Covid-19 has meant a great deal of free time at home so I’ve been able to read more regularly. Here are a few of the books I’ve read over the last few months. I can highly recommend all these!

Design Systems by Alla Kholmatova (2017)

Atomic Habits by James Clear (2018)

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid (2020)

Art Direction for the Web – Andy Clarke (2019)

Don’t Make me Think by Steve Krug (2014)

Check out my previous ‘Briefly Noted’ posts: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014

Pantone have selected PANTONE 17-5104 Ultimate Gray & PANTONE 13-0647 Illuminating as Colors of the Year 2021. A marriage of color conveying a message of strength and hopefulness that is both enduring and uplifting.

The union of an enduring Ultimate Gray with the vibrant yellow Illuminating expresses a message of positivity supported by fortitude. Practical and rock solid but at the same time warming and optimistic, this is a color combination that gives us resilience and hope. We need to feel encouraged and uplifted; this is essential to the human spirit. – Executive Director of Pantone.

Pairing PANTONE 13-0647 Illuminating, the color of highest visibility and reflectivity with resilient PANTONE 17-5104 Ultimate Gray produces a visually noticeable message no matter where it appears. The coupling of friendly Illuminating with quietly assuring Ultimate Gray infuses a message of vitality into a firm foundation of reliability, wisdom and experience for packaging and multi-media design.

Back in January 2020 we welcomed a new year armed with hopeful resolutions and exciting to-do lists. Brands around the world planned budgets and carefully scheduled campaigns to come out throughout the year. It’s safe to say none of the following campaigns were planned during that time, nonetheless they’re excellent!

Ads of the World created a collection that showcases the work agencies and brands created around the subject of the covid-19 global pandemic: https://www.adsoftheworld.com/collection/covid19_ads

With messages promoting social distancing, staying at home and staying safe. These are examples of designing for good, even in the toughest of times.

IKEA – Stay Home
In true IKEA fashion, here are some instructions to assemble a quarantine kit.

McDONALDS – Separated for a moment to always be together
The largest franchise in the world closed the dining/seating rooms of many restaurants in order to follow measures to protect both customers & employees. Changing the logo on social media networks is an experiential advertisement created by DPZ&T, Brazil for McDonald’s.

NIKE – Now is your Chance
Powerful advertisement created by Wieden + Kennedy, United States.

AUDI – Keep Distance
Audi slightly changed its well known logo to promote social distancing and to encourage people to take care for each other now more than ever, just by doing one simple thing – keeping distance.

The Apple Marketing Philosophy:

Empathy
We will truly understand their needs better than any company.

Focus
In order to do a good job of those things we decide to do we must eliminate all of the unimportant opportunities.

Impute
People DO judge a book by its cover.
We may have the best product, the highest quality, the most useful software, etc; if we present them in a slipshod manner, they will be perceived as slipshod; if we present them in a creative, a professional manner, we will impute the desired qualities.

Mike Markkula
January 3, 1977

To arrive at the selection each year, Pantone’s color experts at the Pantone Color Institute comb the world looking for new color influences. And this year the experts have selected the Color of the Year 2020 to be PANTONE 19-4052 Classic Blue.

A timeless and enduring blue hue, PANTONE Classic Blue is elegant in its simplicity. Classic Blue’s relation to the sky at dusk we see every day, suggests the reassuring qualities of dependability and constancy. It also highlights our desire for a stable foundation on which to build as we cross the threshold into a new era.

Non-aggressive and easily relatable, the trusted Classic Blue lends itself to relaxed interaction. As technology continues to race ahead of the human ability to process it all, it is easy to understand why we gravitate to colors that are honest and offer the promise of protection.

I’ve been following the amazing work Stanford University d.school has been doing for a few years, so when I got the email saying I was accepted to join them at Stanford campus for their Launchpad Apprenticeship, I was delighted. I had planned a 3-day stop in San Francisco on my trip back to Australia from Mexico, so the timing worked out just great!
Launchpad 10 is a celebrated accelerator program, which recruit a cohort of dedicated apprenti to work with stellar startups. It is also a great opportunity to work directly with Perry Klebahn and Jeremy Utley to push startups to scale utilising various design thinking methods.
I had been looking forward to my trip for days. Then, before I knew it, I was taking an Uber from San Francisco’s airport to Palo Alto, ready to go, camera in hand…

Nothing says “Welcome to Stanford” like Palm Drive, with its perfectly placed palm trees for a mile long.

Arriving to d.School

The d. School sure knows how to delight a designer


The second floor of d. School is what my dreams are made of: plenty of hot glue sticks, tape, cutter blades, sticky notes, pliers, cardboard, whiteboards, etc.

All hands on deck! time to get to work.

My selected startup was Kaleido AR, an Augmented Reality startup. I was able to help them remotely with some design work over the next few days. The project is really cool, make sure to check them out!

After a fun kick-off session and plenty of inspiring ideas in my head, they pointed that a stroll around the campus was necessary before wrapping up the day.

A stroll around Main Quad

Memorial Church

That would turn out to be the best day weather-wise during my 3-day trip.

What a cool experience!

I’m back to Australia now, thinking about my amazing first trip to the Bay Area and realising now why everyone is charmed about it.

Needless to say, I have to go back there soon! maybe I should get a second degree at Stanford? Hey. A girl can dream 😉