POST DIGITAL

The 21st Century Beetle – Rock 'n' Scroll

Many of you know I love my Beetle.  I was jazzed to see the Webby for Best Automotive go to Tribal DDB Berlin's website for VW. The site uses nifty design to give a history of the iconic car.

What makes this one of my favorites it it's innovative use of video.

Visit The 21st Century Beetle – Rock 'n' Scroll at http://www.beetle.com/

 

 

Designing The 2012 Election

Calling all FIT, Parsons and SVA students: here's the latest way to get involved in President Obama's 2012 campaign.  Runway to Win, fashion designers' effort for Obama's reelection campaign, is holding a Design Challenge in which any designer can submit their designs to the current collection of Runway to Win gear.

If your design is selected, it will be sold in the Runway to Win collection, right alongside the likes of Marc Jacobs, Proenza Schouler, Jason Wu, Diane Von Furstenberg and more. As cool as that sounds, that's not the best part. The best part comes when the winning designers each receive a fully produced version of their item autographed by Anna Wintour.  Common That's hot!  (Have you seen the September Issue?)

Go to RunwayToWin.com to submit your Hope, Change or "Yes, we can!" themed design. 

Does A UCD focus make companies miss out on disruptive innovations?

Fast Company’s Co.Design blog published a controversial post that triggered a lot of discussion. In their article provocatively titled User-Led Innovation Can’t Create Breakthroughs; Just Ask Apple and Ikea, Jens Martin Skibsted and Rasmus Bech Hansen wrote:

“[User-centered design] doesn’t work. Here’s the truth: Great brands lead users, not the other way around.”

Skibsted and Hansen cited Apple and IKEA as some of the most innovative brands that don’t follow the user-centric design model. They say that the Apple design team spoke out against user-centric design because it’s “a waste of time”. Similarly IKEA claimes, “it doesn’t work.”

They argued that brands have to take the lead in innovation with a strong and consistent vision, and outlined several reasons why it’s actually detrimental to listen to your users.  Without vision and innovation we begin to create a sea of sameness.

I must admit, their points are compelling...[sigh] but are they correct?  Where does the user fit in?  After the innovation or to inspire the innovation?  How might we reconcile their claims with the value of design research and user-centered design?

You can read the article at http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663220/user-led-innovation-cant-create-breakthroughs-just-ask-apple-and-ikea

Are they right?  Sound off.  What do you think?

 

on: the grid

Are you a grid lover?  It's a design basic that so many do not use when planning out their site.  The grid has long been an invaluable tool for creating order out of chaos for designers of all kinds—from city planners to architects to typesetters and graphic artists. In recent years, web designers, too, have come to discover the remarkable power that grid-based design can afford in creating intuitive, immersive, and beautiful user experiences.

So if you answered yes to my question then you must get Ordering Disorder: Grid Principles for Web Design.   This great book delivers a definitive take on grids and the Web. It provides both the big ideas and the brass-tacks techniques of grid-based design.

If you prefer some online source, here are some of my favorite grid resources

• 960 Grid System
• The Grid System
• Grid System Generator

on: a facebook facelift

Facebook Facelift - Home & Profiles from Barton Smith on Vimeo.

 

[via Barton Smith ]

on: google's art project

Have you every wanted to spend a year exploring art museums from around the world?  Google's Art Project will help you do just that in a few moments.

At their new site, http://www.googleartproject.com , you will discover and view hundreds of artworks using their street view technology. You will be able to view all the works of art with incredible zoom levels, and even create and share your own collection of masterpieces.

Check out the site at: http://www.googleartproject.com

 

on: uniting a global community

Does your brand or company have tons of influencers blogging, tweeting, vlgging and posting photos and videos all over the web? How do you take these disperate posts from thought leaders and influencers and form a global community?  This was the business challenge when I began designing IdeaCorps platform.

When I thought about the audiece I found that we were all creating content locally.  The creation of the content was not the challenge - however bring this content forth to benefit the global wunderman brand was.  IdeaCorp.Wunderman.com was designed to bring together a global community that is focused on inspiring business-changing ideas.

Through the plaform we turned our top content creators and digital influncers into curators on behalf of the wunderman brand by using open social APIs to aggrigate a wide variety of content.

The IdeaCorps Global News Feed, this application uses just about every social API to aggrigate it’s community of thought-leaders.  The feed seen in this iPad application uses dynamically pulls every content type into one mobile interface. 

 

on: ibm's sector seven

This is a fantastic, state of the art experience.  Check it out at http://www.ibmpower.com/

on: dexter's interactive video game

This is a second home run for team dexter. First it was the Find Dexter.  This crime solving video game is something a bit more sophisticated and just as fun.

on: h&m's holiday site

This years best holiday site. Many retailers stay true to their stoggy user expereinces and CMS for the holidays - NOT H&M - If you want the best in fashion ecom this holiday season check out this site http://www.hm.com/gb/#/holiday2010/