Living in today’s on-screen world, the idea of flat design has become commonplace. Though designers are becoming more adept at using on-screen techniques to create dimension and the visual sensation of a texture, the sense of touch is missing from our touch screens. Texture has become even more important, and appreciated, as one of the major graphic design principles.

From brand identity to packaging, Pum Lefebure, co-founder and Chief Creative Officer at Design Army, is a purveyor in the strategy of using texture in graphic design – a strategy that plays a big part in the Design Principles promotion Design Army created for Neenah.

We asked Lefebure share her thoughts about how texture acts as a major graphic design principle.

When should designers think about texture?

If a piece of graphic design is simple and minimal, that’s when you should think about texture. You can have a really good piece of typography on a smooth paper and you can have exactly the same design on a texture paper, and each are going to give you a completely different feeling. If you emboss or deboss a piece of typography…all of a sudden your work has dimension.

How is texture used to elevate design?

Texture adds dimension. For example, we are working on a prototype of a box for a fine jeweler. If you look at the design, it’s really simple typography on a white background. Because we used LEATHERLIKE^® paper to communicate an elevated luxury brand, the printed piece looks richer and more luxurious. Instead of simple foil stamping, we used textured foil to create the illusion of metal used in jewelry design. This is an example of how texture can easily take design from simple to intricate.

How do people respond to texture?

Imagine you give two identical teddy bears to a child. One is a smooth teddy and the other is a fluffy, very soft teddy. I’d be willing to bet you the child is going to go with the fluffy one first, because everyone responds to texture. When you look at a plush stuffed animal, it gives you a sense of comfort. It’s something you want to hold and cuddle. Texture adds another, and very different, level of emotional response. Creating an emotional response creates a higher likelihood of brand recall and brand loyalty.

What is a common mistake designers might make when it comes to texture?

A very common mistake in this digital age is to start designing something on the computer and working on the graphic design part without first looking at the material. This is especially true for packaging. You want to look at a swatchbook first, look at the kind of material to see what feeling you’re drawn to. For example, if I want something plastic-like and very smooth, I might pick PLIKE^®Papers, and then I would go from there to decide what kind of design would look good on this material. We think about paper as the fabric to enhance our design. We start with texture, meaning we start with the paper first, before we even design anything.

Texture is just one of the 20 design principles featured in Neenah’s Design Principles promotion. Presented in a mysterious black box are 20 different beautifully designed and printed circles. Each designed for a specific principle, and each featuring a different luxurious paper from The Design Collection.

The Design Principles Featuring Pum Lefebure — White Space

Would you like a Matilda or BFG to go with your burger and fries? If you’re a young Kiwi, you just might get your wish. McDonald’s restaurants in New Zealand are ditching the Pokemon and Hello Kitty toys and filling their Happy Meal boxes with excerpts of Roald Dahl books instead, The Independent reports.

As our digital lives grow busier, consumers are reaching for something real.

Dave Pilcher via LinkedIn [ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/real-books-theyre-so-2019-dave-pilcher/ ]

It was the end of 2017, and there were a lot of rumblings about the resurgence of print books.

“Books have always had a fetishistic quality to them, with their dusty secretiveness,” wrote Alex Preston in The Guardian in December that year. “Now, though, it feels like we’re living through a special moment in the history of book design and beautiful books are everywhere.”

He cited several examples of that year’s new releases, including George Saunders’s Lincoln in the Bardo and Peter Frankopan’s The Silk Roads, with its cover inspired by mosaic from the Imam mosque at Isfahan. Even the classics are getting makeovers, like the stunning Penguin Hardcover Classics reissue of the works of F Scott Fitzgerald, or its clothbound editions of Austen, Brontë and Dickens.

“It’s hard to know whether to read these books or caress them,” he wrote.

Apparently, we are doing both, if books sales figures are any indication.

“In the UK,” writes Natasha Frost in Quartz, “Nielsen BookScan recorded year-on-year book sale growth of 22 million pounds ($28 million). It’s likely that 2018 will top 2016’s total sales of 1.59 billion pounds, too, with booksellers on both sides of the Atlantic noting an anecdotal uptick in sales and browsing customers.”

As Frost notes, this bodes well for UK booksellers, and the same it seen here in the U.S. Indies, where the number of indie bookstores has grown since 2009, and sales of physical books are up for the past 5 straight years.

“We’re buying books, and we’re favoring the kind you can borrow, lend, or drop in the bath: In 2017, print book sales were up 10.8% from four years earlier,” Frost writes. “Between 2016 and 2017, however, e-book sales actually dropped 10 percent. In October [2018], book sales were at $699 million, up by $50 million from a year earlier.”

It’s more proof that nothing beats a real book when it’s time to curl up and relax … and the experience is not nearly as satisfying on a digital screen.

“There’s nothing like the smell of old books or the crack of a new one’s spine,” wrote Abigail Wise in Real Simple. “Plus, you’ll never run low on battery.”

Maybe it’s time to get yourself to one of those great new indie shops, or reactivate that library card and bring home a big stack. There’s nothing like going deep into a real book to help you relax, comprehend and remember.

Books … they’re so 2019.

CLASSIC Retail Revolution; a resource for designers

The top 4 reasons:

1. It’s more pleasant to hold than a digital device
2. Paper provides a more enjoyable reading experience than a screen 
3. Paper makes it easier to save, track and manage information
4. Reading on a smartphone is too hard to be relaxing

Read the article by David Pilcher at freeportpress.com!

FOLIO Magazine |   By Greg Dool :: May 8, 2018

A look into the mind of the Gen Z-er…
MNI Targeted Media, a division of Meredith Corp., revealed today the preliminary findings of an online survey of 2,500 students aimed at examining the interests, spending preferences, and consumption habits of Gen-Z—that is, those born between 1995 and 2012—which the survey suggests will represent a massive chunk of spending power in the U.S. by 2020.

Among the survey’s more intriguing findings:

• 90 percent of Gen Z-ers rely on media to stay in touch with what is happening in the world.
• 60 percent prefer to shop in stores over online, but 75 percent use their phones while shopping to price check or seek recommendations.
• 50 percent agree that knowing a brand is “socially conscious” influences their purchasing decisions.
• The average Gen Z-er spends one hour each week reading magazines.
• 61 percent believe their generation would benefit from “unplugging more.”