stuck for ideas? #1

Here's a new little series. And something intended to help you struggling designers out there. You know, we all get stuck for ideas from time to time, don't we? And our design training has taught us that our very existence depends upon identifying and distilling the 'big idea' behind even the most mundane of products or services. Some little graphic 'twist' that will set our client's brand apart and earn us a black pencil to boot. But what to do when the ideas won't come?

Well, here to help you along is david the designer's guide to graphic clichés: simple solutions that are guaranteed to pull the wool over the eyes of even the most discerning of clients.

#1: the goldfish

The goldfish was first pioneered by The Michael Wolff back in the 1970s and proposed, apparently, as the preferred solution over the Bovis humming bird identity. In fact, so fond was Michael of his fish, when he left Wolff Olins to set up his own design firm, Addison, he took the goldfish image with him and used it unchanged as the Addison logo (so it says in Picturing the Beast).

The goldfish immediately sets your client apart and portrays them as the undoubted leader in their field.

A word of advice, though: when presenting, don't mention the fact that only dead fish swim with the tide.

Comments

[Alex]

This is going to be a long series, isn't it? I like it already.

[George - LogoDesign.org]

Very cool. I always appreciate a unique spin on an old idea!