
Does Facebook Have a Secret Paper Fetish? - tbgvi
http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/facebook-secret-paper-fetish/
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fourspace
Now I've heard of companies like Google having on-campus hackerspaces, but an
on-campus print shop is pretty damn badass. Credit to Facebook for extending
the hacker mindset to ink and paper.

~~~
CC11526
Almost all large businesses and many medium ones have their own print shop.
Most people just don't know about them because they're hidden in the back and
aren't really integrated into the normal activities of the rest of the staff.

Marketing materials are far from paperless even in the internet age.

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grinich
If you're not familiar with Ben Barry's work, you should definitely check out
his portfolio. Really excellent stuff. <http://designforfun.com>

Another great example of print design making its way into the digital space is
Metro, Microsoft's UI for Windows Phone 7 (and probably Windows 8, Xbox+,
etc.) It's fundamentally based on typography and space, which are core to
timeless and pervasive print design.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_%28design_language%29>

There are lots of lessons about visual language that have been figured out in
the hundreds of years since print was invented. Pixels are relatively new, but
form, weight, space, typography, readability, color, contrast, and aesthetics
tend to transfer over quite well. (Until you add interaction, which is
certainly a new discipline of design.)

Also, even if you're an engineering-driven company, having good design on the
walls helps people develop an intuition for your company's culture and brand.
More than anything else, these projects at FB seem to be about internal
communication, which is essentially marketing your mission and goals to your
team. As an organisation grows rapidly, this is one of the most effective (and
subtle) ways to keep your goals aligned.

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tomcreighton
The subtext of this headline seems to be "Why does Facebook have a secret
paper fetish?" rather than "How awesome is it that Facebook has a secret paper
fetish?"

Personally, I'd be far more motivated by a fantastic screen-printed poster
than an 'internal memo'.

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motoford
Great, now we can never have a poster that says Hack on it because Ben Barry
has one and will complain on Twitter if you do.

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tedlee
Ben Barry actually released a number of these posters under Creative Commons:
<http://www.designforfun.com/facebookposters/>

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jamie
FB has been doing cool type/print related projects for awhile. They've been
showing up on For Print Only for a couple of years. Very cool stuff:

[http://www.underconsideration.com/fpo/archives/2009/12/faceb...](http://www.underconsideration.com/fpo/archives/2009/12/facebook-
holiday-gift.php)
[http://www.underconsideration.com/fpo/archives/2011/05/presi...](http://www.underconsideration.com/fpo/archives/2011/05/president-
barack-obama-at-facebook-tickets.php)

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sp332
The "Analog Research Lab" reminded me of the Graffiti Research Lab. They
pointed out that a lot of graffiti artists act like technophobes, and they
wanted to bring the art and "urban communication" into the electronic age.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti_Research_Lab> video:
[http://www.graffitiresearchlab.com/blog/projects/laser-
tag/#...](http://www.graffitiresearchlab.com/blog/projects/laser-tag/#video)

Who knows, maybe they'll meet somewhere in the middle :)

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RyanMcGreal
What was the name of that website where every other word was linked to another
page on the same website? Reading this article felt a bit like that.

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jcassee
everything2.com ?

~~~
RyanMcGreal
That's it! I thought it was [something]2.com.

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corin_
This isn't really a big deal - even in PR terms it's not something that will
cause any issues - but it interested me none-the-less:

> _"We’re barraged with e-mail all the time," he adds about life at Facebook,
> "but when you go to the café for lunch and you see one of the posters while
> you’re waiting in line, I think it has a more of an impact."_

That's basically the opposite of the message Facebook would like to send to
advertisers, the idea that digital (i.e. through Facebook) is the best way to
get ROI on advertising.

I like the fact that he didn't have to hold back from stating the obvious fact
that, just because adverts are a key part of their revenue, traditional
advertising is still relevant today.

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nagnatron
This is one of the coolest things I've read about Facebook.

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taylorbuley
This is some seriously SEO-enlightened content

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unexpected
If we wanted to buy posters like these (minus the whole Ben Barry fiasco),
what would be the best place to buy them?

~~~
neilparikh
They're available under a CC license here ->
<http://www.designforfun.com/facebookposters/>

I'm assuming you can't buy them anywhere else, since the license is non-
commercial.

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spitfire
Facebooks' analog lab has been around for quite a while. I think it's probably
one of the best parts of Facebook, culturally, as a whole. It's a commitment
to communication methods, whatever they may be.

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swiecki
Are you fucking kidding me? The words "desk" and "photo" are linked to store
results from this site? No thanks, this is 2012, that's not how we monetize
content anymore.

