Debating the Dots » Apple

Pica goes Abstract

MicahEllis — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 21:50:45 +0000

On a Friday in early June, the Pica Design team took a road trip to Portland to attend Abstract Maine 2011. The conference was hosted by AIGA Maine and their supporting sponsors. Abstract brought together six heavy hitters from the design community to talk about editorial design and its future (psst…it’s digital): Florian Bachleda of Fast Company, Dirk Barnett of Newsweek, Scott Dadich of Condé Nast, Arem Duplessis of The New York Times Magazines, Luke Hayman of Pentagram and Gael Towey of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.

We got an inside look at the process behind putting a Newsweek cover together; staging a photo shoot with Conan Obrien; blow-drying Martha Stewart’s Hens for a photo shoot; and rebranding the New York Magazine with Pentagram. More than that, we got an inside look at where the editorial world is heading and, yes, it has to do with the iPad and the tablet computer. We took a sneak preview at InDesign 5.5 with the good folks from Adobe and saw some of the digital tools they are building into future versions. Exciting stuff, to be sure.

Stepping outside of the daily goings- on around the office and listening to some great talks was both refreshing and inspiring. Overall, we brought home more ideas and inspiration than our brains could carry from some of the top professionals in our industry. The day was topped off by excellent food and conversation in Portland’s Old Port. Many thanks to AIGA Maine for putting together an excellent conference.

What’s in a Box?

Cait — Thu, 07 May 2009 20:24:35 +0000

We are unabashed fans of Apple. We love their computers, and we love their design. It’s the best kind of inspiration; the kind we get to interact with every single day. As new people have joined the office, new computers have come on board as well. And you know we keep the packaging.

One day last week we were looking at the stack of Apple boxes, and realized that it tells the story of this whole company. And there, at the bottom, is the foundation of it all: the Power Mac G4 and Studio Display that Rob first worked on. It’s a workhorse that is still part of the office!

How Does Creativity Help?

MicahEllis — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 16:36:56 +0000

Most people want to be innovative, unique, interesting (main-stream is so not cool). But, how can it be more than just a statement and actually help you?; help you succeed, help you communicate and help you stay fresh? Creativity has to have a purpose. There must be a concept, an end-goal that matters. Jonathan Ive said it so well when he defined design as a process of “stripping away” what is not needed, a simplifying of content and the display of information. It’s not, then, so much about thinking up something cool as it is thinking of the best way to solve a problem to communicate a specific idea. Not to reveal a bias or anything, but someone asked Apple CEO Steve Jobs how they ended up creating the ipod as such a hip device. Jobs replied that creating a cool device was never the intent, only something that would be simple and easy to use, and that’s cool! Because there is so much “creativity” in culture today, stating the obvious is a refreshing alternative. So creatively simplify your content (whether written or visual). Your audience will thank you.