Its name is a bit on the cheesy side — but wow, this is one sexy-lookin’ car. Visit site »
Kohi opines that design doesn’t scale well to larger teams, and suggests that if a design team is larger than “a dozen or two,” things start to get dicey. I’m sure there are exceptions to this, but in general, I think he’s right. Design is best practiced by small teams. Visit site »
Read the whole (very short) piece. The quote at the end is priceless. Visit site »
No idea if it’d work or not, but it sure seems like an awesome idea to me. Visit site »
Bryan’s post on getting bent over and screwed by a client, inspired by some of my tweets from this morning. Good stuff, and a nice discussion follows. Somehow, we need to teach folks how to be better clients. It’s not really their fault, but it’s becoming more and more obvious to me that a lot of people have no idea how to be a good client for a designer (and being a good client is in their best interest — it’s how they get our best work). Visit site »
Phil Thompson has a nice writeup on the Blue Flavor redesign where he questions the decisions to leave the company name out of the logo treatment, as well as the lack of a mini-description of what it is we do on the homepage. These are very valid points, but I think he’s justifies these design decisions himself when he says:
There is also the possibility that the due to (some of) Blue Flavou’s [sic] staff’s industry profiles, their core clients could be very clued-up on what they do and therefore don’t need it spelled out.
This is definitely true. Probably 95% of our work comes from clients who already know who we are and what we do, and already have a good impression of us based on reputation. These clients tend to be the ones we like working for the best, too; they respect us from the start, so they’re more likely to give us more creative freedom. So, in the end, I don’t think these decisions will hurt us. But, Phil is totally in the right to question them, as the same decision definitely wouldn’t work for every agency. Visit site »
For the past several weeks we’ve been working on a redesign of BlueFlavor.com — and now it’s live. Keith and Kevin and mostly responsible for the design. Nick and Tom did some IA work, Tom and Kevin did the front-end development, and I did the back-end development.
Of particular interest is the awesome posters we’ve commissioned as an interesting new way to showcase some of our work. The artists we’ve used so far have been freaking great, and we’re looking forward to doing more.
For the curious, BlueFlavor.com is now powered by the same Django-based CMS that powers jeffcroft.com. Visit site »
The new UK coins, designed by 26-year old graphic designer, Matthew Dent, are really, really beautiful. Like really beautiful. America’s new five dollar bill is — well, ugly as sin. Visit site »
For anyone who still thinks it’s not possible to create beautiful typesettings using HTML and CSS. Well done, Coudal! Visit site »
Moodboards are Paris in Las Vegas. They are a bad cover version of your favorite song. They are carob chip cookies. They are pale imitations of true inspiration.
Jones is so spot on, here. Visit site »
Avalonstar is back with a vengeance, baby! Congrats, Bryan! Visit site »
A few great short clips from an interview with the always-insightful Michael Bierut. Good stuff. Visit site »
I wonder how many decades of making hot shit like this before the Pontiac brand feels sexy enough for me to consider buying one? Visit site »
Nice redesign of NYMag.com — I have some small beefs in places, but mostly I think this is really well done and fits their brand nicely. Visit site »
June 23rd, 2008–June 24th, 2008 in Boston, MA
May 22nd, 2008–May 23rd, 2008 in San Francisco, CA
Absolutely incredible live/work space built from a run down repair shop in transitional Atlanta. Soooo want. Visit site »
I’ve ben saying VW should bring back the Scirocco/Coraddo for years, now. This is really hot. Unfortunately, it’s not going to be sold in the USA. Which, actually, might not be such a bad thing — if it were available here, I’d have major buyer’s remorse right now (I just bought a GTI). Visit site »
Wired’s story on 37signals is a good read — fair, balanced, and interesting. There are a few factual inaccuracies and a few odd comments (like “they would rather fail than adapt,” in the last paragraph), but overall it’s quite well-done. Visit site »
Smashing Magazine has a nice selection of website navigation examples. Some clever stuff, here. Nathan’s awesome playgroundblues flyout tabs get a special mention. Visit site »
Rob Goodlatte and Dan Romero use Twitter to conduct brief online polls. Fun idea, fun site, and nice implementation. Word of warning to would-be parallaxers: I believe think effect is this close to jumping the shark, and I’ve only seen it on like four sites. Rob and Dan do it really well, but still… Visit site »
Keith talks about how style fits into the overall picture of design, and teases the new BlueFlavor.com along the way. Personally, I see style as a subset of design — and I think it’s important to note that while style choices are extremely subjective, most of the rest of what constitutes design is not. Visit site »
Woah. My good friend and Pro CSS Techniques co-author Dan Rubin beat me to a lot of the styles you see here on the new JeffCroft.com. I swear, I’d never seen his Virb before (I can’t remember the last time I logged into Virb)! I say it’s more proof that Dan and I are peas in a pod. :) Visit site »
Yes, it’s a pretty drastic change for me. Yes, it only really works correcty in Safari (get over it). Yes, I did it pretty quickly. Yes, this redesign also ...
Very cool layered element trick on this new site by Clearleft. Looks like they’ve anchored stacked elements to alternate sides of the viewport, and then used transparent PNGs in them to get the layered effect. Simple, and yet clever enough that I’ve never seen anyone else think of it before.
Oh, and: what the web doesn’t need is more one-page sites for upcoming web apps that don’t even tell what the app is. Seriously, if I see another one of these, I might shoot myself in the head. The irony, of course, is that I’m totally contributing to the buzz-building they’re looking for by doing this.
Oh well. Visit site »
Google’s Andriod mobile phone UI is heavily inspired by the iPhone, but not so much so that I’d call it a rip off. It’s not as sexy as the iPhone’s UI, but it looks every bit as usable. Bottom line: the iPhone trounces it in the style department, but Andriod still looks better than 99% of mobile phone UIs. Bring it on, Google. Visit site »
Khoi is a believer in the logic that great design is an important asset to any company, and wonders why Yahoo — a company he feels had a great design sense — ultimately has failed. A great discussion follows as to whether or not Yahoo is actually a great design company.
My take? Yahoo has some real shining examples of great design (see Y! Mail and Flickr for the most obvious examples), but that great design sense never managed to make it’s way to Yahoo’s core product: their homepage and search engine. So, even though Yahoo is capable of great design, it may be that poor design was actually a flaw that ultimately hurt them. Visit site »
KU redesigned its homepage, and it’s a bit of an abomination. Really too bad, because while the previous one did have a few issues, it was overall clean, elegant, and well put together (you can still see the general style of the previous design on the second-level pages). Visit site »
We just got some of these guy’s Nomad wall system here in the office, so I checked out their sit. They’ve got a lot of different cool items that are all made from sustainable, recycled materials. Awesome. Visit site »