I’ve been talking a lot this year about ways we can foster our own creative, independent thinking. Creativity and inspiration aren’t natural resources. You have to cultivate them with lots of practice.
Aarron Walter
The Story Behind Next Pint, Beer Social
Idea To Interface: Sketchnotes From Future of Web Design London
I recently gave a talk at Future of Web Design London entitled “Idea To Interface” in which I challenged and hopefully inspired my fellow web designers to create side projects to fuel creative thinking, and inform the work we do at our day jobs. I worked with the amazingly talented Mike Rohde, illustrator for Rework on the illustrations for the slide deck. As a sketchnote guru, Mike was the perfect fit for this talk as it’s all about capturing one’s ideas on paper or in a simple prototype.
BetaBrand’s Use of Emotional Design
BetaBrand makes hipster clothing, each piece with its own story and witty micro-brand. The interaction patterns on their ecommerce site are equally as clever. Add something to the shopping cart and watch it peel out in a flaming blaze of glory.
BetaBrand has obviously been checking out Photojojo. Would love to hear from BetaBrand about how emotional design has influenced sales and marketing figures.
A Darwinian Theory of Beauty
Denis Dutton at TED exposes the connections between our biology and a common sense of beauty.
Able Design on the Power of Design Details
Able Design’s lead in description of their work on the branding for Squared Eye sums up the power of designing for emotion. Details are no small matter. They are what makes us fall in love.
Scott Thomas on Emotional Design in the Obama Campaign
Regardless of where your politics lie, it’s hard to discount the powerful role that design played in the success of Barack Obama’s campaign for president in 2008. The design campaign was masterfully coordinated to inspire trust in a mostly unknown candidate, and appeal to voters emotion with the clarion call for “hope”.
I recently sat down with Scott Thomas, Design Director of the Obama campaign and author of Designing for Obama, to discus the role emotional design played in the design campaign that elected a president. Below is the transcript of our conversation.
Color Mixing With RGBa
A few months back I launched a long overdue redesign of this site. I’ve often thought of the content on my site as information layers, like the strata you would see in a cross section of the earth. Perhaps it’s an expression of my subconscious memories of growing up in the midwest where the earth and agriculture are a central part of life. Though I’ve long since moved away, the landscape still drives my aesthetic. Similarly, web pages stack content sections. A blog post, for example, would have a layer for the article, a layer for meta data like tags, and yet another layer for comments.
Jesse James Garrett on the State of User Experience
As the field of user experience grows and evolves, UX practitioners find themselves having to master new techniques to take on new challenges. Adaptive Path’s Jesse James Garrett takes a look at where user experience has been and where it’s going.
Christopher Fahey: The Human Interface
Presented at The Web and Beyond conference in Amsterdam, Christopher Fahey discusses how to design human interfaces, and why products are people too.
Interview With Jason Putorti of Mint
As part of the research I am doing for my next book Designing for Emotion, to be released in early 2011 by A Book Apart, I am conducting interviews with designers who are employing emotional design techniques in their work. I recently spoke with Jason Putorti, the designer of the Mint.com about how design influenced the success of the business, and helped their users overcome the fear of sharing financial information.
Interview With Dave Gorum of Carbonmade
I’m in the process of writing a new book entitled Designing for Emotion to be published by A Book Apart in early 2011.
As part of my research, I’ve been interviewing some designers who are pushing the bounds of emotional design in their work.
Dave Gorum is deftly lacing humor into Carbonmade, a web app that helps designers, artists, and photographers create stellar portfolios. The informal copy, goofy illustration, and unforgettable style of Carbonmade
is helping drive conversions, and creating a loyal fan base of the product. I spoke with Dave recently to learn a little more about the thinking behind his work.
The Evolving Publishing Industry
If the publishing industry can deliver on the promise made by the iPad and rich media technologies, a content renaissance could be around the corner fueled by throngs of customers ready to shell out for a more compelling experience.
