Anytime I go to a conference I get very analytical on my work as I am able to compare it to what a lot of other people are doing by conversations with piers and what is presented in the session. It is happening again last week at the HOW design conference where I am amazed that so few people are able to make the connection that user experience design can be used to support and build brand positioning.

It is a simple concept. When you are creating a Web site or online advertising make sure that the user experience is based out of the brand's values and positioning. It is something that is more subconscious than visual design but in a lot of ways it is more powerful since it is what creates a large part of the emotion connection to interactive work. The easiest examples are always your own so here is an example of what I am talking about.


LeMeridien Moodboard
Based on LeMéridien’s core values of Chic, Cultured, Discovery, the creative concept for the re-designed website is ‘Discovery Starts with You’ and is targeted at the creative guest. When we set out to re-design LeMeridien.com we knew we had to create an experience that would let the guest experience the brand by giving them the ability to create art but tie it back to the business goal of the site and highlight our properties and book rooms. This is a lot harder than is sounds in a one line write up because the world's of creativity and commerce have a hard time living together because each servers very different masters. In this case the solution was to let guests create a Moodboard where they chose photos that appealed to them and they were then able to arrange and size them into their own personal collage. This answered the brand position by letting the guest be able to create. We then took the collage and had the site back-end assign tags to the images and used their sizing to assign their importance to create a search that would return LeMeridien properties that matched their personal interests. This answered the business goal to drive revenue.

At it's core this is just a search engine but the difference is that it was concepted and engineered through the lens of the brand that dictated that the functionality, IA and usability had to be more than the expected hotel search engine. So next time you have a marketing or Web deisgn project take a step back and look at the values and the target audience of the brand you are creating it for to see how you can engineer the user experience to support those goals.

Labels: Design and user experience, Digital culture

I have been doing a lot of reading lately to take a survey on what other people are thinking in the world of branding theory and I have found some interesting experiments that I have been posting. The latest comes from Von Glitschka over at Art Backwash who took on the challenge of how would Satan and his minions sell their brand if it was a literal mark containing the number 666? His guidelines for creating the brand were where:
- Has to be in the logo.
- A brand name has to be developed. (Think "Zoloft", "Viagra" or "Crestor.")
- Must use "Red". (Satan owns this color. Sorry "Target" and "Coke.")
- Spend no more then 30 minutes on it. (Have work to do.)
- Approach it like a corporate client.
- No cliches. (Think "Devil Horns" and "Trident.")

Click here to read his whole article and see the different solutions he came up with.

Labels: Branding

Why is it a universal truth that designers are their own worst clients? I will be the first to admit that my eyes were bigger than my stomach when it came to re-designing my portfolio site as it has dragged on for nearly two years and that is ridiculous.

It is amazing how much time slips by when you decide you are going to re-do everything from the ground up with an all new design and a structure that will be much easier to update and maintain but that comes with a far more complicated series of technical problems that have to be solved first. Once the huge amount of coding was finished the largest amount of time on this new site has been spent writing and updating the portfolio section which was missing nearly three years of work. I am not kidding myself that the design is going to set the world on fire but I have made my peace with that since this is a product of my free time and there just isn't very much of that anymore. The portfolio section has been organized into 35 featured clients that have 73 different projects and those projects have 176 designs and 31 videos of sites and campaigns design work. I will have another projects uploaded shortly after the site launches.

One of things that I like the best is that I finally took the first step in addressing a problem that has bugged me for years. The problem is that designers are such creative people who choose to let the their talent and work be represented by a plain text Word document. First I thought I would just run it through InDesign, put some good typography and information design to it but I quickly realized that all I did was put whip cream on the onion and that I hadn't fixed the problem. So the new resume design in the new site goes back to zero to take a look at what a resume could be if it is approached from a more visual perspective.

I am glad to say that I recently found the motivation and focus that will have all of this ready to launch in the next month and obviously I will post when it goes live but more to come soon!

Labels: Shameless self promotion

Jane, who is an advertising account executive, did an interesting experiment where she took a typical Friday and documented how brands affected her life that day. The chart is broken out by time of day and is created visually so you can see what brands she interacted at the corresponding times. It is an interesting look at the number of brands we encounter each day and if you are paying attention how something this simple can turn into a really revealing looking look into someones personal life. Hint: Check out 10pm and is marijuana a brand?

Labels: Branding, Digital culture

I am 6'4" and finding t-shirts I like in my size is next to impossible. Fashion designers seem to think that as your height so goes up so does your appetite for Hawaiian print. So a while ago I started designing my own graphic design and creative based shirts. They are usually kept to Fridays and weekends around the house but this past week at the HOW conference I had one of them on and at least 20 people ask me where I got it. The ego used this as fuel to take some of the designs and create an online store where they are now for sale. I created the store through Zazzle.com because I have tried creating shirts through a lot of different sites and they have by far the best shirt and printing quality. More designs coming soon...

Labels: Shameless self promotion

My friends and collaborators over at Firstborn have created a new site for Lowes called Sunnyville USA. The site lets you get ready for Spring by picking lawn decorations and products that create your ideal backyard through a Sim City feeling 3D interface. The best part of the site is that it is more than just a pretty interface as it has a seamless integration of product information, demonstrations and your ability to actually purchase the products. This integration takes it from just a marketing site or time wasting diversion into a complete experience that covers the entire sales cycle. You can also visit your neighbors in other yards where you can play some pretty fun games, get tips and gossip about the other neighbors. From a technical perspective it is extremely well produced and is one of the best example of HD video on the Web I have seen.

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

I wanted to do a quick follow up to my post about Behance and their Action Method to say that it is also worth checking out their the Behance online magazine. It is a collection of interviews, work spotlights and tips. This is the only tips section I can think of that I would recommend because I am normally not a fan of this type of content. It is usually so generic or amateurish that it becomes meaningless. There are quite a few techniques I already practice and a few new ones I am going to try out on my group.

Labels: Great resource

So let me get this straight - if I want to go to 24 I press 24?

I like all conferences, the HOW conference has been a mixed bag of sessions ranging from the really good to the just plain strange. The best session so far was by Scott Belsky who is the founder of the Behance Network which I have written about before. His session was called "Tips for Productivity: Making Ideas Happen in the Creative Community" which was more clinical than the content of speech. He talked about the hundreds of interviews they conducted with some of the world's top design teams to come to the conclusion that creative project ultimately depends on organization, accountability and action. All of that rolls up into their Action Method that has a lot of interesting insights into the creative method based on that research. There is also a tip exchange where people post ideas about how they have improved their process and some of them are interesting.

They have also created Behance Outfitter where they sell things like the Action Book that let's you bring their method to life in your every day work. I picked upa few to try out because I like that they were designed to aide in the creative process. I also picked up their Dot Grid Book that I already use and love. It is a more sophisticated paper for me than graph paper or vellum since it is just a dot grid that is just the perfect amount of reference for the types of things I draw.

Labels: Conference, Digital culture, Great resource

Two years ago this blog took it's first breath with an entry called The Ego is Blogging that took a look at what doing something like this really is - nothing more than a singing, all dancing, testament to my self worth. I have built a lot of my career on trying to break down problems to get at the heart of what is going on so why change things up now.

Year two was a really interesting journey where I have again been amazed with the number of people who read what I have to say but I have also struggled with the responsibilities that come with criticizing someone else's work. There was a stretch where I felt like all I did was post sites that I thought were flawed and I didn't like that. I think that without a doubt analysis and feedback need to be at the heart of any creative process but I wanted to make the content more balanced. I wanted that balance because I feel like I own you more than just pick out the easy observations and I needed to challenge myself to create better content. Coming out of that I decided that if means that I don't post as much and passed on the obviously flawed sites in favor or better quality opinions then that was fine by me. It is a process that I am still going through and time will tell how successful it is.

I continue to think that this has been a fantastic experience and it turned out better than I ever thought it could. I was humbled by the Webby Honoree this year since there is a lot of great work that gets entered into that competition. I want to sincerely thank all of you for your time and interest. It takes a village so I would love to hear from you when you find work you love, work you hate or if you have any ideas about what you would like to see more of here.

Labels: Shameless self promotion

Last year about this time MSNBC launched their NewsBreaker site and interactive movie theater experience. It was an interesting exercise is news visualization and they have followed it up with a new project this year called the MSNBC Spectra Visual Newsreader. This new site continues the work in news visualization but this time it uses Papervision 3D to display news headlines as a colorful, graphic whirlwind. You choose the news categories that interest you and they make up the whirlwind which updates in real time with the latest stories. You can save the stories that interest you the most to the Spectra's NewsCollector to read later. I am still waiting to see if there are plans for an interactive installation like with Newsbreak but nothing so far.

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

Mash-ups have been around for a while but they are usually the marriage of different technologies or ideas to create a new combination that takes advantage of all of them. Thus the name. Brazilian graphic designer Mario Amaya has put together a series of logo mash-ups that are funny and scarily convincing. The list includes:

Windows Vista + Volkswagen
Nintendo Wii/DS + Microsoft Windows XP
Unix + Unilever
Underground (London Transport) + Unibanco
HSBC + Sao Paulo Fudebol Clube
Sony + I (heart) NY
Samsung + Sam's Club (Wal-Mart)
Dell + Shell
Nikon + Nike
Macromedia + Motorola
Microsoft + Mac OS
Macintosh + McDonald's
Linux + Lux
Intel + Itau
IBM + GM
Harry Potter + Hewlett-Packard
Carrefour + Canon
Apple + Adobe

Labels: Branding

We all know that since branding deal with perception that it can be more art than science. Noah Brier who is a strategist with Naked Communications has launched an interesting experiment called Brand Tags to explore the popular perception of numerous major brands. When you first come to the site you are presented with a brand logo and an entry field where you can type in the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of that brand. You can then keep going through more brands or see the results which let you see the results for each brand as a tag cloud. The largest tags are often what you would expected them to be but for me the really interesting ones are the small tags as they can be amusing and insightful. Some of favorites are "Leash" for BlackBerry, "Drug" for Red Bull, "Evil" for Disney, "Meatballs" for Ikea and finally "Help! my penis is stuck in the toaster and this is my only form of communication!" for American Idol. Obviously this isn't a highly scientific experiment but I think that can be a good thing when it comes to understanding perception because some times this is the way to get to a key truth. If you are interested in having your brand participate in the experiment there is a form where you can submit it for consideration. It will be interesting to see what brands get added, how the clouds grow and what gets done with the information.

Labels: Branding, Consumer generated content, Design and user experience, Digital culture, Great resource

I love cars and for as long as I can remember only one brand has consistently been the object of my desire - Ferrari. If I ever win the lottery the next day you would find me ripping up the back road of Westchester in a red F430.

For a few years now there have been rumors of an "affordable" Ferrari in the works that would be a bridge into the Ferrari brand from the high end models of their sister brand Maserati. The F149 has now been named as they new Ferrari and they have recently launched a teaser site for the car.

The teaser site is concepted out of an understanding of the what sparks the day dreams and memories of their customers - the sound of a Ferrari engine. It is the perfect way to debut a new Ferrari. Since it is a teaser and they don't want to show the car yet they have the engine from Awake (startup) to Release (running on a test track). The sounds are visually represented by by a series of neon lines that react like a more stylized version of an Oscilloscope. It all ends with a countdown clock that is winding down to a little over a week from now when the 'See' portion of the site will open up to show photos of the car. A second clock can be found in the nav that is counting down to a little over two months from now when the 'Feel' portion of the site open up presumably letting you know when the cars are arriving in Ferrari dealerships.

It's great to see a brand that understand itself and it's customers so well and is able to craft a communication strategy that talks to those customers across time and a series of events. So for now I will be interested to see how the site evolves and will have to start buying more lottery tickets to get that F430 in my driveway.

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

My sense of humor runs to the dark side so the idea of driving down the highway and looking over to see this just seems too funny. No idea how you could use this is campaign but I just want to try to find one.

Labels: Guerilla advertising

For those of you who are interested, I am going to take a few days off work and head up the coast to the HOW Design Conference in Boston in two weeks. Anyone who wants to meet up to talk shop, grab a beer or just shoot the breeze drop me a line.

Labels: Conference

If you have been awake for the past week you haven't been able to turn on the TV, read a magazine or go online without seeing the hype and roar over the new Grand Theft Auto video game. The games creator Rockstar Games and video game site IGN have teamed up to create an online version of the in-game map. You can use multiple different markers to see things like points of interest, items and secrets as well as add commentary and ratings of attributes like "difficulty", "fun factor", "time it took" and "fight club".

Labels: Design and user experience, Digital culture, Unique interface design

I am sucker for great information design just as much as I am for great visual design and in this case it's both. The site is for a new typeface called Sans Nouveaux which was designed as a pixel typeface for Flash sites. I downloaded, tried and like the typeface but not as much as I liked the concept for the scroll bar used in the site. The scroller appears as two blue lines each with their own number percentage number. The distance and the percentage is determined by the length of the page. It is a simple execution but nice concept and integration into the site.

Labels: Design and user experience, Exceptional design, Exceptional Flash, Great resource, Unique interface design

Today a friend of mine sent me a page from a recent issue of Fortune magazine that I thought was an interesting conceptual exercise. They pitted 16 of the world's most recognized logos and pitted them against each other March Madness style to determine the ultimate logo. Obviously the outcome of the this mini tournament can and will be debated and contested but it is a fun exercise to go through.

Labels: Branding, Great resource