Design Thinking is a topic we like to follow. We only wish we could have attended this recent conference.
from Imprint:
The New York City Chapter of the Industrial Designers Society of America and innovation consultancy Fahrenheit 212 collaborated last month on a very successful event entitled, Design Thinking: Dead or Alive? A stellar panel of voices, including Stephan Clambaneva, Debera Johnson, Cliff Kuang, Bill Moggridge, Mark Payne, Helen Walters and moderator Allan Chochinov, gathered at Fahrenheit 212’s expanding offices to discuss design thinking.
This could easily be the background of Quick draw wins, an Ogilvy Malaysia campaign for Pictionary that receive a Gold at the last Cannes Lions Festival.
Quick draw wins is composed of three well-illustrated, humorous prints that sharply represent the essence of Pictionary.
Because those threatened by the shape of a perfect circle can also be winners. Everything doesn’t need to be complex to work, sometimes the easy way is the best way.
What would you do if you wake up one day and realize you’re surrounded by more paper than is needed? Well, you could do as Barcelona-based guerrilla marketing agency Poko did and come up with the business card stamp. “We never run out of business cards. And we feel better about ourselves”, says Joan Alvares, Poko founder.
He has been stamping everything he was able to, which makes for some fun stories:
“At the Mobile World Congress, after requesting a meeting with the business executive of a well-known multinational corporation, we shook hands and he said:
- I’ll check my schedule tomorrow and I’ll propose a date for the meeting. Give me your email.
- I’m afraid I already did.
At home he got it, while washing his hands.”
“At the Entrepreneurs Fair, a designer asked me for a business card so he could send me his portfolio.
- Excuse me, but you gave me your metro ticket…
- Yeah, when are you coming to the office?
That day, he left his motorbike at home and use the public transport.”
“A friend complimented me after running into each other at an important festival held at Barcelona’s Contemporary Culture Center:
- I didn’t know you were sponsoring the event…
- Neither did I…
Yup, I was bored so I stamped a bunch of three-page leaflets”.
We took a look at Jon Pareles’ article on the NY Times regarding the, much desired, imminent arrival of Cloud services. He points out some fairly interesting ideas about the pros and cons of this long-waited service.
Jon Pareles has been a music critic for 30 years and, because of that, he has an amount of albums that would make most of music lovers happy forever. But this also has a downside, he has “amassed more vinyl, CDs and digital files than he knows what to do with”. And “periodic weeding will not keep up with the 20-30 discs that arrive in the daily mailbag”.
Situations like this make the Cloud a need, a salvation to those who are suffering from musical Diogenes syndrome. However, as Pareles accurately points out “iTunes Match as currently described will in effect launder music that was copied illicitly, replacing home-ripped files with standardized, good quality 256 kbps iTunes Plus AAC files. But now record labels and publishers will receive 70 percent of Apple’s fee.” Read the rest of this entry »
Hiring a design agency, like Hero Design Studio, and participating in the creative process can be challenging for many business people. In this video Hero principal, Jeff Mason, shares his thoughts the project brief—an important way clients can contribute their expertise and get the best from the design team.
Here are Hero HQ we love long copy. Though not copywriters ourselves, we secretly wish there was a reason to use long copy for every client. And in our post-media utopian fantasy world there is.
So bravo to MacLaren McCann on their work for Fotolia and the well deserved One Show Silver Pencil.
While flying back from SXSW, Evernote VP of Marketing Andrew Sinkov and Evernote CEO Phil Libin were playing around with an iPad Smart Cover and they realized how this cover could be used to create what eventually it would be, Evernote Peek; an iPad app that acts just like a set of flashcards, but also it can turn into a game.
When I was in high school I used to study my History notes by acting up the war events. It’s common knowledge that you learn things easily when you are having fun with it; and this is the purpose of Evernote Peek.
Lift the first flap of the Smart Cover and you’ll see a question. Lift the second flap and you’ll see it’s answer. If you answered correctly tap the ‘Correct’ checkbox, otherwise, the ‘Incorrect” one. To go to the next question, close the Smart Cover. The app keeps score and will let you re-test your wrong answers.
The great twist of Peek is using the Smart Cover as an input device for the app. I wonder if Apple engineers intended this use. If they did, I’m doubly impressed. The Peek app is another demonstration of mobile design’s unlimited potential. As a design studio working in the field it’s inspiring to see such innovation.
Trying Peeking At Hero’s Internet Slang Quiz.
To have more fun with the app, we created our own Internet Slang Quiz. If you’re an Evernote Desktop app user, you can DOWNLOAD our quiz and import it into your notebooks. Once you link your Evernote account to the Peek app our quiz, along with your other notebooks, will be available under the Add button. OSSIM!
The last thing you’d expect from the tried and true web banner is to be a record breaking 5,500-word piece that it actually engages the reader by being well-written and adding that perfect amount of randomness that makes it unique, fun and compelling.
This piece, crafted by Toronto agency Cundari, surprises us by going big—bigger than anyone has gone before (they claim so)— and entertaining internet users with an interesting read.
If you have time click below and read it. The least it’ll do is try to sell you a car.
The CEO of our client UrgentRx, Jordan Eisenberg, was part of 
