Thoughts On...

laughingsquid: Street Charge, A Solar Powered Public Charging...

Thu, 31 May 2012 08:08:45 -0400

Street Charge, A Solar Powered Public Charging Station by PENSA

tacticalshoyu: Tapewriter by Netherlands-based...

Tue, 29 May 2012 08:26:01 -0400

Tapewriter by Netherlands-based Autobahn. Tapewriter is a font based upon the grid of fences. It’s a form of graffiti that makes optimal use of its carrier. Tapewriter is for everyone in posession of an opinion and the urge to express it in public with a roll of tape.

"We’re keenly aware that when we develop and make something and bring it to market that it really..."

Tue, 29 May 2012 08:11:01 -0400

““We’re keenly aware that when we develop and make something and bring it to market that it really does speak to a set of values. And what preoccupies us is that sense of care, and what our products will not speak to is a schedule, what our products will not speak to is trying to respond to some corporate or competitive agenda. We’re very genuinely designing the best products that we can for people.””

- Jonathan Ive

Don’t worry about what the competition is doing. Worry about what you’re doing. That’s how you do the best work.

(via parislemon)

- Francesco Franchi

Mon, 28 May 2012 21:37:50 -0400

- Francesco Franchi

Artisinal Production and Place

Mon, 28 May 2012 21:30:00 -0400

I’ve come back from Italy and Croatia. I should have kept up a nice travel blog documenting the new experiences and sights. I haven’t. I started by buying a new tumblr theme and setting up another blog, but that’s as far as I got. Natalie is far more disciplined than I and posted her point of view on our trek on her blog. All I have are a series of instagrams some of which you can get a glimpse of in my twitter feed.

One thing I’m always interested in when I visit other countries are the products and brands I come across and the types of products you can get. Tabea Kay had an interesting post on artisinal production in good magazine. She mentions that the demand for artisnal products are so great that major corporations are trying to brand and position products with this label and uses Italian made goods as an example. There is a reason why demand for artisinal products is high. People find value in things that are not mass produced.

People care more and more not only about the finished product but how and where it is made. With good reason, things hand crafted with care tend to be of a different quality but they also have an aura that can create a consumption story. These consumption stories ultimately make our purchases way more enjoyable. In the era of globalization buying from local craftspeople has an ethical upside. These include supporting local workers and greater transparency in how these goods are actually produced. I prefer to buy product from a skilled craftsperson that has studied his craft for years with some semblance of tradition. When you are traveling, the context of place also becomes important. A place that possesses a geographic advantage to producing certain products vs others. This advantage could even be the community long heritage of quality. This is very different from mass produced products that can be cranked out in any factory in any locale. Mass produced products always need an artificial story or recognizable brand name to be sold. I guess the term people use to differentiate these two contexts is “authenticity”.

When I was in Italy I was on the hunt for “authentic” artisinal products that actually made sense to buy in Italy. Tabea highlights how many of Italian fashion houses, D&G, Prada as examples, have goods produced abroad and assembled in Italy so they can affix the “made in Italy” label. Another common scenario is transplanting Chinese factories by importing their workers. In this scenario the products are created on the cheap and are technically made in Italy but lack the quality or artisinal production consumers are looking for.

Most shops I walked into I’d find myself asking I know this was made in Italy, but was it made by Italians? Is this Italian leather?, etc. I did manage to buy some leather goods in Florence from craftspeople. I also bought a pair Persol sunglasses as they are an Italian classic. I know things have changed since they were acquired by Luxottica, which is a large Italian eyewear conglomerate, but I was re-assured by the label on the arm of the frame “Hand Made In Italy”. It was tricky for me to buy other products where I found their origins to be suspect.

This is why sites like Etsy and Kickstarter are so popular and will continue to be so. As people have been use to consuming overseas mass produced items for so long it is a refreshing change to find unique products that are produced with care. I think there is tons of opportunity to launch services that cater to local craftspeople and connect them to consumers. The context of production and consumption matters just as much as the product itself.

"Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art."

Mon, 28 May 2012 20:39:40 -0400

“Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art.”

- Andy Warhol

feltron: Ben Barry used Processing to create the “entire...

Sat, 26 May 2012 05:50:54 -0400

feltron:

Ben Barry used Processing to create the “entire graphic system” for Facebook’s F8 conference last year.

climentcanal.com

Mon, 14 May 2012 12:10:38 -0400

climentcanal.com

"Creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same..."

Thu, 03 May 2012 20:00:12 -0400

““Creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.””

- Sir Ken Robinson

frankocean: the 6th computer.

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 22:46:16 -0400

frankocean:

the 6th computer.

wete1984: Numerografía

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 22:40:57 -0400

wete1984:

Numerografía

The Lean Startup. Not Just for Startups.

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 21:03:00 -0400

I’ve been a big proponent of Eric Ries’ lean startup methodology. Although the methodology came out of high tech start up environments the model lends itself well to any business that uses digital technology. I think a number of core components apply to an organization of any size or type. An example is the concept of validated learning and the elimination of waste. This ultimately let’s you get to where you need to be faster.

The digital landscape has transformed a number of industries, whether they’ve liked it or not. One industry is advertising. I’ve personally have ping ponged back and forth from digital product companies to digital media agencies and can draw many parallels. I always like to reference a key point in an older fast company article “The Future of Advertising” by Danielle Sacks. Older as in 2010 which in internet time is roughly a decade :) :

“Marketing actually needs to be useful — “use-vertising” instead of advertising — which means that you must think more like a product developer than an entertainer.”

This is the insight that allows us to apply some of the Eric’s lean tenets to marketing platforms. In Google’s latest edition of Think Quarterly I was surprised to find an article articulating the concept of “Lean Communication”. One quote I’d like to pull from the article is from Winston Binch, Chief Digital Officer at Deutsch LA:

“Most advertising is still oriented around a ‘launch and leave it’ philosophy – an idea that is contrary to product development best practices. As marketers and agencies get deeper into platform and app development, it’s important that our thinking and processes shift. We need to work, get things to market, and learn faster. Do it cheaper, leaner, and more collaboratively. Find ways to operationalize hacking and experimentation.”

The Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop as espoused by Ries is something all of us have heard in one form or another. I think the key is forming team habits around them not the methodology itself. A key one is surrounding validated learning.

During the build stage be as agile as possible and find potential collapse user experience, design and tech phases together when developing solutions. These phases will never overlap perfectly but bringing them closer together is critical. Stand ups and removing barriers to communication allow the team to be more nimble. In the build stage the key is not only brainstorming, designing and building but determining a potential hypothesis surrounding a consumer insight. As part of building your platform some form of test should be designed or a number of iterations should be planned in order to respond to the marketplace. I also like the concept of the “Minimum Viable Brief”. It should outline a framework for inspiration focusing on smaller building blocks in addition to the big idea. The key is always shrinking your time to market and getting key insights. A/B test are fairly simple to do and there are tons of tools available. There are crude ways to conduct these types of tests as well. The tech team should find ways to build this ability into any of platform they touch.

Measure. Include metrics discussion and findings in the team’s daily stand-ups. Ensure the team is armed with the data they need to know when something is working and when something is not.

Learn. Success should be measured in terms of the learning done in addition to the end goal. It is not wasted effort if the team has gained valuable insights for an upcoming program.

sawedoff: This friday. Don’t miss out, Toronto folks!

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 22:26:05 -0400

sawedoff:

This friday. Don’t miss out, Toronto folks!

designcloud: Layered Landscapes by Nobuhiro Nakanishi See more...

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 12:41:51 -0400

designcloud:

Layered Landscapes by Nobuhiro Nakanishi

See more work here

- Paper - downloading this now. And buying a stylus for my...

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 12:22:13 -0400

- Paper - downloading this now. And buying a stylus for my iPad.

"This need for universality is another reason why BBC News is enthusiastically developing responsive..."

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 19:00:27 -0400

“This need for universality is another reason why BBC News is enthusiastically developing responsive design solutions. Unlike many competitors, we are not a business that can target only those audiences who can afford a certain kind of smartphone or tablet. We have an obligation to deliver our core product to screens of all kinds of shapes and sizes. BBC Online has a strategy to deliver to four screens, and that is exactly what responsive design offers.”

- BBC - BBC Internet Blog: BBC News on mobile: responsive design (via adactio)

curiositycounts: From Ben Franklin to Bauhaus and beyond, a...

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 08:20:06 -0400

curiositycounts:

From Ben Franklin to Bauhaus and beyond, a detailed infographic telling the story of the world’s most important typefaces.

(via)

feltron: Classic 808 Drum Sequences

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 08:40:05 -0400

feltron:

Classic 808 Drum Sequences

"To whom does design address itself: to the greatest number, to the specialist of an enlightened..."

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 08:20:05 -0400

“To whom does design address itself: to the greatest number, to the specialist of an enlightened matter, to a privileged social class? Design addresses itself to the need.”

- Charles Eames (via curiositycounts)

fastcompany: JamPot’s new AppBuilder asks a series of questions...

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 07:42:06 -0400

fastcompany:

JamPot’s new AppBuilder asks a series of questions and spits out a genuine, though limited-function, app. It could blow the market wide open.