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It has been raised to my attention that there is a witch hunt afoot! One I am not sure I agree with or if I should grab my pitch fork and chase down the quarry?
Ban comic sans is Very amusing and I am almost rallied into an anti comic sans frenzy! However...It cant be done! unfortunately comic sans is very good for teaching aids it helps people with Dyslexia or and dyspraxia, (especially left aligned) it is a fixed with font as verdana is, so it also has its uses in all sorts of software and is also embedded in MS windows so its already to wide spread! The infection has been spread way too far!
I happen to agree and think it is a truly hideous font.(even the merch is horrid think they could have thought a bit more about it!) In fact it is so unattractive I feel brash enough to say that no designer let alone half good designer would ever use comic sans. However I cannot speak for the printers, sign writers and copy shops (who have probably produced the examples on the ban comic sans site) who apparently have little or no Idea about the true functionality or aesthetic values of well designed fonts, let alone even browsed for new fonts other than the ones installed on their computer!
Banning comic sans is like banning wheel chair ramps!
what we need to do is ration the usage, please feel free to upload some good examples of comic sans I'm actually on a mish to find good usage of comic sans.
What is going on? has the Credit Crunch sent everyone backwards? Over last couple of Days I have been shocked, bemused and offended, at the way I have been treated by suppliers! Do these people not want my money? Do they not need to sell their products and services? Do they not want customers to return for more business? Are these people doing so well that they can be rude, obnoxious and pompous?
In sourcing print and production I have recently found that customer service has been suffering even more, as if printers can afford to be any more difficult to work with and it is becoming almost impossible to find any one friendly let alone even slightly accommodating. So much so that I assume more expensive and unaffordable printers charge so much because they buy in politeness from an external supplier. For the past 8 Years I have been supplying printers with art work in a professional capacity. In that time I have made mistakes and learnt from them. I have communicated well with suppliers so that I understand their needs, often rush jobs can cause files to have a minor detail set wrong, perhaps a very specific bleed option or a missing font that causes an issue. Simple hitches that are solved with an email or phone call. All in all I love getting work printed, its the climax of a Job, seeing it on media and smelling the fresh ink!
The most recent Job I have been working on, the client has been really excited about the design and looking forward to getting a finished product, until I had an incident with a printer that has taken me by total surprise. I was flat out told, I was wrong that I could not print art work as I had sent it over to him. I agreed. What I sent was a visual, I wanted to discuss the appropriate way to get the effect I wanted to print. The representative then started to rant about files not being set up for print (something all printers complain off) then I noticed his conversation turning to statements and his voice getting strained, not only that he started to rant, then came the raving and the rudeness, in an effort to calm the situation I explained my thoughts and conceded an ounce of stupidity, but that didn't helped my cause, I tried to learn from my error and enquire how I could make the file more appropriate; "You cant!" I was shouted at! Then the angry rep put me on hold. After this aggression I was actually shaking! I couldn't believe I had been spoken to so rudely. Then another chap picked up the telephone and started speaking, I then noticed that someone was shouting and swearing rather loudly in the back ground! Absolutely astounded I expressed my upset to the "new guy" who politely listened and tried to solve my questions and smooth out Rep A's customer relations issue. When I asked the new guy if Rep A was difficult to deal with I was ignored and he began discussing the print Job again! I took that as a yes and pushed no more. The new guy was nice enough, given the way I had been dealt with so I appreciated his time. (thanks Colin.)
It turned out that I could print the way I wanted, it simply required a little discussion, a little accommodation, a bit of thinking out side the box, understanding of who they are talking to and a little less of a superiority complex at their end. So over all thanks for wasting my time and getting me so upset I hope you are happy with your crappy little attitude, you....you, expletive!
As if that wasn't bad enough this company are pretty much a charity and I want to support them! Unfortunately this time they lost my business, I am determined not to let this get the worst of me and so I may try an reconcile the issue by working with Colin alone. Until I calm down enough to work with the company I'm going to do a bit of asking around see if anyone ells has had a similar issue.
If this wasn't enough a second supplier I have recently begun working with has dragged his heals since day one. Not much politeness or civil behavior, my calls and emails, not been returned and I have not really been served, then the other day they the used the "Im not being funny mate" line!
I am getting sick of these miserable gits! I am utterly disgusted at the low level of customer service in almost every case and the more I think about my experiences the more I appreciate the good ones I have worked with. And now I realize I have spent even more time on my blog about them, aarrrrgh! If any one knows any printers or sign production companies in Manchester I'd love to get some recommendations. When I do business I expect my customers to feel like friends or partners, that I think about their business almost as much as they do and that I genuinely have their interests at heart, and they have total confidence in me, I don't even call this going the extra mile! I call it customer relations.
I also want to know more about dealing with troublesome suppliers after all they should be groveling to the customer not getting cross with them!
*but not all I have a few who will go the extra mile.
I recommend Keith and Neil at Ormskirks Printing.com shop and Bronks printers in Prestwich, Manchester (ian@bronksprinters.com) really nice guy very accommodating cant recommend him enough!
The other weekend when I was in London I was strolling along the Thames and I suddenly noticed that Pizza Express seemed to have changed it's branding. Well I was surprised, especially as I quite like the Brand its nice Art Nouveau style logo and overall a nice European feel. But some one obviously felt it was time to move on. They had changed from Blue to Red a move I am pretty sure is basically unheard of! The font now sans serif, supporting colour black not white what and a fairly modern building.
In fact in a way it looks like they have moved the style forward to a 1920's or even an Art Deco feel. So Blue To Red? something not many foot ball fans cant associate with, why would consumers? why make such a dramatic change? who decided this was a good idea and who at Pizza Express said "oh yeah forget brand guide lines and consistency"? Well whoever it was I don't mind it! What do less brand aware consumers think?
So never one to frown upon a brand exercise until I have really thought about it...(still not keen on Pepsi's new stuff.) I plodded on to find...another Pizza Express this time it looked totally different it was it the old style but it felt even more Nouveau than other restaurant and it's blue really blue! Something isn't clicking here.
May be it was the building, and surrounding area, sometimes there are rules in place to have shop fronts in keeping with the original surroundings of the building. In Prague the McDonalds there in some areas have chrome arches which I think they fit in better with the surrounding medieval architecture, what a clash of culture that is! But this is defiantly the Pizza Express, with the Art Nouveau type face and logo I have used and am familiar with although it's very blue. What is going on I thought seems that the re brand had spread less than a mile. Then the following day we where walking around Shore Ditch and I saw this...
Another Style?! what the...now "I" was thinking, my brain doing ten to the dozen trying to fathom out how and why a marketing manager or brand guardian would allow such different styles of signage. I now wish I had gone inside the restaurant to see how that internal marketing looks. I predict it's the same menus and printed literature and what we see happening in these examples, is adapting the brand to the surrounding area.
So Consumers, marketing managers and brand guardians why do we have such uniform rules between outlets? Honestly I think this is good news I have recently had a discussion about a similar concept and Idea myself. Why do we accept the high street today? for so long we have refined brands, and become so brand loyal that small traditional shops have fallen and only the Brands and giants survive and that's why every town looks the same. But why should it, what if we took Pizza Express as an example of brand strength, "with" Diversity?
I think many big brands could do this, although they would have to spend more on each shop, to make them all different, yet keep them to a standard of look that suited. It would be great because they would be giving more to each town or street that they appear on.
I would like to know what Pizza Express are doing with their various shops and would like to know how people think about my Idea of "Brand Strength with Diversity" I say lets here it for "Brand Strength with Diversity!"
(I'll be contacting Pizza Express questioning this issue.)
It is in no way a surprise that we have a new internet "Fad" at least that's what allot of people seem to think of twitter, it wasn't long ago that everyone suddenly dumped their myspace accounts and jumped onto facebook. Not everyone thinks its a fad of course, because it is on the verge of becoming huge! I have had an account for a short while now but not yet had the chance to really investigate the uses or purpose of twitter but in the last couple of months I have started to make a bigger presence with Twitter and try to get to grips with it.
As part of my exploration twitter I found my self at the Social Media Cafe (SMC) session held at the Northern on Tibb St in Manchester. About 40 or 50 people filled the room in different groups discussing separate subjects. Social marketing, word press and Mobile phones. I jumped straight into the social marketing discussion excited and willing to learn about other peoples "new media" experiences I was ready to learn.
Unfortunately the entire night was dominated by some people who had been using twitter for the last year or more, so they where well and truly veterans and using twitter to there advantage for some time, and they did seem incredibly confident in their knowledge but they where so bitter about any new users. Not that they were new users but how there experience was changing. They where incredibly annoyed that someone was using twitter in a different way to them? or to how they thought twitter should be used! The main complaint seemed to be that certain industries now target other industries and effectively spam with Press-tweet-leases (I just made that up "press releases through twitter".) so said annoyed pair are fed up with being spammed...block? or do you not want to because it is a negative effect , better to have more than less or not burn your bridges? what ever the situation the entire discussion was almost a waste of time said argument was even asked to be quite by another group! (I actually left the night with a head-ache. Thanks.)
In my opinion Twitter has one rule "what are you doing now" so in that school of thought are allot of people mis-using the site, but I also you should be allowed to use twitter in what ever way you can, be creative and inventive, help the use of twitter evolve. Nothing ever gets done with people saying "you cant do this, you cant do that" there should be no spamming, but there is so what are we going to do? people still drop litter and there are laws against that, chewing gum all over the floor in town centers pretty annoying to but what do we do? for the most part block it out!! So if we all blocked this the overall discussion was non exist-ant, I was desperate to pipe in and move the scenario that they where discussing on, but even I couldn't get a word in edgewise!
In the end there was a resolution and the chair cleverly rounded the evening off by delegating some tasks and home work for next month. Ultimately I think they are going to create a twitter guide, probably including rules and regulations that I might like to ignore or choose not to be annoyed by.But I do hope to learn from this knowledgeable frustrated pair. I do believe it is a really good event and that there will be plenty more opportunities to attend the night and learn from the people at the front of the technology.
See you next time?!
