We expanded in terms of space as well, and now developers occupy the office next door. Design part of the team called dibs on the original office. We enjoy our neutral space with lot of light and Macs that help us unleash our creativity.

At the moment, there are 8 designers and 5 developers within Montenegrin part of fleka, working on vast amount of projects, fueled by passion and questionably suspicious amounts of coffee. Rumor has it, several unidentified males have been spotted hauling in large amount of coffee bags every sunday night around 3 AM. Conveniently, coffee machine kept silent when asked about the incidents.

Oh, and by the way, stay tuned, since we’re coming out with few mind-blowing projects that have been cooking in our kitchen for a while. And it’s not Nela’s chocolate chip brownies. We ate them already.

We are proud to announce, albeit a bit late, that fleka had the honor to participate at the greatest Italian design exibit – Spaghetti Grafica 2.

The exhibit is organized by Italian Ministero della Grafica, every three years. The participation is on invitation only. This time, more than 1300 works arrived from over 400 studios all over the Italy, and only 125 project from 95 studios made it trough selection. There’s even a book that covered the event to prove our claims. Look us up on pages 81, 102 and 103.

Prada Wall

Nike Italia’s marketing team felt the need for a tool that would aid them in their work. Number of issues have risen in connection with their very diverse group of customers, spread all over the Italy. They needed some way of monitoring customers’ needs and desires, so they could supply stores with propper articles, depending on the type of their customers.

We came up with Nike Marketplace Mapping (check the website, nike.mappami.com). Based as an interactive map, armed with all sorts of filters and possibilities for mapping city zones as well as types of customers, it serves as strategic tool for Nike’s marketing team. At the moment, being still a demo version, applicaton covers few cities (Milano being the focus of the demo version), maps different types of city areas (and types of customers, consequently), shows certain points of interests in refference to Nike’s products (high schools, universities, clubs, parks, gyms) and allows the marketing team to independently analyze and manage different hotspots. The map also provides the locations of Nike’s shops and sub-brands within (NSW, Women, Football, Running) allowing the team to have a peak into them via videos, photographs and interviews with customers.

This application provides the marketing team with all relevant information they need when it comes to planning the market. It serves as an excellent source of data, it gives the idea about physical distances and saturation of certain zones and allows insight into the factors that affect customers’ shopping choices. Nike Marketplace Mapping helps with all kinds of executive decisions, varying from the location and interior of separate shops, to the choice of articles to be found within the stores, based on the actuall type of customers who shop there.

So far, Nike’s managers have been pleased with our solution and we expect developing the application further in the near future.

Yeah, you read it well. The beautiful typography that was the soul of the brand itself (Futura or Ikea Sans if you like), enhancing its global idea and general feel is – gone. Why? It had to be casted away so IKEA can embrace full glory of Verdana, both in web AND print. Yes, print. Yes, catalogue had already been printed and distributed all around the globe, containing in no particular order:  hideous bloated headlines, boring, unfocused blocks of text and last but not the least, incredible desire to look good. Too bad there’s nothing more to it than mere desire. The Old Queen Futura was replaced by a – drag Queen.

In an interview for the Swedish magazine CAP&DESIGN, IKEA’s Ivana Hrdlickova says the main reason for the switch was to allow the company to use the same typeface in all the countries (previous IKEA typefaces didn’t contain Asian characters). Being that Verdana was designed for web, it allows company’s image to remain consistent online and in print. Also, when inquired about the value of the typefaces within the brand and its influence, she replied that the typography was always irrelevant; it wasn’t the element they built their name upon. Yeah, right. That’s why they finely tuned aforementioned Futura and Century Schoolbook to suit their branding needs 50 years ago. That’s why IKEA’s (ex) typography serves as impeccable example of good design.

To me, Verdana is deeply into the territory of Comic Sans. Overused, misused, forced to a box with ‘default font’ on it and now, you can even see it in print. And no, this wouldn’t have made such a fuss if one of IKEA’s employees had to print a headline or two in Verdana, by mistake or lack of care (because that’s how the new catalogue feels like). This is much more than that, a punch in a face of good taste. This is what happens when managers start wearing designer hats. Congratulations IKEA, you’ve just started digging your own grave.

And what do Asians have to say about this change, inspired by them and their market? As for the Chinese, not much; they’re too busy lounging and dozing away in IKEA’s showrooms. source

Update: Sign the petition online Ikea, please get rid of Verdana!

Two visitors to Beijing's IKEA enjoy a nap on a display sofa. (David Pierson / Los Angeles Times)

The last week of April, the exhibition That’s Design! took place in Milan. Among many schools and freelancers from all over the world, there were exhibits of Istituto Europeo di Design (IED).

The policy of this Faculty is based on diversity, in order to create unique yet multilateral and multicultural identity which lives to — design. This was well interpreted by various industrial design models, and on the „video walls“, screens were integrated with presentations of current projects. Installation, the melting pot of this setting was a the globus, IED’s Interactive World (ita. mondo interattivo), a 100 cm sphere, over which the pins defined the places of origin of IED students. In order to start a video, you had to touch a pin, in which moment the video would start playing, showing what students think about the Faculty and thei experiences of living abroad.

Web adaptation of this project was in hands of fleka and makkiadesign team, with Miloš Milošević as creative director/graphic designer and Giuseppe Aiello as media interactive designer.

During the event, our small mini web interactive project became the home page of all schools of the IED group across the Globe.

Check the demo version here.

The Short and Simple Story of the Credit Crisis.

Crisisofcredit.com

The goal of giving form to a complex situation like the credit crisis is to quickly supply the essence of the situation to those unfamiliar and uninitiated. This project was completed as part of my thesis work in the Media Design Program, a graduate studio at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

For more on my broader thesis work exploring the use of new media to make sense of a increasingly complex world, visit jonathanjarvis.com.

Support the project and buy a T-Shirt! cafepress.com/crisisofcredit

© Copyright 2009 Jonathan Jarvis

Our friends at Ministero Della Grafica are presenting their book/exhibition “Spaghetti Grafica” at the Triennale di Milano, today at 18.30. Definitely worth seeing!

For these holidays, we have prepared for our clients, collaborators and friends, flower-pots with different flowers: DAISY, SWEET PEA i SWEET WILLIAM, with our hand made packaging which we delivered where that was possible. For italian clients makkiadesign makkiadesign did the same.

This way we wanted once again to raise awareness about the Nature that surrounds us with a very physical example. These flower-pots will be a good reminder about nature preservation on all those grey office desks they reach.