Steve Krug on Conventions and Web Usability.

“Designers are often reluctant to take advantage of them (conventions). Faced with the prospect of using a convention, there’s a great temptation for designers to reinvent the wheel instead, largely because they feel (not incorrectly) that they’ve been hired to do something new and different, and not the same old thing. (Not to mention the fact that praise from peers, awards, and high-profile job offers are rarely based on criteria like “best use of conventions.”) – Steve Krug, Don’t Make Me Think!

Our challenge as creatives: be the next one to come up with an accepted convention. Exercise restraint and creativity to develop an extension of the human brain’s thought process. Be intuitive, and think for the user- without letting them know they’re being “thought” for.

Don’t Stop Swimming.

“We surf the Internet.
We swim in magazines.

The Internet is exhilarating. Magazines are enveloping. The Internet grabs you. Magazines embrace you. The Internet is impulsive. Magazines are immersive. And both media are growing.

Barely noticed amidst the thunderous Internet clamor is the simple fact that magazine readership has risen over the past five years. Even in the age of the Internet, even among the groups one would assume are most singularly hooked on digital media, the appeal of magazines is growing.

Think of this this way: during the 12-year life of Google, magazine readership actually increased 11 percent.

What it proves, once again, is that a new medium doesn’t necessarily displace an existing one. Just as movies didn’t kill radio. Just as TV didn’t kill movies. An established medium can continue to flourish so long as it continues to offer a unique experience. And, as reader loyalty and growth demonstrate, magazines do.

Which is why people aren’t giving up swimming, just because they also enjoy surfing.

Magazines. The Power of Print.”

– Via WIRED Magazine. May 2010.

Sound Mind. Sound Body.

We’re busy right now. Really busy.

A bottleneck of deadlines and exceptions to the rule has us by the throat. We have projects stacked on top of each other, overlapping each other, and sometimes following us out the door at night- a haunting todo list.

But there’s something to be said for losing a little bit of your sanity during times like this. If you’re smart, you’ll take something away from it- experience, self-control, perspective, a new medication for high blood pressure- that you can carry over into the next phase your company launches into.

At our core, we’re a dynamic team that’s perpetually trying to find a better, more efficient, more conducive way of doing things- just like a lot of you. So, while we might feel like hitting the panic button when we think we’re gasping for air, we have to remember to take a deep breath and figure out what we can learn from it all.

The moral: take something away from everything.

Connecting the Disconnect

The design industry can be pretty intimidating.

As a studio (or a freelance creative, or an agency, or whatever you are) you breathe design and its technological implementation every single day.

But there are others out there who don’t, and that’s probably the reason they’re not in our industry, just like we’re not in theirs. It’s all relative.

There is a disconnect between those who speak our industry’s language and those who don’t. The disconnect evolves into frustration, apathy, and stubbornness and can lead to real communication problems. Everyone wants to blame the other person for either not explaining well enough, or not “getting it.”

Stop the blame game, and let’s step it up a notch, huh?

We think it’s up to us to translate industry jargon, and make it as easy as possible for generally non-creative people to grasp a concept they don’t revolve their lives around.

Whether you’re an art director, web designer, or copywriter, you’ll eventually have to talk to someone who doesn’t know a lot about the process. Being able to have a conversation about it anyway becomes an important part of the general people-skills that make you a real human being. Plus, being able to weed out non-essential information and break down loaded terminology is a big part of pleasing clients. The hardest part is doing this in a way that doesn’t hurt the other person’s ego.

Yes, there will always be those who stubbornly don’t want to learn. There’s only so much we can do for them. What we have to realize is that others are simply scared of what they don’t know. The easiest way for them to deal with the frustration is to take it out on whoever is trying to explain it.

We surround ourselves with design-related jobs every day, and it’s a second language to some of us, but there’s often a disconnect between us and the rest of the world.

In our opinion, it’s our responsibility to try and fix it.

Glimpses of Genius, Beauty and Novelty- Make it Your Own.

• New York vs Japan. – Japanese aesthetics.

• Get more creative- with your java.

• Quite bluntly, idsgn wants to know- how are we doing?

• Design hits hospitals- starting with your gown!

• The design process- how can you own it?