Links of the Week: November 30th
Friday, November 30th, 2007
Presented in no particular order…
Facebook and Your Privacy
Jeffrey Zeldman on Facebook’s violation of its users’ privacy.
What Makes a Great Design?
Blue Flavor’s D. Keith Robinson on quality design.
The Email Standards Project
Trying to bring better web standards support to email software.
Run Your Company From the Heart
Chuck Longanecker blogs at Found/Read on the importance of truly believing in what you do as an entrepreneur.
So Exactly What Kind of Tagline Does $250,000 Buy You These Days?
Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
The Times of London reports on the rather mixed reaction to newly revealed official slogan of Scotland. After more than six months, and £125,000 (approx. $250,000), the Scottish National Party revealed the new marketing slogan:
“Welcome to Scotland.”
“It feels governmental, corporate and static,” said Anita Califano a senior consultant with Wolff Olins.
Of course, one has to be wary of criticism leveled by anyone at Wolff Olins. After all, they’re the agency responsible for the mind-numbing branding of the 2012 London Olympics.
Email Standards Project Works to Improve Web Standards Support in Email Clients
Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
Over the past few months, the fine folks at Campaign Monitor have been working on a new project to promote better support of CSS and web standards among major email clients (both offline and web-based programs). The new site for their Email Standards Project (ESP), has now launched and provides a range of helpful information for understanding to what degree various email clients support web standards.
For those unfamiliar with the concept, web standards is a general term for technical specs of website rendering that have been increasingly accepted in recent years. These guidelines, which focus a great deal of attention on support for CSS (Cascading Style Sheets, which dictate the look and feel of web page), are designed to help developers of web browsers follow a standard set of protocols for how web pages are seen by users. Long story short, browsers (and websites) that are web-standards client render essentially the same for all users, regardless of their operating system, browser, etc.
Most browsers offer varying degrees of support for CSS and web standards. Among the most standards-compliant browsers are Firefox and Safari. Most lists of the least standards-compliant browsers are typically headed by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE5 and IE6 are particularly unfriendly to CSS and web standards — IE7 offers improved support, but still lags behind Firefox, Safari and others).
As much variability exists among browsers, the current state of standards-support in email programs is even worse. What does this mean for the average business? If you send HTML-based emails (emails featuring graphics, different fonts, trackable web links, etc.) you’re taking a bit of a crap shoot as far as how that email will render based on how the recipient is viewing it. HTML email rendering varies greatly, even between different versions of the same program. For instance, Outlook 2003 offered significantly better CSS and standards-support than Outlook 2007. The same email opened in each of these email clients will look different. This variability also extends to web-based email clients (Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Windows Live/Hotmail, .Mac Mail, and so on).
ESP has devised an acid test for comparing CSS and web standards support among email clients. This test outlines a limited sub-set of CSS tags and classes that would be most commonly used in HTML emails. The current results of these tests can be found on their website and are broken down by major email clients, including Outlook 2007, Apple Mail, Lotus Notes, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Hotmail and more.
By highlighting both the strengths and the shortcomings of popular email programs, ESP hopes to call attention to the need for standards support, as well as actively promote such change among software developers.
Making Pre-Flight Instructions Worth Paying Attention To
Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
Though there’s only so much variation you can expect in pre-flight safety instructions on commercial airlines these days, Virgin America offers a refreshing and entertaining slant on the typical instructional video.
The concept for the video was done by Anomaly and Wild Brain is responsible for the animation.
(via Coudal)
Chip Kidd on The Amazon Kindle
Tuesday, November 27th, 2007
In the vein of our initial impressions of Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader, Chip Kidd sums it up in one sentence:
I’ve been asked to comment on what effect I think this will have, if any, on book design as we know it. Here goes.
None.
(via A Brief Message)
Best Buy Gets Snarky Regarding the iPhone
Tuesday, November 27th, 2007
Though I don’t make much use of it anymore, I’ve been a member of Best Buy’s Rewards Zone program for a number of years, and as such, receive Best, their pseudo-magazine each year at the start of the holiday shopping season. The magazine typically presents relatively “fluff” pieces covering the latest technology and highlighting brands and models available in-store.
This year’s edition features a write-up on various smart phones, and has an interesting side bar (p. 77) on Apple’s iPhone. Of course, Best Buy cannot sell iPhones, as the device is still only available either direct from Apple (via their online or brick-and-mortar stores) or via AT&T Wireless. Given Best Buy’s iPhone status (i.e., on the outside looking in), it’s not entirely surprising the snarky tone they take in assessing the iPhone’s value (or in their words, lack thereof) to the business user:
“But iPhone is not as smart as Apple thinks it is. Most glaring is iPhone’s current lack of compatibility with push Microsoft Exchange and Blackberry e-mail, essential components for corporate adoption. And AT&T’s slow and erratic EDGE network cripples Web surfing and e-mail downloads … iPhone is packed with a lot of distractions. After all, who wants to work when you can watch a movie, listen to music, or surf YouTube?”
Of course, while the EDGE network “cripples” surfing and downloads for iPhone, it apparently is perfectly sufficient for other AT&T smart phones, such as the Blackberry Curve and Samsung Blackjack (i.e., those that Best Buy can actually sell).
It’s not that they’re not raising some valid points (e.g., Exchange support is a non-starter for a fair number of business users), it’s the way in which they’re doing it, which comes off as little more than a case of sour grapes to the informed reader.
Thanksgiving Schedule
Monday, November 19th, 2007
Just a quick reminder that the Bainbridge Studios office will be closed for the Thanksgiving holiday this Thursday and Friday, November 22nd and 23rd. We’ll be back on our regular schedule on Monday the 26th.
To all of our clients and readers, we’d like to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving and a successful Black Friday!
Does the World Really Need Another E-Book Reader?
Monday, November 19th, 2007
The e-book is something of a holy grail in technology development. As commentaries over the years have decried the death of the printed word (most frequently citing the declining subscription bases and sales of most major newspapers), the world seemed ripe for the introduction of a truly elegant e-book reader. Such an item would offer the ability to carry numerous volumes in a single device and would sport a visually satisfying screen and font rendering. It would look as good as a book, it would read as good as a book, and who wouldn’t want to simply download their next tome from the Internet?
Apparently, given the anemic sales of e-book readers over the years, not many people are interested.
Despite this, Amazon has taken the leap into this stagnant pool with the introduction of their Kindle e-book reader. The Kindle is actually a bit of a multi-function device, allowing for the downloading and viewing of a variety of content (e-books, PDF docs, images, etc), as well as playback of audio books (it’s apparently compatible with Audible.com) and subscriptions to blogs.
The device also comes with built-in EVDO access, free for the life of the device. Of course, you’re limited in what that wireless access can be used for (primarily downloading of purchased content from Amazon’s Kindle Store).
From a technological standpoint, the Kindle seems to be a significant step in the right direction for e-book readers. The downsides? Well, e-book reader sales have been anemic, and frankly, I don’t think this device is revolutionary enough to really draw in a great deal of new users. If you’re already a reader/purchaser of e-books, then the Kindle may well be the ideal device for delivering that content. But what about those of us that aren’t currently e-book fans? I just don’t think there’s enough of a hook with this device to draw “e-book newbies” in.
Plus, the thing really does look like it was designed 10-15 years ago. The best one-sentence review of the aesthetics of the Kindle actually surfaced on Twitter earlier today, from Portland-based designer Neven Mrgan:
“It looks like they yanked the top panel off a copier.”
A Lazy Friday
Friday, November 16th, 2007
Despite the best of intentions, sometimes you’re just not as productive as you’d like to be. The key, aside from not finding yourself in that position too often, is to learn to accept it when you do.
This afternoon was the perfect example.
While I had a very clear, well-planned agenda for things I needed to get done today, by the time lunch had passed, I found myself unfocused and struggling with the tasks at hand. Perhaps it was the culmination of a long week of project work, a lack of sleep (to which any new parent can attest), the ever-present Friday afternoon distraction of Layer Tennis, or the fact that a seemingly large scale anti-war protest materialized outside the office this afternoon (complete with hovering news helicopters). Or some combination of all of the above. Either way, I wasn’t getting a damn thing done past 1pm today, and once I accepted that fact, my tension dissipated.
Sometimes a little goofing off is the perfect way to recharge your batteries.
BTW, props to Aaron Draplin for doing the Pacific Northwest proud in this week’s Layer Tennis showdown.