March 30th, 2008
I just stumbled across a really innovative design idea for wine labels via Noisy Decent Graphics.

If you’re at a friends place for dinner and you have a really, really nice bottle of wine, how often do you remember its name when you’re shopping for wine again? Most of us have better things to remember, anyway. Or maybe you’re a bit tipsy and won’t even remember whether it was a bottle of red or a bottle of white. Anyway, this is one of the ideas that makes you smack your head and ask yourself why you didn’t think of this

Tags: design, labels, packaging, products, wine
Posted in aetherworld | 4 Comments »
December 11th, 2007
Finally, an answer to that almost biblical question.
Tags: browsers, design, websites
Posted in aetherworld | 4 Comments »
September 20th, 2007
Alberto Seveso is a freelance graphics designer living in Rome. I knew his old site but somehow forgot about it. Today I stumbled across his new portfolio via agenturblog. Alberto has a few phantastic works on his page, almost all of them surreal photomontages.

In his shop you can buy great prints or even just the digital version as a PDF, where you have to organize the printing yourself. A neat idea.
Tags: albertoseveso, design, photography, photomontage
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
September 20th, 2007
Since the last rebranding of Adobe’s design suite has been nine months ago (remember the Periodic Table o’ Elements?), apparently it’s time for another new logo, this time for the Photoshop “family” of applications.

Opinions? Well, apparenty it represents a P. At least according to John Nack, who also has more details on the whole rebranding thing. It’s a speech bubble. Yes, another one. Welcome to the bandwagon! And it’s in 3D with glossy finish, practically screaming “photoshop filters!”. Where’s the lens flare?
Anyway, while the logo might not please everybody (judging from a lot of not so nice comments on John’s post), at least it seems Adobe has finally rediscovered Photoshop as a valuable brand.
Tags: adobe, brandname, cs3, design, logos, marketing, photoshop
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
August 16th, 2007
Tags: design, logos, marketing, web2.0
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
August 2nd, 2007
Joen of Noscope has just suggested, what I’ve been trying to tell people for nearly a year. With the advent of pages commonly referred to as “Web 2.0” sites, the styling of inline or AJAX links became an issue. Usually links have to be indicated to the user, since clicking them slowly loads a whole different page and the user is unable to interact with the current page. The common indicator we use for links is the hand cursor.

AJAX or JavaScript links, however, immediately change a part of the page you’re looking at, without reloading the whole page and without disturbing the user experience. The user can still interact with the page. For example on Pageflakes - the personalized start page I’m using - you can find both types of links: normal ones that take you to another page and AJAX links that allow you to edit settings or reload embedded RSS feeds. The cursor for both types of links is the same, a hand. For the Web-savvy, this might not pose much of a problem, we intuitively know most of the time what type of link we deal with but for other users, this can be increasingly difficult to discern.

The solution Joen proposes, and what I have previously used in these cases, is simply not changing the cursor at all. In reality, it’s not a link, it’s more of a pushbutton that looks different, so why not use the same cursor we use for buttons?
The implementation is rather easy as it only requires a simple cursor: default; rule. To allow for fallback (if the user has no JavaScript, the AJAX link becomes a normal link), I just embedd the stylesheet with JavaScript so I get a hand cursor for people without JavaScript, where the link actually reloads the page and a default cursor (pointer) for people where the link only affects the current page.
Adding a stylesheet via Javascript is rather easy too:
<script type="text/javascript">
<![CDATA[//><!--
if( document.getElementById && document.createElementNS && document.getElementsByTagName ) {
var javacss = document.createElementNS( "http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml", "link" );
if( javacss ) {
javacss.setAttribute( "rel", "stylesheet" );
javacss.setAttribute( "type", "text/css" );
javacss.setAttribute( "href", "/_css/java.css" );
javacss.setAttribute( "media", "all" );
document.getElementsByTagName( "head" )[0].appendChild( javacss );
}
} else {
document.write( '<link rel="stylesheet" href="/_css/java.css" type="text/css" media="all" />' );
}
//--><!]]>
</script>
So, what do you think?
Tags: accessibility, ajax, css, design, usability, userinterface, web2.0, webdesign
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
July 29th, 2007
Tags: ads, advertising, design, marketing, nokia, viral, website
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
July 29th, 2007
Tags: design, kissing, photography, photoshop
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
July 29th, 2007
The Spanish advertising agency minnim made a great ad for 5 segons, a campaign of the Banc de Sang i Teixits, a Spanish public company that manages and administers the donation, transfusion and analysis of blood and blood plasma.

Tags: ads, advertising, design, flash, minnim
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off
July 14th, 2007
Have a look at New York-based conceptual photographer Phillip Toledano’s portfolio for some really nice and inspirational photographic work. Some limited edition prints can be purchased online at Gild.

Mr. Toledano (by the way, I just love the entrance page) thinks, that every photograph should be like an unfinished sentence or part of a story and in pursuit of this, he has amassed a dazzling portfolio of original photography. The stories the photographs tell are so thought through and engrossing, it’s definitely worth a look.

Phillip Toledano, a lover of photography since he was eleven, was born in London and currently resides and works in New York.
Tags: photography, website
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off