Not as breezy this morning, but nonetheless, the air is moving. There is a little woodpecker hopping around n the tree in front of me. Maybe he will find the seedladen fat block we have suspended for his amusement and snacking. No one seems to have noticed it yet…and when they do, it will be instantly gone.
I entertained myself yesterday by pulling apart a pdf of the visual identity work presented to glean the colors swatches to really put them through the paces. As much as color is so personal and so arbitrary, when colors are selected for a visual identity, often they are selected almost randomly without any “due diligence”. What happens if its a one color job? how will the color perform when screened? Will 10 point, medium weight copy reverse out of it in solid? can you overprint on it? How does copy reverse out and come back in another color in the palette? How does it stand up? How does the color work on grey? on black? Is type legible on white in 100%? What is the CMYK breakout? Is there too much yellow to make it legible? So I put these 5 colors through the paces. There is a cyan, a yellow, a magenta, an orange and a grey along with a grassy green ( a green I have used in the past until it was declared “ugly”). And surprisingly, none of these colors have the depth to screen tint as well. It is 100% of the colors or nothing. I am also musing on the magenta which, with my experience will not have any legs as very masculine men do not want to have pink represent their businesses. I used a purple on a job when I was at Corning and was taken aside by the lead guy who told me real businesses did not use purple. Punto.
So the question remains, is this the right thing to roll in front of my clients (I think yes). Should I modify the consultants palette to make it work (I think no, they are the experts)? Should I show the seeming lack of legs, despite the declarations of how robust these elements are to my client (I think yes, as I am going to be handed these standards to apply and reinforce with the inside folks). More exploration today to bring this into line. I am already thinking of workarounds even before this program has been bought into, and approved. The consultant may not even have the slightest idea of the limitations they are giving us—claiming too many choices makes the program go out of control (also true) but then the color that is selected has to be really RIGHT so we can force them to really work for us.
There is a clunkiness to the font choice…but I can live with any font as long as there is a MSWord equivalent unless the company wants to buy 20,000 CPU licenses to run the more elegant font. The proposed imagery is also a problem. I may take one of their designs and play it out in the few colors to see/show what happens in other people’s hands? Also, I may take one of the jewels we have gotten from Mexico to wrap in these two need visual treatments and see how they stand up. I feel that this might be mean spirited to do, to puncture the little balloon of happiness my client has in these very sterile applications, but if I cannot make this stuff work, what about the admin in Kansas who wants to create a postcard for her boss? We see those jobs and its enough to make your hair stand on end.
More later on this front. Thank goodness there is medication for this sort of thing. I am not spinning in my sleep over this…when I should be on the rotisserie.
Today we see a Hangar production, The Man of La Mancha. Maybe the MacGillicudies at the Rongo after. We may have Bruce here? We also are hoping for a bit of rain.
More later. Maybe something for Illustration Friday (IF)>>