Product and Brand Design Blog by Sanders Design Associates

Mobile phones

5.7.11

And here's another thing what about mobile phones? This is something else that I've never truly embraced.

I reckon that I got my first mobile phone about 23 years ago. It was just before I started the business. I remember it well, it was a Motorola, a really cute product that fitted the breast pocket of my shirt - unheard of in those days. You could buy an 'extended life' battery which just about doubled the size of the product and meant that it would last a whole day without having to re charge it!

You have to remember that not many people had 'mobiles' in those days, certainly not for 'social' reasons.

It was at about this time that I found myself dividing my time between a part time lecturing role at the University and running my fledgling business single handed. The 'mobile' enabled me to be 'on tap' to all my clients at any time, regardless of where I was - in the studio or in the lecture theatre or at home. It is this, that I think has for ever coloured my view of mobile phones.

I like to moderate when and who can contact me, but desperate to always be available to the few clients I had, the phone would remain switched on pretty much as long as the battery would permit. The inevitable consequence being that the phone would ring mid lecture and I would be in the embarrassing position of having to excuse myself from a room full of students to take the call.

Yes, I know, you can always turn them off, but the thought if a client ringing during business hours and receiving answer phone message filled me with dread.

The problem was, that the more ardent clients would ring me during the evenings and at weekends which I found a real intrusion of privacy.

Since then, I've always had a real love/hate relationship with 'mobiles' and never really embraced them as a social tool in the way that most people seem to have. Call me a miserable old git (and many do!) but I don't like being available to everyone all the time. I like to get out of the studio from time to time without being 'available'.

And to this day, the first thing that any new member of staff that joins us here at sanders' is told is "don't whatever you do give out the bosses mobile number"!

Julian Sanders
Managing Director
Sanders
Labels: Design, Technology

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Twitter - from a Twitter virgin

4.7.11

Is it really all it's tweeted up to be?

After resisting for ages, I've finally acceded to my more 'socially engaged' colleagues (who, at times appear to live on Twitter). Yes, that ubiquitous little blue bird has finally made it on to our website site. We've now got Twitter and we_are_sanders is up and running at sanders-design.com

What about me? A Twitter virgin. I guess I shouldn't admit to this publicly, but the younger members of the team here at sanders have taken me aside, sat me down and tried to explain how it all works and the etiquette involved. But to be honest I'm still not quite sure I get it.

You have to appreciate, this is coming from someone who always ensures that his text messages contain the correct grammar, spelling and punctuation (my daughter thinks I'm mad).

I just find the whole transient, throw away nature of this method of social interaction very difficult to engage with. To be honest, I've got better things to do with my time than communicate at such a superficial level with people I hardly know in a language which assumes that we've been best buddies most of our lives.

But hey, I'm not one to pass up a challenge and I'll give it my best shot. lol :)

Julian Sanders
Managing Director
Sanders

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Losing design week (the printed version)

1.7.11

Well, I for one will miss it...Design Week that is. With this week seeing the last 'hard copy' version of our weekly industry news, things won't quite be the same again.

Yes, I know, it'll still be available online, but it's not the same is it? I shall miss the anticipation of our 'postie' arriving on a Thursday morning brandishing the latest week's design news and gossip. (I never have managed to work out why we seem to get it the day after the rest of the world down here in Wales!) Then the fight that would ensue in the studio to see who would be the first to rip it out of it's plastic cover and delve into the weeks news.

OK, so you can still get it online, big deal, but you won't be able to scrawl all over it, circle things in red marker, insert exclamation marks, write rude comments on it, draw moustaches and glasses those of our peers who we're finding particularly annoying that week. We can't us stick Post-its all over it or rip things out and stick them on the wall.

So, I shall mourn the loss of the 'hard copy'.

Like everything else these days we are being encouraged.... No, forced to 'access it' through a computer screen. No longer can I brew a coffee, put my chair into 'recline mode', put my feet up on the desk and take a break from staring into a monitor.

So I shall mourn the loss of the 'hard copy'. I've been with it since the beginning..25 years!

Only time will tell whether I take the time to go on line and access the latest weeks design gossip quite as regularly as I have to date.

Watch this space.

Julian Sanders
Managing Director
Sanders

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Cutting Edge Design!

30.6.11

We’ve just had the first production samples back from the Far East for both the Damask and Cerra knife packaging we created a couple of months back. We’re pretty pleased with how they’ve turned out, particularly given how price sensitive this sector of the market is and the fact that there are accepted norms regarding the way this type of product is presented at point of sale.

They’re really cool products too: ‘Damask’ is made from 33 layers of Damascus steel and ‘Cerra’ has Zirconia (ceramic) blades. It’s made preparing lunch in the studio a little easier!

Julian Sanders
Managing Director
Sanders

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From 'drawing boards' to 'ipads'

29.6.11

The old fart's reminiscing again!

All this talk of 'back to basics' has got me thinking, and I guess reminiscing to some degree. This year, at sanders, we celebrate our 20th anniversary, a point at which its only natural that one should tend to look back and reflect.

I know that I bore the the pants off everyone here in the studio with my tales of how things used to be, but it never ceases to amaze me how much our industry has changed in the course of my career.

I started in professional practice back in the mid 80's working for a consultancy in North London, before moving to South Wales at the end of that decade and helping to establish a design agency, which at one point was employing around 16 staff.

Technology has definitely brought with it speed and efficiency. I can clearly remember the day our first fax machine arrived in the studio. I seem to remember we paid around £700 for it and I can see us all now sat round the table watching this machine in amazement as it spewed out a sheet of paper with a drawing on it that had been sent from our more technologically aware clients. How times have changed!

We still have a drawing board in the studio, which is still used regularly. OK, mainly by me I admit, but the interesting thing is, I've noticed a genuine fondness and fascination for these more craft based processes from our clients too. They seem to have moved beyond the seduction of what often tend to be rather soulless CAD visuals.

Of course some of those skills I guess are, in large part, lost forever, like the ability of graphic designers to understand and visualise type and be able to specify it with the correct kerning and leading before getting it typeset and run of as a pmt before 'cow gumming' it into position on a spread.

When I first started my working career in a small product design studio in North London, there was a very clear demarkation between the designer and the engineer and a very clear mutual respect by both, for each others skills.

The designers' 'visuals' would be passed to the engineer who would magically generate, on layers draughting film, a two dimensional representation of a three dimensional object, complete with details and sections. All done using nothing more than a pencil a ruler a compass and set of stencils. Never did we have the luxury of running a software interference check, or rapid prototyping something over night to confirm fit or function. Instead, the drawings would checked by a colleague (we'd always include a deliberate mistake to ensure that they had been checked thoroughly!), dispatched to the moulder and the next time you'd see anything would be when a brown box arrived in the post containing the 'first off tool'.

I can still clearly feel that potent mix of excitement and anticipation (or was it trepidation?) as the polystyrene chips were discarded and two plastic mouldings would be ceremonially removed from their protective outer and offered up to each other in the desperate hope that they would meet in perfect unity! The relief when they did was palpuble. If they didn't, well....

Things have moved on (thank goodness) but I do hope that we don't forfeit completely all of those hand and eye skills that have served us so well over time.

Anyway, I'm off to find my pipe and slippers!
Labels: Design, Technology

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