Brandon Jones
Next Gen Tech: A Cautionary Tale
Yesterday, my iPhone became the latest victim of a wave of buggy units. About 3 months after unboxing the phone I lost the entire bottom strip of touch sensitivity. For those of you who don’t have an iPhone, that means no call button, no email, no Safari, and no iPod. Add that to a number of other functions that are tied to being able to touch the bottom of the screen and you begin to see the picture: no bottom strip = gimped iPhone.
Save the World, Work from Home
In honor of the theme of this year’s Blog Action Day, we’ve decided to bring up the topic of commute reduction. After all, it is one of the reasons that drove most of our team to go indy. It’s as simple as this: we believe that a good number of people that work in the realm of technology can find ways to work from home and cut down on the number of days that they spend commuting back and forth to an office. Sure, this isn’t for everyone, but with a relatively small percentage shift towards this new trend, very real benefits could be reaped from the environmental perspective.
How to Market Online: Nike Gets It
Want to push a ton of product to a target demographic? Then follow Nike’s lead. Unwilling to settle for just one award-winning, mind-blowing, heart-thumping flash site, Nike has been assembling an armada of flash-based product demos that all come together in their hub site. What follows is a recipe for marketing success in the changing new media landscape.
Let’s say this first: I’m not a Nike rep, I don’t wear Nike shoes, sport Nike golf clubs, or own stock in Nike. I’m just a young, “plugged in” designer who’s been keeping an eye on Nike’s advances into the new media picture via a set of some pretty hot websites. It seems like a month doesn’t go by when I don’t find Nike gathering a new award or developing hype around a new product. It’s not their products that excite me, it’s their strategy.
The Designer’s Reading List
When I was just getting started in design, I asked one of my favorite designers what single thing I could do to improve and expand my capabilities as a designer. His answer: “Read. Read everything you can get your hands on, empty your bank account, then read some more”. Looking back on 7 years of designing, I’d have to say that was the single greatest bit of advice I ever received. So, without further ado, here’s my list of recommendations.
In the Still of the Night
The All Night’er is something that all of us have dated at one point or another in our lives. Staying up til’ 3am running on nothing but coffee and the knowledge that any sane person would be sleeping certainly isn’t a rarity in any case. And heck, it’s a little romantic the first time you do it… like the first time you try to stay up all night when you’re a kid. Whimsical, sure, but for the design professional who gets his or her work from freelance contracts, the all nighter is more than an occasional date, it’s a long-term partner, and understanding it is key to conquering it and unleashing your true productive power.
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- Shane: @justlikeair
- Peter: @peterchester
