I was going through and finishing up my voting to get in under the wire for the Webby's tonight and came across the portfolio for Korean designer Sunhan Kwon called guraphic.com. It is a simple design where he is the interface for the site and the content appears as his head. It is a nice change of pace for a personal portfolio site.

Labels: Design and user experience, Exceptional creative, Exceptional design, Site review, Unique interface design

It isn't often you see an RSS reader written up for it's design but RSS Voyage deserves it. It has all the things you would expect from something like this but adds in the twist that is displays you feeds through time. You can add and remove your feeds by pasting in the URL's and the selections are saved to a cookie so there is no need to log-in the next time you go to the site. The interface lets you move through a time line and the headlines move toward you chronologically as they were posted. Each feed is color coded so you can keep them all separate. The site a well designed exercise in information design and display.

Labels: Design and user experience, Exceptional creative, Exceptional design, Exceptional experiences, Exceptional Flash, Unique interface design

The more work I do in the luxury sector the more I realize how much bad advertising and strategies existing to to talk to those people. The latest entrant into the fray is the Lexus Luxury Awaits. The press release I got said it is a "website designed for the women who reach for the first time the world of luxury". I read that more than a few times and wasn't able to really understand much beyond the fact that they were targeting women.

The site contains almost painfully generic editorial tips that could come from anyone covering topics like travel, art, fashion and food. If you are going to do something like this you better have a distinct point of view ad unique insight that will get peoples interest and support your brands point of view. The best in this area is what Louis Vuitton has done for years with their travel guides that are sold through their store and support traveling their brand point of view.

The design feels Here again it just doesn't feel genuine since they used so many stock photos that it feels fake and like Lexus doesn't have a point of view of their own. The navigation is all over the map with to easy way to move between sections or to really feel like you know what is going on. You go from picking a generic luxury word, to picking a generic image to content on a virtual card and at every level you are search for how to get back to the level before it to go down a different track. You quickly realize that luxury shouldn't be this much work.

Hopefully Lexus will soon realize that if you are going to play in the luxury market you have to do it with more than lip service and have something real to say because if you don't your brand feels cheap and hollow.

Labels: Design and user experience, Site review

I was cruising through the home page of CNN.com today when I spotted a strange icon next to a few of the Latest News headlines. It looked like a small t-shirt so I click on it and found it that is exact what it was. They are now selling t-shirts with their latest news headlines on them like "T-shirt clad dudes back up Obama" or "Boy charged with sharing nude cell pics". Without the context of the story it may be worth a small laugh. But after I thought about for a minute it really started to bother for for two reasons.

First, that an organization that wants to be viewed as one of the world's best is letter their editorial style no matter how little be influenced to create headlines that will sell t-shirts. The news already feel commercialized enough but this is just so blatant that it is a slap in the face to anyone who would take them seriously.

Second was that if you take the time to look behind the headline it is even more insulting and bordering on repulsive. Take the headline "Boy charged with sharing nude cell pics". I am sure there is some over caffeinated teenager out there who would think this a funny way to shock the parents and buy the shirt without knowing the context of the story. If you read the story you will see that CNN has decided to make money off the fact that a group of 15 years old boys have been charged with felonies for what amounts to child pornography.

Does CNN need money so badly that they need to go to these lengths and compromise their voice and good taste to do it? Do they really think that everyone is so mentally stunted by the media that we will only respond to dumbed down, low brow, sensationalized hooks? Maybe it is just me but I find it repulsive that anyone would make money on something like this.

Labels: Site review

So with the last major firmware release for the iPhone came the ability to add Web sites to the home screen of your iPhone or iPod Touch. It is a nice feature but the fact that it almost always created these small, cropped and unattractive icons bugged me. Shortly there after when you added certain sites like Feedburner, Flickr and The New York Times you got much better looking custom icons. It was a much better solution but Apple never really the process of what you needed to do to create them public. Today one of my insane technology obsessed friends told me how so here it is:

1 - Create your icon as a 45 x 45 pixel image (You don't have to worry about the rounded edges or beveled look as the interface will add that for you). The only thing that happened with mine was that I had to put the text 2-3 pixels above center and made it a little smaller than I thought I would have to for it to appear in the middle of the home screen icon.

2 - In Photoshop go to 'Save for Web & Devices'. Set the file format as PNG-8 and turn off transparency.

3 - The file HAS TO BE saved as apple-touch-icon.png. If you call it anything but this it will not work.

There are then two options for uploading this to your site

If you can access the root level of your site all you have to do is upload the file to the root level and the phone will find and use it.

If you can not access the root level or the content has to live in a sub-folder like this blog then add this like of code after the head tag in the HTML. you can use the href to specify where the image is located even if it is another folder or server.

(open bracket) link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="http://your URL here" / (close bracket)

It is that simple.

Labels: Great resource

This site from Stanley tools for the their Fubar tool got a laugh not only for the naming but for the sheer amount of machismo. You can have one of the four construction workers destroy a variety of household objects with the appropriately humorous VO narrating the experience or upload your own and have them go to town on it. It is simple, funny and gets the job done.

Labels: Design and user experience, Exceptional creative, Online advertising review, Site review

The Got Milk campaign has followed up on their huge success with the Get The Glass game with the relaunch of GotMilk.com. It creates an interesting cut paper and illustration style world that comes together to create it's own visual style. The best content is is presented as games that bring the education message about milk home in an entertaining and memorable way. It is great to see how many but always well done and different ways they bring the tagline to life across so many mediums.

Labels: Design and user experience, Exceptional design, Exceptional experiences, Exceptional Flash, Site review

Things have been quiet over at fcukstar.com for a while and now we know why. They are working on a new site. No release date yet but it will be nice to have it back up since they are always a great source to see that latest great site designs.

Labels: Great resource

Many have tried, but nobody has been able to find a way to get the decade-in-the-works Guns N' Roses album "Chinese Democracy" from the hands of lone remaining original member Axl Rose. Now, Dr Pepper thinks it's up to the challenge. The soft drink company says it will give a free can of Dr Pepper to "everyone in America" if the album arrives anytime during the calendar year 2008.

Labels: Offline advertising

I do a lot of work every week trying to see how to make very linear and transactional sites engaging and creative. In general when it comes to online shopping you ever see anything new or different outside of maybe Nike who is willing to push the envelope from time to time. Today I cam across the tableware company Teroforma and their new web site that is doing something very interesting by creating a simple and elegant Flash based shopping interface. The main site is well designed but light on content so you have to click through to the web store to find the interesting content. You start by choose from type, material or finish. The items that correspond with your selection appear in a long scrolling row and you can click to pull out the items of interest that will move and organize themselves on a long wooden table. Clicking the item pulls up basic info like size and price but clicking the 'more info' button reveals a map showing the location of all the designers involved in making the piece. You can then about info pictures and stories about them which is simple but a nice and humanizing touch to a retail process. When you have the combination you are satisfied with the site can generate a URL that you can email or IM to your significant other so they can see everything already laid out on the table for them. Overall it is a well executed design and a great example that less can be more.

Labels: Design and user experience, E-commerce, Exceptional design, Exceptional experiences, Site review, Unique interface design

Singaporean indie band Concave Scream has launched a beautiful and exceptionally cinematic new site to support their new album release. The design feels like a stylized black and white movie with animation and illustration are dark and minimal. The site is the best use I have seen of the Blur effect through the Flash player since here is actually makes sense and creates the mood.

Labels: Design and user experience, Exceptional creative, Exceptional experiences, Exceptional Flash, Site review

I am extremely honored that my blog has been chosen as one of nine sites to receive a Webby Honoree for Best Personal Site in this years Webby Awards. I am even more proud that my team has LeMeridien in as a finalist for Best Employment site. Vote now and vote often!

Labels: Shameless self promotion

The Modernista site re-design I wrote about last week probably caused more discussions and emails than anything else I have written about in a long time. All of these conversations have kept by brain rolling over the site and trying to understand my mixed reaction to it. Today I think I landed on a conclusion.

I have seen more sites than I can count that let their execution drown out the realization that they need an idea or concept. I am so tired of saying it that it's why I don't post as much as I wold like because I know there is no value in the same thing over and over again. It comes as a result of our process and success metrics that are only satisfied by the endless search for the new. I almost envy designers who only work in print or TV because the medium doesn't evolve so it keeps the focus on the concept. With Modernista I came to the realization that for the first time in the history of this blog there is a site that is letting their idea get in the way of the execution. It is an interesting idea but it isn't the easiest thing to use with it's multi-site based disjointed experience.

I am sure the debate will rage on through the weeks ahead so leave a comment and let me know what you think about all of this.

Labels: Branding, Design and user experience, Digital culture, Site review

I recently wrote about my friends down at GSD&M and their work on the new viral campaign for BMW called The Ramp. They have now pulled back the curtain to reveal the entire story through a 35 minute long documentary. No doubt it is ambitious and I will let you know what I think as soon as I can find 30 minutes of free time.

Labels: Branding, Digital culture, Viral

I just got back from an evening at the Brooklyn Museum where I was invited to preview their latest exhibit by one of my two favorite living artists modern artists Takashi Murakami.

For those who may not know his work a quick background. Murakami gained an international reputation for merging fine art with popular Japanese anime films and manga cartoons to create his theory called Superflat. The theory and his art explore art as contrast between hi and low art, east and west, cute and dark themes. It creates a fantastical universe of creatures like Mr. DOB, a Mickey Mouse-type character, and Mr. Pointy, another cartoonlike creature, inhabit this space alongside smiley-faced flowers and colorful mushrooms. All of it explores how mass-produced entertainment and consumerism are part of art. That concept reached it's peak for him in 2002 when he teamed up with the fashion house Louis Vuitton and it's creative director Marc Jacobs to reinvent the classic LV monogram and create a whole new visual language for the brand that came to life in brightly colored versions of the classic Vuitton handbags.

Murakami has been called the Japanese Andy Warhol because he creates everything from very large one of a kind painting to sculpture to small run lithographs that are produced through his studio in Queens. The studio in Queens is only interesting because Murakami is based out of Japan and every morning receives digital hi-res photos of every piece of work large and small for his review, comments and changes.

So if you are going to be in New York City any time soon be sure and swing by MOMA to see Design and the Elastic Mind and then head over to Brooklyn to check out Murakami because this is the shows second and final stop in the states. For those of you who aren't going to be able to make it you can check out videos of the exhibit from it's last stop in L.A. here though new pieces have been added for the NYC show.

Labels: Great exhibition

It seems like it is the season for agency site redesigns as Modernista! relaunched their site last week. With the site re-design they again went the route of using an interesting new technique for the core of their site but this time they took it to a whole new level. They turned the site into a redirected rollover HTML menu that appears on the top left corner on many established sites including Google, Wikipedia, YouTube and Flickr. You can mouse over and check out the agency's portfolio on Flickr, an about section through Wikipedia, latest agency news through Google News spot work through YouTube and contact then via AIM or Skype.

The site launch did hit a big snag when days after its debut Wikipedia yanked it from it's site for a day or so. Wikipedia aid the deletion occurred because the community interpreted Modernista as violating of one of Wikipedia's two critical pillars: maintaining a neutral point of view and no conflict of interest. They felt that Modernista "created a page solely for their business or to talk about themselves, which isn't what Wikipedia is about." It was restored when it was made clear that Modernista wasn't controlling the content of the page.

It is a radical departure from anything we would think of as a Web site. Through my work I hear from tons of agencies who want to tell me about how they believe in social media but this is the first time I have seen one really putting their money where their mouth is. There are two things I want to watch on this site for in the future. First to see how and if the site evolves as new social media sites come to the top of the popular consciousness. Next to see if it runs into a problem since where they have opened their brand, their work, and the potentially their clients up to brand vandalism. They have turned all of it over to more than 75,000 active contributors in more than 250 languages on Wikipedia alone who may not all want to play nice with their brand.

Finally in true digital fashion the site has already been spoofed by britnista.com where visitors are redirected to Google News for reports about everyone's favorite fallen pop princess and Flickr pics documenting Britney Spears' fashion faux pas.

Labels: Branding, Consumer generated content, Design and user experience, Digital culture, Exceptional experiences, Site review

Since I work everyday with brands that cater to creative guests I find it interesting to see how other brands approach this group of consumers. The luxury fashion brand CHANEL has created one of the most unique and best solutions I have seen in quite a while with their new Mobil Art Container.

It was commissioned by CHANEL's visionary lead designer Karl Lagerfeld’s from architect Zaha Hadid and houses the work of twenty cutting-edge artists who's creations are based on the CHANEL's catalogue of iconic handbags. The structure that Hadid designed to house all the art is a mobile and collapsible exhibition pod that is a series of continuous arch-shaped elements with a courtyard in the center.

The container is currently in Hong Kong and will make it's only U.S. appearance here in New York City in September for fashion week.

Labels: Great exhibition