iA / Follow-up to “Sweep the Sleaze”

Tag: Branding

Follow-up to “Sweep the Sleaze”

– Our call to question the common practice of blindly adding social media buttons to every page got a lot of attention, and found many friends across the board. This proves we are onto something. Let’s look at some of the more critical reactions.

Sweep the Sleaze

– Promising to make you look wired and magically promote your content in social networks, the Like, Retweet, and +1 buttons occupy a good spot on pretty much every page of the World Wide Web. Because of this, almost every major site and brand is providing free advertising for Twitter and Facebook. But do these buttons work?

Business Class: Freemium for News?

– I had a perspective-changing talk on the subject of pay walls with the chief executive of a big publishing company (no, I can't tell you who). He asked me what I think about pay walls.

2008年世界IT業界予測

– 今回の予測が2007年予測くらい実現したアカツキには、来年は有料サービスにしようかと思っています。2008年は7件の予測をお届けします。

Branding Crimes: 4. The Start-Button

– We have hated this thing for over 12 years now—the button that launches a pull-up menu. Only the twisted minds over at Redmond could come up with this. Yeah, I know it's not a real "Start" button anymore, with Vista it's become more of a clickable logo like the Macintosh one. But, after all this time, it is still a push-up menu. And that is another major branding crime. Why?

Branding Crimes: 2. Stealing Interfaces

– A wonderful example of what not to do if you believe that Brand = Interface. Copying interfaces defines you as a second choice company.

Branding Crimes: 1. Missing Logo

– The Interface is the brand—but few interfaces qualify to leave out the main orientational element—the logo.

Face Off: The Essentials of Online Rebranding

– A company may choose to rebrand itself because of a merger, a bankrupting scandal, or because they simply have outgrown their name. These are solid reasons; however, on the web, rebranding should be considered with the caution of a face transplant.

Web Trend Map 2007 Version 2.0

– We have done it before, and now we’ve done it again—the poster of most successful websites, mapped to the Tokyo Subway, is back!

The Future of News: How to Survive the New Media Shift

– News organizations cannot continue to ignore the global shift from institutionally-controlled media to user-controlled media. They have to redefine their processes and face the obvious question: Do we still need old media for news?

10 Newspaper Myths Deconstructed

– The San Francisco Chronicle is in financial trouble. InfoWorld stops printing. Time Magazine redesigns its print edition and fires 50 people. Quo vadis, newspapers?

USA Today: Mission Accomplished

– When I read this morning that USA Today "refashions itself as a social network", I got a little shock as I was worried that they are going to eat our client's lunch. Fear nothing, client. Among information designers the USA Today redesign is a laughing stock.

チーズバーガーのインターフェイス

– すべてのものにはインターフェイスがあります。インターフェイスを形作ることは、そのもののキャラクターを形作ることです。ブランドとは、そのキャラクターを世に伝えるものです。マクドナルド、iPodや任天堂DSを見ていればインターフェイスこそがブランドであることが分かるでしょう。

CI and CSS

– Corporate design manuals, CSS, information architecture and object oriented programming follow the same principle. They are modular.

どうしてシンプルは難しいのか

– シンプルなウェブサイトは使いやすく、分かりやすく、そして読みやすいものです。しかし実際には、使えないか、醜くて、そして一般的に難しい単語がびっしり詰まったようなものを多く見かけます。どうして、デザイナーたちは、シンプルな仕事をすることにこんなに苦心するのでしょう。

Why is Simplicity Difficult?

– Simple websites are easy to use, easy to understand, nice to look at. In practice, websites are either unusable or ugly and filled with too many words. Why do designers have a hard time to keep it simple?

ユーザビリティとブランディング

– 企業のウェブサイトというのは往々にして顧客との最初の、そして緊密な接点となるものです。その点で、ユーザビリティとオンライン・ブランディングはどのビジネスにも重要です。しかしながらウェブデザインとユーザビリティはしばしば矛盾するのです。今回は、私たちがどのようにその矛盾を解決しているのかをご紹介したいと思います。

Usability and Branding

– Your website is more important for your company and its brand portfolio than your business card, your brochures, the products you sell, your packaging, the address and the building your company resides in.