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I like to talk endlessly about anything related to web design/development, which may or may not suit you well.

Monday September 6, 2010

Clever Interactive Marketing

BIC, creators of the correction fluid/tape Tipp-Ex, are on the move with a very clever, viral marketing campaign. It comprises a brief YouTube video about a bear and a hunter that finishes shy of an ending. Then you decide how it ends by typing a word into the video’s title (thanks to the respective Tipp-Ex correction tape) to see one of over fifty possible endings. (Kind of like a Choose Your Own Adventure story.)

The video’s original title is “A Hunter Shoots a Bear.” Your job is to change the word “shoots.” They hope you will try words like “wrestles,” “hugs,” “eats,” etc. But if you decide to let your dirty mind out of the box (you know what I’m talking about) they do oblige your nastiness with a friendly ending. I discovered this when trying the word “pokes,” as in the common phrase “don’t poke the bear.” Apparently they figured I was targeting another meaning of “poke.”

Start with the first video floating around YouTube. Then create your ending on the tippexperience user page. France’s Buzzman is the agency behind this awesome campaign.

Screen shot of tippexperience marketing page

iTunes Redesign. Really?

I just wanted to throw this out there, Apple. You’ve designed some pretty awesome GUIs over the years. So what happened with iTunes 10? Seriously, it’s the worst GUI you’ve designed to date. The icons, the checkboxes, the monotone sidebar—everything. I’ll take OS 8 over this.

I sure hope this doesn’t carry through to the rest of the system. Please, for the love of Pete, say it won’t be so. I’m begging you.

Thursday September 2, 2010

Twelve South’s Package-Recycling Suggestions

When my Twelve South iPad stand (called Compass) arrived a month or so ago, I was super excited. It’s a marvelous piece of design and engineering, as it is masterfully simple. But what I didn’t expect was an extremely thoughtful message about sustainability therein.

A brief instructional pamphlet accompanied my Compass, which closed out with a note about how to recycle the packaging housing it. Twelve ways, in fact, relevant to the company’s name.

However, I must point out that they do need an editor. #11 mentions storing stationary when it should have mentioned stationery. Tsk tsk.

Use it as a pen and pencil case. Stash all your receipts in the box. Let your kids use the box to store trading cards. Use as a personal suggestions box. Drop a gift in it and surprise a friend. Use it as an arts and crafts project for kids. Set it in a drawer as a clutter organizer. Use it to store extra camera/computer cables. Turn it into kindling to start a romantic fire. Flatten and use as a backer board in a frame. Store stationery for hand-written love notes. Turn it into a garage for Hot Wheels cars.

Enough of the Reset/Clear Buttons

Do we really need a “reset” or “ clear” button on a web form? Is there really a scenario when we would need to completely start over? I tried but can’t think of one possible scenario which would call for a clean slate.

What I do know is that when I type some information into a field then key “return” to submit the form, only to see a refresh of that form sans the data I entered, my inner lamb turns into an inner honey-badger. Seriously, lose the reset/clear buttons.

Screen shot of form

Facebook Mobile App: 104M iPhones, 60M Blackberrys, 12M Androids

If Facebook is an accurate indicator on the divvy of mobile platforms, iPhone is definitely king of the hill.

(On a side note, in naming this post I learned that there is a widespread debate about how to correctly spell the plural form of the Blackberry device: Blackberrys or Blackberries. I chose the former because it retains the actual brand name of the device.)

Wednesday September 1, 2010

Binary & The Brain: Design Masters

Every once in a while you stumble upon a designer or design studio that blows you away. Binary & The Brain did just that, and even made me cry a little. Man, their work is good. The mmm kind of good.

Screen shot from Binary & The Brain portfolio

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