dechezette

12 February 09

Pecha Kucha = PowerPoint Poetry

I was recently invited to a event on the future of digital experiences. The invitation touted that presentations would be given in a fast paced and creative style dubbed Pecha Kucha. I unfortunately did not get the chance to attend, but did do a little Google search on this mysterious technique. The presenter has a little less than seven minutes to go through twenty slides at twenty seconds each. Clearly this isn’t an across-the-boards replacement to all occasions to present, but it certainly has a place and forces the presenter to get to the point and more importantly entertain the audience.

Check out this short article from Wired to learn of its origins, and the fun video demonstration above.

09 February 09

Branding Metallica

A few months ago I was listening to an episode of Business Week’s Innovation of the Week podcast where David Turner from the branding agency Turner Duckworth was talking about designing the packaging for Metallica’s Death Magnetic CD. Yes, I just used the words “innovation”, “branding”, and “Metallica” in the same sentence.

Turner Duckworth is an agency that is based out of London and San Francisco and boasts the revamp of the Coke brand amongst recent projects. It’s interesting to hear how Metallica was savvy enough to not only look outside the music industry for inspiration, but turn to a branding agency of all places.

The concept as described on the podcast sounded a bit uninspiring to be honest. But I recently saw the execution and think that it’s quite beautiful.

Check out the podcast: Business Week—Innovation of the Week

08 February 09

Element Joins the Visual Social Bookmarking Party

There’s a whole host of sites out there that let people share bookmarked imagery from around the web. These sites are great for creative inspiration, or for just wasting time. Recently launched Elements, doesn’t seem to add anything to the mix. FFFFound! and vi.sualize.us are two of the better ones that also seem to have the most critical mass.

Source: Mashable

06 February 09

Sounding Smart Design

Looking to sound smart in front of clients or at cocktail parties? No problem. The books that can help you are easy to spot at your local bookstore. The serif typefaces give them the a scholarly look. The no-nonsense white canvas says “I mean business” and makes the buzz-word titles easy to spot. The sound bite on the cover gives you the immediate satisfaction of feeling smarter before you’ve even opened the book.

We laugh and we cringe when someone quotes from one of the white books. Yet we can’t stop buying them.

NEWWORK

I usually find it quite pointless when magazines try to recreate a print experience online. NEWWORK is one of the few exceptions I’ve seen. The site is a simple side scrolling experience with an elegant semi-translucent overlay of the issue number. The large-format pages actually reduce down very well, and the site does a great job of letting the viewer experiencing the magazine in a totally different way.

Visit http://www.newworkmag.com