Posted by Kate LeGresley

Invoke is proud to announce the launch of the Hemispheres Wine Guild site. Our amazing design and development team has crafted an appealing, user-friendly site to attract new business and provide a value-added wine exploration experience for existing members.

Hemispheres Wine Guild members receive top quality wine not available anywhere else, hand-picked by a wine expert, and delivered to their door.

Our team worked with Rob Leadley, one of Hemispheres’ founders, to build an attractive site full of stunning imagery and rich textures. We added in special members-only features like an interactive map, a newspaper-style periodical, and multiple easy-to-navigate pages to lead visitors on a journey through the world of wine. The result is a slick, authentic-feeling site that transports members to the regions and vineyards where the wine is sourced.

www.hemisphereswine.ca

PS Hemispheres looks so tantalizing that several of us in the office are contemplating becoming members.

Posted by Nadia Nascimento

* This blog post is part of Invoke’s participation in the 2008 Vancouver Blogathon for Charity

I imagined conformist grey jumpsuits, feasts comprised of small yellow pills and cars hovering in bleak uniformity. Utilitarian high rises. Breaking forth of hydrogen eggs. Maybe Big Brother was to blame for my perspective on the future, but it was really nothing short of a natural perspective after being inundated with new media projections on what Orwellian future was to come.

But my future now is to the contrary: we have moved into the enticement of shiny 2.0 icons, photo images, and bio in prose, color wheels and PPT with Radiohead as our uncompromised soundtrack.? We want our desks to be our glory and customized coffee our pagoda. Personalized dog collars, phones that sparkle, USB’s that reflect our personality. We have come to be much more tangible than I had once imagined.? We are more tangible than we are real.? We are aesthetic addicts and we are judging you.

Every moment we are sending out messages of what our momentary truisms are.? False or not, they exist. What makes us most aware of this fact, is how this image is a stain. Unlike the blending of the grey suits and the uniform passing of time, we are now waging to not only advance but to also accelerate our â€?own-ness’. And this is what makes us fight the grey suit:? “Design, according to David Brown, the former President of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, “is moving from the abstract from the ideological : this is? good design – to the personal and emotional: I like that.â€? Aesthetics are now communication. They are pleasure. And we demand it.

So, font whores, find comfort in the fact that you are not alone, that you are by nature deep biological nature, just visual, tactile creatures (so says David Browne in that we are able to have just as much nature as we are to have the other ability to speak our reason.? We don’t just see pretty thing.? We like them. And we will fight for them.? So find what pleases you, and run with it.? Design and aesthetics are an amazing way for us to share who we are and get to the bottom of things. So feel reassured that thinking apple icons are hot is normal. And if anything, it is encouraged.

Posted by James Wilson

* This blog post is part of Invoke’s participation in the 2008 Vancouver Blogathon for Charity

Walking a tightrope between design and desire. A designer’s thoughts.

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day who has somehow survived six years freelancing as a graphic designer. “A client of mine insisted that I let her design the look and feel of the site before she gave feedback” was a comment he breezily made at one point – as if the irony of the statement hadn’t occurred to him yet.

Yes, it’s both an interesting and exciting moment; handing designs over to someone and waiting for them to view, judge and critique it, but it’s also a little like having Regis fly out of your closet as your alarm clock goes off – it would scare the hell out of you if you weren’t adequately prepared. See, what in your head may be functional, stylish or just plain cool may be totally be a Spiderman III moment for them. If it is, it’s redesign-or-tweakin’ time.

The worst type of feedback is the kind that morphs the design into a blob of ineffective mish-mash. It’s the feedback that usually runs along the lines of: “Ok… but could we make it more ‘wow!’?” or “I’d love to see a little more: ‘oooh!’ there…”. Basically, it’s like telling a baker to make the bread more ‘risey’, or like saying you like a sunset because it’s, y’know – whatever.

Useful feedback incorporates an understanding of things, what do I want changed and why? Is it because I like another colour more or because another colour would convey this emotion better? Is it because I had a crappy game of poker last night and I want to berate someone over the internet? … OK that’s only happened twice, but it’s actually after the feedback when things get interesting.

OK, so Sally Sacramento wants this colour changed. Can I make this work or is it going to end up looking like a pair of Crocs? (I don’t care how comfortable they are, that designer needs to be beaten over the head with a shovel…) If you misread the brief and screwed up, it’s a good time to correct the problem, but if it’s a matter of nitpicking it comes down to judgment. See taking feedback literally can be dangerous, taking it with a grain of salt can be tasty – but stupid.

So how should you deal with a troubling response? Well, sometimes people need to see that something won’t work. If you get a request for a logo to be blown up 300%, go ahead, do it, but present one with it at 50% too so things are in perspective. Want that body text in bold, italic size 47 Helvetica? OK well sometimes telling people it just won’t work is an option too…

In the end, it comes down more to personal taste and judgement than formula and rule. Use that eye and try to get your client enthused about the design you’ve laboured over. If that doesn’t work, well you can always take it out of your folio… or try that Regis trick…

Posted by James Wilson

Who needs medals when you can paint Beijing red…-der (forgive me!) in the upcoming Beijing 2008 Olympic Games wearing your very own paisley-inspired jumpsuit?

Alright, so in all honesty, I’ve seen worse fashion designs (we all remember the Kristen McMenemy catwalk catastrophe… – on second thoughts maybe that’s just me…). But I can’t help but think whoever was in charge of design simply used the upcoming Olympics as an excuse to take their obsession with Lost to a new level..

It’s not so much the resource-hungry, flash-based HBC website – nor the repetition of the number ‘8‘ in every freakin’ place they can put it – nor the countdown timer. It isn’t even the ‘Design Inspiration’, which I can’t help feeling is an excuse to whack a couple of Dharma logos on the back of someone’s shirt (and pretending you’re actually taking the Chinese elements seriously). No, it’s something truly Lost-esque. That feeling, that needs to reveal the mystery that will never be solved: Why for the love of Dionne Warwick did they put red, blue, and green together?

Numero uno on my list of ‘Colour themes that should never be seen… ever’ is red, blue, and green. I’d love to figure out why some designers feel the overwhelming need to slap garish colours together like a cheap Sunday brunch… I guess combining them to create a tasteful colour palette didn’t cross their minds? That point and the fact that they took some cool action shots and turned them into creepy images of the Bronze People of Nabatea kinda turned me off.

The last few games have been pretty schmick; Atlanta, Sydney and Athens, and Torino? Great stuff, all of these had some pretty good branding happening, and all the countries seemed to put together some hot getups. This Canada Camo doesn’t really stand up, but I’ll give the Bay one thing; they certainly are energetic. So energetic that we’ve been treated to snaps of people doing active things in them, and looking half decent (albeit the poor fellow that was apparently told to do a curious mix of the ballet/hakka for the photo shoot).

I’m looking forward to the overall reaction to these … ‘unique’ outfits in the coming months, but I’m also curious and slightly afraid that if this is what we get for Beijing, what on Earth can we expect to see for London, 2012..
Peace all.

Jimzip