple's own iPhone calculator bears an uncanny resemblance by using Rams' original calculator as inspiration for their skeuomorphic user interface. It's a neat little nod by Apple towards Rams' original mould-breaking one-calculator-to-rule-them-all rationale, picking up the baton to set a new category of device in the form of the iPhone; one-device-to-rule-them-all. But what becomes of archetypes such as the telephone and calculator now that many familiar, singular objects are being rolled into one clever little smartphone? This brings me back to the iPhone icon on the bus stop poster.

In the past, objects and artefacts pretty much did the same thing no matter who owned them. A telephone sat in the corner and rang until it was answered. An alarm clock told you the time and woke you up, a Walkman played cassettes placed into them as you went about your business. However, with the merging of these devices into one clever ergonomic handset you can lose in the bottom of your tote bag, our understanding of them should, in theory, be terribly muddied as we try to unravel precisely what it is that we hold in our hand. Between brands, smartphones differ wildly. Even off-the-shelf identical devices can each be tailored to the whims of their owner with countless apps changing their function at the drop of 79p for whatever the user desires; gaming, email, organising, social media to name just four. But despite the complexities of the technology within and the myriad functions performed, we DO understand exactly what this complicated little artefact is and at a snap know what it means to view the symbol for iPhone, whether on a website, in a magazine or on a bus stop poster. It means all these things and just one all at the same time. It's a mental extrapolation we don't even have to think about as our gradual understanding of smartphones has evolved whilst we've grown with them in a technological blink of an eye.

So archetypes remain. As part of a visual vocabulary, they are the building blocks of how we understand symbols, which in turn exist to represent something in the simplest form, to communicate meaning. On their own terms, symbols can be understood because of the leg work put in by archetypes, but they can also be subverted, and it's a powerful tool the designer has at his or her disposal. Indulge me in a ridiculous macho simile if you will, but if symbols are bullets, context is a gun. Take a pictogram of a burger. As a sign it may literally just be saying 'burger'. But with it is carried cultural baggage that forms part of a semiotic DNA whereupon many signifiers can alter what's implied; fast food, beef, cow, hunger, greed, capitalism, economics, globalisation, USA, McDonalds, good, bad, obesity, abundance, value, cost. There's all this beneath a simple graphic and when used smartly the context in which the burger is viewed can truly skew the meaning. Stick it on a picture of a depleted rainforest and you make a political statement. Hackneyed maybe but a political statement nonetheless.

Even symbols created solely with one specific purpose rely on context. Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert's 1964 Men at Work warning sign has a primary function of alerting road users and pedestrians to oncoming roadworks by using a symbol of a man digging, set inside a red triangle. Learnt as part of the Highway Code, anyone driving in the UK will have this sign drilled into them for their driving test; we unequivocally know what it means. But what if we're handed a club flyer in the street and we see this particular sign used as part of the design - does it mean the road ahead's being dug up? Unless that's a hipster euphemism for a 'banging' DJ set, almost entirely unlikely. No matter where a symbol is seen, context is always a proviso of interpretation for a true understanding of what's before our eyes.

What on earth am I trying to say? I'm not sure. I've been writing this on and off for God only knows how long, tangled myself in many iterations of many strands of thought on the subject of signs, their symbols, the archetypes from which they are born, and the power they behold in both the right and wrong hands, but still I'm having trouble wrapping this all up. So let's try.

The generic smartphone has become part of the fabric of modern life, but it's Apple's aesthetically pleasing user-friendly iPhone which has forged a new archetype and symbolic benchmark into which all other same-category devices fall, further informing our semiotic understanding of them. All through design magic. And marketing. And vertically integrated lock-in business models. But that's another conversation altogether.

Semiotics. It's complicated. Yet simple. Yet complicated. And I've done nothing here to help matters. I'm sorry.

In a nutshell. DO read The Language of Things - even the most seasoned designer will enjoy the crystallisation of ideas when Sudjic eloquently shares his. DO also read Roland Barthes Mythologies as a companion piece. DO NOT ever use a pictogram of a burger as a political statement. DO NOT tell anyone I used the bullet and gun metaphor. DO remember to come back and visit, it can get so lonely out here on the internet.

Rainforest pic © Roberto Saccon 

...Now In Lemon

Excitement is like a wheelbarrow. It has one wheel and two handles.

No.

Excitement is like a stretcher. It has a paramedic either end.

No. Still not right.

Excitement is like a rip tide. You can get carried away in it.

Yes. Let's go with that.

With an excitement borne from the impending delivery of a new fanzine, I eagerly pledged to write a piece on it, a review if you will. Dead excited I was. Rubbing hands together excited. Now I sit here, on the bus, the fanzine under my arm, still very excited but also unsure of what to say or where to begin. Apart from this preamble, I mean, where do I start? At page one? Yes. That's a start. Page one.

So I've been sent the first edition of a new fanzine and straight out of the block it's wrongfooted me, all dressed in blue but called 'Now In Lemon'. Already I know we'll be pals. Like all good fanzines, it delivers what the fans want: lo-fi, free badge, served in an earthy brown envelope. It pushes all the right buttons in making NME fanboy nostalgia ping the corners of my eyes.

At this point, I should lay my cards on the table, just in case I want to make a future bid for BSkyB. Someone who sits not six feet away from me at work is one of two people behind the project. A talent. A fellow designer. A friend. Hence my alacrity, then apprehension, at fulfilling my own hurried brief of attempting a nonpartisan review.

Hello, and welcome back to part two of this Now In Lemon special review. Coming up: The goings-on of camo-clad Ross Kemp; meta ghosts; fur and mortality; crusifixations; and the number 23. But first we speak to Will Weaver about this snazzy new cottage industry paper, and ask What do you really think about this fanzine?

What do I really think? To be honest, I don't want to spoil anything. Part of Now In Lemon's charm is the surprise, so I can only impart my obfuscated opinion. What I can say is this...

The reader is taken from absurd to very funny to unnerving from the turn of each page. It's a project publication, so you get the makers' heart right there on the page, in ink which appears to be hanging on to the A5 sheet for dear life. A lovely honesty emerges, helped in part by Footprint, the co-op printer of this old-school analogue format sympathetic to the tone of the ideas and art. In turn, a certain fuzzy warmth encircles the whole zine which would otherwise be compromised filtered through the cold, harsh VGA display of an onscreen blog.

A well metered observation of the human soul via black ink and earnest paper stock, Now In Lemon is a brief visit which never outstays its welcome but rather, didn't stop long enough. Looking forward to issue 2 already.

Get it here: nowinlemon.com

...Invert Look

As part of the recent budget, the new coalition government decided to pull its big old clumsy blue and yellow cojoined leg back as far as it jolly well could to give the torpid UK economy a thundering kick in the nuts. The Libercon Dermosives or whatever we're supposed to call them, probably thought it an easy win to scrap tax breaks for the UK games industry. So short-sighted and out of touch was the decision, that individually writing down their ideas on scraps of paper, neatly folding them in half and putting them in a tombola would seem a more rational way to have chosen their deficit-busting policies. This government doesn't understand gaming. I'm sure they believe games are made by a few lazy ne'er-do-wells in their spare time to be played by a handful of loners with a propensity to vindictively re-live every pixellated action from Double Dragon on to upstanding, unsuspecting voters. A perception not only twenty years out-of-date, but twenty years wrong. If only these private-sector-sucking politicians could see how much money they could personally accrue from this (talented, prestigious, vital) UK industry, they may just change their minds. Right, comrades?

Where would we start in making them see the light? We need thrift! An expedient bulletin to make them understand the industry's far reaching cultural influence, affluence and pertinence. I know! Let's post the launch issue of Invert Look through the letterbox of number 10. I wonder who'll get there first in the morning to pick it up, Clegg or Cameron? I assume they untie their 'third leg' to go to bed. Nick is probably already making the tea and removing all the Rice Krispies and Corn Flakes from the miniature cereal selection to mollify David and his sweet, sweet tooth whilst the letterbox swings on its hinges. "My, what's this?" They'll say. Invert Look.

It's a new quarterly gaming publication from The Church Of London, producers of the excellent award-winning film mag Little White Lies. If you're familiar with the crisp, erudite writing from their contributors, wrapped inside layers of beautifully designed editorial, then you'll be as cock-a-hoop as I am that gaming has gained their attention. The launch issue - received free as a loyal *cough* subscriber to LWL - is a rallying cry at what a games publication can be in this climate of digital news, social gossip and blog saturation. No latest reviews, no sycophantic scoops, no early-adopting slavering over the latest technology; think watching Newswipe instead of the actual news. Quite refreshing, really. And it's about time.

Back in the early '90s when I was battling to get Alex Kidd to the end of his Miracle World before getting called down for My Dinner (there was a world before memory cards, kids), I'd worship at the altar of Mean Machines, my first magazine love. Before 'crowdsourcing' was a word, they had a feature calling upon their loyal readers to write in whenever a console or game was referenced in popular culture. It was an exciting crossover. The idea of anyone mentioning Nintendo or Sega outside of darkened teenage bedrooms seemed as unlikely a scenario as us teenagers getting girls inside our darkened bedrooms. But then it happened. Bruce Willis, at the end of Hudson Hawk (shut up, I LIKED it) asked "Will you play Nintendo with me?". Wow! Off went my letter to the magazine which killed the feature stone dead by the next issue. It looked like games weren't ready to penetrate the mainstream consciousness.

Cut to:

The year is 2010, C.U. of 10 Downing Street's door mat. A bright green magazine. A pair of Superman slippers right of frame.

As a 36-page taster, Invert Look does a really nice job of creating an absorbing and entertaining genre magazine that actually disobeys the rules of the genre completely, for a wide gamut of readers. I for one am not the archetype who'd buy Edge, Gamer or the like. I read as a designer who dips into Red Dead, fiddles with twitter, drops in on Facebook. Via tight features including an interview with Edgar Wright, a biog of an hitherto unknown Nintendo cornerstone employee and an essay on the basic human sociological need to play, Invert Look raises questions about 'a new state of play' (their mast tagline). Of how culturally significant gaming has become; an integral colourful fibre meshed in the pullover of society, with no sign of it unravelling any time soon.

From the outset, Invert Look succeeds, and I'm sure will flourish, by inviting us all to the party. Come in gamers, Tweeters and Facebookers, programmers, designers and writers, and bring your friends. Help yourself to drinks and buffet. There's plenty for everyone. We're just waiting for David Cameron to arrive. He's bringing the trifle.

...not thinking

I recently had one of those moments when you go nutty for books. I wanted to seek out some good academic reading on design, but having a fair amount of traditional graphic design knowledge in my locker, and coming from a print background, I figured I'd cast the net a little wider.

I'm what you'd call a 'digital designer' within an agency which deals in a lot of game design. We're called Kerb. You may have heard of us. Or maybe even played one of our virals one lunchtime at your desk. If you've fallen over and hurt yourself whilst stumbling upon us, then that's a different kerb altogether, and I'd advise getting a tetanus jab and call the council about that, and have a good day, thank you.

I'm dealing with a lot of user interface design. You know - the graphical cues and pictorial signposts which help you click the right buttons and navigate the game you're playing or website you're visiting, one screen to the next. You could say I visually jolly things along.

On to my book quest. Three titles stood out as the most relevant to my skills, but different enough from one another to keep things interesting.

I bought:
Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug
Emotional Design by Donald A. Norman
Thoughful Interaction Design by Jonas Löwgren and Erik Stolterman

Before you get too excited / fall off your perch with boredom, I've only read one title so far - 'Don't Make Me Think'. But already, my beliefs and findings have been solidified that digital is as similar to print as we humans are genetically around 95% chimpanzee, and are therefore indebted to its heritage.

The hierarchy of information we scan on-screen every day - and instinctively decipher at a snap - has been learned by you and I over generations by reading all sorts of literature; bibles, books, newspapers, magazines, comics, posters et al.

Taking the cover of a magazine - a modern common denominator for capturing and guiding attention - it's not dissimilar to a web page. We have the masthead occupying the top like a site logo; there's 'what's inside' feature panels prominently displayed like CTA buckets; and our eyes (so we're told from scientific study by patient eggheads, God bless them) follow the path of a golden spiral - hence the callouts on the cover of magazines are traditionally positioned such.

And what do we do next? We hit the next button on the right, or rather, turn the page, following further visual prompts until maybe we lose our way and use the global navigation, aka the contents page. And for those paying attention at the front, I know. A good interface should not have allowed you to lose your way in the first place.

My point is, we're hard-wired a certain way as far as absorbing information is concerned, and our old habits are like John McClane, transferred from the page to behind the click-wheel of a mouse. Therefore, it's important to be facilitated with a nice, intuitive interface. Friendly. That's the word. And that's what 'Don't Make Me Think' is all about.

Its author, Steve Krug, is a usability consultant, and he's taken all his hard-earned experience to create a book as simple to understand as the websites he helps make friendly. It doesn't cover the casual games I specialise in, per se, or their second cousin removed, social media (the book was originally published in 2000, but has more recently been updated), but what it does reveal, with mostly simple, bulleted examples and pictorial evidence, are the essential rudiments of mouse-to-eye-to-brain usability, which is a pretty universal theme in digital today.

Now, some folks in my position may feel that to read such an uncomplicated tome on our 'specialist' chosen subject is to look like some uninformed noddy who should go back to making their Powerpoint-designed, export-for-web creations. And we can't be seen to look like that, can we? But to embrace it is to cast aside any silly vanities and help bolster your own back catalogue of knowledge and semiotic instinct garnered from years of graphical learning. You'll also unearth some neat new chestnuts you'll be surprised you never passed in the corridoors of this establishment. For example: user testing - it's not the same as focus group testing, silly.

Sorry, never knew it.

And whilst you're user testing, in your first session, it's usually more valuable to use lower numbers of volunteers (say, three) than a higher number of your target audience. Why? Because regular 'Joe Bloggs' users will uncannily weed out the most obvious - yet missed - usability clangers.

There are also some very nice analogies for looking at user interface design (which I'm about to mashup and paraphrase wildly) to make you think both logically and laterally.

Example. Imagine I've tied you up (hello?) with a bag over your head (erm?) and stuck you in the boot of my car (okay, I get it. Are there air holes?). Yes, I've thought of everything. There's even a little hamster bottle to your left in case you get thirsty. (Very kind). No problem. Anyway. You're in the trunk, getting driven around for an hour, being disorientated. Then I stop, bundle you out and drop you in the middle of a department store. Your task: find me a vase.

How you respond to this task is dependent on a number of variables, including how well the store is laid out, how clear the signposting is and, even, what sort of mood you're in (angry from the car ride I expect). These circumstances can directly relate to how we navigate a website.

Imagine you've landed in the middle of a page from a Google link. Just like me dropping you inside that department store in the real world, Google has dumped you in the middle of a website, and how you find your way around to complete a task is, again, down to a pretty similar set of variables including layout, signposting and how the user is feeling.

If you're ticked off from the outset, it's unlikely you'll persevere with the task in hand if you're given misdirection from bad layout or signage, but if the overall experience leaves you feeling good about it, then you'll forgive a couple of bum steers. And the warm feelings may not just be down to how easily you find what you're looking for, but also your interaction with the aesthetics. Your feelings. They're something I've always had in the back of my mind as a designer - if what i produce is pleasing to me, at the least aesthetically-speaking, I expect the end user will likely feel good, too.

State of mind and its direct correlation with design is another one of many interesting points raised by our pal Steve Krug, and a factor we should pay as much attention to as the positioning of a label on a submit search button.

So, that's me recommending the book.

With the end-user's mental state in mind, I'm now about to tuck in to the second book on the list, 'Emotional Design'. You can guess what that's about. When i'm done reading, I can let you know if it's any good. But only if you feel like it.