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The Swiss style of graphic design (also known as the International Typographic Style) was made famous through the work of talented Swiss graphic designers such as Armin Hofmann and Josef Müller-Brockman. The Swiss design style was pioneered during the 1920s and 1930s through projects for engineering, pharmaceutical and manufacturing companies in Switzerland — which required very basic instructional form factors for their technical materials, and therefore extremely simple and streamlined visual treatments. Thus, the style was born from a need for function over fashion.

Hallmarks of this minimalist functional style are the use of:

• a tightly-controlled, mathematically-driven grid to provide an overall orderly and unified structure for information
• sans-serif typefaces (such as Akzidenz Grotesk and, later, Helvetica) in a flush-left/rag-right format
• black/white (sometimes with a single accent color), or no more than two primary colors (instead of black/white)
• use of clean black/white photography (rather than illustration) in most cases
• a fierce reduction/subtraction of elements, to encourage legibility and protection of whitespace

The overall impression is simple and rational, tightly structured and serious, clear, objective, and harmonious.

At its surface, it’s all too easy for today’s design professional to dismiss the Swiss style as rudimentary, outdated and constricting – as a purely visual framework (and a limited one at that). However, upon deeper study, Swiss is more than just the art of placing and aligning elements; there’s a subtext of semantic organization of information, which is an integral part of the style’s essence.  The online world alone is rife with examples where too much information is haphazardly crammed into a single space – often because that space needs to serve multiple masters (content, navigation, social, brand, advertising, etc…) all of which insist on having equal emphasis.  Embracing the Swiss style forces everyone involved to make tough but necessary choices on what the true purpose of each space should be for the audience, and distilling the related elements down to a level of elegant simplicity – of minimalism.  Swiss is about removing the unnecessary and emphasizing the necessary; it’s about a functional and simple use of fundamental elements of style for the purpose of the primary objective; which infers that said objectives of any space must be given a hierarchy of importance, and that hierarchy be adhered to throughout the experience.  In short, Swiss is not just visual organization, Swiss is visual storytelling.

Some have even gone so far as to infer that the principles of Swiss design have no place in the world of “new media” – after all, we now have technology that allows us to do things in the design-space that those in the ‘20s and ‘30s could not even imagine, and that we should be free to express ourselves creatively without limitation or “rules”.  I would contest that now, more than ever – in this “new media” world of instant access, information overshare, and supersizing – that we have a duty to embrace our inner “Swiss” and encourage a return to a more rational and sane methodology for information delivery.  In many ways, the Design discipline is still trying to find its way in this online world.  I see this as an ideal opportunity for us to rise up as a collective voice and evangelize the Swiss style as the “sanity check” for online user experiences.

How can you help?

• Read and explore what Swiss means to you (online or offline).
• Share your thoughts (here or elsewhere).
• Post your favorite examples of Swiss design in the comments (especially if they are your own work).
• Spread the word!

Intending to jump ship this year for a new job? You’re not alone. According to this month’s Harvard Business Review, one in four top performers are planning to do the same.

If you're a job-seeker, this is good news for you as it's a sign that the job market has improved. After playing it safe for the last few years, being grateful just for a paycheck, employees are feeling confident enough in the economy to consider making that next big move.

If you're a manager looking to keep your star talent, it is time to pay attention and seek new experiences that will grow and enhance their skills and opportunities - before someone else does.
 
For those of us in the digital media industry, the landscape changes so fast it makes our heads spin. We're always looking to stay on top of emerging skill sets and in touch with people who have them.

If 2009 was the “year of mobile,” then 2010 is definitely the “year of social.” Demand for skills in both of these areas is growing rapidly. Mobile application design and development for the iPhone, iPad and the growing Android market is on fire, and social networking application experience is quickly becoming a necessity.

New titles of "Community Managers” and “Social Media Strategists" are emerging, and the “Flash versus HTML5” debate will only create more work in both arenas.
 
We want to hear what skills you'll be looking to hire in current or new technologies in the coming year.

What do you imagine you'll be working on two years from now, with things like geolocation and augmented reality becoming mainstream?

In the April 2010 issue of Boxes and Arrows, Joseph Selbie looks at best practices for in-house design teams creating web applications. In his article Bringing Holistic Awareness to Your Design, Selbie considers how increased specialization (from information designers, UX designers, user researchers, usability designers, etc.) ultimately affects user satisfaction.

In his case study, Selbie found that a shared, holistic understanding amongst all team members—regardless of specialization—actually plays a more important role in end user satisfaction. He summarizes the findings as follows:

“Those teams that achieved the highest degree of shared, holistic understanding consistently designed the best web applications. The more each team member understood the business goals, the user needs, and the capabilities and limitations of the IT environment—a holistic view—the more successful the project. In contrast, the more each team member was ‘siloed’ into knowing just their piece of the whole, the less successful the project.”

Facilitating Shared, Holistic Understanding

Selbie cites five key tactics for fostering holistic understanding among all team members (see the original article for a full explanation of each). These are:

1. All team members conduct at least some user research
2. Team members participate in work and task flow workshops
3. Team members share and discuss information as a team
4. Team members prioritize information as a team
5. Team members design together in collaborative workshops
   

Selbie advocates that collaborative design is the most powerful way to encourage a shared, holistic understanding. He suggests conducting “wireframe-level, whiteboard-style, collaborative design sessions” including representative team members from all sides of the equation including users, business and IT.

The benefits of a collaborative design session include the ability to make real-time decisions, create buy-in and save time down the road because less iterations are needed at a later stage. BUT, many people are reluctant to participate in a collaborative design session, seeing it as counter-productive (you know, the whole “too many cooks in the kitchen” thing).

Given Selbie’s argument that shared, holistic understand leads to higher user satisfaction—and that collaborative workshops are the best way to get there—it’s worth a shot, right?

How to Conduct a Productive, Collaborative Group Design Session

Here are some suggestions on how to conduct an effective, productive group design session.

• Devote enough time to the collaborative workshop. Selbie says, “We have found that between 10 and 20 core screens can be considered, discussed, iterated and designed in 4-5 days of workshops.”
• Clarify business goals and the scope of the session from the outset.
• Enter the collaborative session with a few rough ideas in mind already. These can be used to start sketching and jumpstart others’ creative thinking.
• Consider dividing the group into two smaller groups for a given task and having each group report back; the two main ideas from the groups can then be addressed and iterated on by the group as a whole.
• Create an environment that promotes respectful listening and learning. Encourage the sharing of ideas—even bad ones! Those bad ideas could lead to new insights.
• Create a focused environment (meaning no checking email on your Smartphone, IM’ing from your notebook, etc.).
• Respect the process of discovery rather than focusing on the end result.
  

In addition to these ideas, the article Using a Collaborative Parallel Design Process on uxmatters.com gives insight into making the parallel design process more collaborative. Parallel design involves starting with a large pool of ideas, evaluating ideas in a systematic way, and then selecting the most appropriate ideas to move forward with in the next brainstorming step. The article makes suggestions on how to present ideas, how to analyze designs and how to vary the collaborative format depending on your needs/goals. 

What’s your experience with collaborative design sessions? Are there any methodologies you use to ensure a productive, successful session? We’d love to hear how you’ve used collaboration to increase group understanding and ultimately create a superior user experience.

Like the Sirens’ song in The Odyssey, the web is full of temptations and distractions that threaten to lead designers and creatives astray. But rather than the risk of shipwreck, the danger lies in producing unoriginal, uninspired content that undermines the basic premise of design—that is, to communicate in an effective, innovative and aesthetically stimulating way and to illuminate new truths or provoke new ideas.

Is Design a Dying Art?

With the proliferation of content on the web, some see the state of design as regressing rather than progressing. Take for instance a recent article on Smashing Magazine: The Dying Art of Design. In the article, UX Designer and writer Francisco Inchauste discusses how “modern design tools and processes do more harm than good” when the tools themselves begin to replace the fundamental understanding of why a design solution is used or what fundamental problem is being addressed.

In the article, several problems are brought to light, including:

• A tendency to consume shallow content such as inspirational lists, tutorials and freebies rather than in-depth content. According to a poll conducted by Smashing Magazine, “Over 75% of the articles that designers read are either design tutorials or inspirational lists.”
• The positioning of how-to articles as “design tutorials” when really they are “tool tutorials” that teach only a singular aspect, leading designers to use a technique without necessarily understanding why it’s appropriate for a project.
• The growing use of cheap or free content, resulting in a lack of originality that begins to commoditize design and potentially lessen its value in the eyes of clients.
  

As the writer of the article sees it, the threat posed by these trends will potentially undermine design as an art and craft: “. . . designers will never be considered people who can solve problems for businesses and their customers and who can effectively communicate ideas. We will simply be a mindless pair of hands that knows how to apply some trendy colors and glossy effects to make things look nice. A technique with no purpose makes a design irrelevant. If design becomes irrelevant, then at some point we may be, too.”

Cultivating Strong Design Habits

Francisco, however, does offer some ideas and reminders of how to keep the design profession thriving and continue improving as an individual designer. He suggests:

• Creating your own assets, such as textures and graphics, rather than looking for fast and free ones that may be lesser in quality or lacking in originality.
• “Digging deep” in a book instead of clicking away on the web for shortcuts or quick tips.
• Devoting the time and money to attend a conference or event.
• Looking at tools and tutorials as “a means to good design, not the end.”
• Returning to sketching to flesh out a concept.
  

In addition to Francisco’s poignant reminders in the article, here are some additional ideas on how to continue fostering strong design habits:

• Step away from the computer and find inspiration in the real world.
• Join a local meet-up group where you can discuss ideas, projects and challenges with other professionals.
• Think back to why you wanted to become a designer and consider how you can continue to meet that goal every day.
• Go back to the basics. Don’t get immediately swept up by every trend and fad.
• Take the time to appreciate great design—whether it’s in a gallery, a book, in street art or on the web—and reflect on what makes it powerful.
  

Leveraging the Web to Strengthen Design

The web doesn’t have to be a threat to good design and original thinking, and design certainly doesn’t have to succumb to a death sentence as an art form. When used in the right context, online tools and content can serve to augment design thinking and provide a platform for elevating the standards rather than lowering them.

Francisco Inchauste ends his article with a relevant piece of advice: “We determine the type of information made available to us. Every click (and tweet) can be a vote for a better and smarter design community. Please choose wisely.”

Best User Interface Design Resources: The Round-up, a post on Dzineblog, includes an informative and inspiring collection of UI examples, designs, tools and more. The list covers multiple resources for discovering new UI patterns and templates (such as Pattern Tap and The UI Pattern Factory) as well as a host of interesting site samples. Another cool resource that made the list is Type Tester, which generates previews of text in different formats and provides the corresponding CSS.

Check out the post here to reignite your UI design muse. 

Twitter is tweaking its homepage, as reported here on their blog. Though it looks like the design hasn’t been fully implemented yet (the test homepage was live on March 30th), Twitter says it aims to demonstrate through its design changes that “Twitter is not just for status updates anymore.” 

As pcworld.com discusses here, the new UI includes a scrolling area with trending topics, a ‘Top tweets’ area that constantly refreshes (windows phone topped the list when I checked it out), and a ‘See who’s here’ section showing a random selection of Twitter users.

What do you think about the new design? You can compare and contrast the old and new homepage here on mashable.com or see a screenshot of the new homepage design on the Twitter blog. Will the redesign attract more new users and demonstrate the mass appeal of Twitter?

Silverlight… Yes, Silverlight has gotten a lot of negativity in its short lifetime. Most of it obviously comes from the Flash community. When Silverlight first arrived, I was on that wagon questioning the relevance of the technology. But now with version 3.0, and soon 4.0, is all of the negativity really necessary? I’m not saying that Flash developers should eject and hop on the Silverlight ride, but with a user adoption rate now at 60% (according to Scott Guthrie at Mix 10), it is becoming a must-know runtime. 

The main issue I have seen with Silverlight applications is their ability to have smooth interaction and motion. The other issue is that you see applications using techniques that are somewhat detrimental to the experience. Don’t use the DeepZoom feature on something that is not relevant. Don’t do 3D projection if it doesn’t improve the experience. I attribute this to a collection of experienced .NET/C#/VB application developers entering the interactive development space. I’m not saying that they are bad developers -- in fact quite the opposite, but they are just not interactive developers. It is a different mindset to create an interactive experience than to create powerful backend code. 

You could also say that Flash has over 10 years worth of community involvement creating open source solutions to improve workflow. Take two examples: TweenMax and Gaia. Both are open source libraries that significantly improve efficient code creation. TweenMax allows you to take a single line of code and create complex effect and property animations. Gaia allows you to create fully functioning websites in minutes. What these libraries have done is take out all of the repetitive time-consuming processes that end up causing you the most development pain. 

Coming from a Flash background, I was hesitant to jump into Silverlight development. With the thought that, “Oh this is just going to go away. No one can compete with Flash and the 98%+ adoption rate.” But we all should know by now that technology always evolves and you must adapt and find ways to make yourself valuable to the needs of the market. 

Silverlight is not going away any time soon. Microsoft will continue to push it. You will begin to see a transition in the next year specifically in the Microsoft website family (microsoft.com, xbox.com, msn.com, etc). They will be transitioning all of the Flash content into Silverlight content. And honestly, why wouldn’t they? Who is a better advocate for a technology than the company that created it? 

They have already started implementing Silverlight-based banner ads which will also chip into the Flash stranglehold. So, the opportunity is huge for anyone who knows or is willing to learn Silverlight. This was re-enforced as Microsoft announced that Windows Phone 7 will be a Silverlight environment. You can tell Microsoft is positioning itself to make things easier for developers while also improving their market share against Flash.

Giving developers the opportunity to create one solution for use on multiple platforms is necessary as more and more devices are created.  If you can use 80% of code from a desktop/web application and then add a few statements that apply it to the mobile environment, you have just created an efficient workflow. This will drastically cut time and cost for development. 

As I began to dive into Silverlight, I noticed all of the things I was missing that made development so easy on the Flash platform. Part of that is knowledge and the other part is experience. That is the price for learning any new software. But after actually giving it a try, I realized that you can do some of the exact same things. You can create the same interactivity and motion. Yes, it may take longer at first but you don’t have those 10+ years of community development. As the Silverlight community grows, hopefully we will begin to see the same collaboration that helps create a more efficient work environment. 

Silverlight will no doubt make Flash better and vice versa. Competition keeps everything pushing forward instead of being content with the current position. It would be a mistake for Flash developers to ignore any new interactive technology. Ignorance leads to getting left behind. You end up watching your peers excel to new heights, not because they have abandoned everything that they know, but because they have chosen to expand their skill set. Silverlight can be as good if not better than Flash, but it is up to the developers who are behind it. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jason Kisch is the Lead Solution Architect for Filter STUDIOS.  His focus is supporting all phases of projects, providing technical insight and creative problem solving. 

As a web designer, are you a strict adherent to the school of “above the fold,” or more of a rebel (with a cause)? What about your clients? What side of the fold do they stand on?

Signal vs. Noise (the blog from 37signals), posted this great image and conversation starter from Paddy Donnelly, a user experience designer, information architect and blogger:

What’s your take? Is the ‘above the fold’ rule still one to live by, or is this one rule that’s made to be broken?

Let’s take a quick (completely unscientific) poll here.

How many of you carry a sketchbook around with you?

Now, how many of you have traded in your old Moleskine or scrap paper for a digital sketching tool (or you’re holding your breath until there’s a tried and true stylus for the iPad)?

Whatever mode or mechanism you choose, what’s the role of sketching as part of the creative process, and how is technology supporting—or maybe even changing—that process?

Most designers and visual artists rely on sketching for a number of reasons. In her post Prisoners of Logic on Design Observer, Jessica Helfand talks about sketching as “a clearinghouse of subconscious thought,” a way to (ideally) move past logic and experiment with freedom of form. On another note, visual and web designers may use live sketching in meetings to make the discovery process more engaging, dynamic and collaborative. Sketching is also an integral step in designing user interfaces and experiences (and we’ve talked before about the pros and cons of computer-based sketchy wireframes).

And, of course, since designers of all types are pre-programmed to show, not tell, sketching is simply part of the thought process.

With that said, we’re interested in knowing what you find more useful—old school pen and paper (like Jason Robb on UX Booth supports in this blog post) or digital tools like Cintiq or Brushes on the iPhone? (And while you’re contemplating that question, check out this time-elapsed video showing how Jorge Colombo drew The New Yorker’s June 2009 cover by virtually finger painting using Brushes. . . it’s pretty sweet.)

So the question remains: does the convenience of a multitasking tool like a phone, digital display or software win out? Or do you relish the tangible nature of hand grasping pen? Whichever you prefer, the only non-argument seems to be that sketching remains a prevalent and important part of design in all forms, whether as a problem-solving approach or simply a means of finding inspiration—and maybe even sheer enjoyment. 

Image: Jorge Colombo’s June 2009 cover for The New Yorker was created using Brushes on the iPhone.

Designers and developers will be falling in love all over again (with the web, that is) at Mix10. The year’s biggest designer/developer love fest is right around the corner—March 15th to 17th in Las Vegas—and the action-packed lineup is one you won’t want to miss.

To put it in their own words, Mix is all about “exploring the art and science of creating great user experiences” while also investigating the interplay between design and technology. Seeing as we at Filter are rather smitten with the convergence of design and technology ourselves, we couldn’t have said it better.

Over 3 days, Mix10 will offer a glimpse into the next generation of ecommerce, technology, mobile, design and more. (Can you feel the butterflies already?!)

Curious about who else will be there? Mix draws a sharp crowd of designers, developers, strategists, information architects, visual designers, UX professionals and digital marketers (plus other web-savvy professionals). Whether you’re a designer, developer or a hybrid devigner, you’ll no doubt feel the love at Mix10.

(Planning to attend? Share your comments, experiences or thoughts about Mix here on our blog!)