I love to cook and I always seem to have subscriptions to various cooking magazines but I rarely get anything out of them that makes it worth the time or money to get them. A few months back Bon Appetit underwent what I think is the most impressive publication re-design I have ever seen. The re-designed and modernized everything about the magazine bringing in interesting content, great recipes and some of the best food photography I have ever seen.

This months issue brought something else interesting with their new Snap It promotion they are doing with AT&T. In an effort to get people to notice the advertising in their magazine they are trying something new by bringing mobile into the equation. To enter their sweepstakes you have to take a photo of one of 34 ads and email or text it in to them to be entered. This actually gets people to seek out the advertising in the magazine and spend more time with it than they normally would. It is also easier with fewer steps than if you saw a promotion in the magazine,got out your computer, went to their web site and filled out the form to enter. I like seeing different mediums converging like this to create something new and strengthen each other. i am just surprised it took this long to start to happen.

Labels: Digital culture, Integrated advertising, Offline advertising

Sprint recently launched a new site that is meant to show off the brands new Now Network broadband cards. The site is a one page design that is crammed with what seems like hundreds of widgets displaying all kinds of data. It makes a powerful first impression and a nice way to show what is possible with the service but that initial impression loses some shine on closer inspection you see that a lot of the widgets are only updating daily and are more about movement and animation than real functionality. The only standout from that is the internet buzz meters where you can type in two different words to compare their buzz based on Google search terms in the past hour. If you want you can also take the experience with you Facebook, MySpace or even your computer desktop. I am still waiting for a break through idea for this product because it seems like it has a lot of potential but no one has really found the way to have it be adopted by a wider audience.

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

I am a sucker for really clean information design and unique interface design that is new but still easy to understand. The new site from SHSK'H does all of those things extremely well. The site starts simply enough with four dots that are held in place by a number of elastic strings. Rolling over one of the dots sticks it to your cursor and you can move it around and play with the kinetic nature of the physics. Clicking on one of the dots will make it zoom up and each of the strings that bound the dot changing to represent music tracks in the volume of music. As the song begins to play an audio graph of the music begins to scroll down the line for the selected track which is subtle but adds an engaging element to the experience. Changing tracks can be done one of two ways either with the dot itself which has taken on iPod like controls or just clicking on the string and track you are interested in. For me this type of design is some of my favorite because it is so clean and so simple but I know how hard it is to design something that is this simple but stays so usable and engaging.

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

Brands are constantly searching for ways to speak to their customers online in new ways that will expand their brand image and increase brand loyalty. These efforts have always been all over the map from and the latest entry comes from furniture maker Herman Miller with ThoughtPile.org. The concept of the site is that there is a question posed to the world and people can submit their ideas on how to solve it to create a 'ThoughtPile'. The site is only in to it's second question which is 'How can we keep our cities vital?'. The answers are displayed in an interface that looks like a cross between clean information design and a biology slide with each answer appearing as a dot within a large circle. The number of times consumer agree with a thought determines it's size and lets the best ideas become the largest and rise to the top. Up to this point in the flow of the site and the logic behind it's creation I was on board and liked what they were doing. I could see the link form their design and work flow creation of working spaces to wanting to improve the design and flow of cities and society. Where the wheels fell off was when I dug into what all of this was going to be used for. What it to give the ideas to urban planners, to donate money to charity, to become the thought starters for new internal projects? Nope. It was to give a chair to the person with the best idea to each question. It just feels like a let down because you have an aspirational concept that asks you to be more than just a participant and put some thought into a problem that is bigger than you. To not hardness that energy and make something of it just makes it feel hollow and self serving because you expect more from a forum like this. Maybe with future questions will come a way to make the suggestions into something more than a new sweepstakes entry form.

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

I'm thinking maybe this wasn't the best headline pagination to run in this placement.

Labels: Online advertising review

I saw this video on cnet today am thought the most interesting part of this new digital dashboard from Ford was the way the fuel economy is expressed. The better your gas mileage the more the plant in the far right hand panel grows and blossoms. it is an interesting way to get people to be more aware of their mileage but I won't drive next to them as they talk on the phone, texting their friend, going 40 in the fast lane trying to get their dashboard to grow.

Labels: Digital culture

Today I find hope that America may finally have been roused from it's mental coma into paying attention to what is going on in this country. However, I find myself unable to let the day passes into the history books without a personal commentary on the role of new media and hate have played in this election.

I have written before about how the use of new media has been taken to a whole new level in this years presidential campaign and I think using that technology in new and intelligent ways has had an effect on keeping people engaged and motivated to take action today. I think it has also played a disgusting role in showing just how far the human race still has to go to achieve basic human decency. If you limited the scope of this to just Facebook you will see on applications like "Pieces of Flair" which was created to spoof the restaurant in the move Office Space and it is filled with buttons calling Obama a terrorist and showing him as a monkey because he is black. You see postings and imagery comparing McCain to the Nazi's and I am sure there is even more there but I got to fed up to keep looking.

I can't begin to kid myself into thinking that this type of thinking isn't there everyday in more people than we would all like to admit in this country. This election and the increased role of the internet and the tools it has to offer has given people permission to express their true selves on a scale that I have never seen before. They are emboldened to let express their true racist, bigoted, hate filled feelings and thinking because they have a platforms, easy to access tools and they are safely hidden by the anonymity of the internet. I think it's that last part that really makes the difference because they can now say things they would probably NEVER say to another human being without the strong desire to experience the level service at the local trauma ward.

I understand not agreeing with someone's point of view and I understand being passionate about your beliefs. I will never understand how that gives you the right to think that because someone thinks differently than you do then you all bets are off and you can say they aren't human because of the color of their skin or compare them to a movement that killed millions of innocent people. Because for me that goes across the line to a small minded hate filled place that isn't going to make anything better for anyone. My hope is for the children of those people that maybe the Internet will expose them to the fact that there is a big world out there filled with different people, beliefs, and races who that that you don't get bigger by tearing people around you down.

Labels: Digital culture, Ranting

I was watching TV tonight and the new commercials for the 2009 Acura TL caught my attention through the fast forward playback on my DVR. It got my attention because I though it was a really interest approach to creating an effective TiVo buster because the ad is a one shot all done in slow motion so when it is fast forwarded you see the whole commercial full speed.

Labels: Offline advertising