From Fast Company's "Ethonomics Weekly" email newsletter on October 27, 2011.
Good thing everyone's all about the triple bottom line: that ought to leave plenty of room for sloppy contradictions.
Bad for the bottom line, but good for profits?
Nice bit of visual storytelling about music consumption format market share.
(Note: if the image isn’t changing, click here to go back to the original – it’s an animated GIF, and it’s worth seeing.)
Cassette singles. Remember those?
The problem with default web usage metaphors and lazy metrics
via xkcd.com
We get used to seeing metaphors and metrics in certain contexts, and we just start taking for granted that they make sense. It’s why I get really animated whenever an e-commerce client cites something Amazon does as proof that a technique works: Amazon can get away with crappy web interfaces because they’re Amazon. No one else has that same power.
Animated GIFs in marketing: genius or evil genius?
Let’s call a spade a spade: This is marketing, pure and simple. But a crass “Whassup” ad this certainly ain’t: instead, Burg and Beck capture the creative “process value” behind Dogfish’s product, showing how luscious organic strawberries are hand-loaded into a wooden fruit press, sorghum is hand-poured into the brew kettle, and the first pint is lovingly served. The cinemagraphs are subtle and lovingly crafted — just like (get it?) the beer itself. A marketing match made in heaven.
via fastcodesign.com
I noted a while back (sorry, can’t find my own reference) that the sparing use of animated GIFs in marketing emails sometimes made a very big impression when I could see it above the “fold.” This is potentially better: using artfully crafted images that show limited motion to clarify a process. But it’s easy to imagine this going WAY too far, and becoming an overwhelmingly common phenomenon implemented poorly. It’s bound to happen, I suppose, but let’s hope the good examples, like the one shown here, help keep the bad in check.