danielbower.com

Gusto

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:05:50 +0100

Gusto is a beautifully made book about restaurant design, I recommend a gander at it. I particularly like the thick card board cover and the way it is bound to the rest of the pages.

It’s published by Ginko and the design work was done by 360indesign. Props to Humso for the purchase.

Here are some bad photos that don’t do it justice.

Back at my desk after a month off

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 01:25:08 +0100

Back at my desk after a month off

All content is created equal, but some is more equal than others.

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 09:40:11 +0100

All content is created equal, but some is more equal than others.

Simon Amstel's Honest Emails

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 10:21:32 +0100

One of the best email newsletters I’m subscribed to is Simon’s Amstell’s. The mailings are almost always commercial in nature; stand up dates, DVDs, new projects and so on, however they retain a level of honesty that is pretty unique in my eyes. Here’s three reasons why.

Firstly, I’m 99% sure they’re written by Simon himself. As I mentioned in my post about David Miliband’s email this adds so much value for the user. If I’m going to take the time to buy your stuff, the least you can do is take the time to write the email.

Secondly, it’s been sent in plain text. Why is this important? Well because for most people this extends the allusion that they’ve received an email directly from the source. Include a load of images and fancy styling and the allusion is shattered. Now, in reality, Simon probably sends the copy to some stooge who works it into their email platform, but this stage doesn’t matter, for most users the effect is still the same.

Finally, the mailings are pretty infrequent. Ask any bulk mailer and they’ll tell you frequency is important, it reinforces your message. Wrong. It makes you look desperate. If you don’t have anything worth while to say, don’t bother making something up. If you do, your audience will just associate your emails with junk, and then, when you do have something worthwhile to say, it will be ignored. Heard of The Boy Who Cried Wolf? Well the same applies to email marketing. Associate your message with something valuable, then no matter how infrequent they are, people will still open them when they arrive.

Best Field Day ever? I think so. Highlights included The...

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 15:47:38 +0100

Best Field Day ever? I think so. Highlights included The Weather, Caribou, The People, Beth Jeans Houghton, The Bar Queues, Mount Kimbie, Max Tundra, and of course, The Swings.

Praying for Sun tomorrow.

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 09:46:40 +0100

Praying for Sun tomorrow.

Got A Light, Mac? Music from a bygone era, via @poohugh.

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:47:00 +0100

Got A Light, Mac?

Music from a bygone era, via @poohugh.

One day, I want to look this cool.

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:16:12 +0100

One day, I want to look this cool.

A brilliant present from my wonderful girlfriend. Design, pasta...

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 10:27:00 +0100

A brilliant present from my wonderful girlfriend. Design, pasta and cooking. Even if you only like two of these things, you’re sure to love this book.

You can read a little bit more about it on Amazon.

A List of OTP Fixies from the LFGSS Forum

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 09:50:36 +0100

A List of OTP Fixies from the LFGSS Forum

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few...

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 08:09:53 +0100

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years you will have probably seen or heard about Mad Men. Well the fourth series is starting 10 days from now so I thought I’d celebrate by featuring Christina Perry’s excellent promo posters.

Humso and I are developing a nice collection of stuff and...

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:00:20 +0100

Humso and I are developing a nice collection of stuff and things.

A Recipe for Tinto de Verano

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 15:13:00 +0100

This is a hangover from a recent trip to San Sebastien. In fact it wasn’t just any trip, it was the 3rd Annual eConversions company holiday. 25 people descend on some poor, unsuspecting town in Europe and try their best to consume everything it has to offer. Barcelona 08 was “street beer”, Athens 09 was dominated by tomatos, and San Sebastien 10 was the year of Tinto de Verano, or “Red Wine of Summer”, a refreshing cocktail of red wine, ice, a slice of lemon and Casera.

If you can’t pick up a bottle of Casera down your local Costcutter, here’s an alternate recipe.

2/3 Red Wine (cheap is fine, don’t waste your best Rioja).
1/3 Lemonade
4 Cubes of Ice
A Slice of Lemon
A dash of water to get rid some of the bubbles.

It’s a fantastic drink, I’ve had 15 today already.

Photo by indrasensi on Flickr.

"‘HA’, they said, ‘PRINT IS DEAD’. Well for one it isn’t and frankly..."

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 12:17:46 +0100

“‘HA’, they said, ‘PRINT IS DEAD’. Well for one it isn’t and frankly even if it was we wouldn’t care.”

- Shellsuit Zombie

David Miliband's Email for Change

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 14:32:33 +0100

I’ve just received my first email from David Miliband, and as someone who thinks he knows a thing or two about email I thought I’d share an opinion or two.

First thing to note is that it’s been written in HTML.

Now I’m not totally against HTML emails, they offer a level of branding exposure that you won’t get with text, however in this context I think it was a poor choice, and here’s why.

Getting personal

Text is more personal. It’s the equivalent of a hand written thank you card at Christmas rather than a typed one that probably used a mail merge. Even if David himself actually wrote this, knowing it subsequently went to a mark-up kid means it looses a little of it’s shine.

When vital messages get lost

David’s email is actually a very light on HTML. I’ve taken to calling this ‘rich text’ meaning it doesn’t rely too heavily on tables and images to covey a message, you get 90%+ of it from the text alone. If you rely too heavily on images you run the risk of vital messages being lost as email clients typically don’t allow images to be displayed until the recipient agrees to it. This is particularly important if it’s the first email and the recipient hasn’t had a chance to add you to their safe list.

David’s team deserve credit in this respect. The header image doesn’t cause material damage to the email if it doesn’t load, and the body of the email is all text. In fact, they only make use of one ‘a’ tag, and that’s for no apparent reason in the post script. Every other link is written out in full which 99% of email clients will convert automatically - it’s almost as if this was meant to be text! And then, just as you’re about to give him the perfect 10 he does this:

Follow you? But, which link do I click David? I suppose I could just guess… Ok, I being unfair, it’s actually really powerful to use the Twitter and Facebook branding to good effect in an email, however not including an alt tag to guide those who haven’t accepted your images is a massive mistake.

Other small changes

A clear unsubscribe link is vitally important. Studies have shown that users are increasingly hitting ‘spam’ rather than unsubscribing from email lists even if it’s not junk. In fact this has lead ESPs such as Gmail to develop tools to combat this habit as a way of helping good senders.

I personally would include an unsub link at the top of an email, but if you’re not going to do that, at least have some clear descriptive text around it. David’s email lacks in this area, and yet it can be solved with some as simple as:

You can instantly unsubscribe from these emails by clicking the link below

Last of all there’s the ‘from name’

David Miliband, DavidMiliband.net

just seems a little odd. Just David Miliband would suffice.

I’ve signed up to all the other candidates emails too, I’ll be back with some thoughts on how they do later.

A new mag I picked up today called Invert Look, it’s...

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 11:30:16 +0100

A new mag I picked up today called Invert Look, it’s published by The Church of London. The idea is to focus on ‘grown up’ discussion of the industry and move away from spinning the old news, reviews and previews yarn. Can’t wait to give it a read.

FIGHT.

I go to the same dry cleaner in Islington every time despite the...

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 12:21:35 +0100

I go to the same dry cleaner in Islington every time despite the fact that it’s completely out of my way. I really like the guy who runs the place - see sometimes I will go with the less convenient option..

"While long-term fiscal responsibility is important, slashing spending in the midst of a depression,..."

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 23:36:07 +0100

“While long-term fiscal responsibility is important, slashing spending in the midst of a depression, which deepens that depression and paves the way for deflation, is actually self-defeating.”

- Paul Krugman on The Third Depression and the Hoover esque rhetoric coming out of Europe and elsewhere.

UX with 6-Packs, 4-Packs and The Can

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 14:23:44 +0100

Ever since watching Leah Buley’s brilliant talk at SXSW about being a UX team of one I’ve been obsessed with what she calls the 6-up.

The 6-up is a single piece of A3 paper with 6 browser window’s printed on it. The goal is to get you sketching your ideas right away, rather than bogging yourself down with feature lists and Photoshop files like you normally would. It also reinforces her principle of having “six ideas rather than one,” something I’m a firm believer in.

While using the 6-up during my work on VoucherCodes.co.uk I’ve come across a few changes - and a few additions - that have really helped me. I thought I’d share them here.

Leah’s 6-up includes a notes section. I completely understand the rationale behind this but I’ve found it to be superfluous. While sketching with the 6-up it’s felt natural to just add comments around the sketch, rather than using a designated space to the right. If you remove the notes section, and add more negative space around each browser window, you’ll find you have a lot more freedom to work.

There is also times when 6 windows doesn’t allow for enough detail. The 1-up, as Leah calls it, is a great solution to this. However a 1-up can be made even more useful by moving it from a piece of A3 to a piece of a A4. The reason? Most companies, particularly startups, are unlikely to own an A3 printer. Transferring the 1-up to a piece of A4 gives you a good amount of space, the flexibility to print them more often, and it does it all for a lower cost.

For exactly the same reasons I introduced a 4-up. This gives you the opportunity to play with multiple ideas, while keeping those A3 printing costs down.

The last thing I did was change the name. 6-up, 4-up and 1-up just didn’t sit well with me. Yes, I loved the retro gaming motif, but I needed to give it my own slant. So in our office we refer to them as; The 6-pack, The 4-pack and The Can. Evidence of a British booze culture? Maybe.

Feel free to download my versions using the links below. In fact, feel free to change them, criticise them and ignore them as you see fit.

The 6-pack (pdf)
The 4-pack (pdf)
The Can (pdf)

Last of all I need to thank a ton of people for the brilliant work they’ve done before me. That includes: Leah and Brandon from Adaptive Path and apirak for his Omnigraffle Mac OS X Sketch Stencils.

Friendonomics - How we've lost the right to lose touch

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 09:25:00 +0100

Friendonomics - How we've lost the right to lose touch:

I was put off by the title of this article, and I can’t believe the author said “the long tail of friendship,” but it sums up my opinion of Facebook pretty well.

I am one of those “assholes” who will delete friends if I think we’ve lost touch. In fact I think it’s essential for me if Facebook is going to retain it’s importance. Facebook, as much as they hate to admit it, is a private network and people love it for that. It’s users feel comfort in the fact that they can put up embarrassing photos of themselves without everyone and his dog seeing them. It’s why there has been so much uproar over privacy.

I like the idea of old friends fading with age over time, but I’d actually go a step further.

What if you had to maintain a reasonable level of contact through Facebook in order for the friendship to remain in tact? Ok they’ll never do this, but it would mimic the real world much more accurately.