CHORUS DESIGN BLOG

Digital publishing is here… Again (only much better)

2009-12-03T14:22:00.003+11:00

Time Inc. has released a video walkthrough of it's digital magazine format design for touch screen tablets like the one long rumoured to be coming from Apple. This follows on recent rumours that a multi-publisher iTunes-like digital store for magazines is coming soon. Check out the video below.

Please Explain: Jonathan Hoefler & Steven Heller

2009-10-28T13:22:00.002+11:00

WNYC 93.9FM has a weekly radio show called "Please Explain". They recently interviewed typeface designer Jonathan Hoefler, type designer and president of Hoefler & Frere-Jones and Steven Heller, co-chair of the MFA Designer as Author program at the School of Visual Arts and author of the VISUALS column for the New York Times Book Review, and asked them to explain how typefaces are created and why typography is important to communication and design. Listen in…

The crisis of credit visualised

2009-04-09T14:41:00.003+10:00

Created as a thesis project in the Media Design Program, a graduate studio at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, this work by Jonathan Jarvis is a brilliantly produced movie explaining the credit crisis in a delightful way. Great work.

The future of the newspaper

2009-04-03T16:25:00.002+11:00

I stumbled on this talk by Jacek Utko, a Polish newspaper designer. He makes some great points. Not only for designers but for anyone who loves what they do. A very (short) inspiring talk.

A normal iPhone ringtone

2008-08-01T12:40:00.002+10:00

Like almost every other phone I've had in the last five years, my new iPhone is full of lame ringtones. What's wrong with phone manufacturers that they can't at least give us one normal ringtone. Anyhow, I went on a quest to find a decent mobile ringtone and came up with the ringtone that Apple had as a part of their ad for their first gen iPhone aptly called cellphone ringing. So if you want a regular ringtone for your iphone, control click or command click (mac) this link to download it as an m4r file. Then just open it up in iTunes.

Autumn Whitehurst

2008-08-01T12:21:00.003+10:00

Well, what can I say about Autumn Whitehurst? Her work is stunning. The campaign she worked on for Monaco is so gobsmackingly beautiful. I'm sure you'll agree. She has a great collection of work.

Looking at Things

2008-07-31T10:10:00.003+10:00

If you're working on a Mac or have an iPhone you should check out an application called Things. With iPhone and desktop sync on the way (can't wait for that), Things is the todo application that should've been a part of a Mac out of the box. Based on the Getting Things Done way of working, Things helps you prioritise you're tasks into what needs to be done today, next and someday and lets you schedule tasks to appear at a later date. You can tag tasks for easy sorting and organise tasks into projects and areas. Check it out for yourselves. It's a great way to stay on top of your workload.

James Jean rules

2008-02-11T18:05:00.001+11:00

A visit to James Jean's blog is most certainly worth your time. He works as a multi award winning comic book and editorial illustrator but has also been producing some seriously stunning personal work. You can get hold of one of his open edition prints for around $50 or more for his limited edition prints – although there aren't many left. Good luck if you can get hold of a copy of one of his books too. Both are amazing and both out of print a couple of times over. I'm looking forward to getting hold of one of his prints very soon. I can't resist.

New Multiforte website

2007-12-06T15:37:00.000+11:00

Recently we completed the new Multiforte website. Multiforte are a fee for service financial planning company. This means that they don't take commissions and can give you independent advice you can trust. Check them out if you need some help.

Draw As You Snore

2007-07-16T12:15:00.000+10:00

We've just uploaded a new site we created for Draw As You Snore. They provide a way for Australian advertising agencies to get their storyboards drawn overnight. Check them out.

Jose Parla

2007-06-28T11:18:00.000+10:00

Recently I went to the Monster Children Gallery here in Sydney and saw the work of Jose Parla. Truly breathtaking stuff. If you ever get the chance to see his work first hand, do it. There's a great video on his website which shows his thinking and execution. A true artist.

Max Communications website

2007-05-02T11:40:00.000+10:00

We've recently completed a small website project for Max Communications. Drop by and take a look.

Enfant Terrible!

2007-03-20T15:23:00.000+11:00

Check out this great new children's t-shirt range from Enfant Terrible. The shirts were designed by Mike Lind, an award winning advertising art director. The theme is fun and cheekiness. The images were shot by Nick Scott and we put the site together.
The site is live and ready for you to cover your tike in some great new threads.

What makes a good magazine cover?

2006-11-07T12:28:00.000+11:00

Most magazines in Australia are purchased from newsagents, general stores and supermarkets and compete visually for the readers attention and dollars. So the cover has to be designed well to grab them.

Magazines exist for all types of subject matter and their covers need reflect their content and identify with the reader. Architecture magazines will generally have a building on the cover, a fashion magazine will have a person on the cover and a motorbike magazine will have a bike on the cover.

They say not to judge a book by it's cover, but for magazines, that's just what happens. Readers scan the cover for a glimpse of what's inside. So... the single most important thing is that the cover must be engaging. When you look at a magazine it must say, "pick me up now!" So what makes a magazine cover engaging?

The first thing is imagery. It must show the most fascinating, visually attractive image available (which is relevant to the issue's content). While some magazines (especially business magazines) have only type or illustrations on their covers, photography is by far the most used attention grabber.

The quality of photography and composition can make or break a magazine by helping or hindering sales. If you walk into a newsagent and take a look at the magazines available, you'll notice that the most popular subject on the covers are people. Why? Because it works.

There a few winning tips when it comes to having people on the cover. Eye contact is a must. The eyes are the window to the soul and can convey feelings and engage you. It's a good idea to keep the subjects head towards the top so that they peer above the magazine in the row below it.

Every magazine should have an easily identifiable masthead so the reader can quickly find the magazine they enjoyed last time. Well constructed and interesting cover lines are also very important. These cover lines should show a strong use typography which does not work against the imagery but supports it.

It's important also to have a strong use of colour. The use of colour can help convey the tone of the content. You'll find that black and white covers, or those that are dark, adopt a more serious tone. For some reason, a lot of green is a sales killer. We've heard this from others and we've seen it happen first hand.

Each title has their own combination of things that work on covers. After a bit of trial and error and market research, the designer and publisher can further narrow this down to a signature style which is repeated to ensure success. Some aim to be titillating. Some aim to be ultra stylish. Much of it depends on the tone and the audience you're trying to capture.

MARKETING TIP: Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

2006-10-31T13:27:00.000+11:00

It’s a competitive world out there when it comes to getting your site seen by others. Everybody wants to be on page one of their chosen search phrase in Google but how do we get there? It’s no easy task and requires a lot of things that work together to help increase your rankings.
Google has a secret algorithm at its core which it uses to rank pages. This algorithm studies many things about your site including, amongst other things, its age, the quality of its content, incoming links from other relevant sites, keywords and other meta tags in its code.
Let’s take a look at a few of these things.

Quality content
This is one of the big ones! It’s in Google's best interest as a search engine to refer you to quality sites the first time. To do this, the robots it sends out to crawl your site look for keyword rich content. If you want to get up in the Google rankings, you must have relevant, quality content on your website’s pages.

Links
You need links – and lots of them. Many people place their websites on free or paid directories. While these do help to a certain extent, the best links you can have are links from other sites which have high page rankings. Most of these will probably be competitors who won’t give you a link from their site, but you will find sites that will.

Meta tags
Close attention should be shown to title, keyword and description meta tags.
Yes, Google looks at the title of your page. Make it descriptive, keyword rich and short (6-8 words). Don’t fill it with keywords and don’t use funky looking characters to make it stand out in bookmarks. Google doesn’t like this.
Keywords are very important. There are many tools on the web which can help you select your keywords. They look at what the most requested keywords are for your category. There is the tendency to put the most requested keywords first, but if your category is competitive and full of people all doing the same as you, maybe it’s a good idea to zag and use slightly lesser requested keywords and get higher in Google for those words. Your call. Either way, keep it to about 50 words.
The desciption tag is another opportunity to use keyword rich text. This also appears below the title when your site appears in search engines. Have your strongest keywords appear early.

Articles and Driving Traffic From Forums
A good way of getting links from relevant sites is to write articles. If you can get these published on industry related websites who are looking for content for their own sites, you can get a link back to your site in the “about the author” credits.
Forums are another good way to drive traffic. Contribute to these communities and you can more often than not place a link to your site in your signature at the bottom. Google doesn’t place a lot of weight on these links but you are still driving traffic to your site and some of this traffic may be qualified business leads.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising
You can also get your page up onto early pages through pay-per-click advertising (ie. Google AdWords, Overture, etc.) where the higher you bid, the earlier your ad will show. In Google, these appear down the right side of the page or highlighted at the top. When someone clicks on your link, you pay the amount you have bid. This may or may not be useful to you and can become a costly exercise if not tracked carefully. We recommend this (especially for new websites not listed with Google) but prefer to get up the list organically through other means like links and keywords

Be Careful
Just as Google rewards you for content, they can penalise you for trying to be tricky. If you think of a great trick to get up the list, Google have already thought of it and are ready to penalise you. So forget things like the ‘ol black text on a black background trick and other just like it. It’s not worthwhile.

Search engine optimisation is such a big topic. Much too big for this blog. But we’ve shared a few of the main things for you to consider. Hope this helps.

Audrey Kawasaki

2006-10-26T21:47:00.000+10:00

Every now and then you come across something so beautiful that you can't stop looking at it. Recently I picked up a magazine which showcased the work of Audrey Kawasaki. All her work is amazing but these two are special. So special that I had to get a copy of each of these limited edition prints for myself. I still can't stop looking at them.
The original artworks are first sketched on wood and then painted over in oils. You can still see some of the pencil drawing which adds to the raw beauty of the work. Check her other stuff out. Truly amazing!

Welcome

2006-10-26T14:59:00.000+10:00

Hi and welcome to our blog. Here we'll publish a bit about what Chorus Design has been up to and let you know more about us and what blows our hair back. Hope you enjoy it!