As the amount of information continues to grow on the internet, it is becoming harder and harder to find stuff.

As you know, necessity is the mother of all innovation. I recently ran into searchme.com (thanks to Kim F. for the heads-up). Basically, searchme.com is a visual search engine. That’s right, a visual search engine.

This is how it works: you type in your search phrase and press enter. What happens next is a hybrid between the iTunes music slider and ask.com’s website preview option. And then some. Here are some of the neat features that I noticed right away:

• No pagination – search results are loaded right on the page using AJAX, and they keep loading as you keep scrolling
• Highlight keywords – each search result image highlights the keywords matching your search criteria
• Traditional results – this tool also allows you to toggle between full screen visual search results and traditional text-based search results

You have to play with it to really understand how it works. I highly encourage you to test it out and think about how web design can change if this catches on… how can this change search engine optimization?

Remeber, the eye and the mind can process images a lot faster than it can process text. People also gravitate towards “credible” websites. Credibility is instantaneously established when a user looks at the page’s design. All these factors stack on the side of searchme.com. Let’s keep an eye on these guys and see where this goes.

Labels: Design, search engine optimization, search engines, usability

Jared Spool Gives a compelling and somewhat radical argument for why user-centered design never works - or at least why it hasn't worked yet, and why user-informed design is the new name of the game.

Labels: Design, user experience

At SXSW Michael Lopp explains how Apple consistently churns out serious bad ass design.

Here is a summary of the summary I read:

Pixel Perfect Mockups
This, Lopp says, “removes all ambiguity.”
Of course this takes tons and tons of time, but it is totally a case of measure twice cut once.

10 to 3 to 1
Every feature has ten TOTALLY serious mockups. Not, "I am pretending this is a different mockup but it is really just a copy with a different look" - 10 completely compelling and good mockups. It is typical to throw some designs in there just to make your favorite one look good - but apple doesn't do that, he said. Afterwards they whittle it down to three and then find the one that works best from there.

Paired Design Meetings
Every week there are two meetings. One in which to as Lopp put it: to "go crazy" free from constraint and full of "I wishes." Then they also hold a production meeting, separately, which is all about whens and hows and logistics. Even enar the end of a project, when you would think all the "i wishes" were irrelvant, this seems a compelling way to think about potential features and ideas even while the current project has solidified.

Pony Meeting
This is where everyone gets to show ALL their ideas to managers. The managers always want to see lots of ideas and this is an opportunity for a Manager to identify something in someone's idea they hadn't been able to express previously.

As one commentor said (I paraphrase) "The secret here is probably that this process is so simple."

It is simple, but it is hard to do and even harder to do well.

Learn more here:
http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/next/archives/2008/03/apples_design_p.html?link_position=link1

Labels: Apple, Design

Fast Company has an intriguing look at the bottomline benefits of companies that focus on design. (The design dividend) According to this study, 65 design-focused British firms substantially outperformed the index over a period of 13 years.

Focused design throughout the enterprise clearly brings differentiation and customer-pleasing products to the forefront, but the articles about design in this issue of fast company also got me thinking about some other worthwhile areas of study:

• Design oriented firms are also research oriented - is there a correlation between the amount of research a firm does and its design savvy?
• We know that Design driven marketing agendas couple wonderfully with innovation driven companies such as IBM and Hewlett Packard - but is there an inverse correlation, where it would be possible to say (not causally) that where there are low design standards there are also low innovation standards?
• We know that corporate Design efforts fail if they are not holistic, menaing that every touchpoint for the consumer should be consistantly designed, honest and effective. But what does this mean for skunkworks, such as the Blackbird computer from HP, is it possible for compelling design to come from one division of a design-less company?
• "The simplest definition of design is how you treat your customer." -Yves Behar, founder, fuseproject. Customer Retention improves when design improves. Apple has proven it, now it is time for the rest of the corporate world to learn it. But what happens when a marketing strategy, in this case the price drop on the iphone, is such a slap in the face of a company's best customers? If design is how you treat your customers, then this Apple Iphone isn't designed very well.
  
  
  

Labels: Apple, Design, design dividend

Normally, when you click on a word on the web or on most word processing applications, the word is selected. Right?

Well, recently, I noticed that in addition to selecting a word, the New York Times website also launches a new window to display the search results associated with the double clicked word or phrase.

Here, try it. Double click on any word found in the body of the article that is not a link. It’s quite amazing, right?

This is a perfect example of significantly extending and improving function, usability and experience without eroding value or creating cognitive barriers for the user.

Granted, finding this function was a mistake. I was simply reading an article and double clicking on words that were key for me – and suddenly the pop-ups started coming. It took two or three occurrences before it dawned on me what was really happening. I went around the office and share with some people and everyone was consistently blown away.

In their defense, they keyed off a common user pattern: the double-click-as-you-read-thing – it turns out, I am not the only one that does it. Secondly, the have a note (albeit lost in the texture of the page) that reads “Tips: To find reference information about the words used in this article, double-click on any word, phrase or name. A new window will open with a dictionary definition or encyclopedia entry.”

The information provided in the search is incredibly useful, too. It offers related articles, dictionary definition, political dictionary definition, historical relevance, and much more.

Here’s a tip of the virtual hat to the NYT interactive group.

Labels: Design, New York Times, usability, user experience

Labels: beer, Design, label design, packaging design, russian

While it seems like a bit of a no-brainer to me, there are some people who hesitate to admit that cars can be art. Maybe this is fear of the "art" applelation, or maybe it is because it is difficult to imagine the ugly clunker in the driveway is part of a larger centuries-old debate about how our transportation transforms us. Regardless, you can enjoy the debate too.





There is an interesting presentation concerning "cars as art" from chris bangle (car designer at BMW).


It is on the newly redesigned TED site, which (while slow) is simply the most articulate design conversation taking place today.




Also if you happen to be in the Phoenix area you should go see "Curves of Steel, Streamlined Automobile Design April 1 - June 3, 2007"




Here is a nice quote from the website:

"Emerging from aerodynamic studies seeking to improve the speed of ships and airplanes, streamlining is characterized by smooth, curvilinear shapes idealized in the tear drop shape. Amidst the Great Depression and strains of the impending war, the sleek, futuristic look of streamlined design represented an optimistic future of science and technology and provided a stimulus to the market by making former more ornamental styles look outmoded. The look of the designs became equally important to its physical ability to reduce drag and improve efficiency. While the design of the 1937 Delahaye 145 proved itself when it won the “Million Franc Prize” Grand Prix, the 1939 Delahaye 165 Cabriolet by renowned designers Figoni and Falaschi was the darling of that year’s New York World’s Fair, curving voluptuously from front to back in teardrop style and painted bright red."

Labels: cars, Design, Industrial Design, museum, phoenix, TED

Bruce Nussbaum's great speech on designers being the enemy of design is well worth your attention.

Here are some highlights:

"Design Democracy is the wave of the future. Exceptional design may only be done by great star designers. But the design of our music experiences, the design of our MySpace pages, the design of our blogs, the design of our clothes, the design of our online community chats, the design of our Class of ’95 brochures, the design of our screens, the design of the designs on our bodies—We are all designing more of our lives. And with more and more tools, we, the masses, want to design anything that touches us on the journey, the big journey through life. People want to participate in the design of their lives. They insist on being part of the conversation about their lives."

"So one Big Design Management Challenge is how do you switch gears from designing for to designing with? Maybe the object of design is not a finished product but a set of tools that allow people to design their experiences for themselves. Think iPod and iTunes. Think TiVo. Starbucks. Fortunately, design has tremendous tools. In fact, design has evolved from a simple practice to a powerful methodology of Design Thinking that, I believe, can transform society. By that I mean Design, with a capital D, can move beyond fashion, graphics, products, services into education, transportation, economics and politics. Design can become powerful enough to be an approach to life, a philosophy of life. But it can do so only when Design by Ego ends and Design by Conversation begins. More on that later."

For the full piece, read it here:
http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOnDesign/

Labels: culture, Design, Nussbaum

Labels: Branding, Design, Fine Financial Branding, Logo

Executive design recruiter, RitaSue Siegel, offers her perspectives to assess whether or not a company is commited to design strategically.

Basically she asks whether a company's leadership values design as an independant business area - distinct from marketing - and whether the design leadership can see eye to eye wiht the ceo.

Her example is Nissan, and the entire video is well worth seeing just for that point alone. The design executive she brought to Nissan Motor Company changed what TIME magazine had called a “debt-ridden basket case” into a profitable global car company with 22 models in the pipeline—in a mere 18 months.

Her side comment at the end, where she says "Don't Get an MBA" is yet another voice added to the chorus.

http://www.ritasue.com/video_popup_med.html

Labels: Design, marketing, mba, nissan

Labels: best, Design, hate, love, tshirt

I recently came across an article about how user interfaces matter that was written 11 years ago. “The Importance of Designing Usable Systems” by Susan M. Dray.

The article’s content is still relevant and insightful. Many of the points covered are relatively obvious to us now – but they are presented in a way that is easy to understand, drawing palpable benefits for non-UI-heads.

It is a nice, short and powerful piece. Read it and share it with people who still don’t value or believe in the benefit of good UI. Tell these non believers that this not a “new thing” or “trend.”

This stuff matters and they better pay attention or they will be left behind.

Labels: Design

We were chatting today about Apple's amazing (and amazingly beautiful) new phone, and someone mentioned that it takes serious cojones to remake yourself from a computer company into an electronics company.

But it isn't as difficult a decision for Apple as some may think.

Sure you can look at it from the perspective of declining margins in the computer business, and you should also probably consider Job's eternal focus on hardware design as a main selling point for Apple, but there is a stronger argument for why Apple might shift its focus towards electronics.

Because the electronics out there on the shelves SUCKS. This is a total opportunity for Apple, every single Sony Sanyo Panasonic Motorola Palm Rim Casio Canon company out there should realize that Apple can really screw up their gravy-train with a release like the iphone in their market segment.

I can just see Rim and Palm shaking in their boots (as I write this at 5:00 on the 9th apple's stock has climbed 8% and RIM and PALM have plummeted an equal amount). We are looking at an array of electronics out there that is truly so horrible, that people will spend any amount for a device that just does what they want and isn't embarrassing when they pull it out of their pocket. The iPod has proven that.

So I though that while everyone is "ooohhhing" and "aaahhhing" over the iphone, I would show you the REAL reason why the iphone will do so well: because it has no competition. Because if you walk around best buy it is just depressing: nothing is exciting and nothing makes you WANT to have it.

Here are some electronics devices that are ugly and sick.


The new skype phone. Some have made fun of it, calling it the iClunk.




Designed by Boucheron, the Signature Cobra is made from a pear-cut diamond, a round white diamond, two emerald eyes and all of 439 horrifying rubies. Count 'em yourself if you are a glutton. The price tag is about what you would expect for class-A prime insanity: US $310,000. Well they do have a discounted diamond-only version running for $115,000, if you are trying to cut down on flamboyant frivolity.



Venmill industries has a cd dvd repair unit worth mentioning. It is by all accounts a terrifically useful wondrous device that restores scratched dvds and make life grand again. It should win the "totally spewingly ugly" award. It comes in other ugly colors too: http://www.venmill.com/products/skipaway.asp




Bushnell and XM radio team up to make this radio/gps/portable weather-center combo which is ugly as sin. Part of what I am reacting to here is the gaudy icons, but I am also in a state of deep existential WHY. Why was this built? Who is it for? What am I missing?


From industrial designer Jacob Jenson, a new smoke detector that isn't completely ugly and grimly functional like every other white plastic-grilled model out there - but it is TERRIFYING and reminds me of a Cylon from Battlestar Gallactica. Imagine this in the hallway outside of my little girl's room - I could tell her if she isn't good the smoke alarm will get her. Couldn't Apple release some sort of iHub that is WiFi AND checks the air for pollutants?




Citizen has released the uniquely stupid i:VIRT, a watch equipped with Bluetooth that DOES NOTHING except enabling you to connect to your mobile phone and reject or accept calls, and see who called you. You can't actually talk to anyone a la Dick Tracy, you understand, but at least you can see who you're about to talk to! Wow, all this and unappealing too! Apple should have a field day with watches!



These noise-canceling headphones from Koss are vaguely industrial-Matrix chic, but just totally fails the "but will my girlfriend wear them" test. The wonderful "rko" look they have does have a place, don't get me wrong, but it isn't on my head.




Wii Classic Controller vs. classic SNES controller
We all love the Wii, but the normal controller sure hasn’t gotten much prettier over the years. Wouldn't you love to see a seriously beautiful gaming machine that evokes the object lust everyone felt for the first imacs?

Some additional reading:

Apple products over the years:
http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/01/30-years-in-apple-products-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/

Seemingly stupid apple moves that have since been validated: http://www.webomatica.com/wordpress/2006/10/26/seemingly-stupid-apple-moves-that-were-actually-brilliant/

Labels: Apple, Design, Industrial Design

Microsoft’s homepage underwent serious changes recently (December 14^th). And these changes are good!

In short: simple design and good architecture makes all the difference.

I am generally very pleased when I come across good usability design. And saying that Microsoft has good usability design seems silly and unnatural. But it is true – at least as far as their website is concerned.

So, I stumbled across their site last week while I was looking for a security update. At first sight, I noticed the site looked different – and immediately, I thought to myself… “Crap, now I will never be able to find what I am looking for!” Two seconds later, I was where I needed to be and I was delighted, to say the least.

Below, I am surfacing 5 reasons why I like the new design.

1. Where are we? The designers have made that much abundantly clear. The Microsoft mark is given plenty to space to breathe. Additionally, there is high contrast between the mark and the background color – all rolling up into a cool, relaxed, and clear presentation of the mark.
2. Happy humans help. Again, the idea of relaxed and cool is reinforced by their choice of photography – which makes their offer easier to swallow. They are putting a high emphasis on Vista, Zune, Xbox, and Windows Marketplace.
3. Portal with a preview? Click on the “Download and Trials” link. You will notice that the page grows opaque, the links get disabled, and a new window (layer/div) opens over the main content area. This new window contains a list and preview screenshots of the different destinations categorized under that parent link. We have seen screen previews before (ask.com) and we like them… Microsoft implemented three views for the list: icons and list, larger icons and just a list – much the way Windows Explorer works. I am not sure about bringing that metaphor to the web. I think there might be a better way to handle this.
4. News. Black band with white text. Super contrast and subtle way to sneak in content. The black bar is also used as a visual divider to separate promotions from content. Nicely done.
5. Preloaded vertical tabs. These bad boys are becoming more and more popular. I designed something like this over a year ago for a client of ours and it took a lot of convincing before it was accepted. I bet convincing people that vertical tabs are a good thing now after Google and Microsoft’s successful implementation wouldn’t be that difficult to do. Microsoft has about 80 links tucked away behind these tabs, but only 10-18 links are displayed at any given time. The categorization is quite nice and useful. The vertical tabs follow a hybrid information architecture model of audience and task - which I think works rather well here. I’d be willing to bet designing this IA is where they spent the bulk of their time.

All in all, I am very pleased and surprised by all this great work.

Here are a couple of Q&A’s about their new home page.

Labels: Design

Beijing's Olympic stadium is rising rapidly and we can now see some construction photos of what has been called the "birdsnest".

Be patient for the download, these are fabulous photos.

Labels: Design

A vivid and unforgettable panorama of paris by night. Take some time to look a the detail on Notre Dame.

http://framboise78.free.fr/Paris.htm

Labels: Design

Ted sent around a great link to the Vicoria and Albert's new online Leonardo collection, where they have taken some pains to aniamted Leonaro's sketches. The results are fabulous.



‘The animations have been made using various techniques: a combination of traditional drawn animations and computer-generated animations. The biggest task was to bring those two together, and try as far as possible to emulate the drawings in Leonardo’s sketchbooks.

‘In some ways Leonardo made it easy for us, in other ways not, because of the great complexity of his vision, and the graphic complexity of his drawings. It’s been quite a task to capture this complexity in animations, without changing it in such a way that they are no longer Leonardo’s drawings animated but our drawings. There’s some compromise there, but as far as possible the results come directly from material contained in Leonardo’s sketchbooks.’"

http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1384_leonardo/animated_illustrations/

(The V&A logo was designed by Alan Fletcher, who recently passed away.)

Labels: Design

Ever wonder where some of your favorite pantone colors might show up outside in the world?

Here are some fun examples:

Labels: Design

Apple has revealed that Leopard's interface will be resolution independant. This is a big deal in the development word, as it is the first acknowledgement that screen technology will seriously change the way that many interfaces are constructed. Apple should be applauded for taking such an intelligent step.

From Leopard's development page:

"The old assumption that displays are 72dpi has been rendered obsolete by advances in display technology. Macs now ship with displays that sport native resolutions of 100dpi or better. Furthermore, the number of pixels per inch will continue to increase dramatically over the next few years. This will make displays crisper and smoother, but it also means that interfaces that are pixel-based will shrink to the point of being unusable. The solution is to remove the 72dpi assumption that has been the norm. In Leopard, the system, including the Carbon and Cocoa frameworks, will be able to draw user interface elements using a scale factor. This will let the user interface maintain the same physical size while gaining resolution and crispness from high dpi displays."
http://developer.apple.com/leopard/overview/

Labels: Design

Take a look at this:



This is before and after shots of the same model. In the video on the front of the Campaign for Real Beauty, you'll see that she is given better lighting, makeup, hair, etc., and then she's been photoshopped extensively to perfection. Finally, the camera zooms out and we have this billboard, and we see two young women walk by and look at her.

http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/

The campaign seems to be specifically asking us to consider that there is a destructive and negative aspect to generating this kind of fake beauty. a) the campaign says, it isn't necessary and b) it hurts women and girls.

My profession is design and advertising. I am employed, in effect, to communciate the best in people and products - to make them look good. My argument is that little retouching is necessary if we can just get the subjects at the right time in the right mood and with the proper expression. That isn't always possible, and inevitably, we are asked by our clients to make them "look good." But what is good?

The dove self-esteem campaign asks us all reconsider the fact that our definition of beauty might be quite damaging to women. This is hardly a new claim, and it has been rattled around for decades in academic circles and among fashion photographers and the like. It has been generally understood that the sociological and psychological effect of these images can be quite traumatizing. But it hasn't been popularized in quite this way before, so Dove should get credit for striking a nerve.

Moreover, Dove seems to be taking the due-diligence side of this issue quite seriously. That is, how much of an issue is this, is it severe, in what ways? A sampling of their poll is displayed on their site below, and it reveals that it is indeed a serious issue:


I spent some time reading the voluminous posts on the campaign's site, and believe me, this is something that everyone has a comment about. While there are many posts from women who seems to be just sighing with relief that anyone will honestly address this topic, a candid question from the southern-spelling poster "not-an-asshole" (a man, I presume) said, "ya'll be wearing makeup tomorrow, hows that different?" Links in the posts to the size zero model who dieed recently, numerous blogs and posts elsewhere show this is a vital issue to many people.

Some other things to see:

A rather well done and disturbing commercial with cute little girls alongside what they think of themselves.
http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/commercial.asp?src=InsideCampaign_commercial
youtube version - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1731400614466797113

slideshow with some data points, some unsurprising, others, quite intriguing.
http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/flat4.asp?id=6128

a fine photo exhibit:
http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.ca/realbeauty/main2.cfm

The idea that a home, food and personal care products company - unilever - can attempt to redefine what looking "good" is, is wonderfully and terrifically ambitious and - I think - admirable. But the more cynical side of me is simply awe-struck with the strategic side of this campaign.

I imagine sitting in a room and coming up with this campaign.
First, someone says, lets refashion our advertising into some sort of virtuous cause. Causes travel better than ads, and we can probably sell more if we are associated with something good. Second, after discarding "cleanliness is next to Godliness" and "clean is the new black" someone points out that poor self-esteem is a good issue, or at least no one else seems to have claimed it. Someone sheepishly mentions that dove has been on the wrong side of this issue for a millenia. Then as the ideas evolve they realize they have a goldmine of advertising riches on their hands. The models are cheaper. The point is crystal clear. Other ads side-by-side with theirs make their point for them. The message can travel along their entire product line. It will get them free PR placements, a community of associated products can be developed.

So I have a great regard for this campaign and this effort. I think it is worthwhile and - at times - beautiful and impressive.

But lets not forget this company still has some soap to sell. There is no amount of sarcasm in the world to help contextualize this promo that popped up as I visited the site:

Get a FREE* Dove Beauty Tote filled with product samples and help improve young girls’ self-esteem! Click now to order.

Labels: advertising, Design

No no, NOT PORN in the work place, I mean work place images that are almost as interesting as porn.

uhm.

Almost.



I have seen so many beautifully compelling exteriors with soul-deadening interiors that I feel obliged to state the obvious here: people work IN buildings, not on or around them.

Your clients may take a glimpse of your building for a half moment as they walk in, but from then on, it is how the place feels inside that counts.

It is what is on the INSIDE that counts!

And as much as it counts for your clients, it matters tenfold for your poor co-workers, who are spending more than a third of their life cooped up in an unfortunate space.


Wow. An HDR image of a seriously cluttered space!

If you are an employer, you have two employee-attitude-paths that you can go down:
1) you can focus on how to make your employees redundant, thereby decreasing your risk if they leave. And by doing so you may, in fact, be encouraging them to leave. Or...
2) you can concentrate on retention... that is, on what you can do to keep your employees.


Geninne's space

To my mind, the most affordable and effective way to retain an employee is to give them a good and fun place to work. And the most fun places, and this is a very disputable claim, aren't engineered so much as grown.

So what are some things that make a great office great? Well I have combed through these pictures and tried to list some of them that I see.

* people should be in a space that lets them learn;
* plenty of space, so you aren't cramped together;
* new shiny gee-whiz technology.



A simpsons cube at Google's main building, the Googleplex.

Physical health seems relaly important, so here are some thoughts on this.

Your ability to perform your job efficiently and effectively is influenced by any number of environmental considerations:

* warmth;
* daylight;
* glare avoidance (we all use screens, so this matters!);
* ergonomics; and
* positive (but often indirect) lighting.


This is the VW plant in Dresden, Germany.
It is like something out of a science fiction movie.

We have been chatting here at work about ways we could make the office more spiffy, and it isn't at all a mundane subject. Not only do all designerly folks have too many opinions about this, but there is a lot of philosophical implications as well - presumably we should aspire to have our space look like how we want our company to be. Ideally, the external physicality should reflect the internal reality. And presumably the investment in physical space will pay back in terms of retention and creativity.

But there is some hogwash in that sentiment too, since a good designer at a ho-hum desk probably does as good a job as if she were at a great desk. But a moderate or inferior designer, I think, might do much better work. I just don't know.


Yes, that is right, and this guy ain't fooling around - inside the tie fighter's cockpit you can see the cpu, the motherboard, etc.

YOu wnat a place that allows three things to happen either simultaneously or upon request:

* individual distraction-free work;
* undistracted group/team work; and
* impromptu collaboration and interaction


Have you been in a Target recently and seen the wonderful paper cutouts that are floating above you? They were done in this little cramped studio. Tord Boontje's studio in Paris.



Red Bull has a slide to take you from one floor to another. I've always thought a pole would be more fun. But seriously, does anyone expect women in business formal to enjoy this?

Thats right, a conference bike.


This is more a practical joke than a cool workplace, but I like it.



An entire wall made of curvilinear white board with windows. This is a government office! But it is in Europe, darnit. It is called Mindlab at the Ministry of Economic and Business Affairs in Copenhagen, Denmark. It was designed by Bosche and Fjord.


This is the only desk I have seen with a rear view mirror. Joey Manic apparently no longer builds them, but you might be able to get one thirdhand somewhere.

We’ve all seen enough cooking shows on cable by now to realize that much of it is a soft core taste-bud-focused version of porn – or is that just me? Hmm. Maybe I should never use the word “porn” again.

Well some people like to watch Emeril burning some meat - as for me I like to look at other people's desks (probably because mine is so messed up).

Where other people work, where they sit around and ruminate and get things done is the quasi-public private space that can lend insight into how they think, where thy have been and where they are going.



Kathy Sierra writes her GREAT blog, Creating Passionate Users, from within an old trailer.

And it looks almost as comfy from the inside.

With "workplace porn" I guess I am talking about the inevitable wave of pictures of delicious office settings and furniture that crops up around any company hip enough to give its creatives the space to play. And there are SOOO many companies out there who do a fantastic job of giving their people good space.

Anyone remember the shock and awe that arose in 1996 when it was revealed that Netscape - gasp - allowed dogs at work? Surely other quasi-hippy companies have done it as well, but none promoted the "end of business as usual" as did the dot.bombs of those heady mid nineties.


Row of huts at PIXAR


An office alcove at PIXAR

The argument, over and over, seems to be this: “the investment in a compelling space is worth it because it allows our people to perform better.”

I can’t argue against the business case, but speaking from the point of view of someone who has worked in basements, alleys or in row homes, I am just pleased to have a window.

Maybe if everyone's expectations were Dickensian enough, we'd be pleased with heating in the winter and some watery gruel for lunch.



Still, one can’t help but lust after those crazy lunches that google gives away for free, or the fabulous warmth and privacy of the pixar huts.

This workplace seems to be one of the coolest on earth, but it is hard to know. Nice video though:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhlqypFwBaU


the main corporate headquarters of project brasil.

read some more about office spaces here:
http://positivesharing.com/2006/10/10-seeeeeriously-cool-workplaces/


Oh yeah, this is from google. apparently it begins ot get a bit smelly there. Maybe I don't want to work for google after all.

The core of this phenomenon is that we still have a little bit of an industrial model of office design, we still are thinking that we produce some THING, as opposed to some idea.

Knowledge workers produce, handle, massage, refine and distribute knowledge. Sometimes knowledge workers produce consultations, sometime they make entertainment. What knowledge workers need to make this happen, the physical side of their mental canvas, hasn't caught up yet, and it is fascinating to see how many concepts, be they grown, designed or scientifically developed are creating a great landscape of office spaces to lust after.

There is a GREAT summary of different thoughts about well-designed workspaces here.

Labels: Design

This "zoomquilt" is pretty entrancing, but falls off the dada / fantasy bus in some places and gets a little silly.

I would love to see a more serious attempt but until then i'll play here:

http://zoomquilt.tobina.de/zoom.htm

Labels: Design

Portrait by Primoz Korosec

It is with great sadness that we bid farewell to Alan Fletcher.

I came to know his work only recently with the purchase of his fantastic book The Art of Looking Sideways. The book is a mix of a design explosion, a glimpse into a vast and varied intellect, a superb exposition on what it means to be visually aware and most touchingly, a heartfelt ode to the importance of design both publically and personally.



Stitched together loosely, the book follows the thoughts of the author as the design meanders wildly between expressive, childlike drawings and paintings and hyper-sophisticated typographical treatments. “This book has no thesis, is neither a whodunit nor a how-to-do-it, has no beginning, middle or end,” Mr. Fletcher wrote in his introduction. “It’s a journey without a destination.”


While at Phaidon, he designed numerous books.


A long association with Fortune magazine - and a great amount of mutual trust - allowed him to attempt approaches no other magazine (or designer) could carry off.


The iconic logo for the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Mr. Fletcher is best known for having started Pentagram back in the day and more recently working with Phaidon as a consultant art director. Mr. Fletcher, after reading a book on witchcraft, coined the name Pentagram, meaning a five-pointed star, one for each partner in his firm. The partners adopted it despite some misgivings about the association with witchcraft. He thought it was funny.



He is most often thought of as a conceptual designer. Avoiding ornament and shunning popular visual movements, he was known to strike piercingly at an witty or obscure point… it often wasn’t always the point you thought it was going to be. His designs are almost always striking, or gutsy, as some may call it. He used the word panache to describe it:

“Style is a curious word because it can mean all sorts of things, from mannerism to charisma,” he told English design critic Rick Poynor. “However, as far as I’m concerned, either what you’ve done has panache or it hasn’t. You can’t design panache.”


In the first example of a visual conceit which has since been used and reused, this popular bus advertisment won the heart of London when it appeared.



He is renown in the design world for his eclectic wit, sheer perseverance and a list of accomplished associations with some of the world’s most design-conscious brands: among them the Victoria and Albert Museum, BP, Shell, Cunard, Fortune magazine, Reuters, Time and Life, IBM, furniture manufacturer Herman Miller, Pirelli, Lloyds of London, Olivetti, Domus magazine, Polaroid and Penguin Books.Mr. Fletcher designed everything from corporate identities - logos, literature, advertising, signage, calendars - to toys, books, newspapers and office interiors.


The Reuters logo, retired in 1996, has long been touted as one of the most identifiable, evocative and enduring corporate logos ever. Shame on Reuters for getting rid of it.

Mr. Flether's curioisity was boundless and his allegiance unwavering to the necessity of high art infused into commonplace design. His house is surrounded by an almost illegibly extended tall array of letters, the descenders of which form a fence.

Early Influences on Mr. Fletcher included Alvin Eisenman, Norman Ives, Herbert Matter, Bradbury Thompson, the ex-Bauhaus Joseph Albers ("a bit of a prima donna," according to Fletcher), Saul Bass and of course Paul Rand.



The Kuwaiti Royal Commercial Bank's logo is relatively unknown to the western world, but it was a work of love for Alan Fletcher, who found the necessary Arabic script to be entrancing.



Two fortunate incidents formed Mr. Fletcher's professional life:

In 1957, while still a student at Yale, he was visiting Fortune magazine in New York just as news of the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik came through: a cover was commissioned for first thing Monday morning and he was there, so he got the assignment. It was an incredible coup; no student would ever get a Fortune cover commission. He subsequently worked freelance, encouraged by Saul Bass, Rand and Leo Lionni, eventually working full time for Fortune.



Later, He had planned to set up a studio in Venezuela, but a local revolution helped change his mind. As fortune would have it, the last boat out went to Genoa, and he got a job in the design studio of Pirelli in Milan.

Apparently he was the functional opposite of a grumpy old man, and stayed lighthearted till the end. He died of cancer on september 21st, wearing a T-shirt with handwritten words taken from one of his posters:

“I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.’’

Alan Gerard Fletcher, designer, born September 27 1931; died September 21 2006

Labels: advertising, Design

idfive is a professional brand communication company by trade, but occasionally we step over the line and take a hard look at other design fields just to get a feel for what is going on in the wide world of design. Or maybe it is just to be snippy and childish, I don’t know.

Claire wrote on her whiteboard that dogs make her happy.
Apparently she is not alone. My dog makes me happy too, and if the new wave of dog paraphernalia is any indication, the pet world is overcome with design-y hip-happy dog fun.

As far as I can tell there has always been the Richie Rich 24 caret dog dish, but that kind of Britney Spears gaudiness only goes so far for today’s trendy pooch – the sophisticated urban canine has always craved serious product design and it seems to have arrived.

Here are some examples I found:


Nobbly Wobbly II Dog Toy - space twisty in just the right way.




G2 Special Edition Flower Power Dog Boots - these are horrendous, but also nice, in some upsetting way.




The Wowo pet feeder, by Vurv Design: Bamboo veneer with gloss white. - for the zen dog in your life.


Bettie - Small - Slobber and Spice - I really think no poet has ever combined the terms "slobber" and "spice" before.





Blue Leather contour dog bed. “Inspired by Charles and Ray Eames” - with a pricepoint to match.




William Wegman Collar - classy.




Chill pill - my dog definitely needs a chill pill.