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Filed under: Business •Motion Graphics •

HOW Design Conference 2009

Designing for More than Three Screens

For those not up on their hip-speak, the first screen is considered to be film; the second screen, television; the third screen, the computer (and the web); the fourth screen, mobile video.

John Crouse (not pictured at left) - who’s resume includes Wired, MOCA, the interactive unit at Digital Kitchen, etc.) - sees the fourth screen as also including everything “from video games to electronic billboards.” Slowing this adoption is fear of the unknown: As John pointed out, for many the prospect of Change = Fear, and the Future = Change.

The current default workflow is to come up with a story, create it into a script, convert the script into a video, and then repurpose that video (or outtakes or additional scenes from it) for other media. In many cases, these other media are used primarily as marketing tools for the original broadcast video. John feels that in the future, the more appropriate workflow will be to take the original story and then come up with separate scripts that are each appropriate for the media types chosen for distribution. Indeed, there are commercial reasons to view the TV version as the marketing device to drive people to the interactive outlets.

Our concern is that saying this is one thing; getting the networks to buy off on it is another. We’ve already seen how networks only wanted to have one master tape to deal with when broadcasting in 4:3 and 16:9 formats (and those who create content for the BBC have to worry about their 14:9 compromise); thus we ended up with “center cut” and the poor artistic compromises it required (click here for more on centercut and letterboxing issues). Getting them to agree to produce more than one version of the same program is really going to require a change in their mindset.

Given that you can get the networks on board with this new world order, how do you design for these varying media and experiences? John thinks in terms of each program as having a central “myth” - its storyline, its backstory, its world, its mood, etc. Given that, his guiding principle is to make sure you design for the myth. To do that:

• Strive to understand how the myth can best be expressed in each medium (in other words, don’t just bolt on interactivity to what is essentially a TV version of the program).
• Work with the writers. The writers know the myth. Get them on board early so that they can start thinking about how to express the myth properly in different formats.
• If it makes you uncomfortable, you should do it. (Does this sound like an echo of Von Glitschka’s “replace fear with curiosity”?)

Color Management Solutions Using Adobe Creative Suite

Although about Adobe products, and sponsored by Epson, this session was given by independent consultant Eric Magnusson of Left Dakota. Indeed, according to Eric, different Adobe applications inside Creative Suite 2, 3, and possibly 4 will print the same document differently. (So if you ever feel bad about not mastering color management yet yourself, take heart; even one of its biggest advocates has issues as well.) The workaround is to create a separate color profile per application per printer (ugh).

There was some interesting discussion about what color space to use to author media in. The conventional wisdom is to use a wide color space (such as Adobe ProPhoto), so that you have the best master in your archives to repurpose to other media later - just make sure you do a display proof of your target color space to see what’s going to happen with your current media. An interesting dissenting opinion was given by a designer in the audience who believes in working in the narrowest color space anticipated in the production chain (such as CMYK for printed t-shirts), so that all of your media - print, web page, PDF, and final product (t-shirt) will match. The biggest reason for returns of t-shirts is that the color of the physical product did not match the color in the ad; if you’re going down from ProPhoto in Photoshop to sRGB on a website to CMYK for the shirt, you are virtually guaranteed that they’re not going to match.

Although the differences are not as severe, this discussion still has implications inside the video world, as standard definition video and the web have different color profiles (the display profile for HD video is sRGB, which is the same as the web). The question to ask the client is: Do you want it to look (as close as possible to) the same across all media, even if it means compromising the image slightly in some formats? If so, set your project working space to match the video format, and convert to sRGB for the web on output. Or do you want it to look the best it can in each media, even if there may be some slight variations from media type to media type? If so, set your working space to a wider profile such as ProPhoto.

Another big takeaway is how ambient lighting can change the perception of color. Some inkjet printer inks react to fluorescent lighting by appearing much more magenta than they would be in natural night (or when printed in mass production). This is less of an issue when staring at a computer or video monitor that is emitting light - assuming that your computer monitor has been calibrated, and that you’re using an actual broadcast video monitor.

For those who wish to understand color management better, Eric recommended CHROMiX’s ColorThink (pictured here) as a diagnostic tool. We’ve also written a video color management article for Artbeats, with a follow up on scene- versus display-referenced color profiles here on PVC. (Also see Chapter 25 of our book Creating Motion Graphics.)

BBQ Pot Pourri

Aside from those talks, there were other useful nuggets of information that fell out of other sessions as well. We’ve already briefly mentioned the Color Marketing Group; this lead came out of John Bredenfoerder’s talk Color Strategy. John both reviewed the fundamentals of how we talk about color, demonstrated that the same color can have a different meaning in different contexts (so don’t get wrapped in color clichés such as “red is hot”), discussed how fads evolve into trends and then into cycles, and discussed some of the currently popular colors (such as white being popular for business, as it represents “economic cleansing”). His handouts are among those that HOW has made available to the public.

Jeff Fisher (who wore a clown nose for most of his talk on marketing yourself) made the brilliantly obvious-once-someone-says-it comment that, from a marketing perspective, you shouldn’t spend your time networking on sites with your peers; go to sites where your (potential) clients hang out. Some of his favorites are sites dedicated to new businesses such as Biznik and StartupNation - who needs marketing and identity services more than a startup? He also likes Peter Shankman’s HARO (Help a Reporter Out) - a free service dedicated to helping connect reporters looking for anything from background to a quote to an entire article with professionals with knowledge on those subjects. There’s no better marketing than being recognized as a quoted “expert” in a field!

Also hugely entertaining was Marc English’s Discovery: Frontiers Are Where You Find Them session, where Marc posed for photos, played harmonica, harassed people entering or leaving after the talk had started, and in general wove a seemingly random path around his subject of “learn(ing) how to embrace experiences and discoveries you weren’t expecting, how to share what you discovered, and how to define your frontiers, whether they are in your own backyard or across time and space.” In short, he too makes a habit of getting out, photographing anything that strikes him as interesting such as a handlettered sign on an Indian reservation, and then later draws upon these inspirations in his own work for clients (see: Von Glitschka’s Living a Creative Life session mentioned earlier).

Coda

Aside from the high-quality talks, we should note that the HOW Conference itself was very well run, with great parties (the ice cream sundae bar was an especially nice touch given the weather), a good bookstore, and even a chance for attendees to sell their own handmade wares such as t-shirts, iPhone cases, and jewelry. Plus Austin itself is a great town, with lots of fun restaurants and bars - just too bad about the weather.

Next year, the HOW Design Conference will be in Denver from June 6-10, where it will be considerably cooler (by the way, southern Colorado is lush and beautiful that time of year; see if you can swing a few extra days off to relax and recharge).

In the meantime, if you’re looking for a way to inject a little creativity into your job, we suggest you view Belief Design’s classic Pollinate 2005: The Common Desk for both entertainment and inspiration.

The content contained in our books, videos, blogs, and articles for other sites are all copyright Crish Design, except where otherwise attributed.

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