Sean Adams of AdamsMorioka presented his life and work through lessons in fear to AIGA KC last night. Sean is a bold designer and presenter that you would assume fearless. He wove in examples of fears and wisdom into an entertaining presentation. His fear of change (tropophobia) wiped out by 22 moves across the country as a child - instilling in him tremendous adaptability. His stories culminating in the inspiration to never be afraid of your gut. And ultimately, never be afraid of who you are.

A couple interesting details.
1. Sean’s boldness is a voice for design value
Sean’s firm presents only ONE logo choice to clients - they do, however, reveal their ENTIRE process and applications of the final recommendation. Many shops (out of fear) present three concepts and let the client choose. He gave a real world analogy of a Dr. giving you three options to choose from. Don’t you want the Dr.’s expert opinion?

If everything has been laid out and communication goals are met this approach can ring true for aesthetic solutions - trust the designer. But, one would argue that there is never ONE solution. If you took the same creative brief and business objectives to three different firms, you’ll get 3 different results.

And when it comes to solving business problems with the design process. The designer may be the facilitator, while the janitor, CEO, strategist, etc. may be the colaborative experts in the solution.

2. Visual trickery
AdamsMorioka fabricated a 64 page research document with bahavioral insights and statistics profiling “the designer”. A BEAUTIFULLY done document with charts, graphs, and information graphics to describe quirks and insights. Did I mention the book was filled with absolute rubbish?

A testimony to the fact that designers don’t read. And a supporting example of how great design can visually trick the viewer into legitimizing content as fact.

3. Humor breeds fearlessness
Sean down-played his work and concepts, and even made fun of their own mission statement. His ability to laugh off failures and not take work TOO seriously extinguishes his fears. In an extreme sense its like saying “Whats the worst that could happen?” Well, if that does. I’ll learn from it and maybe even laugh at it. So much for fear.

Live video from the streets of mexico city, offices in romania, and apartments in tokyo. And don’t forget amateur news broadcasts from the Olympics. Qik is an amazing web service that allows people to broadcast live video from their phone.

And not only is video broadcasted live to the world; a saved copy of the video is placed into your qik profile where it can be shared, watched again, embedded into a blog or web site, or downloaded.

I see this service as a great way to capture and share events with friends and family, record field research, or video blog a vacation or night out. Look for qik to pop up more and more with its buzz around the iphone - which normally doesn’t support video.

http://cleverandy.com/

“When you present design concepts to a client there is at least one decent design that’s not chosen. Not that there’s anything wrong with the concept, it’s just not right for that client… but it may be perfect for someone else.”

cleverAndy brings rejected designs back to life by reselling them to their clients. and of course, giving the original designer a cut of the revenue.

3 quick thoughts on cleverAndy:
1. what a great way to capitalize on efforts that would normally go to waste. (in all 3 directions > the client on a tight budget, cleverandy.com, and the original designer)

2. initial business/client objectives really should be submitted with rejected concepts. because, providing a pure aesthetic solution implies that design is a commodity and subject only to client opinion. i know this is true in several instances - but, yikes!

3. could clever andy hitch their wagon onto the sustainability buzz? their concept does save time and energy. i’ve seen the term sustainability used in much lesser conservation efforts.

Connecting offline-to-mobile-to-online
Nike PHOTO ID

I’m sure by now you all have seen NikeID (customize your shoes) originally done by RGA in NY that has some nice mobile tie ins itself (the mobile version in japan and times square billboard).

The photoID concept from AKQA London is an extension and basically this:
1. shoot an inspiring image and MMS it from your mobile
2. you’ll get an image sent back with a customized shoe overlaid on your photo
3. the image can then be used as wallpaper, the designID links to purchasing or for sharing

One cool technology we’re seeing more of is the ability to recognize color dominance in an image. Although only 2 colors are pulled out for the nike application its still a pretty amazing way to connect people’s inspiration of color and aesthetic to Nike’s product.

Additionally, AKQA’s case study page is an excellent way to generate buzz about an integrated technology and its work - including high-res shots, video, and press release. This is an interesting strategy in that the design / advertising industry really appreciates executions like this. And will likely talk about it online, just like this. Well done.

I recently ran across 3 things that tie together nicely:
1) The continual push for branded utility and marketing as a service
(a rekindling of my belief that form and function can come together)

2) a cool web application that allows people to highlight text on any HTML web site

3) the thought that Avery (the makers of HiLiters) and the awesomehighlighter should talk

For an example I highlighted a couple things in a recent adweek.com article focusing on Form + Function:

“Digital design goes well beyond Web sites”

“advertisers want to build brand loyalty by providing utilities that both improve people’s lives in some small way — even if it’s simply a tool for customizing pizza”

“many interactive designers chafed at the role of “matching luggage” to offline campaigns, often resulting in shallow microsites that mimicked TV campaigns “

Pretty “awesome” service and opportunity (or missed opportunity) don’t you think? Seeing these kinds of connections inspires and challenges me. To continually provide excellent aesthetic (form), utility (function), and value for the business (brand). Its a rare mix, but its a combination that we MUST look for and provide.

What do you do when you’ve got too many web accounts with feeds*, and not enough time to keep up? Create a feed for your feeds, of course! and THEN subscribe to your friends’ feeds of their feeds. WOW, right! I’m in this profession called interaction design and strategy and at first sight this concept seems over the top. But, this is the way things are moving - faster and faster, more now, more instant gratification.

*for those not so digital savy we’re talking RSS feeds - thats the basic technology that drives all the feeding.

You have links from delicious and digg, your “what are you doing right now”s from Twitter, photos (and/or video) from flickr, and video from youtube. There are events from upcoming, tunes from last FM, your personal blog feed, news from Google reader, shopping from ThisNext and Amazon. Put all these feeds in one place and its called a tumblelog.

A tumblelog is “… a variation of a blog that favors short-form, mixed-media posts over the longer editorial posts…” Basically, feeds are the common thread in sharing mixed-media discoveries across the web, a tumblelog puts all those web discoveries together in one spot. And allows you to keep up with others easier. Some examples:

Facebook - the common person’s tumblelog
Facebook is the O.G. in tumblelogging - with status updates, photos, links, notes, etc all included in a mini-feed. Plus several applications built to hook into the open web. The good and bad with facebook is that its feed for feeds is closed to the public.

Tumblr - make your feeds look good
“Blogs are great, but they can be a lot of work. And they’re really built to handle longer-form text posts. Tumblelogs, on the other hand, let you easily and quickly post and share anything you find or create.”
Tumblr has the definition nailed and a great looking, great functioning vessel for your feeds.

Friend Feed - the nearly everything feed
a lot like facebook, only its open, friend feed hooks into nearly any and everything RSS. AND it’ll even feed into your facebook, if you want - bringing all your open feeds to your closed feed.

Playground Blues - Nathan Borror, ahead of his time.
I just had to add Nathan to the list, as he has had a tumblelog and developed the basic functionality on his site some time ago.

I don’t drink coffee. But, I hear starbucks makes an alright cup.
There are a lot of things to like about the Starbucks Coffee At Home site - great illustration, typography, texture and style.

One thing I’m really fond of is the attention to detail as you move from one section to another in the site, or chalkboard. Much like a real world chalkboard the drawn-on graphics collect residue. Adding dimension, depth and authenticity. Well done Your Majesty and DraftFCB.

The Barbarian Group has a new world wide web site. And its wordy.
The group responsible for famous flash sites like BK’s subservient chicken, Comcastic, VW features, and Snowball FIGHT have an excellent reputation for delivering top-notch experiential destinations.

The latest destination for themselves falls short on experience and long on words. Even their response to wordiness is wordy. Its true that search is still all the rave and content is king. But, I think Barbarian has crossed the line. Not only is it counter to the way they’ve experienced success. Their site is so text heavy it breaks fundamental rules of legibility (no more than 10 words per line). And as internet experts they should understand that people don’t want to read that much online. They are, however, getting a lot of attention because of their polar-opposite execution style. But, surely they could have struck up a better balance of flash and textual content.

Barbaripedia (a different way of saying “about us”) is a great concept executed fairly generically. Wouldn’t it be cool if they actually owned some online definitions? Or would allow people to help collaborate to define terms with them - true wiki-style. Barbarian could even be experts on several topics within the true wikipedia. Back in the day we saw email forwards as the beginnings of viral content. But, for most, Barbarian and CP+Ps subservient chicken is the definition of “viral” for digital marketing. They could own that.

So do what you do well and be true to who you are. For Barbarian it should be about flash experiences and digital marketing expertise. Not about publishing online novels.

www.twowest.com

“Change happens, and if you take the right action when it comes you can create a beautiful solution.”

“In business and brands, sometimes the problem isn’t the problem after all. We work with brands to define, discover and create opportunities that are more than temporary solutions, but ones that propel businesses to the next level. We call it Transformation Design.”

“Transformation Design is the belief that the design process can solve any brand problem. We believe in defining the real problem and not letting labels, like advertising, confine what form the solution might take.”

www.twowest.com brings our new transformation design position to life - a theory and practice initiated in the UK by the design council, specifically the RED initiative. not to be confused with product (RED).

The Process - from wikipedia.
Transformation design, like user-centered design, starts from the perspective of the end user. Designers spend a great deal of time not only learning how users currently experience the system and how they want to experience the system, but also co-creating with them the designed solutions.
Transformation Design Paper

Additionally we’re introducing an awesome new client roster brought in part by our Two West Los Angeles office. New brand experiences include CBS, Dreamworks, HBO, Mattel, Target, TBS, VH1 and more.

Look for a lot more to come from Two West. We have a awesome online application, “idea-space“, in the works. And a dedicated loft environment for our ethnography research, change management, and consulting teams.

So many loyalty programs have cards and points and memberships. With all kinds of rules and confusing hooks and sign ups. Loyalty programs work well for some companies. eg coke rewards - which has a very nice site and experience if you haven’t used it.

Chiptole has a wide open policy, a very simple approach that works. free burritos. grand openings have free burritos. valentines, give a burrito get a burrito. halloween, dress up like a burrito - just tape a piece of foil to your sleeve. get a free burrito.

What this does is generate desire for your product and drive demand and loyalty for your brand. and as a chipotle shareholder, this simple loyalty program is working quite well.

The formula, of course, wouldn’t work for all companies, no free ipods or nike shoes. With the expense of their products they have to generate desire in different ways. Anyway, I’m sure you get where I’m coming from. Chipotle’s simple approach is working, I’m surprised other businesses haven’t followed suit.