So Far Outside the Box, You Can't Even See It Anymore

Yesterday, the prepress department at Printed Specialties was all abuzz discussing the wrapping paper below.

Image courtesy of Gift Couture

Look at it. Seriously, look. Drink it in. Let it's concept wash over you. Let the simplistic genius overtake you. We did; we talked about it for 30 minutes. We picked apart the concept and what made it work so well. We writhed in envy as to why we didn't think of it previously. We even tried to come up with our own wrapping paper ideas (to no avail).

Imagine seeing a stack of presents like this under your family's Christmas tree. You can't help but smile. It's beyond brilliant. One of the reasons that makes this work so well is that the concept is so far removed from Christmas (no one remotely automatically thinks "Christmas" when you see a cheeseburger). Think of the new Kia commercials that have giant Guinea Pigs or Hamsters driving around town. Those commercials stick in your head because the general thought is so absurd, your mind can't help but to remember it. The same idea works here with the cheeseburger wrapping paper.

Another reason why this works rather well is due to it's overly simplistic nature. Simplicity and minimalism is the name of the game in the design world today, and this is no different. Meat, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and two buns. Not too busy of a pattern for the eyes to take in. Instantly recognizable as to what it's supposed to be portraying. A common food item most people are familiar with (a sandwich might've worked, but not as well). In the famous words of Steve Jobs - "It just works."

The point here being that sometimes the phrase "Think Outside the Box" is just the start. You have to think yourself out of the box as a start, but it's not enough. Leave the room, walk out of the building, and drive far away from the box. Good ideas and great ideas are what separates the memorable from the hardly notable.

Be well,

How Modern News Unfurls

Original Image: winnond / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

With the outbreak of yesterday's terribly tragedy that unfolded on the campus of Virginia Tech, it wasn't the regular news outlets that broke the story - it was the internet. The Twitter-verse was all ablaze, constantly firing off latest happenings, image updates from students and faculty on campus, and hoards of people weighing in with their thoughts and prayers. Facebook was buzzing with people's reactions and people sharing as much information as they could. It was really stunning to see such an event unfold. Mashable had a wonderful compendium of what the reactions were like across Twitter and other social networking sites.

I had to actually think really hard about what it was like before the advent of the internet and instantaneous information. You'd have to turn on the television and actually watch a news report. If the story was huge enough, you'd see that same anchors on for hours on end, just to keep you up-to-date. Or if you think back further, you'd crowd around a radio to hear the newscaster's reports on what was going on at that moment in time.

In these increasingly digital and social days, everyone is essentially a news reporter - to a certain extent. While most people weigh in with their opinions and simple observations, there are few who are actually reporting what's going on. Whether it's people who are within close-range of the event taking place, or someone who dug up a hidden document online and decided to share it, these people are getting the stories out to hundreds, perhaps thousands of people way faster than any news outlet can. The magic lies in the sheer size of the social networks. As everyone can probably imagine, words travels fast on the internet; it's like a wildfire. On several occasions I've meandered onto a traditional website (we'll call it "Yipee!") and looked at their news stories for the day. Majority of the time, half of the stories they have featured on the front page I've already heard or read about it; sometimes up to a day or two prior.

The point is, modern news outlets should embrace social media more-so than they already are to accompany people's expectations of faster and more concise results. I, for one, couldn't imagine picking up a newspaper to read yesterday's news when I'm already familiar with most of what they're featuring. Instant gratification is the name of the game, and that's where we're headed.

Be well,

The Death of the QR Code

Well it seems the QR code phenomenon has died just as quickly as it rose to popularity this year. It seemed that everywhere you turned on the web over the course of 2011, you'd be hard pressed not to easily find an article or stat or random finding about the ever-ambiguous QR code. For a while there, those little buggers seemed to be all the rage. It looked as though they were poised to be the next big marketing thing. Even I imagined that they would be almost everywhere soon earlier this year. It appears as though I was wrong. The QR code has fallen in popularity so fast it's making my head spin.

This infographic I found via PSI's Twitter feed this morning solidified that even the most technologically savvy people on the planet, young people (18-25) really don't give a crap about QR codes. If you look at past trends and other various fads of the past, this group was the driving force behind them. So when a solid chunk of the young society thinks scanning a QR code is a waste of time, you'd better believe that it's going to die off sooner than you think.

It's a shame really, because I honestly thought that the QR code was going to explode onto the masses. it's a novel concept and lends itself well to various marketing campaigns, but that certain "magic" or "spark" just was not there to get the ball rolling. The QR scanner apps were also great in theory, just too bulky and just plain got in the way and took too much time to scan a so called "Quick-Response" barcode. I mean seriously, it takes about 15-20 seconds just to complete the task, which while it may not seem like a long time, it's just not quick enough. Unlock the phone. Navigate to the app. Launch said app. Wait for it load. Focus and steady camera. Snap picture. Wait for network to load content. That's an eternity. Shame.

Maybe someday they'll make a comeback. Apps could develop further to be faster. Or phone manufacturers would implement the technology inherently into the phone's camera system to automatically recognize a QR code. Or even maybe the youth will stand behind it and make it explode like marketing folks thought it would. Who knows? But most likely you'll never even remember what a QR code was by the end of next year. Augmented Reality has come a long way, but that still has a ways to go. The point is that technology is always moving ahead, ever-changing, and ever-evolving. You gotta crack a few eggs if you wanna make an omelet.

Be well.

P.S.
Here's another great article I found on the failure of the QR code. 



Original Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net