9/11/11 is past us, and I am sure we are all a bit relieved as it is not a joyful day in any means, and it comes with many hurtful memories atop of fears of repeat attacks. When flipping through the great New York Times memorial issue, I paused to reflect on the way brands chose to walk the very delicate line of mixing honest sympathy with a hint of marketing message – all the way to a blunt in-your-face sales message hidden inside the memorial post. Here is a selection of the ones that grabbed my attention the most:

conEdison hit the mark. A beautiful image that speaks a thousand words without adding one single word to the design. Most remarkably though, it shows the power of conEdison’s work, providing NYC with electricity.

Lockheed Martin plays it safe, which is not a bad idea given the context. Kudos for not including a logo, it makes the insertion less of an ad and more of an honest and heartfelt statement.

Beautiful in its simplicity, yet it can be seen as taking a political side, which makes it edgier than at first glance and might evoke emotions past the fine line other brands are willing to walk.

We remember…to set up an appointment. The rock bottom. One of the times were no exposure might have been a better exposure.

Google Docs snuck up on me like Rickey Henderson on speed skates. There was no getting-to-know-you period, it was like, “Pleased to make your acquaintance, now will you marry me?” I said “yes.”

Here are 3 reasons why Google Docs. makes my work day a breeze:

1. Unassailable amounts of feedback

One of our clients has about sixty people giving us feedback on a website project. That’s right, I said sixty. No project manager I know of wants to aggregate that kind of feedback into one cohesive voice so a developer can take action. So we use Google Forms.

Every time we release a URL for our client to provide feedback, I create a new form that is skewed to the kind of feedback we need to receive. If we’re not taking any copy edits at this stage in the project, I make sure to use short text fields. If we only want functionality feedback, but no design feedback, I ask them to qualify their comments with a drop-down menu that only offers choices pertinent to functionality.

Then I watch my spreadsheet fill up with targeted, useful feedback all in one spot. To avoid getting duplicate feedback from different reviewers, I assign sections of the website to separate people. They feel like their workload is minimized, and everyone still gets a voice. The project manager on the client side thinks I am a genius because he has to do exactly nothing. Thanks Google Docs.

How does this affect the end product with so many cooks in the kitchen? You might think the site is “built by committee”, but we’ve found that using a form addresses this particular client’s need that each voice be heard. The finished product includes each reviewer’s thoughts and this reflects perfectly on their culture and ultimately their brand.

2.Unruly and elusive content

Maybe I baby our clients too much, but when left to their own devices, they wreak havoc on content organization. I get emails that refer me to other emails that refer me to people who refer me to where to locate assets. This I cannot abide. So I use Google Spreadsheets.

When we’re building a site with lots of assets, like downloads or webinars, I create a spreadsheet for the client that lists the assets we’ll need. I add columns for them to plug in the name of the page or the url where the assets should go, a column for them to link to where the asset can be downloaded, and a notes column. Then I sling the spreadsheet over to them via a link or a share and let them populate it. They love it. They can share the spreadsheet with other departments and pretty soon all my assets are in one place. I then make a few little notes and loop in the developers, and off they go.

What do we do when the client has an asset that has to be delivered as a file? I dunno yet. The day my clients can upload files to a Google Form or Spreadsheet, I’ll crack a beer at lunch.

3. No one deserves an email inbox that is in constant motion because new messages keep booping in

Google Spreadsheets keep the noise turned down to a sufferable level. Our clients and our development team can stay in touch with what’s coming next in our project by looking at the spreadsheet. No query email needed, no reply from me needed. They can tap into the latest project news online and stay just as updated as I am. I can also see if a developer is logged into the sheet and send a quick  IM to give them bits of info. Keeps my inbox quiet, keeps the project managed.

So far, the marriage is going swimmingly. Since all my stuff is online, if I get all OCD I can even check on my projects from home in the middle of the night. And in the end, that’s why I married my project management practice to Google Docs in the first place, I just wanted a project management tool that would be there for me always.

In times where brands respond to customers within seconds via Twitter it makes sense that brands try to stay on top of the movement by providing a personalized experience to their customers. It is good to try, but if you try too hard, you die trying.

Some policy changed at Peet’s Coffee & Tea for example and all of a sudden a random ‘barista’ shouts ‘Good Morning’ to the crowd, which feels very awkward as everyone feels like they are being talked to, yet no one feels addressed. Another awkward new habit is to have employees at stores such as Nordstrom, and even Barneys, use their downtime to write strange postcards that look like they are written by a pre-teen, for a pre-teen, to their customers.

Brands, be careful out there. Unless you really understand who your customer is and how you can take advantage of a more unique outreach that is truly personal and honest, it is best not to try too hard and stick to the conventional ways you already mastered. It can only backfire.

It is interesting when you listen to the 80′s pop genre. The music you know, you think of as ‘amazing’ and then once you hear B-sides or tracks on full lengths that you have not been exposed to, they sound, well, dated. Or shall we say ‘cheesy’, and often plain embarrassing.

The same holds true for the record sleeve designs, as you can see in the examples below:

We see all the 80′s had to offer: The haircuts, the neon, the bad typography, the ‘wild’ angles and effects. Sadly, the same forgettable design is to be ‘heard’ on a lot of the tracks that are hidden behind those album covers.

Yet my  top two 80′s albums, Depeche Mode’s ‘Music For The Masses’ and U2′s ‘The Joshua Tree’ seem to be immune to what is going on around them, in sound as well as design sophistication.

There seems to be a formula. Timeless compositions equal timeless designs. Great artists, regardless of their background and genres know to stay away from styles and trends and like working with like minded individuals or firms. It seems that they create work solely with inspiration that comes from within, a gut instinct, driven by just one fundamental thing: a strong concept.

Looking through design annuals of the past years this thread holds true. Trends become a big wash and the only items that truly stand out are new concepts; fresh ideas that are followed through with a smart and appropriate design solution.

Designers, let’s live by this rule! And for those Entrepreneurs and Marketing Managers looking to hire an agency; this might be an important variable to consider when interviewing the agency that creates your brand atmosphere, so that come 2011, no one feels that your brand feels ‘oh so 2010′.

Now we all know how important brands are in our every day shopping routine. From chocolate to clothing, from cars to consumer electronics, in one way or another, we are all brand name oriented consumers, even if we often neglect it in public; it could be seen as being shallow.

When figuring out the taste of this wine, I was stunned on how it threw me off that I could not have the visual representation of the wine in front of me while doing so. I was at that important moment of forming an opinion and it seemed that an integral piece was not being communicated to me. It affected my emotional connection with the product. I do not know if the above average wine would have turned into a very good wine, but it did make me realize once again how life without brands and visual representations would be, it would be brand communism.

I say, indulge in consumerism, form your emotional connections, be seduced. Knowingly and with great pleasure, let that hint of lemon in your wine turn into a hint of lime.

13 years later, the talented designers at Geyrhalter & Co are busy working on two new film posters, two web sites and several collateral pieces for Nikolaus Geyrhalter Filmproduktion in Vienna, Austria. Fabian’s brother has since emerged as one of Europe’s most successful and important documentarians and we want to use this moment to look back at the work we have created for Nikolaus’ important films over the past 13 years. If you are intrigued, which we hope you will be, you can view trailers of his films via this YouTube channel.

Top to bottom: The Year After Dayton (1997), Pripyat (1999), Elsewhere (2001), Our Daily Bread (2005), 7915km (2008)

He thinks the magazine is “dull to behold, dull, dull” and wants its graphic design to be “as meaningful, as imperative, as the written expression.”

To us, this is a very significant statement showcasing the understanding of the importance graphic and brand design has gained with corporate veterans over the past years. It also signals that the marriage of design and content is seen to indeed create a more successful message delivery. While changes in staff and editorial views would be on top of the list for most newly appointed owners at this significant turning point, for Mr. Harman it seems to be the creation of a distinct and harmonious Brand Atmosphere in order to compete and win in an industry that is on the verge of collapse.

A smart move. In this day and age of content source overload, a news publication needs to create a product that differentiates and convinces through its design. We can’t wait to see the changes come around, maybe on Mr. Harman’s 93rd birthday?

Why is it that the more prestigious the design competition, the more it costs to enter?

Prices for a single entry can be around $120. But once you are selected to either receive an award, or be published in the awards annual, which after all is part of the exercise, there will be an additional fee of $280 – $400. And that is for just one single entry.

Sure, we play along. Sometimes. As we see fit, and for projects we feel deserve to be honored. But we too draw the line.

Let’s not forget that we are an agency, we have a PR budget and cash flow. How about all the students, freelancers, micro design firms, nonprofits and other entities that may have the big, creative, genius ideas that we should all be drooling over? The ideas that really look different because they come from folks that may not have ‘corporate’ breathing down their necks, or they do it for free, out of passion and just for fun? Isn’t that often when truly great ideas happen? They will never be in any of the ‘big’ award books showcasing the best, the brightest and most amazing ideas. The books that design students get for christmas, that turn into their text books of what they ought to measure their own creativity with, are lacking to showcase just that, the unconditionally best creative endeavours.

Like with any business, a contest revolves around having a budget. The more prestigious, the more funding it requires to produce the top quality books and award statues, to get the great judges, to do the office work and drum up the necessary PR. Fully understood. But in my eyes these contests should not be limiting creative entries based on an individual’s, or a small firm’s, cash on hand. Instead they should find a corporate sponsor that wants to be seen as a forward-thinking-creative-problem-solving-type (Hmmm, not sure I can name a single one of those?) and eliminate the entry fees.

May the true talent win…and give the sponsor a shot at creative bliss while you’re at it.

Glued to the book, I intuitively used the ticket stub as my bookmark and as Mr. Jarrett started playing, I thought of the emotional connection that bookmarks have with the time, the space, the moment in ones life when a specific book was being read. But once the book is put to sleep on the book shelf, that memory is buried, indefinitely. Quite different to a piece of music which can reach your ears unsuspectedly at a gas station, a bar, a restaurant, the car radio, yet it has the same power of almost instantly catapulting you back to a particular scene of your life. The book on the other hand is simply ‘filed away’. I thought it would be great to create a simple web site for anyone to upload their otherwise ‘bookshelved’ bookmarks. Great to have them archived, fun to share and even more fun to peruse other people’s books with their unique or fun bookmarks. Who knows, if a good number of people start using it, we might want to add social components to the site in the future.

The book I was reading, ‘Rework’, has a chapter in it that talks about not trying to produce a finished product, but rather launch it in a bare bones state. If people like it then change the good product to a perfect one (‘Launch now’, Pg 93). Good is good enough. It also declares death to procrastination (‘Start Making Something’, Pg 38). Funny as I run my company in many of the ways described in the book, and many of the others are big aspirations for this year. So here I was at an inspirational concert, an inspirational setting, reading an inspirational book and I had a quick idea.

The next day I showed a napkin sketch of the site to my team and I asked them if they felt it was a good idea. They agreed. I handed it over to our new developer, Tyler, to develop such site in a couple of days time. Sure it took a month, but he was busy on client work and becoming a dad in between, so we estimate his time on the project was less then 4 business days, combined with my input. Technical specs were communicated via IM on the fly until it felt right, and the design did not involve any of our designers (both approaches are usually against our company process when working with clients). It was quick, easy and most importantly fun and very fulfilling for everyone at Geyrhalter Design.

So if you get a chance, read Rework. If you have 5 minutes, look for your hidden bookmarks and add to the collection. And if you have an idea, just go for it. You don’t want to be like everybody else that says ‘I had that idea years ago, I can’t believe these guys did it before me’, because having an idea or transforming a thought into an action are two very different things.

1. E-Mail & Calendar

We use Zimbra, an open source  E-Mail and Calendar solution that let’s us easily sync to our iPhones, which allows me to stay up to date on meetings and e-mails, even while being on the road. I can make appointments and write e-mails from wherever I am and my calendar and Inbox will always look identical, may it be on my phone or my laptop, saving plenty of time in itself.

2. Project Management

Geyrhalter Design relies on Basecamp to be the hub for all our projects, internal as well as client projects. We create timelines, keep deadlines (‘Milestones’) and exchange project specific information as well as files. We even use it to house internal company information such as a contact database, printer trouble shooting tips and log in information that might otherwise be a big pain to search through your inbox once needed.

3. Daily Tasks & Productivity Overview

This was the last piece of our internal process to take online. Until last week we used a large white board in a central agency space that gave us a 2 week overview of each employee’s tasks on any given day. It meant that everybody had to physically stop by and take a look before diving into a project to ensure nothing has changed on their schedule. It also meant that the Project Manager had to update the board throughout the day to ensure that it was up to date before leaving for the day. For myself it meant that I could only get an overview on how booked the agency is, or who was working on a certain client task by stepping into a different room. Obviously, this has been a far from ideal situation, begging for the perfect online solution, yet to be resolved. As they say, if it does not exist, go ahead and create it. And so we ventured out to develop it ourselves just last week and now the site is fully functional, enabling the team to view their daily tasks online. It also enables the Project Manager and any other Admins to move items, make items ‘hot’ (which means they are hard same-day deadlines corresponding with our ‘Milestones’ in Basecamp) and highlight vacation days. Most of all, it enables anyone on the team to get a virtual overview of their tasks and the overall 2-week in advance agency booking. We might think about offering this tool to the public in the future if there is a demand for it.

4. Cash Flow/Bookkeeping

Keeping a small size agency running means projecting cash flow and staying on top of the company’s billing on a daily basis. It takes smart planning and reporting. Pulse is the online app that enables me to do just that, and there is nothing more soothing (or, hopefully not, worrisome) to accurately predict the income and expenses for months to come. We have now been using Pulse for one year – looking back at how I was keeping GD in good financial spirits prior to using Pulse remains a big question mark.

5. Invoicing

We use Freshbooks to create, send and follow up on invoices. It gives our clients many payment options, and it provides us with a simple overview. Unless you have an accounting firm handling your invoices, using this system also takes the awkwardness out of the financial part of the client interactions, which really shouldn’t happen.

6. Storing thoughts that add to your weight

These could also be seen as small tasks, random thoughts or scribbles, which if not written down, will create that constant buzz in your brain and create that heavy weight you so often feel on your shoulders unless thoughts are filed away until you need them again. I use Things for this. I have my own daily tasks, since as the CEO I have plenty of smaller items to check off any given hour and I am not partaking in our open Schedule software. This helps me keep track of my thoughts. Everything from my daily, weekly and monthly to-do’s all the way to keeping track of places to visit, wines to try, dates when subscriptions run out and gifts to give once the holidays come around. It is all in one place, accessibly from anywhere I am with an internet connection. I literally plug all of these thoughts into ‘Things’, while I work or during play (via the syncing iPhone App). It does not happen anymore that I run out of an idea for a place to eat while being in a particular part of town, or a DVD to stream on Netflix on a chill evening (yes, I do have a list for that). I can not even tell you how much it helps me feel relaxed, organized and free to do the things that I want to, or have to do any given point in time, and not worry about where I read or heard about something and then figure out how to locate it.

This is how I run Geyrhalter Design, and a bit of my personal life, in a nutshell, through 5 tabs in my browser, and ‘Things’ launched. It took us a while to get here and I am thrilled about how easy it made life at GD; but there are always ways to improve and sync these steps and I would love to hear your thoughts and learn about your own personal solutions to streamline and stay organized.