Story by Martin Villanueva
Art by Kenneth Umali

When possible, we like to know the names of the possible approving bodies written on some form of an official contract, whether that be on a brief, on a job order form, or maybe even a billing/quotation statement. At the very least, it tempers our frustrations to know that the person who is very fickle is actually a true approving body and not just someone trying to push his or her weight around. Also, having these names on record serves as a piece of evidence if things escalate to a point of unreasonableness (“Mr. C requested requested this and he’s officially an approving body, so…”).

When possible, we also try to get all pertinent stakeholders/approving bodies involved early in the process of developing these designs. There’s psychology involved here: the earlier someone is involved, the more invested he or she is in the process, ergo the less likely he or she is to go against what’s already been done.

Lastly, our charging scheme plays a its role. Charging per study is a deterrent in and of itself. At the very least, this could encourage all the powers that be on the client’s end to speak with one another so that what is requested of the designers is a collective decision, not an individual’s.

All these could work, and yet all these could may very well be useless. It really depends. Regardless, I think it all goes back to doing the best you can to empathize with the client and to allow them to empathize with you and your process.

And there’s always something to be said about after-work de-stressors.

– Martin Villanueva

Clutter can actually be a dangerous thing, and I don’t just mean with furniture. On more levels than one, there are things in life which we do not need anymore but still hold onto. But clutter can hamper productivity and efficiency. Space is important in the office, in traffic, in between musical notes, in personal relationships. And space is also important in all aspects of design: your “space” as designer, whether on a physical, emotional, or intellectual level, and the element of space in your design output itself.

A lesson I picked up in my graphic design classes is that before you start working on anything, you need to establish your “sacred space.” This refers to one’s working state, both physically, mentally, emotionally, maybe even spiritually, and it differs with each person. This of course works beyond graphic design. Some people want to work on their own while others are more comfortable in groups. Some may work better while eating Snickers while others work best with music playing. The trick is to find your sacred space in which you are most comfortable and productive.

On an intellectual level, space is important in terms of your conception of ideas. In the creative industries, there is a saying that you have to learn to “kill your babies.” The babies here, of course, figuratively refer to your ideas. Regardless of how good you think they are, there will always be raw ideas that you have to disregard as you go further along the the creative process for the sake of the bigger picture or the overall direction. A guitarist may have come up with a cool riff, but it may be too grandiose for the low-key song he’s composing. A writer may have thought of an exciting, climactic fight scene, but the dialogue may have been out of character for the protagonist. A designer could have come up with a brilliant element for a brochure study, but perhaps it deviates from the initial direction he thought was best for the client. Killing these babies de-clutters your creative mind and refocuses you to the task at hand, thus making room for more productivity.

In the visual aspect of the design, space allows the elements of your design to breathe. Space is actually a design element itself. It is used to establish visual balance or is utilized to guide the eyes of the audience to focus on certain elements. There is also a technical aspect of space in your layout, as proximity implies relationship. In the layout of a feature article, for example, the article’s title will appear to be more relevant to a border embellishment if it is closer to that than it is to the body text. Space affects the design and, ultimately, it affects how the information is communicated. It is used to establish a clear sense of structural integrity, achieved by recognizing the importance of a grid and defining relationships amongst design elements. Little details such as these are often overlooked, but when executed correctly, they bring about a more disciplined design output.

Some graphic designers are afraid of space. I have encountered a few who manifest this in their works, and if you look at most of the posters and fliers scattered everywhere, you wouldn’t miss it. Besides unnecessary embellishments, a common manifestation of this hatred of space (and an unrelenting bane of graphic design) is the careless distortion of text. This is usually committed just to fill up space which that designer deems as unnecessary. There are really a lot of instances, but this is commonly seen in public service announcements and, just this year, in electoral campaign posters and fliers.  As discussed in Ellen Lupton’s book Thinking With Type, distortion of text is just one of many “type crimes” in which space is not respected. This example of amateur work ethic shows disregard and ignorance, and as my graphic design mentor used to put it, it is “a barbarization of civilization.”

Personally, I love space. I love minimalist designs, and I abhor seeing too much patterns, embellishments, information, etc. This is reflected in my own designs. As I was writing this, I came to understand why my mom does not want to throw some of those old junk away. Each person likes their space in their own certain way, and that has to be respected. That is not to say that you can’t attempt to guide others when their taste affects other people. 

– Kenneth Umali

Apologize

Defer to others

Avoid shortcuts

Tell the truth

Offer kindness

Seek alliances

Volunteer to take the short straw

Choose the long-term, sacrificing the short

Demonstrate respect to all, not just the obviously strong

Share credit and be public in your gratitude

Risking the appearance of weakness takes strength. And the market knows it.

Allow me to humbly add a couple more:

• Address a problem if not at its core than as close to it as possible

• Ask all the questions that need to be asked

• Continue to study what you’re doing as if you were still an undergrad (a diligent one, that is)

• Take a break every once in a while

– Martin Villanueva

“There is only one right way to learn to draw and that is a perfectly natural way. It has nothing to do with artifice or technique. It has nothing to do with aesthetics or conception. It has only to do with the act of correct observation, and by that I mean a physical contact with all sorts of objects through all the senses.”

In The Natural Way to Draw, Kimon Nicolaides’ main objective is not to teach students “how to draw” but to teach them “to learn how to draw” instead. The book’s concern is to provide students an experience, rather than a sheer idea, so as to produce a more dynamic form, not a mere connection of lines and manipulated shadows that produce something we call an object.

Moreover, besides the authors’ ideas/theories, the book provides a system, a series of exercises carefully planned and designed to produce his theories’ desired effect.

For starters and even artists who wish to improve their skills, this book is the way to go.

– Panch Alvarez

In our company, we take the creative brief seriously, especially for branding, and we aren’t afraid to ask as many questions as needed to fill that brief up with as much information as we can, knowing that this will help with the branding task at hand. As much as we don’t want to pester our clients, we certainly try to persist in attaining the information we need. Often, I’ve discovered, clients haven’t fleshed out for themselves a most basic consideration: How would you like to be viewed by clients, by competitors, and by your own employees? Often, the answers are too simple — cheaper, faster, better – and are far from unique. I’ve come to enjoy the challenge of being put in a position to not just design the identity but actually enable clients to discover it for themselves — often for the first time.

Years of private, liberal education schooling has brainwashed me into actually believing in the hullaballoo of the holistic. Even in the practical and capitalistic work of commissioned design, effectiveness seems dependent on one’s ability to view something functional as having to be rooted in something ideological, philosophical, humanistic. Output-based thinking is boring to me — it leads to dead ends, both on the part of the designers and that of the client-entrepreneurs. I personally hate being given free-reign for a job. It is the enabling aspect of the design job that remains interesting and true. A client’s clear vision enables designers to create ways to visually concretize it, while the designers’ awareness of what they need to concretize also enables a client to reaffirm (if not uncover) their own vision. The processes that good branding necessitate are most compelling, and these are the ones that point clients to themselves and what they’re about — or what their products and services should be based on.

– Martin Villanueva

Given those criteria, however, a movie with poor production value is not necessarily a B-movie. If the original intent for the output is to be cheap/low-quality to achieve a comedic or dramatic effect, such as recent Tarantino/Rodriguez films or Monty Pythons, then the production succeeds in giving the audience a good movie experience. Such films are successful, or at least serviceable, because they have established a sense of identity. They are what they are, which is what they want to be. With that, I would have to say that something that is trying to sell itself, or even hype itself up to being more than what it really is is a B-movie. The same principle can be applied to other things: a B-song, B-acting, B-design. They are suffering from an identity crisis. They do not know what they are and what they are capable of.

I came across an article about a certain comic book that supports what I am trying to say. In his article, Augie De Bileck Jr. quoted Roger Ebert, an acclaimed film critic, by saying “the work must be judged with its intent in mind.” That is something that I completely agree with. As much as De Bileck was using that idea to examine a comic book, I believe that this manner of criticism can be used to assess graphic design as well. As a graphic designer, I also have to say that the intent must be carried out with an established and sincere sense of identity, since identity shapes intentions.

Designers must establish an equilibrium between knowing what they want to do and knowing what they can do. To achieve that would involve planning, and that encompasses everything — from research, intent, up until execution. Designers have to ask themselves before they even start working on a project: What do I want to achieve? How do I communicate this certain information to my intended audience? Would communicating it that way be effective and suitable? Of course, things don’t always go according to plan, problems and revisions will be encountered along the way, but you to begin with some form of structure geared towards accomplishing your intent. When the plan is formulated, then the designer must assess if he has necessary resources to carry out the design.

I remember my midterm exam for Advanced Graphic Design class back in college: produce our own personal Press Kit. My professor, Ali Figueroa, gave us a 150-peso budget for everything. That included brochures, a printed portfolio, leave-behinds, fliers, etc. The more we spent over the budget, the lower he graded us. This was the project that really taught me that, as graphic designers, planning the design is very important. We don’t just wing it. We don’t go by feeling. We plan. We find out what we can, know what there is to know, and plan not just within our resources, but also within our capabilities.

Knowing is important in design, since you make your plans from what you know, whether you’re planning a short skit for Theater class, an oil painting of your childhood repressions, a print ad for a wire company, a weekend vacation, or a blockbuster film. That is what a designer does: He figures out how to carry out an intent using only the resources available and planning within his own capacity. Production value, aesthetics, they are all part of it, of course, but they should serve as tools of design and not undermine the intent (unless that is the intent, but wouldn’t that just be showing off?).

– Kenneth Umali