dechezette

06 November 09

The FeedRead: week of 11/01/09

The FeedRead is a selection of items of interest that have actually made their way to my eyeballs from my bottomless feed (or have resulted from a random linkage therein).

87 Cool Things

I mysteriously found this shared presentation in Google Docs. Turns out it was presented by Andy Berndt and Tom Uglow from Google Creative Lab at Advertising Week 2009 in September. Great examples of how people, brands, and even Google are using Google’s open technology to build great and unexpected stuff.

Venice: Signs of Life

Artist, filmmaker, photographer Mario Cavalli shot some pics on his iPhone on a recent visit to Venice that capture an authentic side to the city oft overlooked. Visit his Posterous site to get a visual recap of the 2009 Venice Biennale.

CNN.com Relaunch

CNN.com relaunched last week with a new site design by HUGE. Razorfish’s Shiv Singh was not impressed. The thread in his blog post is worth a read.

3D and UI

Artefact Principal Rob Girling obsessively evaluates the increasing role 3D is playing in UI, where it’s working and where it’s not.

The Future of Digital Comic Books

Will the Apple Tablet create the digital marketplace for comic books? The Chicago Sun Times takes a poke at that. Lots going on in the e-Reader market on almost a weekly basis these days.

LinkedIn Redesign

LinkedIn is rolling out a redesign. Looks promising

Help Save Mickey

The Times gives an overview of Disney’s reinvention Mickey Mouse. Not sure where I sit on this one.

Dachis Group Launches Collaboratory

Social Business Design agency The Dachis Group launched their new site (dubbed Collaboratory) as a way to practice what they preach. Here’s partner David Armano’s description of the site’s mission.

My Architect

From the TED archives: Nathaniel Kahn previews moments from the documentary movie that he created about his father, the famous architect, Louis Kahn. Nathaniel talks about how he approached the film like a personal journey, always moving forward and never revisiting his subjects. If you haven’t seen this movie, rent it. Powerful, powerful stuff. The last clip in particular here always chokes me up.

05 November 09

Photographer Tone Captures NYC’s Nightlife

Photography Tone does an amazing job of capturing the energy, the grit, and the haze of New York nightlife.

Check out his site for regular updates of his nights out on the town.

04 November 09

Loving the Retro Pop-Art Beautiness of Kevin Dart

Check out more of Kevin’s work on his site.

Great HTC Commercial

HTC has been slowly expanding its brand awareness beyond techies into the mass market mindshare. This recent spot is a great move in that effort. They’ve injected just the right amount of hipness as to not alienate the non-hip while making all the other players (except for Apple) look ordinary. It’s a spot that’s easy to connect to.

Their tagline “Quietly Brilliant” speaks to how they’ve been an understated innovator. I suspect that that will change as they gain ground in the marketplace.

You don’t need to get a phone. You need a phone that gets you.

Love it.

Newsflash: MasterCard Realizes That Consumers Appreciate Value

Sparks went off when MasterCard’s Worldwide CMO Larry Flanagan realized that when you provide value to consumers you’ll have their attention.

Larry’s realization seems to align with a previous post I did that talks about how that’s exactly what MasterCard hasn’t been doing.

I have to admit the demo of the Priceless Picks iPhone app caught my eye. But after playing with it I realized that it’s just more of the same fluffy, 3D, useless crap - the user reviews seem to agree.

I continue to be disappointed with how MasterCard fails to bring to life one of the most icon brand platforms in recent history. Truly priceless indeed.