oak: Blog

Siteleaf is Coming

Thu, 09 May 2013 04:00:00 GMT

For the next month at Oak, we are redesigning and rebuilding Siteleaf, a product of ours that we've wanted to reapproach for some time. Siteleaf has become an invaluable tool for managing site content for us and our clients.

We believe that content management shouldn’t be hard. That you should be able to host your website anywhere you want. That websites should be able to outlive their CMS. That our tools should be simplified, not dumbed down.

We are building a CMS that is transparent and honest. A smart, lightweight, considered platform for creating and maintaining websites. We are building the CMS we've always wanted. One that lets you focus on your content instead of your management system.

The new Siteleaf is launching on June 3rd. Sign up to be notified. See you there.

A message from Zeus Gorham Munkist

Tue, 07 May 2013 04:00:00 GMT

Hello. I'm Zeus Gorham Munkist. I consider myself an ordinary man. I put my pants on one leg at a time. I like walks on the beach and enjoy a nice cup of coffee in the morning. Let me tell you a story about how my ordinary life changed forever.

Sure, I collected Beanie Babies in the 90s, a man has to make money somehow right? Well, that didn't work out so well. I next tried my hand as an A/C repairman in south New Mexico but discovered I didn't enjoy hanging off balconies much. Another career attempt was as a sport fisherman in South Texas, but the fish left me empty inside. I was broke, alone, and headed nowhere slowly filled with deep, depressing dissatisfaction.

It was then, at the end of my rope on a cold winter night, that I accidentally made the greatest discovery of our time. I found love in a hopeless place in my life while stumbling half conscious into some sort of pepperoni and dough-filled heaven. Here were ordinary people like me smiling and having an amazing time seated around these circles of truth. It felt like a perfect combination of geometry, triangles slicing away through the circles and into my soul. The thin crust restored my trust. Its cheese brought me to my knees and I wept openly, uncaring what the world would think of me. I had found pizza.

There comes a time in every man's life when hard choices have to be made. Where a fork in the road appears. It was an easy choice. I took the road paved with pizza. I hired Daniel Blackman and Oak Studios to make the finest app the world has ever known. Life getting you down? There's an app for that and it's called Pizza Compass, your tool for sliced success.

Download Pizza Compass for iPhone at pizza-compass.com.

Working Not Working wins a Webby award

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 04:00:00 GMT

We are excited to announce Working Not Working has won a Webby, taking home both the Webby and People’s Voice awards in the Professional Services category.

Congrats to Justin and Adam for leading the best network of freelance creatives!

Execute Podcast

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 04:00:00 GMT

Execute is a new podcast by Josh Long and Drew Wilson about people who execute on ideas immediately when inspired rather than following the normal rules.

We were lucky enough to be their first guests in this new series, and chatted about the making of our latest product Gazette.

Listen to the episode over on The Industry or download it on iTunes.

Introducing Gazette

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 04:00:00 GMT

I love reading what smart people write. I hate trying to find what smart people have written.

Normally I discover great content through Twitter when someone else makes the discovery and shares a link. Other times I visit some of my go-to smart people’s websites to see if they've written anything new recently. This isn’t the greatest of systems for enjoying web content. Some people’s solutions to this is to subscribe to RSS feeds of their favorite sites. Up until this point they were probably using Google Reader (RIP) in some form, which set the stage for what people think of when they think of RSS readers—a continuous stream of new content, separated by source, with unread counts, favoriting, folders, tagging, etc. Of course countless other services came out that improved upon and evolved this idea, but most of them remained in the same sandbox.

That’s why we created Gazette.

Gazette is different. There are no unread counts, no tagging, no favoriting, no folders, no stream of continuous content. Gazette is a service that happens to use RSS so you can subscribe to your favorite sites. What you get is one ebook every Friday with the content from your subscriptions that week. One ebook with a start and an end. Open it in your favorite reading app on your iPad, iPhone, or other ePub compatible device and you're presented with a table of contents with that week's content. You can take it with you on the subway, to the pool, or wherever you enjoy reading. If you enjoy highlighting text as much as we do, then you’ll love the Gazette reading experience. You can even connect to Readmill so that each week’s issue is pushed to your device automatically.

We’re pretty excited about the potential of Gazette, and we’re just getting started. It's about time that the experience around subscribing to web content became more like reading a book rather reading your email.

Introducing Blue

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Today we are excited to announce the launch of our first iOS app: Blue.

Blue provides 36-hour weather forecasts relevant to your location in a fast and fun interface. Swipe up to see each hour represented in a beautiful, colorful gradient visual: whether you're in Fiji, or simply at work.

The unique hourly colors are generated based on three variables: temperature, humidity, and sunrise/sunset times for your current location. Temperatures are shown in either Fahrenheit or Celsius (controlled by your iOS region settings), and icons provided by Symbolset (a new set soon to be released) help reinforce the weather conditions.

The app was inspired by a weather widget we had previously made for ACORN, our internal status board. We quickly found how well color can describe weather, much more than just a number. After using it for just a few days you’ll start to learn what the colors mean, and know exactly what kind of coat to wear when you see green.

Translating our widget to iOS, we experimented with layout, content, typography, and color. We realized fairly early on that we wanted the app to be dead simple, in order to keep the app uncomplicated and easy to use. The design rounded into form by building prototypes and interacting with them full-size on mobile devices and then adjusting variables based on those interactions. This tight feedback loop allowed us to hone the core interactions, layout, typography, and colors into a polished product.

If you haven't already, head over to the App Store now and get Blue for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch (search for “Blue Weather”). It is available for only $0.99 for a limited time.

Be sure to follow @partlyblue on Twitter for updates, and visit partlyblue.com to see the app in action. We hope you enjoy using Blue as much as we’ve enjoyed making it!

Oakweek Los Angeles

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 05:00:00 GMT

To kick off the new year, team Oak packed up and headed to Los Angeles, trading the concrete jungle for the Hollywood Hills. We explored the unique culture and enjoyed the weather while working on some challenging projects, making for a rewarding and fun week.

A coast to coast flight ended, and with our gear loaded into a rental we pushed into an unseasonably chilly night and the first of many traffic-filled L.A. drives. Upon arrival at our Airbnb house for the week we were given a quick tour and then wasted no time slipping into the hot spa and enjoying a panoramic view of the city at night.

One of our goals for the trip was to experiment with building an iOS app from start to finish in one week. We decided to make an app inspired by a widget we had previously made for ACORN, our internal status board. This process included wireframing, design, branding, testing, building a marketing page, lots of learning, and finally submitting the app to the App Store before hopping on the plane back to New York (more on that soon).

To balance working on projects there were lots of fun nights out. One evening we headed to the historic Arclight Cinerama Dome to watch Gangster Squad on release day. It was a memorable experience to watch a movie about Los Angeles with a local audience.

We also had a chance to visit the wonderful exhibit of legendary film auteur Stanley Kubrick’s work at LACMA which was a real treat. Notable sights included shooting schedules and annotated scripts with his handwritten notes, foreign language movie posters, set props from films like Full Metal Jacket, A Clockwork Orange, and The Shining in addition to a wide selection of lenses and cameras used in his productions. There was also an exhibit of Baroque painter Caravaggio's work next door so we stopped in and took in some stunning paintings as well. The exhibition included eight works by Caravaggio himself in addition to fifty or so others by artists from Italy, Spain, France, and the Netherlands who carried Caravaggio’s legacy into the late 17th century.

Another highlight of the trip was the chance to work with one of our long-standing clients, Quarterly Co. from their office in L.A. We met up with co-founder Zach Frechette at a burrito spot nearby and then rendezvoused with the whole team to discuss some ideas for new features to come later this year. In a world where working remotely is commonplace, it was delightful to be able to work alongside our clients for a day and hear their vision for the company this year. After spending the day with Quarterly, we said our goodbyes and departed for dinner.

L.A. certainly has some delicious food and drinks. Some of the food we sampled during the trip: Dan Sung Sa (traditional Korean, cheap soju), Palms Thai Restaurant (Thai Elvis impersonator and cheap good Thai), lunch at Forage in Silverlake (amazing arugula salad), AOC Wine Bar (tasty tapas and wine), Katsuya (fancy sushi), Scoops (handmade unique ice cream), Chateau Marmont (pricey cocktails and celeb-spotting), and Cafecito Organico (good coffee). All recommended.

One evening we had dinner at Genwa, a Korean BBQ spot where we feasted on various bibim bap bowls and traditional appetizers. Afterwards I think we all wanted to have every meal served in a heated stone bowl. It was certainly one of the few times I can remember the last bite of a dish being as warm as the first. Yum.

Besides eating, we also devoted some time to discussing upcoming projects and goals for the year. We reaffirmed plans to focus more on our own products like Symbolset, Dropmark, and Siteleaf. 2013 is a really exciting year for Oak!

Our last full day was reserved for visiting an amusement park. After tragically driving out to Six Flags only to find it was closed for the day, we pulled into Knott’s Berry Farm, a fun park with tons of roller coasters. If you ever find yourself at Knott’s and like coasters, do ride the Silver Bullet, Xcelerator, Sidewinder, and Screamin’ Swing. Repeatedly. YOLO.

We hiked up to the Hollywood sign, encountered the Walk of Fame, and spent a week in the Hollywood hills (and L.A. traffic). We also ate a ton of great food, collaborated on an iPhone app, and enjoyed the L.A. lifestyle.

Highlights: Cruising through Beverly Hills, riding roller coasters, soaking in the hot tub while taking in a panoramic view of the Los Angeles sprawl, 7 Eleven Slurpees, WWE-edition Uno, inside jokes, meowing, movie night (Beverly Hills Cop, Beverly Hills 2, Iron Sky), crafting an iPhone app, card games, working with Quarterly Co.

Welcome Sawyer

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 05:00:00 GMT

As we kick off 2013, the team at Oak is excited to welcome front-end developer, designer, and all-around hustler Sawyer Hollenshead to the family.

We first got to know Sawyer last year when he served his RIT internship with us, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to have him officially on board.

As a Pennsylvania dairy farm kid growing up, Sawyer has a penchant for exploring the outdoors and an appreciation for the calmness of the solitude (as seen in his inspiring photo blog). He is the mastermind behind Organized Wonder, a creative network where you can share and discover the best talks, documentaries, interviews, short films and various other videos scattered across the web. Previously Sawyer worked at Wander, Mozilla, and Dumbwaiter.

Welcome Sawyer!

SkyFonts Launch

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 05:00:00 GMT

At Oak Studios we love type. As such we were thrilled to design a consumer-facing site for the newly launched SkyFonts service offered by Monotype Imaging, a leading global provider of fonts and related technologies. We collaborated with the team at Monotype to design the site using their existing branding, while their capable programmers handled the development.

The SkyFonts service is a first-of-its-kind, revolutionary font rental system that makes it easier to find the perfect typeface for any context by allowing users to try or rent fully functional fonts. As of today’s launch SkyFonts already provides more than 8,000 fonts through its online platform and associated iPad app.

Users can try fonts free for up to five minutes in desktop applications or use credits to rent fonts temporarily. After a rental period expires the fonts are automatically removed from the user's system via the SkyFonts plug-in.

You can sign up for a free account now and for a limited time, all new accounts include 10 free credits. In addition the same SkyFonts account can be used on up to five workstations.

SkyFonts has the potential to enhance how designers search for type, while improving the way fonts are purchased. As people spend more time reading on the web than from printed sources, quality tools for type on the web continue to grow in importance. SkyFonts is a great resource that moves type on the web forward.

Learn more by visiting the site at skyfonts.com.

Movember

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 05:00:00 GMT

This November the team at Oak is taking part in Movember, the annual month-long moustache-growing initiative to raise awareness of men’s health issues.

Throughout the month we (along with our friends at Working Not Working) will be trying our hardest to grow questionable facial hair and raise money to support the Prostate Cancer Foundation, Livestrong, and other Movember programs.

Follow our daily progress and cheer us on by donating to the cause:

http://oak.is/movember

Symbolset for Red Cross

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 05:00:00 GMT

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy you can help recovery efforts with a purchase of SS Social. During the month of November, 100% of the proceeds will be donated to the American Red Cross disaster relief fund.

The hurricane, which hit the East Coast last week, affected millions of people including ourselves. Our studio in Brooklyn is still without power a week later, but we are one of the lucky ones. Thousands of people had it much worse and lost their homes, businesses, or loved ones.

Recovery efforts are underway, but it has been estimated that the relief effort may be the most expensive in U.S. history. Here’s a small way to contribute to the efforts.

SS Social is a symbol font comprised of logos of web-based services and products. Find out more about it here.

Emoji jack-o’-lanterns

Sat, 03 Nov 2012 04:00:00 GMT

Pumpkin carving was a bit delayed due to Sandy, but worth the wait. Here are two Emoji characters (😷 U+1F637 and 😱 U+1F631) recreated as jack-o’-lanterns by Larry and Mike.

Sandycam timelapse

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 04:00:00 GMT

Yesterday as Hurricane Sandy hit New York City, an overwhelming 200,000 people tuned into the live feed broadcasting from our studio in DUMBO.

Our cameras (and internet connection) died eventually, but we were able to piece together this timelapse showing the rising water levels in Brooklyn Bridge Park from 1:00 pm to 7:30 pm Eastern time.

Archives from our Manhattan Bridge live feed can be seen at Ustream.

Thankfully we all made it through the storm safe and sound, and hope to be back in the studio tomorrow.

A better hurricane

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 04:00:00 GMT

With Hurricane Sandy above us, what better time to drink a hurricane? Making your very own hurricane is simple. You’ll need:

Gosling’s Black Seal Rum
Pat O’Brien’s Hurricane Mix (or juice, see below)
Orange slice
Maraschino cherries

If available use Pat O’Brien’s Hurricane Mix. Don’t have it? To make your own you’ll additionally need:

4oz passion fruit juice
Half a lime
2oz squeezed orange juice

Juice the lime half into a cocktail shaker with ice. Add the other ingredients and shake well (this should yield enough for two hurricanes).

Fill your favorite festive glass with crushed ice. Pour in your liquid hurricane mix about half way, and fill the rest with Gosling’s. Garnish with an orange slice and cherry.

Then kick back and watch our hurricane live stream.

Hurricane Sandy

Sun, 28 Oct 2012 04:00:00 GMT

Having our studio located on the Brooklyn waterfront has its perks. It also means we are in Evacuation Zone A when it comes to hurricanes.

Today as we prepped the studio for the megastorm, we set up a live feed to keep an eye on Hurricane Sandy.

In the meantime, we’ll be staying safe in the comfort of our homes.

UPDATE: We have a second camera capturing stills over Brooklyn Bridge Park. This image updates every 60 seconds (Oct. 29, 1pm):

UPDATE 2: Our live feed just died and our studio is surrounded by water, looks like that’s it for the live feed tonight. Our still image feed is still going strong…for now. (Oct. 29, 7:50pm)

UPDATE 3: With the internet down in most of the city, our still image feed is also down. (Oct. 29, 10pm)

UPDATE 4: Thankfully we all made it through the storm safe and sound. We uploaded a timelapse of the events yesterday in case you missed it. An archive of the live videos can be seen on Ustream. (Oct. 30, 3:30pm)

Follow @oakstudios on Twitter for more updates.

BetaFriender updated

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 04:00:00 GMT

We’re back from Brooklyn Beta, three inspiring (and exhausting) days filled with wonderful friends new and old.

After last year’s conference we built BetaFriender to help connect fellow attendees by comparing recent Twitter followers. BetaFriender is now updated for 2012, including Beyond Beta attendees.

Check it out at betafriender.com.

A conference recap

Missed the conference? The talented and entertaining Jonathan Mann sums it up nicely in a song:

We’re at Brooklyn Beta

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 04:00:00 GMT

Fall is in the air in Brooklyn, and it’s time for our favorite web conference once again.

The team at Oak is thrilled to spend the rest of the week at Brooklyn Beta with some of the friendliest, smartest, and passionate people in the web community.

If you happen to be in the area attending the conference, look for our smiling faces wearing Oak buttons. We'd love to meet you, chat over beer, and answer any questions about Dropmark or Symbolset—we may even have an exciting sneak peek for you (wink wink).

Also stay tuned for a BetaFriender update for 2012!

24 hour redesign

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 04:00:00 GMT

Last year .net Magazine questioned our sanity when we decided to redesign our website in one week.

This year, we decided to do it all in 24 hours.

Developing a project under rigid time constraints challenges your efficiency as an individual, your team's ability to work together, and your sanity. This timeboxed, iterative approach encourages flexibility and rapid response to change.

Our journey started at 10am on Friday during Oakweek with some initial discussion, rough wireframing, and a Tweet. Just like last year, we had no prior preparation.

Last year we redesigned our website in 1 week. This year we’re doing it in 1 day… starting right now. #oakweek
— oak (@oakstudios) August 24, 2012

We began by evaluating what was working on our previous site, and identifying areas to improve in the existing design. Our previous aesthetic choices had aged well so we decided to evolve the design along the same path. We kept Gloriola (that's our jam) and our typographic hierarchy. The bright palette reflects a fresh and optimistic tone from a studio that's having fun. We retained a simple grid structure that allowed us to easily adapt a home page, blog, work, and about pages.

Luckily we had a fairly decent code base to start with. We decided to keep the existing HTML structure (for the most part), and scrapped almost all of the CSS after running it through Unused CSS. Our time constraint made this a lengthier, riskier decision but the new, leaner code was worth it. The code we did retain lead to a pleasant surprise on our now colorful tag pages, thanks in part to some leaky CSS classes.

Reaffirming our commitment to our core products, Dropmark, Symbolset, and Siteleaf (which powers this website), we put them up front and center on the home page.

A page to house all of our projects was something left out of our last redesign, and one goal for this version. We love to share the work we do, but generating content and formatting case studies can be time-consuming (a big reason why it never made it into our last site). So we decided to keep it simple: one large column on the left for images and one small column on the right for copy.

Another feature we didn't get around to in last year's revamp was what we like to call “fuzzy navigation”—part useful, part easter egg, part I’m Feeling Lucky. Type in any word after oak.is and we'll try to find what you're looking for (try: design, oakweek, or Ryan Gosling). Fuzzy navigation searches site content, our custom short URL handler, as well as our bitly links. It's experimental so try it out and you might find some surprises along the way.

“Release early, release often” is a motto we've learned to live by. It’s okay to build quickly, even if that means not being perfect right away. The site continues to evolve. There is still work to be done and features we'd like to add, but the current site is a better reflection of where we are now as a company.

Oakweek culminated with the site launch at 7am Saturday morning. 21 hours filled with designing, coding, pool breaks, BBQ pizza, dark ’n’ stormies, Netflix, Red Bull…and 3 hours to spare.

21 hours later, the result of our 1-day site redesign is live: oak.is #oakweek #redbull
— oak (@oakstudios) August 25, 2012

Does all of this sound fun to you? You are crazy. And you should join our team.

We are hiring

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 04:00:00 GMT

At Oak, we create products (like Dropmark, Symbolset, and Siteleaf), publish weblogs (idsgn.org), and design projects for clients like NASDAQ, Apple, Rackspace, OkCupid, 37signals, and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

We are looking for a talented developer who shares our passion for making things that are beautiful, simple, and usable to join our Brooklyn-based studio. We are also looking for a fall design intern.

Interested? Find out more:

Special thanks to the talented Julia Robbs for making us look good with her camera.

The perfect Dark ’n’ Stormy

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 04:00:00 GMT

An Oakweek favorite, the Dark ’n’ Stormy was invented in Bermuda just after World War I, combining the unique flavors of Bermudian dark rum and a splash of fizzy ginger beer.

Making the perfect Dark ’n’ Stormy is simple, finding the correct ingredients is another story (but it’s worth the hunt).

What you’ll need:

2 oz Gosling’s Black Seal Rum
6 oz (½ can) Barritt’s Bermuda Stone Ginger Beer
Ice
Lime for garnish (optional)

Instructions:

Fill a tall glass with ice.
Add ½ can of Barritt’s ginger beer.
Top with 2 oz Gosling’s Black Seal Rum.
Enjoy.

Note: The combination of Barritt’s and Gosling’s is absolutely key, don’t even bother making this with anything else.

Gosling’s Black Seal can be found at most liquor stores, but unless you’re in Bermuda, you’ll have to hunt for Barritt’s ginger beer. Buy it online or find it in specialty shops (in NY or elsewhere).