Saul Bass Google Doodle

Saul Bass’ gets his 93rd birthday celebrated in an awesome Google doodle that looks like a movie title sequence, if Bass were to design one for Google. Notable sequences from “Psycho,” “West Side Story,” and “Ocean’s 11,” among others, are referenced, each time bringing up the Google logo. See the Google Doodle here.

Providing The Best Mobile User Experience Possible

This article is a great look at both client side and server side approached to mobile user experience design for everything from non-smartphone through tablets and desktops. The article is extensive but is a really good read with a lot of good considerations for your next mobile project. Read the article here.

Square Introduced Square Stand hardware for iPad

It is really interesting to see how many companies within the past few weeks have started entering the hardware business.  First it was Adobe with the new Creative Cloud base pen and now Square announced a new product called Square Stand for vendors using Square Register for iPad to process payments. Square Stand features the familiar credit card reader that made Square so popular with smartphone and tablet owners. The stand looks to replace traditional POS cash registers by mounting an iPad in a stylish case that resembles Apple’s iMac desktop computers. Watch the video of it in action here.

Even Google’s Own Developers Won’t Be Seen Wearing Google Glass

I was chosen as a Google Glass Explorer but since I did not apply for them at last years Google I/O conference I have not received them yet.  With this technology looming on my horizon I have been giving a lot of thought about how I will use them, where I will wear then and how people will react when I have them on.  This week came an interesting article that pointed at that this years Google I/O conference not a single Google presenter was seen wearing Glass so why is this and why weren’t they wearing their own product? This article takes an interesting look at the situation with interviews from Google employees and Google I/O attendees. Read the article here.

Hellman’s Recipe Cart

Last year, Hellmann’s Brazil brought us Recipe Receipt, where menu suggestions were printed out on the receipts of those who purchased the product. Now, the brand has stretched the idea further with Recipe Cart, which uses NFC technology to immediately suggest meal ideas to shoppers as they walk past other ingredients. Read the article and watch the video here.

Machines for Life: The PItchfork interview with Daft Punk

I can remember the last time the release of a new album got more hype than the forthcoming Random Access Memories from Daft Punk. I don’t their latest interview with the online magazine Pitchfork.com because of the quality of the writing for instead for the quality of its design. The article incorporates video, images and other content all controlled by the user scrolling through the article.

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Since it was recently reported that Apple and Jony Ive are working on a“very flat” approach to redesigning the iOS there have been a ton of concepts popping up. But the one above from Simplyzesty.com’s  art director Philip Joyce is the most interesting one I’ve seen. The video imagines the entire process from installing the new iOS through an entire exploration of what this new design direction could look like. You can watch the entire video here or read about the work in more detail on Simply Zesty;s blog.

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McDonald’s Theory

A great article by Jon Bell on how if you break the ice with the worst possible idea, it starts the discussion and people suddenly get very creative. He used to do it to trick co-workers when they were trying to decide where to eat for lunch and no one has any ideas. He would recommend McDonald’s, everyone unanimously agrees that we can’t possibly go to McDonald’s, and better lunch suggestions emerge. Thus the name The McDonald’s Theory was born. Read the article here.

How To Maintain Hierarchy Through Content Choreography

One of the issues that has to be addressed in responsive design is how to maintain hierarchy as elements on the screen are resized and reflowed. The majority of time seems to be spent trying to solve this problem for the visual hierarchy but figuring out how to do it for content as it moves from  single to multiple columns is just as important. This article takes a great look at some solutions to the problem you have to read if you are considering responsive design. Read the article here.

Content Knowledge Is Power

As brand experience continue to expand across multiple platforms the more there is a need for strong content strategy. It is due to the fact that companies have a decade or two’s worth of Web content that’s shoved somewhere underneath their redesigned-nine-times home page. But when you take the time to understand the content that already exists, not only will you be able to ensure that it’s supported in the new design, but you’ll actually make the entire design stronger because you’ll have realistic scenarios to design with and for — not to mention an opportunity to clean out the bad outdated muck before it obscures your sparkly new design. Read the article here.

Glass How-to: Getting Started

I thought this short video from Project Glass was interesting as it shows the Glass interface and how to get started using it. Watch the video here.

How The Future Of Google Search Is Leaving iPhone Users Behind

Google’s personal assistant app, Google Now, just rolled out for the iPhone but it will never be as good as the Android  version. This article explores all the reasons why and how it is going to effect iOS. Read the article here.

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Order Pizza on Your Xbox 360 With the New Pizza Hut App

Once you’ve linked your Xbox Live account with a Pizza Hut account, and chosen the nearest pizza parlor, orders can be made using the game controller, voice input or Kinect gestures. And for those looking to combine ingredients for that perfect pizza, custom orders are also available. Read the article here.

The Quantified Self

This article explores the idea of what your life will be like when anyone can access information about you as easily as doing a Google search. I love the writing style and I love the way the topic is presented. Definitely worth the read. Read the article here.

Design Your Tablet Interfaces for Horizontal Swiping

Tablet usage is exploding. New research reports that users use tablet interfaces differently from desktop ones. When using a desktop interface, users have an instinctual preference to vertically scroll. However, when using a tablet interface, users have an instinctual preference to horizontally swipe. Users use desktop and tablet interfaces differently, so you should design them differently too. This article does a really nice job of walking you through several designs with the pros and cons of each.Read the article here.

Fashion Font

Fashion-Font has been created since 2007 by Paris based Korean designer Yvette Yang with her original view on typography and fashion. Fashion-Font shows it’s trends of each season. One alphabet delivers various messages as it contains many different fashion items and trends. It is meaningful to have both positive critical view on fashion and graphic design as the project has been continued more than five years, it records fashion trend history and also the first typography introduces fashion visually and conceptually. See the font here.

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One of my new favorite things about Netflix Streaming is the recent addition of collections of TED Talks which range across a broad set of topics from design, humor, innovation and many more. A few months ago I was exploring these talks and came across ‘Chip Kidd: Designing books is no laughing matter. OK, it is.’ I have long admired the design work of Chip Kidd who has designed some of the most iconic books of our times but was really blown away when I saw his TED Talk. I was so blown away by not only for the designs that Chip walks the audience through but because it is probably one of the best and most dynamic stage presentations I have ever seen from any designer. It is funny, engaging and shows what great presentation craft really is all about. Plus how can you not love someone who uses the phrase ‘typography in denial’. You can watch the whole TED talk above or click here to watch it on YouTube.

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Walkabout NYC is a behind-the-scenes look at the people and places fueling our creative, technological, and entrepreneurial culture in New York City. The event invites the world into the workspaces of NYC’s innovative companies like Gilte Group, eBay, MLB, Seamless, Facebook, FourSquare, Spotify and a ton more to see how they work. This year the tech edition will be on May 17th from 11:30 – 6pm. Some of the sessions are already selling out so check it out here, signup and register for your events now. See you there!

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Twitter Music

Up ’til now, Twitter has been a great place to discover what’s happening, what your friends are doing, and what everyone’s talking about. But finding new music? Not so hot. Until today, that is. Twitter #Music ($Free) is a new official app that makes it easy to find what songs are trending, what artists are emerging, what the artists you follow are listening to, and what tracks your friends are digging. Just sign in with your Twitter account, link the app with Spotify or Rdio, and enjoy. Download the app here.

40 Pinterest boards to follow

Being entirely image-focused, Pinterest is a brilliant place to find creative inspiration. But being an enormously popular site, there’s also an awful lot to wade through. To save you the time and energy involved in searching for the best stuff here is a selection of the best Pinterest boards for graphic design, logos, packaging, typography, branding and print design. See all the boards here.

Dove Real Beauty Sketches

Dove conducted a social experiment to prove that women are more beautiful than they themselves think, as part of its ongoing focus on “real” beauty in its advertising. This campaign uses an FBI-trained forensic sketch artist Gil Zamora, who usually sketches people described by crime eyewitnesses. First he drew portraits of women according to their own description, and then he drew portraits of those same women according to strangers who had met them on the day. The differences between how they describe themselves and how others describe them are immediately striking. Watch the video here.

How Reframing A Problem Unlocks Innovation

I liked this article because it takes an interesting look at how taking an interesting perspective can lead to stunning breakthroughs in any industry. Read the entire article here.

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It’s crunch time as I am finishing up my the content for my Adobe MAX session next month but I took a break to sit down to do an interview with the Adobe Edge Inspect team for their blog. The interview looks at how we have been using the tool in my studio for both the design and development of mobile experiences like the new Starwood mobile web sites but also how it has totally changed the way we do client presentations for mobile projects. Read the entire interview on the Adobe Edge Inspect Blog here.

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5 Ways to Thrive During Marketing’s Seismic Shift to Mobile

During SXSW, major brands convened to discuss how to move forward with mobile. Urban Airship’s Scott Kveton outlines the key trends and strategies that emerged and provides examples of brands adding value via mobile. Read the article here.

Designing Ahead: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

More and more teams are turning to an agile process for developing their digital experiences. But time after time I hear about the problem of how to start projects in an agile environment and how far should design and UX be working ahead of the developers.  This article takes a look at the good, bad, and the ugly of this problem with a few suggestions on how to improve it. Read the article here.

First Look: How The Google Glass UI Really Works

In a 50-minute presentation at SXSW, Google’s Timothy Jordan walked developers through what the Google Glass “Mirror” API, how the UI is going to work, design principles for Glass and a few app previews. Read the article and watch the video here.

Foursquare’s Upcoming iOS Release Is A Pivotal Moment For The Company

FourSquare is one of those companies that drives me crazy because they have such a good idea, such good data and they just can’t seem to figure out how to leverage it into business success. This week they released their latest app re-design and this may be their last chance to get it right.  This article looks at the problem and the new app in the hopes that they will finally get all of this figured out. Read the article here.

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For the past year I have been able to work with an incredibly talented multi-disciplinary team to completely re-design the mobile websites for all nine of our global hotel brands including Westin, Sheraton, St. Regis, The Luxury Collection and W Hotels. The challenge was to bring all the functionality and branding of the full desktop experience  to a mobile device. This process was difficult because it required a huge amount of work to simplify a lot of complex interactions and many different user needs for this new form factor. The design challenge was to create a new template system that could be re-used across all nine brands so all the sites could be launched at while but needed to be flexible enough so the experiences where differentiated and just as brand enhancing as their desktop counterparts. All sites were also launched in 7 different languages including English, Spanish, French, Chinese and Japanese. You can see more of the designs on my Behance page or just pull up any of our brand sites (Westin, Sheraton, St Regis, W Hotels, LeMeridien, Aloft, Element, Four Points or The Luxury Collection) on your smart phone to check them out.

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Thomas Keller, On Why Passion Shouldn’t Drive You

As a creative director you are always looking to see what is going to make a great design, a great team member and someone who is going to make an impact over a long period of time. That formula can be difficult to perfect but one of the things I strongly believe is that desire is much more important than passion. This interview with one of the world’s best chef’s and one of my creative idols Thomas Keller of Per Se and French Laundry who gives the best explanations I’ve read on why this is important. Read the article here.

Web design inspiration: 35 examples of CSS

It’s amazing what can be done with CSS these days. Support for the latest CSS3 properties is strong in the latest versions of all the major browsers – even Internet Explorer – and the possibilities for typography, animation and interactivity have never been greater. But finding web design inspiration can be tricky. This article has a number of really interesting example of how CSS can be used.  Read the article and see all the work here.

Chris Buck on Chase Jarvis Live

I have been lucky enough to have been friends with Chris Buck for a few years now and Chris is one of the world’s best portrait photographers.  He recent sat down for an interview with Chris Jarvis on his show Chris Jarvis Live and I think it is a great look into why Chris Buck has been so successful and what makes his work so unique. Watch the video here.

Home: Facebook’s Bold New Vision For Social Smartphones

The Facebook Phone is finally here. And, as expected, it’s not really a phone at all. Home is a free, downloadable skin that gives existing Android phones a total Facebook makeover, transforming both lock and home screens into immersive, edge-to-edge slide shows of photos and status updates. It is, of course, a huge power play by Facebook but it’s also a genuinely exciting new vision for mobile design. Read the article and see the video here.

Facebook Home Breaks The Fourth Wall Of Mobile Design

Yesterday, at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled Facebook Home, the company’s next-gen mobile product. Built on top of Google’s Android platform, Home is all about layers of immersive content. Instead of forcing users to jump in and out of apps, Facebook’s new experience integrates services on top of one another, enabling users to slide seamlessly from one piece of content to the next. This article looks at why it is about time someone took this approach.  Read the article here.

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I have always loved the design, animation and personality of the characters in the music group Gorillaz which were created by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett. The duo has a new project called Monkey Journey To The West which is a live action stage show that uses acrobats, singers, contortionists, martial artists, and animation to retell the story of the Monkey King, Tripitaka, the Dragon Prince, Pigsy, and Sandy on as adventure in search of the holy scriptures in India. The trailer looks pretty cool, I love the design and I will be buying tickets since it be playing here in NYC at Lincoln Center from July 6 – 28.

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A few weeks ago I saw Google’s new site for Google Glass had launched and it is a technology that I find really intriguing with huge potential. I also saw they had opened the submission process so you could write 140 words and send 5 photos on what you would do with a pair and the best submissions would be chosen and given the opportunity to be one the first people to get a pair. I put together a submission which you can see here, posted it on Twitter and Google + and waited to see what would happen. Late Saturday afternoon my iPhone lit up with a tweet that read “@sdgates You’re invited to join our #glassexplorers program. Woohoo! Make sure to follow us – we’ll DM in the coming weeks.” So it looks like your truly is one of the people who will be getting their hands on one of the first pairs of Google Glasses and stay tuned here as I will be blogging the entire experience from attending the event in NYC to pick them up through my thoughts on what it is like using them in real life.

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Why ‘Intuitive’ Interface Is A Myth

Was your computer mouse “intuitive” before you learned how to use it? Probably not so this article explores why intuition alone shouldn’t drive your UI design. Read the article here.

The 2 Epiphanies That Made Me a Better Negotiator

For most of my life, I was a terrible negotiator. I never demanded the raises I deserved, and I overpaid for everything. I knew that you needed to “drive a hard bargain” and “be willing to walk away from the table” if you wanted to get the best possible deal. I just never seemed to be able to do it. This article looks at two simple but key insights into how to become a much better negotiator. Read the article here.

The Next Big UI Idea: Gadgets That Adapt To Your Skill

This article takes an interesting look at how as devices become more complicated their interfaces must be able to teach their users over time. I think this is going to be a huge trend in all digital interface design going forward as the demand for consumer time grows greater and the apps that can deliver value and content will have a real advantage. Read the article here.

Why Every Company Needs A ‘No Bozos’ Policy

There is nothing more soul-crushing than being constantly surrounded by bozos in your life.  And there’s nothing that kills a company faster that the rapid proliferation of bozos working for it (especially as CEO). One of the first detailed discussions of the damage bozos can do to companies was in Walter Isaacson’s recent biography on Steve Jobs at Apple and this article chronicles his insights on the subject. Read the article here.

Inspiration and Imitation: A Note For Beginners

New designers have a hard time finding the balance between inspiration, imitation, and their level of taste vs. their skills. This article lays out some good advice on how to overcome these problems.  Read the article here.

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Talent Isn’t Fixed and Other Mindsets That Lead to Greatness

In the creative world, we spend a lot of time talking about “talent.” If we believe that someone’s talent is fixed—including our own—we are effectively writing off any options for growth. But if we believe that talent, or intelligence, or any other ability, evolves as a result of how much effort we put in, the opportunities are endless. This article is an interesting perspective on how to keep growing through your career. Read the article here.

Improving Usability And User Experience Through Consistent Web Design

We can be influenced by an infinite number of web sites but a consistent web design is something growing increasingly rare. Having a consistent website design not only adds usability to the website but assist in improving the user experience, as a result of which you have lower bounce rates, returning visitors and many more advantages to name. This article is about how a consistent design can play a vital role in improving website usability and offer a pleasant user experience. Read the article here.

7 Lessons From the World’s Most Captivating Presenters

If you have ever seen me present at a conference or read this blog for any period of time you know that I obsessed with the art of the presentation. I liked this article because it is a combination of an article and SlideShare deck that outlines 7 Lessons From the World’s Most Captivating Presenters. The insights in this article are a great foundation for improving your own presentation style. Read the article here.

The 10 Commandments for Giving a Perfect Presentation

Another great article that outlines 10 foundational insights everyone should follow when doing presentation at a conference or at work. Read the article here.

TickTock

The guys from The Incredible Machine wanted to make the clock relevant again by connecting it to the web. The prototype is based on a small computer called Raspberry Pi and combines different Google calendars in real-time. In this way the clock will always show the updated calendars of the whole family or work team. See the clock in action here.

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Google has unveiled a new portal for marketeers and agencies called Think Insights that is a massive resource of  studies they’ve conducting, the trends they’re tracking, and the ideas they’re exploring across industries, platforms and audiences all in one place. They say it is designed to bring you everything from high-level visions to deck-ready data points and I have to admit that I found myself adding quite a few articles to my Pocket Queue as I went through the site. I have seen other brands try to create portals like this but they rarely keep them stocked with fresh content so it will be interesting to see if Google can break the mold and make this a real on-going resource for creative minds or if it will look promising only to fade away in the coming months. You can check out the site here.

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10 Things Really Amazing Employees Do

In general I’m not  fan of the ‘top 10′ style of writing but this was an exception since I thought the content was dead on. I see so many designers who have no idea that to be successful means more than just being a good designer – it means you need to understand how to be successful at your company. I think this list if followed with sincerity and not as a kiss ass can really help build a team and lead to success for designers. Read the article here.

Baratunde Thurston: Getting Things Done Is Inspiration + Sheer Willpower

This video is a really funny speech by Comedian and author Baratunde Thurston who walks us through his own journey from lone standup comic to Director of Digital at The Onion. He shares his insights for pushing projects to completion and the lessons he learned while working with skeptical teammates. The key, he says, is to not confuse using tools with creativity. Watch the video here.

Designing For The Multifaceted User

Designing with users in mind is a tricky thing especially when are designing digital transactional systems where users can arrive to the same experience with multiple different motivations. Not only does it require of us a sound understanding of who our users are, but the actual act of translating what we know about them into a well-designed experiences. I think this is a huge problem for digital designers as digital experience become more complex and we have to build them with static and dynamic content combined from multiple sources. Read the whole article here.

Volkswagen Search Engine Ad

Thought this was a unique approach to online advertising where Volkswagon took the phrase ‘ultimate business car’ and did some hardcore SEO optimization on the image search results so 5 images would appear in the correct order creating an ad. Watch the video here.

Nike Interactive / Reactive / Kinetic Window Displays

Thought this was a cool video showing some of the interactive, reactive and kinetic window displays that Nike created for Selfridges in London recently. Watch the video here.

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• Understand the different between a long-term vision and individual projects in creating a successful mobile project roadmap for mobile apps and mobile web sites

• Techniques for how to successfully get buy-in on your mobile roadmap at your company

• Designs and development insights learned from creating complex iOS and Android apps for smartphones and tablets including the creation of our pioneering state-aware user experience design concept

• Designs and development insights learned from our work to completely re-design our mobile web sites for our 9 brands in 9 different languages

It will be Tuesday May 7th from 2:30 – 3:30 on and we hope to see you there.

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Behind the Facebook News Feed Redesign

Yesterday Facebook released a video showing how they will be evolving their news feed across all their platform. In general it looks to make the timeline more visual and tries to solve their problem with having content for your friends and people you are following. You can see the video walkthrough here. I also read a really well written perspective on the new re-design from Matt Buchanan at the The New Yorker who feels that “It lacks the grand ambition of Facebook’s last major products”. You can read the entire New Yorker article here.

Logo Reductions for Screen Use

Students at Oded Ezer’s Typography for Interaction Design class at H.I.T (Holon Institute of Technology), Visual Communication Dep., in Israel have been given the following brief: “Re-design a screen compatible version for a known print-based logo.(as App launcher icon, logo for splash screen, favicon, etc.) Define and keep in mind the core values of the brand, and the technical requirements for the adjustment to screen. The resulting work is a really interesting evolution of brands like Ikea, Energizer and Quaker. See the work here.

Logical Breakpoints For Your Responsive Design

There are several tactics for deciding where to put breakpoints in a responsive design. There is the rusty idea that they should be based on common screen sizes, but this doesn’t scale well. There are no “common” screen sizes.Another popular tactic is to create a breakpoint wherever the layout breaks. This article explores the problem and is a must read for anyone doing responsive design. Read the article here.

The Five Worst UX Mistakes Websites Make

The user experience of websites has improved by leaps and bounds over the years, but I still run into sites that make me ask, “What were they thinking?!” In the hopes it will help us all avoid these pitfalls, this article details the five worst UX mistakes that we still see people making in website design. Read the article here.

Building A Better Responsive Website

Keeping with the responsive design theme this article walks you through everything you need to think about when creating a responsive design and some code sample on how to produce it. Read the article here.

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