Figure 1 - Inspiration?

This is a shot Burger King Studio’s Store side-by-side with Threadless.com — note the similarities in the presentation of the t-shirts, the use of hipster models and solicitations to participate/create your own shirts. Despite the similarities, I could give BK a pass on this one as more of an “inspired by” than a rip-off.

Figure 2 - Rrrrrrrip

Unlike the Figure 1, this example is a 100% rip-off of a classic design created by Experimental Jetset. In fact, this design has been ripped so many times that Experimental Jetset has a section of their site dedicated to cataloging the infractions.

Not only is the t-shirt unoriginal, it kind of made me think of the old McDonalds Big Mac jingle. You know, the one where they sing the ingredients…

Figure 3 - mixed messages

The jingle is about 15 seconds in…

What do you think? Should they get an “A” for going through the effort of trying something new in a well-trod space or is this simply another clumsy corporate co-opting of creative culture?

I downloaded a copy of Fennec today — Mozilla’s experimental mobile browser optimized for touch screen mobile devices.

If you’re either TK or one of the .00001% of the rest of the population who owns a Nokia N810, you can test the browser in a real mobile environment.

For the rest of us, Mozilla’s been kind enough to offer downloads of Fennec that work in Windows, OS X and Linux.

It’s actually pretty aggravating to use a touch screen-optimized browser with a mouse and keyboard, but I was happy to see the thought they’ve put into the user experience.

Case in point, the settings screen:

If you can’t read these, the items include gems like:
Load images - Makes websites pretty
Enable Javascript - Makes websites flashy
Enable Plugins - Makes websites annoying

At SXSWi ‘08, there was a great panel called, “From Frustration to Elation” that made the case that injecting emotions (like humor, happiness, empathy, etc.) into products, software and services helps people make positive connections with the experience, which can contribute to the difference between a successful product and a failure.

In an arena with a growing number of players (like this, this and this), little things can have a big impact.

Continuing the recent thread of politically-themed design posts, I’ve created a campaign sign for Joe the Plumber, a new d-list celebrity introduced to the public by John McCain in the 3rd and final Presidential debate.

As with another recent post, I’m releasing this design with a Creative Commons license, so that anyone can grab the artwork and use it for any non-commercial endeavor (or at least come up with a cleverer slogan).

Vector (.ai), large jpeg

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

For my fellow font nerds, the Obama-like font is Avenir, as I don’t have a copy of Gotham handy.

Obama’s campaign is running ads in Burnout Paradise on XBOX 360. Fittingly hi-tech, these ads appeal to younger, connected voters; encouraging them to vote early. (via)

The McCain campaign is taking microtargeting literally with this more grass roots/lo-fi approach, This example touts McCain’s economic policy — presumably suggesting it’s “the sh**”*. (via)

*please note the saracasm

In a recent post, I mentioned a little just-for-fun project where I remixed the Republican Party logo. Given the season, I thought it might be fun to release the artwork into the wild under a Creative Commons license and see what people can do with it. So, without further ado, I present the remixed GOP logo, in several handy formats:

Vector (.ai), large jpeg, large PNG

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

If you’d like to use this commercially or you have any questions or objections, feel free to contact me.

The Price is Right (Isn’t It?) Why shouldn’t made-for-web productions should have budget as big as their televised counterparts? This article aims to lay the groundwork putting a fair price on your digital blood, sweat and tears.

Springwise - This is a recent addition to the Review category in my RSS feed. Basically, it’s a steady stream of new business ideas—some new interesting, some stuff that’s been in the market for a while. Kind of a Trend Hunter with a business focus. Worth a look.

dev.mobi recently relaunched as mobiForge. I hadn’t really spent a lot of time exploring this site before the refresh; there’s a ton of content available. They have resources for developers, designers, marketers and more. It looks like a great resource for anyone who’s involved in the mobile space.

And if your mindset is more design thinking/trend hunting/cool data, mobiForge has a sister site, mobiThinking. The content’s not as deep as the main site, but it’s worth an add to the ‘ol feedreader.

Wecome to the social (media) revolt - the gist: by its very nature, the web is in a constant state of change and its always been about making connections, so why is social media seen as a new, groundbreaking idea?

I have to agree with Joshua’s angle; the fundamentals haven’t changed, but the tools we all use to connect/socialize/etc. are getting easier and easier for non-geeks to use, which allows more people to participate and brings the “social” bit of social media to the fore.

A simple idea that provided hours of entertainment this summer is popping up again: John McCain Is Your Jalopy and Sarah Palin Is Your New Bicycle’s Flat Tire. I think the web will be a little less entertaining once the elections are over.

Fire up your flux capacitor and look back at the June 2008 issue of Fast Company—the issue with a smirking Alex Bogusky gracing the cover. By the time this issue hit the newsstands, many in the ad world had already heard about CP+B’s relationship with Microsoft and all the talk centered around what the campaign would look like. As it turns out, the answer lay in the opening spread of the feature article, pictured here:

That headline again? “Believe it or not, he’s a PC.” Theme theme of the recently-launched campaign? “I’m a PC.”

If only we’d know then what we known now…

Of the winning selections, 28 are completely Flash-based sites, only eight are HTML-based (some of those are hybrid HTML/Flash sites), four are videos (including a PowerPoint posted to YouTube), two are reels and there’s one lonely banner.

I’ve created a little infographic (above) illustrating the relative number of entries for each category… and I have to ask again; does this really reflect the very best content the web has to offer? Judging purely on eye candy (aka function following form), maybe…. although a scan through the FWA will reveal many more worthy candidates. Thinking about it from the perspective of the sites you might visit for more than a few minutes and actually use on a daily basis, definitely not. And don’t get me started on including reels and videos as examples of good web design… did they get their entry forms confused?

There are so many sites that take complex data and interactions and boil them down to easy to use, elegantly designed interfaces—sites that don’t require pokey preloaders, “skip intro” and “enter site” links and “innovative” navigation schemes—sites like Evernote, Vimeo, the ubiquitous Twitter, Tumblr, and many, many more.

I know the judges are working with what they’re given, so it’s hard to knock them. Still, I’d like to see a better cross-section of the web in the future. Is it just me?

If you want to judge for yourself, here’s a list of all the winners:
Judge’s picks:
www.thinkaboutit.com (It looks like the domain registration has lapsed on this one), www.digitalvaults.org, www.hornallanderson.com

Flash:
www.adobe.com/creativelicense, www.anode.com, www.antics.com, http://bbbf.archrival.com, www.torkrevolution.com, www.290mulberry.com/#/Nolita, www.hbovoyeur.com, www.luminafoundation.org/latinos, www.mofo.com/career, www.ebd.com, www.shearsadkins.com, www.eyeballnyc.com, www.166perryst.com, www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/multimedia/interactive/infosecurity/index, www.bakemaniacakes.com, www.1201k.com, www.HL2.com, www.nsfclothing.com, www.virginfestival.com/2007/btb_sampler/pre/, www.cuspconference.com/2008, www.d4wgear.com/bc/d4w/index.html, www.groundinc.com, www.ge.com/innovation/nano, www.ge.com/innovation/aviation, www.cat.com/cda/layout?m=8703&x=7&f=177263

HTML:
www.aigadc.org/showoff, www.gallup.com, www.pbs.org/kcet/wiredscience, www.sciarc.edu, www.vulcanmotorclub.com, www.earthpledge.org, www.alaska.si.edu, www.poetryfoundation.org

Video:
www.antics.com/awards/Best_of_Web_2008/AMD/index.html, http://langtoncherubino.com/blog/2008/02/25/53/, www.nicespots.com/nicespots/webReels/index.php?webReelID=578&webReelShareEmailID=88&webReelShareID=1172, www.nicespots.com/shortURL.php?id=103018

Reel:
www.firebellydesign.com/animation_reel2007.php, www.hzdg.com

Banner:
www.client.struckcreative.com/skiUtah/banners/oldMan/index.html

I watched a few minutes of Adult Swim tonight and I was exposed to a whole crop of new (to me) commercials.

Given the political season and an inability to distract myself from the up-and-downs of the day-to-day drama, this spot easily caught my eye. After checking out each candidate’s site (kitten, baby) — I still have no idea what’s in store, but I’ll probably check it out on October 21st. It’s hard to top the absurdity of real-life politics, but it looks like they might come close.

In the last month’s issue of STEP Inside Design, their closing column, Room 650, issued a challenge to rethink Corporate logos. Given the political season, I thought it might be fun to rethink the RNC logo, so I mashed it up with the old Sinclair logo, fired it off to STEP and promptly forgot about it.

Flipping through this month’s issue (Sept – Oct), I was pleasantly surprised to see my logo gracing the pages.