Our clients at Nokia have outfitted our team with some fancy new phones recently and each day I discover some new feature that I love. Today I discovered the power of Google Mobile. Not only is the entire suite of Google services such as Se [...]
Posted by: Mark Busse on Friday, February 1st, 2008
Categories: Technology, Tips | No Comments »
To me the underlying communication of gift-giving is the desire to give happiness, love, and show thoughtfulness to those we love. Unfortunately these benefits are totally lost when you tell the receiver that someone somewhere now has a goat.
Thankfully I'm not the only one who sees the dilemma of being ethical and gift giving. This year Jim and I were the lucky recipients of GOOD Magazine – a publication that donates 100% of the subscription costs to a non-profit of your choice. So we get a great magazine that focuses on adding value to the people who give a damn. Our gift-givers get to flex their ethics as well as pass on happiness, love, and thoughtfulness. Youth Aids will get some cash to help educate and prevent HIV infections in youth. And just like that "ethical gift-giving" goes from being a win win to a win win win!
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Long gone are the days of guilt-free ridonculously extravagant gift-giving. Not that I’d like a return to over spending and under thinking gift giving, but it seems that the pendulum has swung too far the other way. We’ve become [...]
Posted by: Claire Alexander on Friday, December 14th, 2007
Categories: Design, Inspiration, Learning, Sustainability, Tips | No Comments »
Championed by Toronto designer Bernard Hellen from Traffic Marketing + Design, the Forestry Stewardship Council of Canada has recently released the FSCXpert™ program. An educational program and designation for individuals that are committ [...]
Posted by: Mark Busse on Wednesday, December 5th, 2007
Categories: News, Sustainability, Tips | No Comments »
For you interweb amateurs out there, here’s a handy system to determine if a web page sucks.
Posted by: Leigh Peterson on Friday, November 2nd, 2007
Categories: Tips, Websites | No Comments »
I don’t want to harp on my pathetic luck, but last week I rebroke my foot doing too much too soon. It’s highly disappointing discovering that you are not, in fact, invincible, and that stubbornness is your own worst enemy. IR [...]
Posted by: Leigh Peterson on Friday, September 14th, 2007
Categories: Fun, Industrial Brand, Tips | No Comments »
In the event you need/wish to eat human flesh you may want to consult the handy guide Thirty Illnesses Sorted According to Whether or Not You Can Eat the Victims kindly provided courtesy of McSweeney’s. Of course, it’s not all t [...]
Posted by: Ben Garfinkel on Tuesday, September 4th, 2007
Categories: Food, Tips | No Comments »
I’m generally disgusted by the way people conduct themselves in cars, so this concept seems right up my alley: “Sick of a car taking up two spaces on the street? How about a car too close to yours? What about the car at the mall [...]
Posted by: Leigh Peterson on Tuesday, July 24th, 2007
Categories: Fun, Tips | No Comments »
It's not a technical Bible filled with techno-babble at all. On the contrary, Getting Real is more of a Coles Notes guide filled with common sense rules for building smarter, faster and better ways to build successful web applications. A fast read with good insights into how 37signals developed their products and advice how that can be applied to your own methodology—whether you're a programmer, designer, project manager, entrepreneur, marketer or even just someone with a really great idea.
The book is written by the brilliant crew at 37signals, who know a thing or two about developing, launching and supporting web applictions, having created the popular Basecamp project management app, Campfire group chat, Highrise CRM, Backpack info organizer, Writeboard collaborative writing tool, Ta-Da Lists, Ruby on Rails web application framework and Signal vs. Noise blog. Originally a design firm in Chicago, 37signals now maintain their own products and don't take on any design clients—they are their own client! How great is that?
This isn't a textbook, it's more like a manifesto-style expression of the philosophies behind 37signals' team and workflow. It's written in layperson language that non-coders can understand and is filled with strong opinions. At times I found myself mildly shocked—even mildly offended—by the almost flippant tone toward process and protocols, but for the most part I was releived someone I respected was finally said these things publicly. This book is the antithesis of behemoth reads, such as Bill Moggridge's Designing Interactions (also an excellent read for web designers), but no less important. Getting Real challenges paradigms, blew apart old preconceptions and was quite fun to read, leading me to often think about my own design firm, inspired to apply the philosophies to our web development processes.
Read it. You won't be disappointed.
[kudos to my buddy Tyler for the heads up on this great resource]
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I’ve always appreciated defined methodologies and well documented processes with steps, procedures and documentation. It’s long been an accepted approach to developing design or technology solutions. And nowhere has this been mo [...]
Posted by: Mark Busse on Thursday, July 19th, 2007
Categories: Learning, Reading, Technology, Tips | 1 Comment »
I’ll gladly admit that I’m no coder, but Coda is a cool application. Text editor + Transmit + CSS editor + Terminal + Books + More all in one window.
Posted by: Mark Busse on Tuesday, June 5th, 2007
Categories: Design, Technology, Tips, We love, Websites | 1 Comment »
We often implement content management systems (CMS) for our web clients and the topic of Drupal versus WordPress is commonly debated. Linux.com’s Bruce Byfield recently compared the two open source platforms, comparing their interface [...]
Posted by: Mark Busse on Wednesday, May 16th, 2007
Categories: Learning, Technology, Tips, Websites | 1 Comment »
Here’s an interesting site called Design Directory with the claim it was “made by designers for designers” which looks interesting as a resource centre. It’s primarily a link farm, but it’s got all the expected [...]
Posted by: Mark Busse on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007
Categories: Design, Tips, Websites | No Comments »
In the spririt of clearing our minds and bodies daily in anticipation of creative greatness, we at Industrial Brand follow a strict morning exercise regime. Now you can follow along too.
Posted by: Ben Garfinkel on Friday, February 9th, 2007
Categories: Fun, Industrial Brand, Tips | 1 Comment »
It’s time to weigh in on the subject of Digital Democracy and Net Neutrality. No, we’re not just talking about clever alliteration, there’s a lot at stake here. At issue here, as in the United States, is whether telecom co [...]
Posted by: Haig Armen on Thursday, February 1st, 2007
Categories: Learning, Technology, Tips, Websites | No Comments »
Trends in graphic design can really suck, but they exist. Nothing seems new anymore and there’s no way to predict what will become popular. As brand identity designers, it is best to be as aware of them as possible so you don’t [...]
Posted by: Mark Busse on Friday, January 19th, 2007
Categories: Branding, Design, Tips, Websites | No Comments »
I originally found it on one of my daily reads, matthewgood.org, thinking it a similar community to Flickr, I clicked. My life changed a little at that point, I called immediately and checked the facility out; everything is totally worth the monthly rate, beautiful view, a vast range of personalities, and the coffee is great. If you can sympathize with my tone and need to get back into overdrive, check it out soon as space is filling up fast.
[post_title] => A Better place to work
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The struggle to find a balance between work and life is hard for anyone in creative industry, but even more so for creatives who freelance; for these unlucky individuals, work life and home life often fall into a single space. I’ve st [...]
Posted by: todd smith on Tuesday, January 9th, 2007
Categories: Learning, Tips, Vancouver | 2 Comments »
