Image courtesy of Basecamp’s video tour Do you find yourself keeping track of your projects using a mishmash of endless email threads, saved IM conversations, phonecalls, meetings, sticky notes, post-its, and scribblings on napkins and used envelopes? Struggling to recall time spent on a project after it’s done? Experiencing miscommunication with a client based on clashing expectations or surprises...
The Wall Street Journal is throwing their hat into the user-generated content ring with the relaunch of their “creative leaders” ad campaign, a series of meta-interviews in the weekend “Pursuits” section that get advertising creatives to talk about advertising, to promote the sale of ad space in the WSJ, and specifically the weekend edition. Originally launched in 1975, the...
Amid all the hype about Web 2.0 technologies and trends, many experts feel that human perception, the way we gather and process information, has literally been changed by use of the web, and web design must adapt by providing a more active user experience, more opportunity for user participation, even a shift of image-to-text proportion. Dr. Jakob Nielsen, known...
When you consider the decision of whether to be a freelance designer or take a full-time position at a firm or agency, freelance can seem to present plenty of freedoms alluring to the creative mind: the chance to make your own hours, select only the clients and projects that interest you, be your own boss, create your own office...
At a time when people love to proclaim (with varying degrees of sincerity) that advertising is dead, while the web assaults us with popups of dancing mortgage-rate ads, you may be looking for evidence that sophisticated, nuanced use of color, words, and image still rise above the pack. Uwe Stoklossa’s recently published book pays homage to classic and surprising...
When you think of Bill Gates, the words “financially challenged” probably don’t come to mind. I mean, let’s face it; things have pretty much been going his way. That is certainly true of Microsoft, but his lesser-known corporation, Corbis, is finding it hard to turn a profit. A photo-licensing business Gates started in 1989, Corbis has spent millions building...
Weiden+Kennedy, the ad agency best known for its 20-year relationship with Nike, recently made waves through big ad agencies when Nike parted ways with them to seek an agency with more prowess in digital media. Now, under the direction of Joakim Borgstrom, hired to the newly created role of Interactive Creative Director, W+K Amsterdam have launched a rebuttal against...
It seems the Ogilvy umbrella is determined to bring back basic html as a trend and inspire you to brush off your hand-coding skills. Last week we reported on Ogilvy North America’s attempt at reverse-credibilty through deliberately, dorkishly hand-coded web design. This time around, they offer up a much more visually impressive instance of it in their site for...
Digital designers, the tide keeps moving in your favor as clients spend more and more marketing dollars online. The effects can be seen from the startup boutique agencies to the biggest and oldest in the business. Most recently, Ogilvy North America has created a new position, Chief Digital Officer, and hired Jean-Philippe Maheu, formerly of Razorfish, to fill the...
Now that the web has been around for well over a decade, most professional sites, personal sites or blogs, and in general sites with any credibility at all have a ubiquitously polished look. But lately, possibly emerging out of the low-fi, user-generated-content aesthetic, is a trend in seeking reverse-credibility through deliberately, earnestly bad design. Take as evidence the site...
