Purveyors of Pixels Since 2001.™

Making Pre-Flight Instructions Worth Paying Attention To

Wednesday, November 28th, 2007

Watch Virgin America's pre-flight safety videoThough 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)

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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)

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Best Buy Gets Snarky Regarding the iPhone

Tuesday, November 27th, 2007

Apple's iPhoneThough 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.

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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!

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Does the World Really Need Another E-Book Reader?

Monday, November 19th, 2007

The Amazon KindleThe 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.”

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