Produktdesign = økt salg

Som forbrukere går vi ubevisst lei av produkter som ikke endrer seg. Det betyr at endring av produktdesign = økt salg.

På E24.no ble det igår sluppet en artikkel om hvordan fiskematprodusenten Lofotprodukt endret logo og byttet etikett og dermed økte salgstallene betraktelig. Det finnes nå flere undersøkelser som tydelig beviser designets makt og potensiale for lønnsomhet. Jeg vil legge til at det gjelder for god bruk av design og ikke hva som helst – man snakker her ikke om reklame men design.

– De aller fleste produkter trenger av og til en forfriskning. Selv en liten endring vil oppfattes av hjernen din, selv om du ikke selv er bevisst endringen. Og en liten endring vil umiddelbart føre til økt salg – kan Skule Storheill i Norsk Designråd fortelle.

Les mer om Norsk Designråds undersøkelser her.

7 tips for økt salg

Håper noen av disse tipsene kan være nyttig for deg.
Beste angrepsmetode er å velge ut ETT av tipsene og bli bedre på akkurat det! Presentert under utdanningspunktet i BNI Romerike

Tips nummer 1
Ta ansvar! Foreta en beslutning om å gå hele veien, velg å gå i bresjen for ditt fagfelt. Ta en beslutning i dag om å være med blant topp 10% i din bransje. Det er ingen og ingenting som kan holde deg tilbake fra å være best, bortsett fra deg selv. Husk, det tar like lang tid å å bli best som det tar å bli middelmådig. Tiden kommer til å gå forbi uansett… Din jobb blir da å forplikte seg til perfeksjon, å bli bedre og bedre hver dag, og til aldri, aldri gi deg før du når toppen.

Sjekk ut 6 tips til…

Finished concept art, my workstation and street art

Hey guys!

Got a thought that maybe I’d show my workstation at work (which I’ve finally gotten around to keeping in a relative state of tidy-ness..haha), some finished work like I promised in the last post and a piece of street art I saw around town the other day!

I’ll start our with my station.. I’ve added notes on there so you can see on the picture instead of me rambling on. Click for larger picture (sorry about the crappy cellphone camera quality.. it was the closest camera with the least hassle.. hehe)

And here’s the piece that’s on the screen. It’s a concept art/moodboard piece I did for a company called Design Haircare. This is a Naiad from greek mythology. They’re dieties (spelling correct? Plural of “diety”?) that dwell in water. Being connected to their place of water, they die if the water dries out. This particular one resides in a sacred pool.

Ok, and now for something I didn’t do myself, but I thought it was kinda cool. I’m a sucker for stencils and street art, so I snapped a picture of this one while walking around town:

I have no idea who the artist is, and I’m guessing if I knew, he wouldn’t have wanted me to go public with his name.. haha.. If the artist sees this though: Dig your work!

Oh.. in other news I was interviewed by Dee Wilcox over at Creative Perch a little while back! Click to jump over there and read it!

ArtRage speedpaint

Hey ya’ll! Been a little while since I posted last. Here’s a little speedpaint, like 30 minutes compressed to a little over 3 minutes.. I’ll post some finished work soon as well! Promise! Working on some cool stuff for a client these days, which I’m excited about myself!

And the “finished” sketch

Fredrik/dCepT

Photoshop 2009 conference

The Photoshop conference held in Oslo, Norway 23.04.2009, presented our own Fredrik Dahl Tyskerud (aka dCepT), who held a 50 min lecture on painting with photoshop from a concept artist point of view. Here´s his work captured from the front-row-seat. Also, menu on the right has now a category for free Downloads. Stay tuned! You may get frequent updates from our artists updates here.

Work progress shown in three stages.

Fredriks brushes can be downloaded for free on this link. (Do you want to publish these brushes on your site, feel free. But please, nice if you´d link back). http://www.dcept.com/brushes/dCbrush.abr

Steve Caplin also spoke at the conference. The graphic artist specialising in photomontage illustration. You can read more about Steve Caplin here
Check out his books and also Steves portfolio at www.stevecaplin.com

Illustrations for Fristads Norge

Lotsa bloggin’ goin’ on now.. hehe.. Guess me and Stian are on a roll :P

I finished these illustrations right before I went to London. They were used for a presentation of a brand merger for company selling work clothes.. The illustrations were aimed at showing some core values associated with two slightly different brands, and the merger of the two.

I wanted to share a bit of the process with you guys as well, so I’m showing the thumbs too.

Started out doing a few thumbnails that showed the client some options.

We agreed on nr. 2 and 5

The final images were made in Photoshop and ArtRage jumping back and forth a lot. Photoshop for fine detailing and sharper edges, ArtRage for the more impressionistic, rougher parts and a blend of the two emerge.

The final images:

As always: click the images for larger versions :)

Hope you enjoy!

Top 5 applications for creative teams

Do you have any favorite creative application you use so please share!
Here is our top 5 list that the team really appreciates when working together.

Subscribe to our Artist blog updates right here, and we can stay in touch.

Nr.1 – Art Rage – www.artrage.com
Classic painting methods in a great design. The way to go when you want to paint digitally with a traditional touch. You can download the starter edition at no cost!

Raging river paint process: A quick sketch was made in Photoshop before jumping over in ArtRage to flesh it out with the oil brush and pallette knife. Smaller, sharper details were done in Photoshop and ArtRage skipping back and forth. Finally a rough texture pass was done in ArtRage and added as an overlay layer in Photoshop to pull together the piece and add a final ”traditional” touch.

Nr. 2 – Google SketchUp – sketchup.google.com
Create 3D models, modify them, paint it over, get a perspective. Real easy to use. For the creative who is NOT a 3D modeler. Simple interface and just a great FREE application from Google.

”Hidden in plain sight”: Buildings started of as 3D objects created in SketchUp. Ambulance and background people made for placeholders for painting over with in Photoshop.

Nr. 3 – InDesign – www.adobe.com
Every designers need-to-own software. This is what you should use for designing professional layouts for print. Putting together typography and images.

Local pub: Design of front and back of barchart done with InDesign. Illustrations used created with Photoshop.

Nr. 4 – Adobe Photoshop – www.photoshop.com
For image retouchers, designers, concept artists, photographers and many more…

Image makeover: We did a concept of enpowering soccerplayers (and coach as in this image) with superpowers. Using our own uniqe techniqe with photographing on greenscreen, using different textures and painting over with Photoshop.

Nr. 5 – Spotify – www.spotify.com
Last but not least! Ones you´ve tried it you won´t ever look back. Still in Beta, but every team needs music to pump the fuels of the creative multiverse. With Spotify you are never far away from the song you want. All played online without downloadtime.

Spotify also allows you to share songs and playlists with your team, and even work together on collaborative playlists!

Input: Hope you found some new toys here at our top 5 applications. Please leave a comment on your suggestions or input. You may get frequent updates from our artists updates right here.

* All designs copyrighted work of Desimal and the artists.

Creature concept – Yes, it’s ArtRage again

Hey gals and guys! Just wanted to pop in and post another concept art piece.  Started out as me wanting to paint a crab (don’t ask why.. I really don’t know.. haha), and sometime while I was painting it I figured if a crab was huge it’d make for a good war “vehicle”. So there ya go. As always; click the image for larger version.

It’s done in ArtRage primarily, and photoshop for details and tweaks. On a slight sidenote we bought ArtRage at the office today to get the full 2.5 version! I was mad stoked to get thinners for my paint and access to the cool reference image function and all the little touches I lacked in the free version!

- dCepT/Fredrik

10 ideas for Using Twitter for Business

First Steps
1. Build an account and immediate start using Twitter Search to listen for your name, your competitor’s names, words that relate to your trade (Listening always comes first…).
2. Add a picture. We want to see you.
3. Talk to people about THEIR interests, too. I know this doesn’t sell more widgets, but it shows us you’re human.
4. Point out interesting things in your space, not just about you.
5. Share links to neat things in your community ( @wholefoods does this well ).
6. Don’t get stuck in the apology loop. Be helpful instead.
7. Be wary of always pimping your stuff. Your fans will love it. Others will tune out.
8. Promote your employees’ outside-of-work stories.
9. Throw in a few humans, like RichardAtDELL, LionelAtDELL, etc.
10. Talk about non-business, too… Spice it up.

You can read 40 more ideas on Twitter for business at Chris Brogans blog, here.

Also check out this great, short article on “To Tweet or Not to Tweet“

Sosiale medier i bruk hos Desimal.

Hei Alle sammen. Noen tanker og erfaringer fra bruk av Twitter.com, fordi jeg har tro på dette mediet som kommunikasjonskanal og nettverks-verktøy, et verktøy som for tiden er i full blomstring. Les også 10 tips for å bruke twitter i business sammenheng her.

Jeg har over bare et par korte uker satt meg inn i, og brukt Twitter. Jeg har ikke vært alene her på studio om å gi det et forsøk.
På Twitter skriver man meldinger, liknende sms-meldinger, som går ut til alle som følger din profil på Twitter. Man er bundet til 140 tegn i hver melding, så det passer for de kortfattede. Men har man mange man følger betyr ikke det at alle meldinger trenger å leses da strømmen av meldinger går konstant, og er en del av en dynamisk samtale. Vår konklusjon er at Twitter har en lav terskel for bruk, og krever mindre av deg enn andre sosiale medier som facebook og LinkedIn (erstatter ikk andre medier).