A Midsummer Night’s Tangent
Every rose has its thorn,
every pixel has a purpose,
every positioning line articulates its own song,
and every day feels like Tuesday.
It’s better to burn out than fade away,
it’s the cheese sauce that makes it taste so good.
Cannot create property time on package.name.DocumentClass.
Time is not important, only genetic.
Everyone has been burned before, everybody knows the pain,
the pack on my back is aching,
this file is truncated —something is technically wrong.
Fading out by design,
when an app fails in the forest does anyone care?
Look at this. It’s worthless – ten dollars from a vendor in the street. But I take it, I bury it in the sand for a thousand years, it becomes priceless. Like the Ark.
Dr. René Belloq
I can’t talk right now, I have more important things to do.
Insomnia Meet Untitled Blog Post
It’s 12:06 am and I have just awoke up from an early night’s sleep.
Tonight I wanted to get an early night and decided to turn in at the uncharacteristic hour of 10:30 pm —usually I’m not in bed until well past midnight. But I am now fully awake so what the heck, why not blog random thoughts while my mind is active.
Today I was so busy (this seems to be my default blog post intro lately -sorry!) it was one of those days I did not have the time or energy to read anything interesting let alone Tweet or socialize much with any of my colleagues. We all know that feeling —those days where the work comes first before absolutely everything else. Perhaps this is one of my peculiar personality traits: at times, immense focus on what I’m doing, blocking out everything else.
In a perfect world I would…
Devise a solution to prevent the raccoons living in my neighbourhood from getting hit by cars.
Write a witty, though-provoking blog post every day just like Seth Godin.
Share several beautifully inspiring examples of digital art, music or words on my Tumblr blog like Designlicious.
Photograph everything interesting around me and share it on Flickr every day like Michael Surtees.
Not need to hear the word awesome to the degree with which it has infiltrated the English language.
Tweet with the vigor and wit of Tim Nolan.
Promptly return my brother’s and dad’s calls.
Spend more time with my 4-year old son.
Not waste time in front of the television.
Create an original piece of art on a regular basis.
Help out more around the house and spend more time helping my wife with our ongoing renovations.
Plan and organize incredible getaway vacations as opposed to average stay-at-home vacations.
Have more time to leave thoughtful comments on other people’s blogs.
Strictly adhere to my exercise and nutrition plan each week.
Read at least 1 good book each week.
Get a proper night’s sleep.
No Deliverables, Just Reboot
It’s almost August and I’m ready to embark on several much needed days off (5 to be exact) from work. A temporary break from the daily routine of pixels, creative deadlines, motion-tweens, copy decks and revision documents.
This is my world on any given week, and while I absolutely love my job and the process of making things interactive for our clients at OSL, it’s nice to get away once and a while and soak up some vitamin D with family and friends.
Desynchronizing from these activities and changing one’s environment (subliminal voice inside is telling me to turn off that computer now!) can be a healthy prescription to clear one’s mind and revitalize creativity while fostering a renewed sense of inspiration towards work endeavours.
This is a great technique (getting away that is) for physically, mentally, and creatively recharging. It’s like hitting a giant reset button, rebooting one’s physiological system just like a internal CPU, and it’s something we should all strive to do periodically to maintain peak performance.
In fact, with so much emphasis on work —sometimes 60+ hours in a heavy week, the sudden onset of vacation time feels almost like one of the kicks from Inception causing me to instantaneously wake up and leave one constructed reality for another. Where am I headed next?
At the same time, with the notion I’ll not be working for the next 5 days, I briefly imagine what I’ll be doing 20 – 30-years into the future when I enter the so-called ‘time-rich’ leisure demographic. In my dad’s generation you could easily identify these people —they drove Cadillacs, lived down south for the better part of the year (usually in Florida), wore their socks up to their knees and complained continuously about the weather.
While I’m not keen to end up livin’ la vida loca with the Clark Griswold set down south, I do wonder how I’ll occupy my time within the infamous ‘retirement’ years. Perhaps I’ll travel, paint or write books —maybe blog like I’m doing right now? Will the concept of retirement even exist 30-years from now? Will books and blogging be replaced by immersive interactive literature pieces? I don’t know.
What I do know is that tomorrow has no specific agenda or list of deliverables to be completed for end-of-day —just spontaneous unplanned events connecting freely with no constraints in sight. Ahh, I feel alive.
Solace In My Headphones
Today was brutal —not in a negative way, just extremely heavy deliverable-wise on the deadlines front. My project managers like to use the word challenging when describing the labyrinth of obstacles our digital team routinely face when orchestrating client work. Multiple projects converging at various stages of planning, production, and client review.
I have 3 personal prerequisites for contending with these types of days: a great night sleep, a superbly-crafted morning espresso or caffè latte, and a fantastic pair of audiophile grade headphones to get me through the day’s challenges.
In truth, of these 3 —push come to shove, I could probably get away with a few bad nights sleep; and I could likely get through the day without caffeine (I’ve hit the caffeine reset button a few times with success) —but take away my headphones —take away my ability to listen to music and I’m not a happy creative camper.
Why am I blogging about this? Because this week I’ve unfortunately been without my beloved Sennheizers due to a loose wire requiring repair. My current headphones are just over 5-years old (older than my son!) and may need to be overhauled in favour of a new pair. While it may sound weird to be blogging about headphones, many creative people I meet have a special connection with their headphones and with their music. I think there’s a strong bond between music and creativity.
Personally speaking, I feel more loose, relaxed and creative when I’m listening to music. I feel ideas and solutions seem to flow into my mind more naturally when I’m immersed in good rhythms and beats.
Mornings are typically ritualistic: email, Twitter, Popurls or Design You Trust (recently). I begin with a quick evaluation of priorities for the day and usually a re-shuffling of existing tasks on my plate. At the same time, I usually take a few moments to plan out what I’m going to listen to while working. I’ll choose music to suit my mood or the nature of the client piece I’m working through. Music is the glue that connects all the micro tasks throughout the day.
While planning out each day is a great way keep focused and productive, the sobering reality is that trying to plan further into the future (2 to 3-weeks) is more like guessing —guessing because digital marketing, like other forms of marketing, is driven by emotion, money, and constant change. In the case of digital, changing platforms and technologies. With so many variables with the capacity to render a project dead in the water or full-steam ahead trying to predict the future seems rather daunting.
Sometimes I imagine how great it would be if I had a crystal ball connected to my headphones allowing me to momentarily see and hear my future. What will I be doing 2, 6, or 24-months down the road?
Changing deadlines, changing budgets, changing methods, changing technologies, changing colleagues. Life is full of changing forces. Each week without fail it seems there is one über-critical, hyper-sensitive changing event or task that flies in out of the blue causing a disruptive snowballing chain of events —a sort of chemical catalyst upon my schedule and my musical and creative mood.
Its 10:30-ish a.m. one of my colleagues walks by, says hello, smiles and says to me “the world is my oyster”. I laugh and think to myself, what an illuminating concept. That’s my creative catalyst for today. Headphones back on. Create something delightful.
Rethinking The 1024 Paradigm
Here’s an interesting topic many of us working in the digital field can relate to —a topic which seems to come up more and more lately. I’m talking about the 1024 paradigm —that is, the tendency to design anything destined for the Web browser environment to be visually optimized for screens 1024 pixels wide by 768 pixels tall.
Everyone has heard those numbers at one time or another —but how do they influence digital experiences?
Note: I’m not going to bore you to death with one of those long posts examining the history of computer screens, GUI layout implementations or technical aspects of designing for the various screen resolutions over the years. While this could be a wider topic for discussion encompassing CSS strategies and Web standards, I’ll try and keep it brief.
I call it a paradigm because for many years the prevailing consensus among digital designers and developers has been this display size (1024 by 768 pixels) represents the most common screen size for people viewing the sites we produce.
However, like all paradigms there’s a beginning, middle, and end —and just like 800 by 600 and 640 by 480 before it, I think the end is near.
Yesterday I was having a discussion with one of my colleagues on this very topic. We’re noticing the emergence of more horizontally-oriented user interface designs on the Web —and we think it’s great from a creative and UX perspective. In our talk it occurred to us, the old 1024 pixel design paradigm still drives (or constrains, depending on how you look at it) most —if not all, the digital designs we produce for our clients. This isn’t anything negative or bad —just something we’ve observed.
In fact, acknowledging a sizable portion of the Web audience —albeit dwindling (like IE6 usage), still view many of the sites we create on screens running 1024 by 768 pixel displays, shows we are very much cognizant of accommodating the widest possible viewing audience. Call it due diligence, it’s something I imagine our clients unconsciously appreciate.
On the other hand, if you consider the growing pervasiveness of wide screens (…walked into any Best Buy lately?) —and by wide I mean 16:9 aspect ratios up and beyond a width of 1600 pixels, I occasionally wonder why we’re still taking such great lengths to ensure our clients digital designs are optimized for this particular screen dimension.
So what if (designers and creatives love to say “what if…” —sometimes to the grief of developers who must implement the “what if” scenarios and concepts into viable solutions) 1920 x 1200 pixels and larger became the new standard on the Web? What could we do with all that extra screen real-estate from a creative and design perspective? Would we start to see 4, 5, or 6 column layouts? Could we put greater emphasis on larger typographic treatments and better leverage negative space? —these are visual communication techniques graphic designers exploit well in print.
In any case I’m intrigued by the possibilities of designing for larger screens just as I was excited about exploring full screen Flash-driven UIs a few years back with runtime stage resize listeners (via Actionscript) to achieve more flexible interfaces.
Still, vertically-oriented (1, 2, and 3-column) layouts have their place and have been the norm for years on the Web serving us well. But perhaps it’s time to rethink the 1024 x 768 pixel paradigm, retire the old scroll bars and page fold rhetoric, and move on to embracing a wider view of the things we experience on our screens.
For the record: my desktop (home and work) is 1680 by 1050 pixels while my laptop is 1280 by 800 pixels and my wife’s laptop (now 6-years old still running XP) is 1440 by 900 pixels.
My high definition television (now 5-years old) which I occasionally use to browse the Internet through my PS3, has a native display of 1024 by 768 pixels.
The App Bandwagon
Applications are trendy right now. Like a digital bandwagon rolling into town, ‘apps’ are touted as the latest must-have for our smart phones and mobile devices. Similar to the proliferation of browser add-ons in recent years —designed to improve our Web surfing experience, apps are positioned as essential tools to enhance our increasingly (mobile) connected lifestyle.
I am a huge proponent of well-designed applications —especially those able to improve our experiences with technology, empowering us to better utilize information. However, recently I’ve become slightly weary by the flood of applications upon our collective consciousness.
As of November 2009 there were over 100,000 applications available for the iPhone through Apple’s App Store; by March 2010 30,000 applications were available for the Android platform -these numbers continue to grow each month as more and more people enter the mobile market. I imagine we’ll soon have an app for everything including, ironically, an app to help us sift through the sheer cornucopia of apps available to determine what’s worth installing and what we could perhaps do without.
Don’t get me wrong, I think apps can be extremely useful in our daily lives —but do we really need a Huffington Post application coded specifically for the iPad platform?
Last time I checked, you could access all the great content available on huffingtonpost.com through Safari —on the iPad of course.
There’s also an app for Wired Magazine which has received a great deal of press recently. But I wonder if Wired just wanted to hop on the tech bandwagon just to say “Hey, we’ve got a Wired app”.
Naturally, technology is Wired Magazine’s bread and butter, so it might be strange if they didn’t offer an app-ified version of their traditional Web site. Then again, does the Wired app really offer anything unique above and beyond their existing Web site? I honestly don’t know because I personally haven’t tried using the Wired app, so I’m not really in a position to critique the user experience —however others have weighed-in likening the experience to (ahem) a 1990′s CD-Rom, among other things.
While the popularity of app-ifying Web sites continues to rise on closed platforms like the iPad, ironically of late, we see established plug-ins like Flash demonized by Web standards groups and open source proponents who would very much like to see a Web —and a mobile Web for that matter —completely devoid of proprietary technologies, like they somehow inhibit the Web from moving forward.
Perhaps it’s just me, but I really don’t see a difference between a site designed to run as an iPhone app and a site designed to run with the Flash Player plug-in. The Huffington Post and Wired apps aren’t really apps in this sense —just Web sites re-purposed for smaller mobile screens with touch functionality in some cases.
I suppose I am more of an idealist, because I envision a Web free (or at least with a minimal number) of competing platforms designers and developers need to contend with when coding and building our clients digital assets.
If I own an iPhone or similar mobile device, does someone out there envision a world where I would need to install a separate app for each and every site I visit online? —oh but wait! —I, like many other people, visit 100′s of sites each month —that’s a lot of apps to install. Seems a bit over-engineered of a way to experience digital content wouldn’t you say?
Creative Best Before: — Insert Date —
When I heard the news last week Guillermo Del Toro, the creative visionary behind the brilliant movies Pan’s Labyrinth, The Orphanage, and most recently Splice (executive producer), had suddenly quit development of the highly anticipated Hobbit films, I was a bit disappointed —yet not surprised.
If you’ve been following the news and events surrounding development of the Hobbit films you’ll know Peter Jackson, the director behind the hugely successful The Lord of the Rings trilogy, asked Del Toro to creatively commit roughly 6 years to the project (ultimately 2 films), living and working in New Zealand where his WETA Studios are headquartered.
Let me repeat that: 6 years!
This is an incredible amount of time for anyone to commit to a project —creative or otherwise. Guillermo Del Toro was slated to write, design, and ultimately direct both films with Peter Jackson contributing as executive producer.
This story is fascinating and really caused me to stop and think about how delays can have a huge impact on creativity —not just in movies, but in any endeavour. The analogy I immediately think of is way most foods have a predetermined shelf life when they usually taste best and won’t cause you to become ill.
In this same way, I believe creativity and design solutions generally have a best before date during which the absolute best work can be realized. Call it a window of opportunity for conceptual creative development then execution —but venture outside this sweet spot and things potentially start to fall apart.
Case in point: Guillermo Del Toro walking away from what many would consider to be the opportunity of a lifetime. Del Toro, having already devoted the past 2 years immersed in script writing, character/animatic design, set and wardrobe development, felt future long term projects were becoming jeopardized due to the immense challenges facing production of the Hobbit films.
The movie studios, realizing the lucrative potential of these films and hoping to capitalize on the global success of Lord of the Rings, have been squabbling over production and distribution rights for years. Further compounding the situation, heirs to Tolkien’s estate have sought financial compensation for LOTR causing production of the Hobbit to exist in a perpetual state of delay.
Unfortunate, yet anyone working in a field similar to film design and production likely knows, there are typically rigorous demands and business interests at stake on large, well-financed projects like the forthcoming Hobbit films. There are no doubt hundreds of multidisciplinary specialists responsible for every aspect of the film —art direction, production design, sound, editing, special effects, and so on. The director usually carries the unenviable responsibility of ensuring the final cinematic vision of the film, among other elements, stays relatively intact —quite a daunting task when a film requires several years commitment.
When a new project begins, initially there is a huge surplus of energy and enthusiasm among creative contributors to quickly dive-in and start coming up with ideas and building things immediately. When delays and roadblocks invariably occur further into the production pipeline, the once smooth flow of creativity and design execution can suffer amidst production uncertainties and a constantly shifting set of priorities, challenging even the most passionate and motivated of contributors.
The other problem specific to the film industry is that studio executives (I gather) sometimes forget how fragile the creative process can be when financing resources and structuring film projects. It now seems modern movies are designed to function more like corporations than artistic creative endeavours.
It’s common —and I find it strange —to hear media journalists and others refer to movies not as stories but as franchises, suggesting films are regarded more as business commodities than cinematic works of art. Certainly when film budgets for major international releases routinely exceed the GDP of some small countries, studio executives will naturally focus on the financial aspects (e.g. budgets, the weekend gross) over the content itself.
In many ways this mindset devalues the cinematic work by focusing disproportionately on numbers instead of what really matters: story, design, and artistic vision —the core attributes of any great film or creative work.
Who Killed Design Innovation?
When I was in school studying Industrial Design I used to dream about designing concept vehicles for the major auto manufacturers —what ID student didn’t?! I also dreamt of designing furniture, high technology-oriented objects, and complex environments for movies. Encompassing all of these elements my absolute dream job was to be a conceptual designer like Syd Mead, Doug Chiang, and Ryan Church.
Some of my classmates routinely brought in copies of Auto & Design to our studio classes and I would, on occasion, sit for hours and hours sketching cars -sleek organic and rectilinear forms (with wheels of course). I would illustrate interior views, exteriors perspectives, cut-away views and more, always trying to emulate the bold expressive lines articulated by the polished magazine renderings I found so inspiring. I must have spent thousands of dollars on Tria markers, prismacolors, guides, sketch paper, and other art materials.
Looking back on this formative period of my design education, I used to think innovative design -in particular vehicle design, was primarily an expression of aesthetic form, proportion, and visual composition. Ergonomics, mechanical function and usability, naturally very important design considerations, always seemed to play a role secondary to the aesthetic surface detail of the vehicle or product I was visualizing.
Now years later, when I stop to consider many of the contemporary ads for vehicles I see on TV, in magazines, and on the Web, I notice the focus is almost entirely on the surface —exterior form, interior fit/finish, material selection, and technology features. Does your center console have real stainless steel and wood veneer accents? Got chrome aluminum alloy wheels? Got an iPod dock and GPS navi? Features, features, glorious features!
In the same way I was sketching car concepts at school as an inexperienced design student focusing on aesthetics, the car industry continues to focus on superficial surface cues as the defining characteristics of innovative design. The surface, it is thought from a marketing perspective, is the overriding determinant whether a consumer will be emotionally connected to an automotive product or not and is ultimately what drives (no pun intended) the decision to buy vehicle X over vehicle Y. I do not dispute these facts —styling sells automobiles —period.
However, perhaps I am alone, but I wonder what’s going on beneath the surface in terms of how or what is powering the vehicle. In comparing brands, I begin to ask deeper questions such as: how ecologically sustainable are the manufacturing processes used to mass produce this vehicle?
Call me an environmentally conscious geek, but in my mind true design innovation must extend far beyond the mere aesthetic surface titillation and raw horsepower I’ll probably never use sitting in traffic, but encompass more ambitious feats of design engineering. I am interested in the ratio of recycled materials to virgin materials used to manufacture said vehicle; I want to know the overall carbon footprint of said vehicle before I even get remotely excited enough to buy.
Perhaps we need a re-definition of what design innovation means because the automotive industry is sadly stuck in the dark ages.
The other night the CBC re-ran a broadcast of the documentary film Who Killed the Electric Car? Remember it? —I do. Released in 2006, this probing exploration into the demise of electric vehicles in the United States -in particular, the sudden death of the General Motors EV1 in the state of California and Arizona, paints a sombre picture of bureaucratic corruption and monopolistic business tactics stifling forward thinking automotive design and engineering.
We all know the story: big oil companies, government policy makers —and ultimately, global auto manufacturers, all seem to be forever living in a self-fabricated augmented reality where the emission standards of the cars we drive never seem to improve much beyond a snail’s pace; where unambitious fuel economy standards seem directly proportional to the financial disincentives put in place by the current administration in power and their (usually lax) policies regarding climate change and pollution control.
I tend to think we’re living out the tail end of the petroleum paradigm. An era slowly dying away where old establishments of manufacturing and technology built primarily upon industrial-age thinking are going out kicking and screaming as newer, greener technologies gain momentum and take hold in our marketplace.
Every year the major auto manufacturers promise us eco-friendly electric alternatives to gasoline powered vehicles are coming. EVs (not gas-electric hybrids) are just around the corner 5 to 7 years off into the future they tell us. GM, Honda, Toyota, and other global manufacturers tell us they’ve committed significant R+D and their brightest engineers into the field of electric vehicle technology -yet nothing ever seems to materialize in the marketplace.
Watching Who Killed the Electric Car? again on the CBC the other night I couldn’t help but feel a little frustrated.
I really want to buy an electric vehicle, but here we are in 2010, almost 8 years since the last EV1 was on the road, prior to being destroyed by GM, and still there are no mass produced electric vehicle offerings available from any of the major auto manufacturers.
Sure, there are numerous gasoline/electric hybrids available —but they still rely (albeit partially) on gasoline and traditional internal combustion components.
You could of course build your own electric vehicle -but who has the time available to rip apart an old car and retrofit all the necessary components? The only mass-produced “highway-capable” electric vehicle currently available I know of (as of this writing) is the $125,000 Tesla Roadster -not exactly a viable option for the average consumer.
Technology can have a strange and interesting impact on our lives. We live in an era where Apple followers have absolutely no qualms about camping out all night to get their hands on one of the recently launched iPads; we all seem to run around craving the latest and greatest mobile Web/GPS-enabled device or technological gadget. Yet for some strange reason, we all seem perfectly content to drive around in our antiquated internal combustion engine powered cars -the basic design for which was developed over 150 years ago.
How nostalgic. We all seem to be living in the past. Will this ever change or has design innovation truly died?
The Dichotomy Of Distraction
The last three weeks have been absolutely furious on the work deliverables front. Small tasks, large tasks, client meetings, research, creative ideation, prioritizing and more prioritizing, organizing, delegating, executing and more executing -and on it goes.
I love the fast-paced variety of digital marketing -and there’s never a dull moment, but towards the end of each day I sometimes wonder where all the time evaporates. Deadlines come and go and as I drive home I reflect on the day retracing key events. Should I have taken on fewer tasks? Spent more time here? Less time there? Did we spend too much time brainstorming ideas? Could we have minimized the client revisions on this project had we spent more time discussing the project brief?
Whenever I experience these busy waves of work, I begin to notice the influence interruptions and distractions have on my concentration and focus. Distractions come in many forms and exist as unavoidable aspects of collaborative team work. In my mind there are generally two forms of distractions I seem to encounter on a weekly basis: those which positively impact my work and those which disrupt focus and negatively impact by ability to get things done.
Positive distractions could be things like chatting/brainstorming ideas with colleagues, taking a coffee break, reading a thought-provoking article, or stepping out of the studio to get a breath of fresh air. In each instance the idea is to temporarily step away from the task or problem you’re working on by encouraging new ideas or perhaps a different approach by changing your immediate surroundings. Think of it as an opportunity to shift gears and reboot your mind. This change of scenery, change of stimuli, can help you to re-attack problems from a fresh perspective. I consider this an effective divergent thinking technique which essentially allows your mind to entertain spontaneous, free-flowing thoughts in a somewhat less rigid context -that being the rigidity of your desk and computer screen.
While some people might regard activities like coffee breaks and chatting with colleagues tantamount to procrastination, I would argue these aspects of the day are essential tools for problem-solving and should be openly embraced -especially if your goal is to be proactively creative with your work. We’ve all heard the popular wisdom: sometimes the best way to solve a problem you’re stuck on is to step away from the problem altogether.
Perhaps my opinion is bias towards the design and creative work I do and the personal discovery employing these techniques have positively influenced my work. Maybe so, but I believe these forms of distractions -if you want to even call them distractions -can be beneficial to anyone regardless of the type of work you do -be it left-brain analytical thinking or right-brain creative thinking and design. If your goal is to exploit the maximum potential of creative problem-solving,
the sooner you come to terms with the fact that inventive solutions to problems do not necessarily present themselves exclusively at your desk from 9 am to 5 pm, the sooner your work will benefit.
Playing the devil’s advocate, the negative variety of distractions can be both good and bad, perhaps even ugly. For the most part these are unintentional or unplanned events occurring throughout the day which may break or challenge mental focus. For example: unscheduled impromptu meetings, software crashing/computer locking-up, being forcibly pulled away from a piece of work to complete some rudimentary administrative task, or putting out the proverbial daily client fire (I do these all the time).
On one hand these events temporarily break your concentration -especially if you’re in the zone. You might be at a critical juncture with your work and feel like pushing forward is the best strategy. On the other hand, being pulled away from the task at hand forces your brain to shift gears.
While this might not always be ideal, surprisingly, I find when I return to the task I was previously working on, my mind is able to approach the problem with a fresh point of view. It’s almost like the reset button has been pushed, my brain re-calibrates and I’ve forgotten where I was previously stuck.
Enter distraction: Ironically, trying to complete this blog post, my focus is temporarily broken as my Web browser suddenly crashes without warning while opening a new tab to check the Web Thesaurus. Hmm… maybe having 8 or 9 browser tabs open wasn’t such a good idea. Re-starting Firefox, then relaunching WordPress, I find I’ve lost a few key written points in this post. Oh brother! I wonder if there’s a Firefox extension out there to manage my uncontrollable addiction to opening multiple tabs? Feeling a little peeved I decide to break from writing and grab a coffee. Returning to my computer feeling energized I tell myself I can finish this post before dinner!
While distractions can certainly have a beneficial effect on your ability to creatively work through seemingly monumental tasks and get things done, sometimes however, it makes sense to simply block out all distracting forces in your environment and focus on one thing. In other words, not trying to multitask your way through the day but fostering quality over quantity, detail over speed, focused thought over fragmented thinking.
My absolute preferred method here is to put on headphones and listen to music -anything, ideally something to fit my mood. I find music (and a really good set of headphones -not earbuds) allows me to become completely immersed in what I’m doing and block out all the extraneous background noise. Through experience I find is when I do my best work.
A few ugly distractions that are rarely good when you’re in the zone:
- email/mobile device
- chat on MSN messenger
- browser open > logged-in to Facebook
Here’s a few places and situations I’ve personally found help idea generation and creative problem-solving. These activities can generally open your mind and distract your thinking -but in a good way:
- lunch/chat with colleagues
- brainstorming (with anyone)
- morning shower
- attending a conference
- going for jog/gym/exercise before, during, or after work
- taking a camera/sketchbook where ever you go
Enter distraction #2: As I wrap up proofreading this post, I hit the preview button in WordPress before I publish. I become preoccupied with how the images and bullet point formatting look in my browser. I suppose I should just focus on the writing and worry about the way it looks later. Funny, I suppose you could call this a self-induced distraction which is clearly preventing me from wrapping up this post.
Learning to manage external forces and distractions around your environment is an art (I am still learning). Using distractions to your advantage can be a powerful way to stimulate creative thinking and problem-solving.
Ultimately though, I think it’s important to find out what works and what doesn’t work for you through trial, error, and experimentation.
Above all, battling distractions is a personal endeavor that can evolve based on the work you’re currently doing and the way you want to work in the future. Have fun!
Surrogate Forms Of Socializing
The other day I was chatting with a few colleagues over lunch about the almost scary rise of Facebook upon our digital landscape. “Facebook is everywhere”; “Everyone is on Facebook”; “Facebook is becoming bigger and more powerful than Google”. “Our clients all want Facebook tied into their digital presence”. One of my co-workers jumps into the conversation and says, quite bluntly, that social media is becoming a substitution for physical interaction where it seems people increasing prefer the safety and relative anonymity of Facebook and other digital social media tools to real face-to-face communication.
The analogy one of my colleagues used was the science fiction movie Surrogates in which people have become almost disconnected from their physical bodies in favor of cybernetically connected façades (avatars) as the primary form of social interaction. In this and other science fiction stories the human condition is depicted as inextricably intertwined and reliant upon neural computer networks causing people live in prolonged zombie-like states of technological perversion, unable to venture out into the real world and make any physical connections with other people or their environment.
Apart from these dystopian views of the future, the popularized notion is that at some point our physical bodies will become redundant and our brains will exist only as containers to send and receive data within grotesque all-life-encompassing, all-immersive digital constructs. Perhaps this is an implausible path for our human existence.
Then again, when I read we’re becoming a culture of distraction and that we’re living in an age where the diminished value of social media elevates Facebook-friending and Twitter-following casual acquaintances above the desire to know our neighbours down the street, I wonder what the word friendship will mean 20 years from now.
Does Facebook undermine the true meaning of friendship?
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 5 years you’ll of course be cognizant of Facebook’s rapidly expanding ecosystem, becoming arguably the most pervasive social media platform of our age. I use the word ecosystem because we’re beginning to see digital infrastructures emerging around media consumption, advertising, and mobile applications, all built on the Facebook platform.
At OSL where I work, it is becoming clear Facebook and other digital communities are beginning to play a vital role in virtually all of our client marketing and communication efforts. It now seems almost laughable to talk about building a successful digital marketing strategy without including at least some rudimentary social media integration -be it Facebook Connect or setting up an official Twitter feed for your company or product. And there seems to be an almost overnight push to make literally every piece of digital communication (i.e. every Web page we build) part of this new social ecosystem with interactive add-on components like the popular ShareThis and AddThis widgets.
In terms of the bigger picture, most notably I think we’re starting to see the monetization of Facebook as a viable advertising platform for products, brands, and services. As the Facebook user-base grows and matures well beyond 500 million I imagine we’ll start to see more innovative digital campaigns incorporating things like mobile APIs using geolocation and branded augmented realities to create more personalized and captivating experiences.
Still, while I do take a somewhat critical view of social media -particularly Facebook, in the first part of this post, I do generally feel most people are able to self-moderate their usage to appropriate levels and balance digital conversations with face-to-face conversations; digital relationships with human relationships.
If there’s one thing I was reaffirmed attending last week’s FITC conference, it’s that there is no substitute for the dynamism of a real face-to-face talk (at least not yet); and, digital social media exists not as a replacement, but as an evolutionary supplement to our social environment. But ultimately it’s up to all of us how these technologies impact our lives.
FITC Toronto 2010 Day 03
The final day of FITC Toronto 2010 has just wrapped up and without a doubt John Underkoffler’s presentation entitled “It Has To Be This” resonates in my mind as the most thought provoking and forward thinking talk of the day -dare I say, the whole conference.
The overall theme for this year’s conference was playground, inspired by childhood memories of tinkering and creating things from scratch; challenging established rules and paradigms of thought. In fact many of the talks I attended over the course of the last 3 days have, in some way or another, shared this common thread by celebrating the importance of experimentation, inventiveness and creativity in all the work we do (or aspire to do).
It’s amazing to witness first-hand the unconventional thinking and problem-solving of individuals like Brendan Dawes, Ralph Hauwert, and Mario Klingemann whose work I would characterize as relentlessly fuelled by a desire to explore the unexplored -to push the boundaries beyond where most would stop. For these individuals (and many more of the speakers at FITC) curiosity is an inherent attribute of research and development where the tendency is to not merely use technology, but effectively invent and shape its future.
Continuing with this theme of shaping and inventing our tools and technologies, John Underkoffler provocatively began his presentation by showing an image of the original Apple computer which he aptly described as a device you purchased, brought home, and it did absolutely nothing until you did something with it (e.g. write a program). Underkoffler’s next slide fast forwards 30 years to the present day displaying an image of Apple’s latest iPod and iPad devices -2 closed and seemingly uncreative tools representing 60 to 70% of Apple’s current ecosystem -that is, 2 devices you in fact cannot use to create anything new. Pausing for a moment I think to myself -brilliant! This is a tangible example of the notion of computer interface going backwards in terms of its ability to be shaped and manipulated. Moreover, this was a perfect segue into one of Underkoffler’s arguments that we must ultimately abandon traditional screen-based user interfaces and input devices (e.g. windows, pull-down menus and buttons designed and optimized to be driven by a mouse) in favour of something new in the form of g-speak (g short for gesture).
Underkoffler’s g-speak research is essentially a real world, working prototype of the gesture based UI first seen in the futuristic science-fiction movie Minority Report. But, this isn’t science-fiction as Underkoffler explains, this will be commonplace for most computer systems in 5 to 7 years time.
We’ll have to see what the future holds for physical gesture based UIs -but for the time being I suppose we’re still stuck with our clumsy mouse inputs and tablets.
FITC Toronto 2010 Day 02
Slide taken from Brendan Dawes’ illuminating and entertaining talk: The Grammar of Interaction Design – FITC Toronto, Day 02
It’s now the end of the 2nd day of FITC Toronto 2010, (now in it’s 9th year) and once again I’m feeling simultaneously overwhelmed, inspired, tired, happy, creative and generally just a little sandwiched full of information at this point. When I say it’s a bit overwhelmed, I honestly mean it in a really good way. I feel there’s so many amazing stories to absorb and people I’ve met, plus hearing talks from some of the brightest and best designers, developers, entrepreneurs and creatives in the business -the word stimulating is an awful understatement.
The funny thing I find about attending design conferences -and to be fair FITC is so much more than a design + technology conference, but a conference for people who make really interesting things, are the very real interactions and social connections they furnish us all who attend. Simply sitting behind a computer on Facebook or texting a friend is just not the same; watching one of the talks recorded, streaming on a Web site -not even close. You really have to be there, see and hear people talk and exchange ideas with others in the flesh to realize the value of going to a conference. In fact I tweeted about this 2 weeks before FITC while reading a post here arguing that conferences are merely just expensive blog posts -bah, absolutely not!
Robert Lindstrom, North Kingdom – An Inside View
What I’ve realized is that conferences are like gigantic meet-ups where you get the opportunity to network and cross-pollinate working techniques, gain insights and knowledge into how others do what you do. When I meet other individuals who are as passionate about the same things that get me out of bed in the morning, I get energized. Creatively this is like being a kid in a candy store -I can’t really describe it -I just feel like I want to go out and make something amazing -something original -something creative and new, I don’t know.
Off to bed now, day 03 approaches!
Grzegorz Kozakiewicz, Analog Designer in a Digital World
FITC Toronto 2010 Day 01
As I make my way to FITC Toronto 2010 Sunday morning, tumbling through the schedule trying to decide which presentations to attend, I admit to being just a little intrigued by the title of Jamie Kosoy’s talk: The Importance of Whiskey While Working (and other work flow tips, too!).
Kosoy, who works for one of the most prolific digital agencies in North America (Big Spaceship) as a technical technical director, delivered a rousing presentation full of insights into effective digital work flows, orchestrating positive team dynamics, and of course, Whiskey-inspired anecdotes into their studio’s creatively unconventional approach.
Whiskey it seems, serves as the perfect metaphor for staying loose, agile and open-minded when embarking on complex digital design campaigns as Kosoy describes.
Of course, the work produced by Big Spaceship is innovative to say the least, emphasizing problem-solving on a level most organizations perhaps only dream or talk about implementing. Nevertheless the benefits of the odd shot of Whiskey now and then can be beneficial to any team open to think beyond the box once in a while.
Here are a few memorable take-away ideas from from Kosoy’s talk I was able to jot down:
- Try to stay positive; with a lot of the talk lately surrounding economic uncertainty in the workplace, client projects can suffer -try not to take everything so seriously -have fun.
- Whether you are a designer or developer please name your damn layers! -in the future someone will eventually need to go back into your files and find something.
- Don’t pigeonhole yourself or other team members into being called a Flash developer or a PHP developer (and so on..) -specialist labels are never an accurate reflection of the work most of us do on a daily/weekly basis -you are a multi-talented, multi-disciplinary team member.
- Check your ego at the door. Big egos and attitudes undermine team collaboration. If you can’t work well with others, you might as well stay home.
Steve Jobs Versus Everyone
I find it odd to come across an article on Web standards this morning on Smashing Magazine proclaiming the end of Flash by including, quite oddly, imagery of United States military personnel.
In presenting what the author considers compelling reasons for Web standards adoption in favour of Flash and (I suppose) other plug-ins, we see imagery of a soldier brandishing a machine gun while displaying a big thumbs up.
Ahh.. yes.. of course, I see the connection -the debate is over; diplomacy has failed and it is now time for brute military force -destroy Flash and all plug-in Web technologies; it’s our way or the highway I guess (or, at least in the eyes of the misguided author).
This rationale really bugs me. That is, I am a big proponent of thing X (in this case, Javascript) so I am going to do everything in my power to stamp out and criticize thing Y (in this case Adobe Flash) because I feel there is only one viable way to build Web sites. It’s like being stuck in a meeting where one individual monopolizes the discussion by sucking all the collaborative air out of the room.
The author goes on to argue that Flash sites are beginning to gradually disappear from the Web. Strange, I didn’t notice anything different about the FWA today. Perhaps the author’s conjecture was based upon the recent news regarding Apple’s latest SDK agreement which essentially blocks Flash developers from the iPhone and iPad. So I suppose Flash sites must have instantaneously disappeared overnight then?
I am sorry, but I like to think there are multiple ways to architect Web experiences. Certainly a site like Record Tripping for example, could not realistically be achieved exclusively through Javascript libraries and HTML5 contrary to what Flash opponents would have you believe.
C’mon, if you actually took the time to research your post by reading between the lines of the (ongoing) Apple versus Adobe feud, you would realize a lot of the premature hype regarding the demise of Flash actually surrounds Steve Jobs’ desire to keep the App Store free from competitive offerings. As John Gruber (a.k.a. Daring Fireball) writes:
So what Apple does not want is for some other company to establish a de facto standard software platform on top of Cocoa Touch. Not Adobe’s Flash. Not .NET (through MonoTouch). If that were to happen, there’s no lock-in advantage. If, say, a mobile Flash software platform — which encompassed multiple lower-level platforms, running on iPhone, Android, Windows Phone 7, and BlackBerry — were established, that app market would not give people a reason to prefer the iPhone.
And, obviously, such a meta-platform would be out of Apple’s control. Consider a world where some other company’s cross-platform toolkit proved wildly popular. Then Apple releases major new features to iPhone OS, and that other company’s toolkit is slow to adopt them. At that point, it’s the other company that controls when third-party apps can make use of these features.
While Steve Job can quite frankly do what ever he wants to maintain Apple’s competitive supremacy in the mobile application marketplace, we all know technology moves fast and things eventually change. The iPhone is certainly not the be-all and end-all ecosystem for mobile application development. So, as a developer, if you do decide to start playing by Apple’s strict rules, be prepared to surrender your freedom to the whims of the tyrannical App Store. To paraphrase an old saying: All Your Base Are Belong To Steve -can’t say we didn’t all see this coming.
A Picture Speaks A Thousand Words
Over at 37Signals there’s an old post written back in 2008 I recently stumbled upon, provocatively entitled Why we skip Photoshop which not surprisingly has stirred my thoughts on the role of visualization in design and to a larger degree, problem-solving in general. While personally I do not agree with Jason Fried’s perspective on this topic, I do have an enormous amount of respect for the work their firm delivers.
Almost 2 years on and 205 comments later it becomes clear in sifting through some of the old fallout posts on this particular debate, the basis for Jason Fried’s argument against using Photoshop was, and certainly still is, based more towards a development-centric approach to UI design and is not necessarily a call against Photoshop itself, but the very act of employing visual renderings period -which apparently they deem counter-productive.
Jeff Croft sheds light on this point over at his personal blog:
“…the post actually has very little to do with the actual tool (Adobe Photoshop), and is really more related to workflow.
37signals doesn’t do a visual composite phase in the process of developing their products. Instead, they jump directly from rough sketches (on paper or in their heads) to development using HTML and CSS.”“No clients. This is a big one. 37signals is not a client services company. Rather, they build products. 37signals is a small team of people who all understand the web and web development very, very well. It’s easy for them to visualize things and move on…”
While this last point underscores one of the core differences, in terms of process between, for example, a client-centric agency like OSL Marketing (where I work) and a software development firm like 37Signals, I still find the omission of visual mock-ups (in static format) somewhat limiting from a design and problem-solving perspective.
Regardless of the problem or specific area of focus dealt with -be it software development, automotive design, architecture, product engineering, movie production, or digital marketing, there is supreme value in building articulate visual mock-ups. Sometimes words simply can’t express what an image may be able to spontaneously convey -in these instances it’s fair to acknowledge images have the power to speak louder than words.
Pictures Foster Understanding
The common thread, at least among the projects and teams I’ve participated, in working towards a common goal, is the belief that imagery can express ideas and be one of the most -if not the most, effective tool for communicating and visualizing deliverables.
Look and feel renderings, mood boards, storyboards sketches, iterative thumbnail concepts -all of these illustrative techniques exist as problem-solving aids and tangible artifacts with the purpose to invoke discussions between clients, designers, developers, and so forth.
Imagery can take on many forms: from highly conceptualized proposals which might be light on specific details to inspire and move a project forward or more down-to-earth, pragmatic design layouts (e.g. pixel perfect mock-ups) where subjective interpretations may be kept to a minimum.
In any case, visual mock-ups help us see things holistically, forging a segue between abstract thoughts and theories which initially exist only in our minds with the concrete manifestation and application of ideas.
Pictures Sell Ideas
In digital marketing for instance, creative teams must ideally create look and feel layouts to help clients visualize the end result while also supporting the production requirements for Web developers who must ultimately engineer creative mock-ups into functional components. This process is crucial to realizing a smooth production work flow, exposing potential development obstacles, and generally building consensus among team members across disciplines. Creating detailed renderings has absolutely nothing to do with the Web-savviness or imagination ability (or lack thereof) held by the people involved, but in providing a visual context to a written project/creative brief and clearly articulating objectives in a format everyone can quickly and easily understand. The old adage A Picture Speaks A Thousand Words seems quite relevant:
“…the idea that complex stories can be described with just a single still image, or that an image may be more influential than a substantial amount of text. It also aptly characterizes the goals of visualization where large amounts of data must be absorbed quickly.”
A Famous Example
Finally, consider for a moment the well-known, if not famous story of conceptual artist Ralph McQuarrie hired by George Lucas back in 1975 to create a series of presentation renderings that were initially used to convince executives at 20th Century Fox to finance a little movie called Star Wars. Not only did McQuarrie’s drawings get the ball rolling on filming and production, they later served as the foundation for character design, environments, vehicles, and pre-visualization for many of the story’s key elements.
Imagine George Lucas trying to sell the initial Star Wars concept/script to movie studio VPs without these intriguing concept paintings created by Ralph McQuarrie.
Need Inspiration? Find Your Passion, Stay Up Late
Lately I’ve noticed a number of posts on several of the sites and blogs I frequent talking about inspiration: Who or what inspires you? How do you find inspiration? Where does inspiration come from? It seems endless, the sheer mountain of information on the Web proclaiming the best way to get inspired. Sometimes it almost seems forced and a tad repetitive. Maybe it’s just me and I’m spending way too much time online, but I wonder if it’s becoming a little too trendy to talk about inspiration. You don’t have to go far online to find exhaustive top 10 lists of inspiring techniques, work samples, or inspiring design styles -I see loads of these everywhere -it’s enough to not inspire you.
To be fair, most of these articles are extremely useful with great advice and food for thought, but my take on the subject of inspiration is a little different and somewhat unorthodox.
I believe inspiration, and to a large extent the activities and mindset required to channel it, has more to do with personal passion than anything else. Passion equals motivation and motivation leads to action -I believe these attributes form a synonymous bond. The old Cliché actions speak louder than words comes to mind, or what you do is more significant than what you say -in my mind these elements are crucial to capturing, then applying inspiration.
True inspiration comes from a genuine passion for something. It can be hard to quantify, but when you’re passionate about an endeavour you’re willing to go the extra mile; more than likely to stay up late and push beyond the normal boundaries and conventions. Passion means you’re focused and dedicated to exploring something to a threshold point where others may simply stop, give up and throw in the towel. Passion means you’re motivated to take action: create a piece of artwork, write a book, build a house, climb a mountain -take on the tasks others consider daunting or deem impossible.
Motivations can be rooted in a strong desire to challenge oneself physically, mentally, or in other specific capacities. But here’s the thing. What I find personally inspiring will not work for you. Let me rephrase that. The things I find inspiring most likely won’t inspire you because inspiration is purely subjective and can vary greatly from one individual to the next.
I’m not going to tell you how I get inspired -not because I’m unwilling to share my techniques, but because I simply do not know how or when it actually occurs. It is quite literally spontaneous and strangely different for me every time. I feel there are unfortunately no rules or established guidelines for gaining inspiration contrary to what some people might tell you. Inspiration can’t be compartmentalized into a logical process, cloned into a 10-step system, or best practice -it just happens. You can’t force yourself to get inspired or motivated, you can only do the things you find personally necessary to invite inspiration into your mind.
I got mine -now go find yours.
What Is A Brand?
I’m certain most people would agree a brand is much more than just a logo, name or tag line -but rather a complex interplay of these elements and more. I can think of many interesting levels surrounding the brand strategy sphere: loyalty, equity, engagement, orientation, implementation. Many of these components help us understand a brand’s identity and ultimately become essential in orchestrating meaningful customer experiences and interactions.
But there’s a silly side to branding I’d like to briefly explore, which I’ll get to in a moment. First, in terms of defining the essence of a brand, let’s consider the numerous interpretations and perspectives on the subject out there. Here are a few of the more popular definitions of brand I’ve dug up to refresh our memories:
A brand is:
• a promise .1
• what people think of you. 2
• the unique expression of a deep belief system. 3
• differentiation.
• the sum of all the associations, feelings, attitudes and perceptions that people have related to the tangible and intangible characteristics of a company, product or service. 4
I think these are all really good and I could probably go on filling this page with 20 or 30 more bullet point definitions of brand -but I won’t. If anything these points illustrate the relative subjectivity in trying to quantify precisely what a brand represents and how we can leverage brand concepts to drive things like product awareness, credibility, and trust -things every company/product want.
But is a brand something we can simply distill down to universally accepted (limited) set of attributes? -or is it something less tangible, driven by emotion and open to interpretation?
I wonder if the very idea of “brands” has become somewhat stale in recent years. You can find countless discussions online by [branding] strategists and experts proclaiming “a brand is this…” or “a brand is that…”. But what exactly are we debating? Are brands even relevant anymore in the age of digital transparency and social media?
Regardless of how you feel, brands can mean different things to different people, so rather than write yet another blog post authoritatively analyzing the theoretical nuances of branding, I thought it might be more interesting (and fun) to explore one of the more ineffective, mediocre and, shall we say, idiotic trends in corporate branding.
Case in point, the monotonous and bizarre over-usage of “Ameri” as a prefix to a company name.
America: land of the free, home of the brave; America: land of opportunity; America: the beautiful, the great, the strong, the bold; made in America; proudly American. Well, I suppose all these phrases vividly encapsulate how companies adopting the Ameri-prefix envision themselves and how they would want to seen by others. But this angle to branding is really quite tasteless in my opinion -most people see through this flaky nonsense.
Patriotic inspiration can be a great touchstone for enhancing corporate mission, vision and values, but in this context it seems exploitative, unoriginal and downright fabricated to the point of undermining perceived trustworthiness.
I don’t consider myself a branding expert, but if you feel as I do that branding (certainly company naming) is about fostering differentiation, telling a unique story, building trust and awareness among consumers, then clearly the CMOs of these companies listed above need their heads examined. There’s nothing creative or memorable about repurposing your country name into a corporate identity. What are these companies promising? How are they expressing something unique? Perhaps this is just lowest-common-denominator design thinking at its best.
If you find any good Ameribrand examples I’ve missed, please send them to me.
References
1 Your logo Is Not Your Brand
2 Brand: It Ain’t the Logo
3 Brand Identity Is More Than Image – The Case for Product Informed by Brand Truth
4 Brand – Defined
Web Versus Movie Experiences
Last week it occurred to me what’s missing from a lot of modern digital design and interactive marketing on the Web, and it began with a simple question that crept into my head while sourcing imagery for a post I wrote recently exploring some of the challenges facing digital teams:
Why is it many of us are able to vividly recall movies we’ve seen 5, 10, even 15 years ago (or longer), sometimes recalling very specific scenes, characters, and visual details -yet we cannot remember that award-winning, cutting-edge Web site we saw on thefwa.com last week?
“Time Is Not Important, Only Life” -don’t ask me how I remember this quote from Luc Besson’s visual masterpiece The Fifth Element -but I do, along with a lot of other memorable scenes involving the heroic Corbin Dallas (played by Bruce Willis) and the evil Zorg (played by Gary Oldman).
Weird, but when you actually think about it, time actually is very important when recalling events and experiences in our mind -and is precisely the reason why so many Web experiences fall short and are easily forgettable.
Here’s my theory: movies typically demand on average 90+ minutes of our full undivided attention whereas Web sites (and I am referring to sites chiefly in the entertainment and info-tainment genre) perhaps only require 5 to 10 minutes (at best) of our attention to fully experience.
What this says to me is that the majority of the Web sites out there in this genre, Web sites supposedly designed under the premise of heightened interactivity and user experience to engage and entertain people, are in fact more time-disposable than we digital creators would care to acknowledge.
The Web is a hyper-transient medium characterized by speed and immediacy of information delivery. By contrast movies are linear, passive experiences demanding much more of our time.
The other factor working against Web-based experiences are the sometimes varied and distracting environments in which we view sites. Interactions with Web based content can occur anywhere Internet access is available —and lately, this seems to be everywhere. For many of us this can be noisy public spaces including the office, the kitchen —even while commuting on public transit. Sometimes these environments are not the most conducive to immersive experiences. Moreover, how compelling can a Web site experience be on a 320 x 240 pixel screen with the sound of a bus engine accelerating in the background?
Theatrical movies performances on the other hand are presented in controlled, purpose-built environments for the optimal experience. That is, a very large dark room, acoustically isolated with multi-channel surround sound, a very large screen, and a comfortable seat -and the popcorn and snacks don’t hurt either. This eliminates a lot of the unnecessary distraction working against our Web-based experiences.
Aside from the constraints of time and space, the movie industry is also much more established than the Web industry. To be fair, movie budgets can be enormous and well supported with diverse teams of pre and post production specialists: photographers, location scouts, art directors and set designers, lighting technicians, musical score and sound designers, script writing, special effects, editing, and the list goes on.
A typical [marketing] Web site on the other hand will only include a small handful of contributors: perhaps several Web developers, creatives/designers, a copywriter, project manager, technology supervisor, several senior managers, and 1 or 2 account service liaisons -that’s about it.
Even with all these challenges and differences, digital teams can still learn a great deal from how movies are made and the working strategies we can employ to genuinely improve the quality of the Web experiences we create.
If we can’t control where people view our sites, we can certainly take steps to control what people experience by thinking more about interactive storytelling and narrative design as a start.
Hi, my name is Darryl Jonckheere. I currently work for