Dynisco.com Goes Live
Last week Newfangled launched a re-designed site for Dynisco, a provider of high-performance, cost-effective sensors, controls, and analytical instruments for plastics extrusion processing.
The cleaner and more contemporary dynisco.com is based on branding developed by one of our agency partners, Blass Communications. The goal of the new site was to focus Dynisco's message and reduce the complexity of their old site.
Simple Design is Good Design
Why do we continue to trust the methods of the mass-media sites? We should know better than that. It's because when it comes to solidly debunking their strategy and providing a better one for our clients, we fall short of a good argument. We—designers, developers, and agencies alike—don't do a good enough job reassuring our clients that following the leader is not only unecessary, but bad for their business. So, for the remainder of this article, I want to dig a bit deeper into two examples of influential but poorly designed sites we're likely to take cues from and then provide a, well, simple plan for staying simple...
Winter/Spring/Summer Reading
It's been a few months since my last book-recommendations post, and in that time I've read a few I wanted to share. My selections include a book on writing as mapmaking, a collection of essays on the attention economy, a post-apocalyptic meditation on reality, an autobiography of my favorite founding father, and brilliant analysis of the progress of civilization. I hope there's one among them that piques your interest...
My Interview with Anaezi Modu at REBRAND
Last week, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Anaezi Modu, founder of ReBrand. Gearing up for the 2011 ReBrand 100 Awards, Anaezi will be interviewing the jurors, of which I am one, and posting her conversations to the site. I was first..
The Talk Bubble is About to Pop, Part 1
Yesterday, Mark (who is building sandcastles on the beach with his family and finally reading that Buckminster Fuller biography I loaned him in 2006) and I were chatting over the phone and got to talking about the value of implementation to what we do and how we are positioned in the market. There is a tension between implementation and strategy when it comes to positioning: with the implementation being almost to the point of commoditization, differentiating your service in terms of a strong point of view and focus on richly researched planning is essential. But without following through with implementing that planning, I'm not sure how to maintain whatever perception of value you may have built. Reflecting upon how the market has been squeezed so significantly over the past couple of years, forcing people to question what they are truly getting, I remarked, "Yeah, the talk bubble is about to pop..."
The Talk Bubble is About to Pop, Part 2
I've been on vacation, so instead of having our typical 8 a.m. conversations over coffee in the office lounge, Chris and I have been keeping up over the phone. During a call last week Chris said something that really caught my attention. We were talking about the glut of advisors and the lack of doers these days and he said "the talk bubble is about to pop." This quote really caught me, and we thought it might be fun to write a pair of blog posts about our thoughts on this topic--so here's my take.
What I’ve Learned (or, the Longest Post Evar)
Getting ready to leave Newfangled, I've spent a lot of time thinking about what the past couple of years have brought. Here's some of what I've learned through the daily work of being a project manager...
SEO Quick Tips
Design 101: White Space is Not Empty Space
White space is not "empty" space, nor is it necessarily white. It is the unmarked area between elements on a page and is a critical component in good design. White space serves an important purpose; ignoring it can not only yield some unattractive visual results but also hinder content comprehension.
A Conversation with Information Designer Michael Babwahsingh
Inspired by a Core77 Wiretap that I read back in March, I suggested that my friend Michael Babwahsingh, Information Designer at Humantific, and I record one of our Saturday Skype chats and see if any of it was blog worthy... Here is the result: a long(ish) conversation about design, travel, the human-technology adventure, and much more...