1:55:pm
Text Tools 2012
FitText
Get text to fit any container - great for scaling in between resolutions - not recommended at all for styling body text.
ghostType
A great effect for displaying type like it's just being typed. Might be nice in a News ticker or similar
Lettering
Super cool for manipulating individual characters.
jFontSize
Great for allowing users to size text
Shuffle Letters
Similar to Ghostype in a matrix kinda way
12:49:am
E-Commerce that Looks the Part
Abercrombie & Finch: Tangible and stylish, like the brand
Mas Elements: Dark, enticing, a little grungy and...dare I say sexy.
Il Rosso: A large showcase area helps to establish the purpose of the site and immediately offer up specials that draw the customer in.
Indochino: Full Screen fashion presented in a minimal approach.
Bored of Southsea: Light, bright site with products nicely framed
Dans-ez: Minimal with great use of the showcase slider to create impact
Uniqlo: Minimal magic
Jenier: Beautiful use of Typography and color to create a warm, inviting experience. Also nicely connected to social networks to extend the conversation.
Brighterman: Clean Grid-based layout with bright colors to soak in the branding and energise the page
Dog Collars.ca - Nice, clean Layout and inviting color scheme
4th Street Cookie - The tastiest design by far. Great colors, a simple grid-based layout and great work intergrating images into the overall design
Harry Winston - Stylish and Classy
Cellar Thief - Great use of textures and theme
AlexandAlexa - Another super sweet grid based layout
Chicago L-Shirts: Full Screen background
Inkd: Looks busy because they are. Good typography and content framing help to hold it altogether concisley
The Hungarian Wine Society - Great use of textures and repeating patterns to give the site a more inviting and tangible feel
11:48:am
Google’s 8 Pillars of Innovation
- Have a mission that matters
- Think big but start small
- Strive for continual innovation, not instant perfection
- Look for ideas everywhere
- Share everything
- Spark with imagination, fuel with data
- Be a platform
- Never fail to fail
11:46:pm
The Interface is Now
The following is an excerpt from a fascinating talk by Aaron Koblin at TED2011:
"19th Century culture was defined by the novel.
20th Century culture was defined by cinema,
the culture of the 21st Century will be defined by the interface."
The definition of an interface is a tool and concept that refers to a point of interaction between components. The primary components, when we talk about the web today, would be people and the data that people are trying to access. People are trying to access all sorts of data on a daily basis, whether it be for shopping, research or even staying in touch with friends, hence Facebook and Twitter. The more functional the interface the more useful it will be and the longer the shelf-life. I've always wondered what it would be like to let the people design their own interface and thanks to Aaron Koblin I don't have to wonder anymore. The result is intriguing. Aaron Koblin was creative director for Radiohead’s video “House of Cards,” which received a Grammy nomination. He is now the Creative Director of the Data Arts team in Google's Creative Lab. Do yourself a favour and check out his TED talk.
10:27:pm
A Look at Tower for GIT
Git is a free & open source version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects. Tower is the new GIT client for Mac that looks like it can handle anything you throw it's way, so long as it's branches, tags, remote repositories and stashes.