You’ve Got Something Stuck Between Your Teeth…
Friday, June 27th, 2008
Well, this is certainly an attention-getter. Saatchi & Saatchi New York created this unique guerilla marketing piece for Glide dental floss in New York City. The exact metaphor isn’t clear, but it must be playing off the notion of having something (a piece of ham, in this case?) stuck in your teeth.
Image courtesy Commercial Archive
(via Coudal)
Exceptional Student Design
Friday, June 27th, 2008
Penguin has posted its list of 2008 Design Award winners (for book cover design) and there’s some amazing work to be seen. My personal favorite is Jez Burrows‘ On The Road cover concept (pictured at right), but I think the typewriter seatbelt buckle is a bit of a clichete. Nonetheless, it’s great work.
Check out the full set of winners here.
(via Coudal)
Links of the Week: May 30th
Friday, May 30th, 2008
Good Products Don’t Make Up for Bad Service … But They Help
Skinnycorp’s Jeffrey Kalmikoff discusses ways to truly make amends with a disappointed customer by going the extra mile.
Life, Death and Twitter on the African Savannah
Masai tribesman Joseph Kimojino is using Twitter as one way of raising awareness for the Mara Triangle wildlife park.
Tool Kit
Paul B. Brown’s New York Times small business column.
Facebook in Real Life
A humorous look at how social networking behavior might play out in the real world.
Revision3 Servers Brought Down By MediaDefender DoS Attack
Thursday, May 29th, 2008
This is a bit outside our typical topical content here on A+E, but I wanted to highlight it anyway, as it’s a disturbing example of an attack on a legit new media company.
Over the recent Memorial Day weekend, Revision3, a company specializing in producing ad-supported video podcasts (including the immensely popular Diggnation, of which we are big fans), fell victim to a denial of service (DoS) attack that knocked their website, RSS feeds, email and much of their content distribution offline for most of the weekend. These type of malicious attacks are not uncommon, particularly against well-known companies.
What makes the story particularly disturbing is that, according to Revision3’s CEO Jim Louderback, the DoS attack was launched by MediaDefender, an anti-piracy group employed in the past by the RIAA, MPAA and other old media companies. The DoS attack was apparently targeted at Rev3’s BitTorrent servers (BitTorrent is a popular peer-to-peer content distribution protocol, often utilized to disseminate copyrighted material such as music, movies, etc.). Revision3, however, only distributed their own content over the BT protocol, so there was no clear reason why MediaDefender would choose to target them (BTW, such vigilante DoS attacks are illegal).
The story gets murkier as Rev3 has investigated and apparently the FBI is looking into the matter as well. Clearly, Revision3 has done nothing but distribute their own content over a perfectly legitimate content distribution network, so they should in no way have to fear being targeted by such old-media industry “watchdogs”. MediaDefender has clearly overstepped their bounds, targeting a legit small business venture, and one can only hope that they pay a price for that. FBI involvement in the matter is certainly a good first step.
Get the full story direct from Revision3’s CEO Jim Louderback here.
Apple Grabbing a Bigger Slice of a Richer Pie
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008
This item has been circulating online for the past couple weeks, but it’s worth highlighting here, as we’ve often discussed Apple products and software. Joe Wilcox’s May 16th Apple Watch column discusses Apple’s recent climb in market share for $1,000+ retail PCs (the vast majority of Macs, save for the Mac Mini, are priced above the $1,000 mark). In Q1 2008, Apple commanded 66% of the $1,000+ PC market (70% of $1,000+ desktops and 64% of $1,000+ laptops). Those numbers are pretty astounding, given how poor Apple’s overall market share had been at its nadir, but much of that surge has been recent: Two years prior (Q1 2006), Apple owned just 18% of the $1,000+ market.
Obviously, Windows machines still dominate in overall market share, particularly below the $1,000 mark, where Apple doesn’t really compete and where the vast majority of IT department purchases lie. But given the overall stagnation of the current PC market, the fact that Apple is able to generate such strong growth is really phenomenal, and speaks to the dominance in user experience (as well as an the introductory/halo effect of the iPod and iPhone.
(via Daring Fireball)
TV You Can’t Ignore – And an Awful Logo to Boot
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008
Chicago’s WGN, one of the venerable “superstations” left over from their mid-80’s heyday on cable television, has recently rebranded, with design work done in-house (with direction by Tribune’s Lee Abrams - and apparently inspired by Pink Floyd). Gone is the “Superstation WGN” moniker, replaced now by “WGN America - TV You Can’t Ignore”.
The name change and the tag line are fine, but the new logo? Ugh. Perhaps the outdated, 80’s/90’s feel of the branding was intentional, given that the bulk of their programming is syndicated reruns from those decades?
Fittingly, I suppose, the official WGN website still looks like it was designed in FrontPage in the late 90’s, and no one’s bothered replacing the Sun Microsystems favicon with a WGN favicon. Sloppy.
(via Brand New)
Spring Cleaning: 15″ MacBook Pro, 30″ Cinema Display and OLPC XO Laptop on eBay
Tuesday, May 27th, 2008
It’s been a busy start to 2008 for Bainbridge Studios, but one thing I’ve been meaning to do for weeks now is get some computer hardware up on eBay to clear out. Having recently switched to a new 2.4 GHz MacBook (Black) as my main machine, I’m selling my previous workhorse, a 2.33 Ghz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro, along with a BookEndz docking station and my mammoth 30″ Cinema Display (the new MacBook can’t drive a 30″ at full resolution, so I’ve downgraded to a new 23″ Cinema Display).
I’ve got all three up now on eBay, along with the XO laptop we acquired from the One Laptop Per Child program’s “Give a Laptop, Get a Laptop” program back in December.
If you’re interested in any of these items, you can check them out now on eBay:
15″ MacBook Pro 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo, 2 GB RAM, 250 GB HDD
30″ Apple Cinema Display
BookEndz Docking Station for 15″ MacBook Pro
OLPC XO Laptop
Update (5/28/08 - 10:15am PDT): The 30″ Cinema Display has sold, but bidding is open on the MacBook Pro and the BookEndz, and the Buy It Now is still in place for the XO.
Update (5/30/08 - 11:30am PDT): The OLPC XO Laptop has now sold.
Adobe Labs Announces Dreamweaver, Fireworks & Soundbooth CS4 Betas
Tuesday, May 27th, 2008
Adobe Labs unveiled a nice surprise this morning by releasing public betas of the next versions of their Dreamweaver (web design/coding), Fireworks (web graphics editor) and Soundbooth (audio editor) programs. Each program includes a host of updates and improvements, including UI changes to bring them more in time (visually) with other CS apps.
The betas are functional for 48 hours, unless you have a valid license for CS3. If so, they are (presumably) functional until the official release of CS4 (for which Adobe hasn’t yet mentioned any potential dates).
Garmin Unveils Nüvifone, First Real Competitor to the iPhone?
Thursday, January 31st, 2008
When we say “first real competitor to the iPhone”, we aren’t alleging there are not better selling mobile phones than Apple’s iPhone (though selling more than 22,000 smart phones per day isn’t too shoddy). No, we’re speaking of UI; user interface design. Even many of those aren’t particular fans of Apple’s mobile device acknowledge the idea that many of the UI innovations introduced in the iPhone will begin making their way into other mobile phones in the coming months and years.
Verizon has marketed LG’s Voyager as very much the iPhone-style, touch screen-driven device, but the Voyager’s touch functionality is significantly limited and isn’t even the primary interface for the phone’s OS.
Garmin, however, producers of some of the best-selling hand-held GPS devices, is now entering the smartphone market later this year with the Nüvifone, and based some of the initial available screenshots, it may be the first competing smartphone to really give the iPhone a run for its money.
Electronista highlights just how the phone’s GPS core will integrate with its smartphone functionality:
Almost entirely controlled by a 3.5-inch touchscreen interface, the device centers around its native GPS unit: in addition to straightforward navigation, a host of Google apps allow it to search for local businesses, check traffic, and view nearby weather. Any photos or videos taken with the built-in camera are automatically geotagged for positioning in location-based services.
Of course, we’ve yet to see a working model of the Nüvi. As noted by John Gruber, the only “screenshots” we’ve seen thus far are entirely mocked up vector art; they are currently no legitimate screengrabs available. So who knows where this announcement falls on the vaporware scale, but assuming it does make its way to market at some point this year, Garmin may well have a hit on their hands.
Obey Obama
Wednesday, January 30th, 2008
Shepard Fairey, he of the ubiquitous Obey art installations, stickers, clothing and more, has produced a pair of limited edition posters supporting Barack Obama’s candidacy for the Democratic Presidential nomination.
Fairey, in his own words:
I believe with great conviction that Barack Obama should be the next President. I have been paying close attention to him since the Democratic convention in 2004. I feel that he is more a statesman than a politician. He was against the war when it was an unpopular position (and Hillary was for the war at that time), Obama is for energy and environmental conservation. He is for healthcare reform. Check him out for yourself www.barackobama.com. Proceeds from this print go to produce prints for a large statewide poster campaign.
The “Hope” design (shown to the right) is being apparently being utilized by the Obama camp as a part of an awareness campaign; the second design, “Progress“, was released by Fairey today for sale (limited to 250 pieces) and sold out almost immediately.
(via Creative Review)