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Hello, I’m Richard Gregory, designer, creative director and image maker.
I’ve been designing for 35 years, as rgdc since 1992, focusing on corporate brochure and brand identity design. My studio is in Dorset, England; clients come from the UK and Europe.
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Reference: referrals, recommendations
Halfway down the left of this page you’ll see an Amazon logo. It’s a commercial concession and it’s there because:
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sometimes I will mention books relating to the content of my blog – they might be source, inspiration, or just give you a hint of where my head’s at. I’ll link to those books as a point of courtesy; a way of thanks and recognition to the author at very least. I will only recommend or link to material I like or respect;
you’re unlikely to get in-depth detail in my blog – at least not in the short term – so the value of these links to you is that you are able go straight to relevant material where you can research and buy the stuff I’m interested in;
I’m an expert design practitioner, but I’m not an expert writer or critic. While the thoughts I convey are absolutely mine, you might find them expressed more expansively in other places – I’ll try to take you there.
So, when you see a link in the text of the blog, it’s possible that it’s an affiliate link to something specific on the UK Amazon site. It costs you nothing to use it and, yes, I will benefit if it ends with you buying something.
I’m just wedging the door open for you so let’s see how it works out. These things ain’t set in stone.
Why trends matter
Every year around midwinter, it feels as though every hub, resource, commentator with a job to do is feeding us stuff about which trends have been and what trends are coming. It can be overwhelming and unsettling because it makes us question what we’re doing. We think we’re supposed to believe “I should be doing that” or “I want to be part of that crowd”. It’s natural: people like to fit in with other people.
So how can you use your knowledge of trends as a tool for business? Here are five ways:
1 Find a movement you want to be part of. Or sell to. Or subscribe to.
2 Be aware of the trend you’re already part of, and learn to harness its direction and power.
3 Use your analysis of the trend to take a contrasting position or, as John Hegarty and Marty Neumeier would have it “When everybody zigs, zag”. You could even lead your own trend.
4 Predict when the prevailing fashion will be in sync with what you do.
5 Assess the tools you need to communicate, navigate, survive and excel as conditions change.
And where does design thinking come in?
1 To help you capture the tone of voice of the movement
2 To give you style and prominence inside the trend
3 To help you appear separate from the crowd with a unique position and standout communication
4 To prepare you to speak to your audience when they are listening and in language they will respond to.
5 To equip you to think ahead (‘design’ is another word for ‘plan’) so you’re in the right place at the right time, ready.
This was a light scratch of the surface. Want more on the subject? Follow up on this with Tribes by Seth Godin
and Zag: The Number One Strategy of High-performance Brands by Marty Neumeier
Posted in difference, public, trends
Tagged books, fashion, influence, trends, tribes
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More than seven ways to improve your proofreading
I work with writing that comes from a variety of sources.
Some of it is from copywriters, some generated by my clients, some I write myself. Sometimes the words in front of me are of extremely dubious origin…
But all of it – even if it’s been edited – needs a good filter to make sure it’s clear, simple, communicative and as correct as is comfortable.
Since the use of language is a matter of preference within imperfect guidelines, proofreading is not a perfect science but part of the craft of writing. It’s a balance of sense, style and ‘the rules’. But it can be incredibly tedious and easy to lose focus when re-reading a piece of text.
So, with my typographer’s hat on, I thought I’d share with you just a handful of the actions used by writers, typographers, designers and proofreaders to sharpen the written piece:
1 Give yourself a standard to follow. Both The Guardian
2 Use the grammar/spell check (sometimes it’s ok to ignore what it tells you – you decide). I like to keep the Oxford English Reference Dictionary close by.
3 Read the piece aloud. Confirm to yourself its readability, sense, pace, rhythm and humanity.
4 Read through line-by-line using a ruler or the edge of a sheet of paper to track your position. This helps to focus on detail.
5 You can get too close to it, especially if you’ve written the original, so get a capable co-worker or family member to read it.
6 If you wrote it and you have plenty of other stuff to do, leave a day or more before you start proofreading. Deadline permitting, of course.
Once you’ve set the text into the layout it’s been written for:
All of the above plus:
7 Read through it several times, each time focusing on a different aspect (e.g. letterspacing, punctuation, capitalisation, rivers of space, overuse of first person, long words or jargon, typographic styling)
8 An old compositor’s wheeze: read it upside down or in a mirror. It’s weird, but you do spot things that just look wrong.
What proofreading tricks do you use to make better copy? It’d be great to know…
Posted in public, typography, writing
Tagged copywriting, creative process, typography, writing
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Designers can be awkward
Why are so many designers* such difficult people? What draws the non-conformer to the creative process?
As a kid at primary school in 1950s south London, there was this overwhelming pressure to fit in. Stand in line. Sit still. Don’t talk. Do your shoelaces up. Lose the northern accent. Comb your short-back-and-sides hair. Write with your right hand. Draw what we tell you to draw.
In my first year of school, teachers decided that I should learn to write with my right hand. As a left-hander, I would, apparently, mirror what I saw, so when they said copy what’s on the blackboard, I did. Backwards. I guess this was either outside their experience or the equivalent of dissent. Consequently, I spent lessons with my left hand tied to my chair and a pencil taped to my right hand. You can imagine the results. My father, a fine left-hand spin bowler in his day, was livid when he found out.
Another time, same year, I was banned from using coloured pencils because I didn’t draw properly. I scribbled. How unnerving to see abstract efforts from a five year old. I was simply experimenting, trying out the tools.
So I was singled out as difficult, which is to say, I was inquisitive, suspicious of teachers, and didn’t do as I was told.
I don’t know how formative these events really were for me, but it’s possible they spawned in me an affinity for some of the values and processes that designers trust in; we:
keep asking questions
don’t accept the obvious
like to imagine and find things out for ourselves
trust evidence
try new ways of approaching a problem
believe there are better ways than the ones we know
like to make things nobody else has made
like (our work) to be noticed
don’t accept the obvious
like to imagine and find things out for ourselves
trust evidence
try new ways of approaching a problem
believe there are better ways than the ones we know
like to make things nobody else has made
like (our work) to be noticed
And the process take-away is:
See a problem (gap).
Question (research).
Create (innovate).
Test (prototype).
Observe (measure).
Improve (create better)
Produce (craft or automate).
Promote (show and sell).
Question (research).
Create (innovate).
Test (prototype).
Observe (measure).
Improve (create better)
Produce (craft or automate).
Promote (show and sell).
Awkward, difficult. And useful.
*For designers, read creatives, writers, artists, inventors, innovators, people who start things…
PS
An early soul-mate?
Wake up…
…wake up!
You (and your 220 co-passengers) daydreamed through the pre-flight cabin briefing and drifted off.
Here you are, two hours later, the plane’s filling with smoke and you have twenty-four seconds to give yourself a shot at survival.
Does design matter?
Is colour important?
What about typography and illustration – do they have value here?
Example reproduced with thanks to Qantas and The Boeing Company
An annual delight
Oh joy! Today the D&AD annual arrived.
What’s that? It’s the yearly compilation of all that’s arguably best in the previous year’s design and advertising from around the world. In a good year, it’s a massive shot of inspiration to keep us creative workers producing at the highest level and not tolerating second best.
Even though I’d read about the new volume in Creative Review, I didn’t recognise the pack in my hand as being the Annual: it just didn’t feel heavy enough.
The box: simple corrugated craft-board transit case, big wraparound logo printed in black. No glue or tape, just a folded, inserted tab.
And the book. No fanfare, no hidden extras like a disc or a letter. Cover art features the original D&AD brand mark, photographed cut out of paper.
I’m sensing that this is a deliberately pure, stripped down solution. So it continues.
The cover is case-bound and cut flush with the text, revealing the pulp-board bulk. After the introduction, there are only three sections, marked by thumb-index cutaways. Matt paper is used throughout. Is it coated? I think it’s uncoated. Great repro. lovely black ink (yes, it does matter).
This is great. There’s nothing throwaway about any part of the book. The award-winning work in its pages is the hero. I think it’s a masterpiece of intelligent problem-solving design that sends a strong message to the community it represents. More than that, it doesn’t feel compromised or constrained by the sustainable position it fills.
Downside? I will have to actually read it to figure out where to go and see the digital entries, but I guess that will be good for me.
Harry Pearce (Pentagram), Sanky (AllofUs) and Nat Hunter (Airside) are credited as the team behind the design and production (completing a circle since Fletcher Forbes Gill, the firm that evolved into Pentagram, created the D&AD mark in 1962*).
Oh, just noticed, the book is signed on the back as a limited edition! Sweet.
Other features it says here, include:
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• specially commissioned, light-but-bulky wood-free recycled paper
• vegetable-based inks
And, just in case I grow to hate it:
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• it’s compostible.
Looks like a good year to me.
*More sustainability: how many logos designed in 1962 stand their ground today?
Posted in problem solving, public
Tagged books, D&AD, design industry, influence, problem solving, strategic design thinking, sustainability, things seen
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A better problem
A remarkable aspect of the design industry is the sheer scope of it. While I’m wrestling with the intricacies of letter-spacing and legibility in an educational booklet, a product designer in, say, Berlin worries about the life-threatening time taken to open an emergency hatch on the new-generation bullet train for São Paulo to Rio.
There you have scales of magnitude in time, importance, interest, value, influence, energy and commitment.
My booklet will be in pockets in two months. That train is scheduled to arrive in five years.
My work today won’t save lives. But it might help people grasp some difficult ideas which they can put to good use. Her work, you hope, will never be needed and is there because it just has to be. My client’s booklet could have a lasting influence on how a corporation does business. Equally it could end up in the bin.
We’re both doing the same thing: using learned skills to crack a problem and create value for a client and their customers. We’re both striving for an aesthetic outcome – we want to look good while meeting a real need.
Here’s another feature of the design industry: designers from different fields talk to each other. We are not only used to collaborating and sharing, we thrive on it.
We tend to be curious and questioning and expect to learn stuff from the way other designers work. A shoe designer learns from an architect, who borrows from a typographer influenced by a furniture designer.
Yet we’re in business – driven and judged by commercial success. Most of the time, we’re solving clients’ problems, not ours (if we do that, it’s called art).
Do you hire designers? If you do, bring them the best, the toughest, the biggest, the most important problems you have.
And if you don’t, then dig out a problem you need solving. And go pick yourself a designer.
Posted in public
Tagged design industry, influence, problem solving, value, value of design, why design matters
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