03 February 09
Someone at the office recently pointed me to a great resource for interaction design. Konigi collects great examples of interaction techniques, interactive design, and how-to’s from around the web. You won’t find burning points of view or an active dialog here, but you will get a simply organized, easy to browse, powerful visual reference that should prove extremely useful for design research and internal conversation starters.
Check out konigi.com
02 February 09
One of my regular podcasts today turned me on to the beautiful art of Taiyō Matsumoto. His surrealist style is apparently pretty unconventional for manga. You can definitely see the Moebius influence. The loose line work also has a bit of a reportage feel to it.
I’m not a big reader of manga, but Matsumoto’s No. 5 is something that I will definitely be picking up.
31 January 09
Buy ten sandwiches, get the eleventh free. Earn one point for every mile. Spend $100 and get a $5 rewards certificate. Ten percent off the first Tuesday of every month. Three percent cash back.
Loyalty programs have a variety of structures. When they work, they work great. When they don’t, they can damage your affinity for a brand. In certain highly-competitive markets business and brands are going above and beyond to forge a loyal relationship with their customers.
According to Consumer Reports “about 85 percent of of U.S. households participate in at least one rewards program.” My wife and I have participated in several over the years with varying results. Here’s a look at a few of them — the good and the bad.
First we had citizen journalism. Now we have citizen photojournalism. UK-based Demotix gives independent photographers a global reach to major news media outlets such as France’s Le Monde and the UK’s Daily Telegraph.
Scoopt and Citizen Side are two other similar services.
In related news, Getty Images began sending out invitations this week where select Flickr users will be able to license their images through Getty’s Flickr Collection.
30 January 09
SALT Branding recently released a report on trends in branding for 2009. I’d be surprised if there was anything in here a competent brand manager or marketer wouldn’t already know. But nonetheless, they’ve done a good job refining into a nice, easy to read package. And smarter still is the timely tie in to branding in a recession.
Eight years later though, I’m still waiting for someone to reference something besides Nike-iD. Sheesh.