Simplicity is pretty complicated

Posted on August 27, 2010 by IdeaMonster

In graphic design the hardest things are actually the simple ones. Sure it sounds a bit stupid, but when you think about the rule of “Less is more” and then look at the big letter “a”, written in helvetica on a white background you can see that it’s not actually all peaches and cream.

Simplicity in webdesign is often refferred to as “minimalism”, which basically says it all. Something “minimalist” (-ic) is something simple, an expression of content/function with very little form.

This form can of course has it’s saturation levels – we can have a nicely designed website with just the text. Various typefaces, paddings and margins working together to create something that’s nice to the eye.
But that would probably be considered ultra-minimalism, so let’s move on.

Another step is adding a couple of elements like a background here, a divider line there, but still keeping it simple with as little colors, gradients, photography as possible. And this is where the hard part starts.
We all know that graphically rich and intense websites can hide their content flaws in a lot of flashes and eyecandy. With minimalism we don’t have that comfort, so everything has to be in place. Considering typefaces, font-sizes for different elements is crucial for the whole thing to look good while still being minimalist. If you want to make minimal websites it’s best to look around first and get some inspiration (that doesn’t mean copy+paste! ;))

minimalisites.com has some nice examples

I think every designer should have at least a couple of those minimal sites in his/hers portfolio among all those beloved graphically intense sites that we’re all so proud of.

How much is 2 + 2? 4? More than 4? Less?

Posted on March 5, 2010 by IdeaMonster

math

I was watching TEDx Warsaw today and the main topic of the event is 2+2>4. Meaning that if we stick together we might achieve a lot. But is it really true?

There’s no I in team. Or is there?

One of the speakers – Sandra Bichl mentioned an interesting point. There are three types of people who enjoy working in teams. One is the people who found a group that they can really well work with (which is very rare). The second one is people who cope nicely with not meating deadlines and team tensions. And the third one is the ones who are just lazy and they want others to do their work for them. But how often does team work actually influence a positive change? I can honestly say that based on my experience it’s about 25% of good team work that will eventually wear out in time anyway, and 75% of good work done in one person “teams”.

Continue reading →

Virals WITHOUT registration are the best

Posted on January 7, 2010 by IdeaMonster

viralsxxx
And here’s an example. I made a site a while ago where every user can create a virtual “wall” and others can post post-it notes all over it with messages. The idea was pretty new at that time (3 years ago +) but I noticed that after advertising the idea on some forums, the site didn’t get many views. It was a week after launch and the user base was still below 50. So I decided that since the site doesn’t share any personal information (it’s only the nickname, no names etc) to drop the email and overall limit the registration to just nickname, password and the register button. So the process of making a wall takes 4 clicks (password repeat being the 3rd).
What happened then ? Well the charts skyrocketed! After another week there was way over a 1000 unique registered users and they were growing fast. After a month the site reached 100,000 unique visitors a day and the registrations were somewhat around 80,000 users. Just because in most cases people DON’T want to confirm anything, or take STEPS to register anywhere. The simpler it is the better, and you can still get the emails by adding them AFTER they register and have a fair amount of time on site already. They’re more likely to add their email (in case they forget the password for example) at that point, than with the registration.
The emails were still about 1 for every 4 people, so 25%, but imagine what would happen if the email verification and a full registration weren’t removed. Sure it’d be 100% emails instead of 25%, but with A LOT less people registered the numbers are still bigger with the 25%. So keep that in mind – the simpler the user input the more successful the viral!

Is this the time to make money with Viral advertising?

Posted on December 26, 2009 by IdeaMonster

viral2
Since a good portion of nowadays virals online (especially holiday related but not necessarily) are spread mostly by people with families and what’s most important – jobs – maybe now it finally pays off to guide them to a product itself, not just a hype or a company logo. If so we might get yet another boost in internet sales which are going up constantly anyway with various new ways. E-book virals anyone? That might be a hit of the future and I’m sure to try it as soon as ebooks will be decent (or when apple releases it’s take on the subject – january 26?)

Stupid virals directed to younger audience can also sell a product but it creates at least a two-person chain from wanting something to buying something. Without the middlemen the buying urge can be direct and more successful.
We’ll see what happens next. Aside from the holidays there are also the “office virals” since half the time in the office we spend fooling around online. What better way to waste time than with a funny video or a wacky flash animation with your boss’ face on it. Or you can even shoot your boss out of a catapult in a clever flash game and compare your score with other happy co-workers. The ad is of course for a job agency, and I bet they had a raise in pageviews after. So is holiday-office related viral a thing of the future that we should focus on the most? Probably.
Because all I don’t want for christmas is a PSP ;)
Happy new year! I hope we will see some more creative approaches and no more dancing elves or santas in 2010!

Season greetings from the viral!

Posted on December 16, 2009 by IdeaMonster

virals

So how long can we be drawn brainlessly by “funny videos” that after a while are a common-wealth – seen by nearly everybody we know.
Are they gonna surprise us with billboards saying “In 2010 everything you know will change”? Do we really anticipate the knowledge of what will happen then? Or did we simply stop caring about it. Do we even discuss out-of-the-internet examples with anyone? Don’t think so.
Human imagination is pretty vast, so I bet there’s still a couple of good ideas undiscovered, but all in all we’ll be bound by funnier and funnier seasonal virals that we post even with the knowledge that it does more good to the maker, than to the sender. Yes, it has started. From dancing Santa with your face on him, through the last-year-hype dancing elves (elfyourself.com) up to whatever else we can come up with. Maybe a present that blows up when you open it? Smurfs-viral fun with a christmas twist? Why not. The notion that fuelled the first seasonal campaigns a couple of years back is now gone. They don’t try to impress us by the idea, just the packaging.
Dancing characters with your face on them were done before a couple of times, and this time the whole packaging made it look “fresh” and “oh so funny” to many, many adults.
But hey! Are the older parts of the internet currently more into viral than the younger?
That’s the interesting part – seasonal “fun stuff” is usually sent around by people with jobs, families, often children etc. Not by kids with too much time on their hands.
Maybe the next generation virals should be directed at the respected parents instead?
I’ve seen a catapult-a-santa viral where you could upload your face, and a good % of the faces were someone’s little babies.
So maybe there’s still hope to surprise, just by looking elsewhere?
To be continued…

Your mind is a wild monkey, so let’s write

Posted on December 8, 2009 by IdeaMonster

Sometimes revolution is in simplicity. And when my wild monkey brain gets wilder and more distracted, someone thinks of stuff like the OmmWriter
A beautiful, ambient writing app. Currently available as a free beta (for the Mac only). I got hooked. The main idea here is that it hides everything else, including the dock and navbar. All you can see is that beautiful image of a winter hill with a couple of trees. And well … text. This is all about text. Generating ideas without the blinking “new message” icons, and “you’ve got mail” icons, and many other distractions. As they say in the trailer on their website – you are alone in there, with your thoughts. And after a while the thoughts jump right through, ideas are generated, the work is flowing. Try it.