iPad and Beyond..

To discuss the ways designers have to think cross-platform, I've chosen design for magazine, digital billboards and buses. I feel each one offers a different complication and solution in the design and advertising world.

For example, design for magazine is very common. As you can see from the cover on the left, various codes and conventions will look familiar to you. For example, there is a main image and the title of the magazine is large and behind the main focus. The magazine cover provides the consumer with quick puffs of information, explaining that they can get "bigger pecs now" and that there's just "5 steps to the perfect body". All these techniques are to engage the consumer and get them drawn into the magazine. Politically, by producing a magazine cover using these codes and conventions the designers can use these guide lines to their ability, making their magazine sell to the consumer and therefore gaining profit.

The layout between this magazine cover and many others are very similar as they follow these strict rules. Even just using the direct mode of address in the main photo is enough to draw in an audience. Socially, the consumer feels as though they can gain something from owning this magazine, they will feel empowered as this book has the answers they need to get that perfect look.

The content can easily be replicated through scanning (as I have done here) or even reproduced on a half decent editing application on most computers, such as Photoshop. Scanning each individual page however, may not be an attractive option to those individuals wanting to steal the content and distribute it illegally, instead they may be more inclined to take the content and design their own media from it.

Design across other platforms, such as on this bus for example is where designers have to think more strategically about how they promote.

With each bus having similar but possibly different sizes to promote their products on, the design of the advert has to be flexible. Being able to scale the advert to fit different dimensions is important, and the main content should fit into the constraints of the bus architecture.

On many buses with this style of advertising, the main title or most important information is usually stuck on the horrizontal section between the two floors, quite often a picture or logo is then placed in the vertical section and the smaller, legal details are pushed to the end where space is limited. Designers have to consider this when desigining across different platforms. For example, the same layout of an advert would be useless on a magazine if it were taken from a design for a bus.

Design for a bus is an interesting concept politically, as designers need to think creatively, getting their point across very quickly as a bus can roar by in just a few seconds. In those few seconds the consumer has to see the advert, recognise what it's for and be convinced that they need to buy into it. Therefore, keeping the design simple and short (to the point) is a crucial technique that should be deployed here, like in the image above.

Digital billboard design is an area that is high for competition. Take this photo for example, in a place like New York or London where there can be up to 20 or 30 different digital billboards, getting the consumer's attention is always a difficult task.

Here, the main advert is of a woman and underneath is stats about the weather over the next few days and a news feed. By having data displayed that is of public interest, the community will be drawn in as they may want to know the temperature, in the process, noticing the advert for Garnier above. Using public interest as a technique, Garnier have drawn in the attention of the public subconciously, and are being fed these advertising ploys without realising. Through this, the consumer doesn't get as infuriated with annoying adverts, as they feel as though they're being informed of matters that are important to them, and are therefore more open to the subconcious advertising.

As far as having content stolen by using digital billboards, the effect of having a massive billboard that grabs people's attention is more important if it manages to sell your product. Stealing other designer's work, would only have an adverse effect in this situation, as having multiple billboards looking the same would only turn the consumer off and result in your advert being missed or unnoticed. Instead, the more creative and different the design, the better it will work in this situation.

It is hard to predict what the major digital platform in one year's time will be for design, technology is developing and advancing all the time. However, I do think with things the way they are at the moment, the internet is going to become a necessity of life, and having it portable and with you all the time will slowly become something you can't live without. Therefore, design for small media such as mobile phones and netbooks may become a requirement over the coming year.

I predict that desktop computers may start to dissapear and laptops will take over, due to their portability and size over this decade. Consequences for designers are important to consider. I feel that you'll be able to get the same performance from a laptop as you can from a computer within the next couple of years. I currently use a laptop to do all my design work, which includes design for big platforms such as banners and posters as well as web design and other mediums. Designers will need to consider how to use as little content as possible to get across their message as quickly as possible if mobile phone sized screens are the way forward, this will make design harder, especially as we're seeing many websites designed for the browser, but when it comes to the phone, they have cut down versions. Facebook is a good example of this.

One thing is for sure though, this decade is going to be very exciting in terms of development and standards are concerned.