Selling The Small Screen

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Darryl

Lately I feel like I’ve become a bit of a mobile evangelist of sorts, extolling the benefits of a well planned and executed mobile strategy to clients. And why not, mobile devices are quickly supplanting clunky old desktops as the preferred screen on which people increasingly first gaze upon your brand.

I still find it bewildering how many businesses with existing digital collateral or those just establishing themselves on the Web either gloss over mobile or completely dismiss its importance altogether.

Oh brother.

An old school Web site designed for 1024 x 768 displays or one employing a traditional 2 or 3-column layout with no provisions for mobile users quickly becomes problematic. Illegible text, oversized images slowing down performance, tedious zooming, panning and scrolling, buttons too small to tap with your finger, underscore just some of the mobile UX issues that will irritate and drive your audience elsewhere.

But don’t take my word for it; your site analytics will paint the true picture.

Posted in Uncategorized, user experience, Web development | Tagged

This Never Gets Old

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Darryl

I was in the proverbial ‘zone’ last Thursday night. It felt fantastic, working late on a design concept for an upcoming project and getting completely immersed in the mechanics of the creative. This never gets old. I love taking ideas from rough ideation sketch to full-blown colour comp, then building a story around the visual elements.

What’s late you ask? I was up past 2am —probably closer to 2:30am, though who’s counting minutes. I had lots of ideas circulating my mind’s eye for well over a week, in fact many more than I could ever hope to expand upon for this particular project. I kept reminding myself that I’d promised to have something concrete to show and discuss Friday morning. Yeah, deadlines are a necessary evil. Setting a date to share something with colleagues or a client, in my case, usually serves as the catalyst for buckling-down and getting the work done.

At some point, usually the last possible moment prior to the presentation deadline, I’ll commit to a direction or idea, usually by wading through a pile of sketches, reference images, and notes scattered in the half dozen or so sketchbooks and random scrap pieces of paper littering my desk area. This process tends to feel like the last set of an intense workout. It’s a whittling down of thoughts, from many fleeting ideas down to several hooks that warrant further exploration and development. Then yet again down to one (or two) gems that are worthy of presentation to the client.

That feeling, having created something out of nothing, something I’m excited to share with a client, something that creatively aligns with the client’s business or marketing objectives, gives me goosebumps time and time again.

This never gets old.

Posted in creativity & design |

We Are Utterly Insignificant

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Darryl

Pale Blue Dot

After watching the second episode of Peter Joseph’s Culture In Decline and feeling sufficiently bummed out, I stumbled on a thought provoking passage from Carl Sagan’s reflection on the Pale Blue Dot —the famous image above taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft in 1990 that shows our humble planet earth at a distance of 6 billion kilometers.

Here’s an excerpt:

“Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

“Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity — in all this vastness — there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It’s been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.” —Carl Sagan

It’s mind-boggling to think how utterly insignificant we are in the broader context of the universe.

Posted in Uncategorized |

Can I Have Your Attention?

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Darryl
Sleepwalk With Me

Aspiring stand-up comedian Matt Pandamiglio trying to build an audience in the 2012 film Sleepwalk With Me (Dir. Birbiglia)

Last Wednesday I attended the Creative Niche project greenhouse talent session #PGdigital13 over on Spadina Avenue in the heart of Toronto. The evening panel included Topher Bullock, Michael Carrick, Jason Cliff, and was moderated by Lindsay Munro. The subject up for discussion:

“Challenges and opportunities facing digital and mobile professionals in the year ahead.”

“As the digital revolution continues to gain momentum, major brands are increasing their budgets for digital and mobile like never before. Of course, with each new project companies are demanding increasingly innovative technology solutions, not to mention cutting-edge concepts. This intense pressure is forcing digital and mobile professionals to work harder than ever to stay a step ahead of emerging trends, master new technology and fine-tune their skills.“

Well now, that’s a really interesting topic. Let’s dig deeper.

From my perspective the digital industry is constantly evolving and moving forward with innovative forms of communication and commerce, and that’s partially what makes it such an amazing industry to work in. New technologies and platforms; new devices and monetization strategies showing up all the time. That’s pretty much a given.
Not surprisingly, much of the #PGdigital13 evening discussion focused on the techno-app-widget side of the digital economy. For instance, the latest trends in mobile development (e.g. HTML5, responsive design) and social media metrics; clients seeking ROI for their digital brands/campaigns; productivity and collaboration services; the latest automation tools for content publishing and analytics.
Yeah, yeah, these are all great discussion points, and I’ll be the first to admit the Web is inextricably connected to technology and gadgets. But what about the other side of the equation? How are we using these technologies, gadgets and so forth?

As time goes on I feel I’m becoming less interested in the tools and technologies themselves and more interested in how people interact with one another and experience things in the digital space. Eventually our tools and technologies will recede into the background and become largely invisible. I believe Michael Carrick brought this concept forth during our discussions. I’d like to think when technology finally does become invisible, our lives will be transformed for the better. I think about how the best UIs are the ones that get out of the way and allow people to accomplish their goals. In fact, the so-called flat UI design movement taking place now, I believe, is a precursor to digital world without graphical user interfaces characterized by a less intrusive presence of hardware and software into our daily lives. One day you’ll tell your grandchildren how we used to stare at animated preloader graphics and silly skeuomorphic visual references to physical objects on pixel-based screens.

But right now, if you ask me, one of the biggest challenges facing every cloud-based tech start-up, digital marketer, and app developer, is capturing and maintaining an audience.

So here was my question posed to the panel:

“As the media landscape continues to fragment with more channels appearing on the horizon vying for our attention, the digital space must contend with smaller audiences and shorter attention spans despite more time spent with media. What strategies can we leverage to increase audience engagement with so many choices available?”

Perhaps not an easy question to answer. I certainly didn’t have a good response, and I’m afraid none of the panel really did either, with the exception of Lindsay Munro who touched on the idea creating good, useful content as a path to fostering meaningful audience engagement.
I agree, wholeheartedly.

At the same time, I will say this: attention is becoming the new scarcity —actually many other people have been saying this for years. Ironically I’ll suggest you go and Google it if you want to find out more about how the Web is shrinking our attention span.

…

The Web has complicated and permeated every aspect of our lives. There’s so much now available to us—much of it garbage cluttering our senses. I can’t remember a time when information wasn’t instantaneously accessible —can you?

Posted in culture, media & technology |

Eveningness

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Darryl

Working late - Vida Dimovska

Three years ago I wrote about how I thought staying up late was a great way to channel inspiration and get things done—not necessarily from a quantity perspective, but rather quality. I still feel this way, though nothing against early risers.

I’ve always been more of a night owl and less of a morning person I suppose, so working well into the late evening hours has always been more or less of a routine.
Evenings tend to be quiet with fewer email, Skype, phone or text message interruptions causing a break in concentration.

Today I’m reading an interesting article that says apparently 50% of a person’s morningness or eveningness is dictated by genetic factors, based on new academic research. So whether you like it or not, your mind and body are probably hard-wired for one or the other.
Knowing this (whether you’re going to be more productive in the morning or in the evening) can help you to find your natural rhythm and invite more creativity into your workflow.

On that note, don’t put off today what you might be less inclined to get done tomorrow.

image: Vida Dimovska

Posted in creativity & design, inspiration |