UI Design - A way to manage resolutions

If you're designing for different screen resolutions, check out Punch Cut's post (complete with downloadables).

Pixel Proflieration

Phil | examplify.com

Graphic designers: how to work with them

Recently read this good post about how to work with and get the most out of your graphic designer.

Phil | examplify.com

Super Bowl Advertising

My first half thoughts on this year's Super Bowl advertising:

First, there seemed to be way too many men in their underwear this year. CareerBuilder.com and Dockers both had pantless men. You'd think that the people facilitating the media buys at CBS would have mentioned to either advertiser, "Hey, another company's using half-naked men already." But no, they didn't do that. Instead they said nothing and then played the commercials back to back. Though, I would rate Career Builder's ad more effective than rival Monster.com's, whose little furry animal partied in a jacuzi with a hot woman. What was that.

There was a lot of buzz about Tim Tebow's commercial before it aired, and a lot of judgments were made on both sides. But when I finally saw it, nothing about it seemed very preachy or fanatical to me. Instead, it pointed viewers to a website to continue the story. But it was one that I didn't bother visiting, because the ad didn't compel me to. Overall, it wasn't that entertaining and didn't inspire much action.

The Doritos commercials were hit or miss - I can remember the blind date ("keep your hands off my mama, and your hands off the Doritos"), and the Dorito-filled casket. A bit morbid, but probably appealed to a lot of teens.

I found the T-Pain ad pretty funny, but I'm having trouble remembering what the product was. I wanna say Bud Light. Budwesier had a very middle-America, togetherness kind of ad. I'm guessing they want to retain the strong American brand image now that it's owned by non-American InBev.

Punxatawny Polomalu was pretty funny. On the other hand, Letterman, Oprah and Leno on the couch was more strange than funny. It was an odder collaboration than Brett "Mr. All American Lee Jeans" Favre showing up in a Hyundai spot.

A few commercials had good starting stories, but didn't connect well to their products. Men's Dove and Cars.com come to mind, as well as the Dodge Charger commercial, "Man's Last Stand." Along with Flo TV's ad that encouraged the male subject to get his spine back and "take off that skirt," there seemed to be a lot of gender programming this year. Not more than regular season beer commercials, but probably much more expensive.

Score at the half: Colts 10, Saints 6. Enjoy The Who.

Big Carl Ad Campaign

I'm scratching my head at this Carls Jr ad campaign. Congratulations Carls, it only took you 31 years to answer the Big Mac.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgZGOcu_E5E

Phil | examplify.com

Ha ha ha, very funny. Seriously now.

When I went out this morning, I found on my doorstep a bright orange bag. "What could this be?" I thought. "Something of value?"



Nope. It was just the Yellow Pages:



Sneaky. They knew I'd toss it out immediately if the bag were yellow, so they made it orange! When I went to toss em out, I found that someone beat me to the recycling bin:



We had JUST gotten these books, and they were already in the trash. They basically had the life expectancy of junk mail.

I like looking at double-truck plumbing and personal injury lawyer ads just as much as the next guy, but it amazes me that people are still paying for yellow page ads in the online review (soon-to-be localized, mobile advertising) era.

Phil | examplify.com

A new logo for GM?

MSNBC reports that U.S. automaker General Motors is considering an identity change to signal its new focus on fuel efficiency. Overhauling a well known brand is always a challenge, but recent events may help the struggling company repair negative associations the market has of the classic "blue and white" GM brand.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31805852/ns/business-autos/

Phil | examplify.com

Bad Design Kills

In design school, my very wise professor had a saying. "Bad design hurts."

It was true. We've all experienced it, in every day things like electronics, computers, and toys. (Ok, those are MY everyday things, but you get the idea.) Maybe you tried to put together a shelf or table with poorly designed instructions. Your vacuum stops sucking and…starts sucking. Your drink bottle leaks when you turn it upside down. You read a print piece that you desperately wished communicated what it was supposed to.

When you come across bad design, it evokes some sort of negative feeling - a cringe, frustration, anger. At some point, we either sigh or call upon our inner designers to rig something up that compensates for the product's shortcomings. At worst, however, bad design is simply a hindrance to an exceptional user experience. (And likely the monetization of that experience.)

Not so for the folks at NASA. In a recent episode, "Space Shuttle Disaster," NOVA explored a couple of well-known NASA disasters: Challenger and Columbia. In the 80's, there was a culture at NASA that held launch schedules as a top priority, often at the cost of safety. In 1986, the Challenger shuttle exploded 73 seconds into flight. According to Dr. Howard McCurdy of American University, there were too many people involved in deciding what the one shuttle design should be. That, consequently, doomed the mission before it even began.

Bad management led to poor culture and prioritization, which led to bad product. (Sound familiar?) Except this time, it killed seven American astronauts.

After an investigation into the 2003 Columbia disaster, which took seven more lives, NASA's Project Constellation was launched as a road map for space exploration. It moved away from the the bulky "shuttle as a plane" approach. Instead, slim boosters were designed to help avoid damage from foam debris, a fate the Columbia shuttle suffered. An escape tower in the booster was incorporated to give crew members a chance to escape if something went wrong.

So the next time design by committee brings you down, remember the dreadful fate our brave astronauts met. It could be much worse. Bad design really can kill.

Phil | examplify.com

Future edition of the New York Times

The New York Times, in a joint campaign with Intel, showed a glimpse of a future NYTimes page - exactly 31 years from today:




Looks like typographers' visions of what futuristic type will look like comes true! Also, nothing says future like teal. Designers, take note! : )

Phil | examplify.com

Strange icons

I saw this ad on Yahoo for a distance education site. While I could see the direction the message was going in, I didn't really understand the icons. Made me laugh, though.

Phil | examplify.com

Vote for the Mobile News Network!

A while ago, I wrote about one of my favorite iPhone apps, the Mobile News Network, being named one of TIME Magazine's top apps of 2008.

Now they have been nominated for a Webby. Head over to:
http://pv.webbyawards.com, register, and cast your vote in the News category for the AP's Mobile News Network!

Phil | examplify.com