BASEMENT.ORG
Posted by Richard Ziade on June 27, 2007, 10:11AMColor Inspiration From Classic Paintings
I've always enjoyed pulling color schemes out of real-world scenes. Colourlovers has a lovely collection of color schemes extracted from famous paintings. Well done.
Glossify Everything!
As if the Web 2.0 world isn't glossy enough, glossy.js is a little javascript package that gives just about any image a wonderfully glossy, just-Windexed shine. I'm still digging the gloss effect. Shoot me.
Posted by Richard Ziade on June 26, 2007, 10:59AMThomas Edison's Startup
For the unitiiated, Marc Andreessen (the co-founder of Netsape) started blogging a few weeks ago. Marc is on a serious role so far, providing all sorts of gems about the in's and out's of a starting a technology venture and hiring the right teams. If you aren't tracking it and this stuff interests you, don't miss it.
In Marc's most recent post, he expounds upon the only thing that matters when thinking about a startup. In sum, the only thing that matters according to Marc is the market. You may have a great team and a stellar product, but if the market isn't there you'll most likely fail, according to Marc.
With all due respect to Mr. Andreessen, I think his conclusions are not only wrong, but sadly discouraging. Innovation, invention, those great out-of-left-field ideas that someone is tenacious enough to bring to product and introduce them in a clear way. The ideas that not only fufill a need, but create wants. The ideas that, in effect, create markets.
On every corner and side street in New York City, there is either a street coffee vendor or a deli or coffee shop ready and willing to sell you coffee for $.50. Could anyone have foreseen the "market" for Starbucks to wedge its way into practically every 100 meters in New York City and sell their coffee for three to four times as much? Where did that market come from?
The portable music player market existed for years before the iPod came along. The market was effectively demarcated by the early players like Diamond (which eventually became Rio). And then, the iPod came along and absolutely obliterated the boundaries of what everyone presumed the portable music market to be.
Marc sort of addresses those rare market-creating products that come along every so often, but he frames it in a "product/market fit" argument. The failing there is that he's writing off the market as some fixed, pre-defined entity. The task of the startup is to somehow make your product fit within it.
I'd much prefer to view the dance between product and market as something far more fluid and highly reciprocal. A product can expand, and in rare cases, create a market. A market can inevitably drive the strategic direction of a product. Factors like ease-of-use, elegant design, and aesthetics that can evoke emotions and loyalty, and others can help shape wants that we never would have conceived of prior.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record on this blog, this is again about honing in a real need (or want) and attacking it with good design. Good design broadens your potential market and can create loyalty that is nearly impossible to attain otherwise.
But even if we forget design for a second, what of the market for phonographs? Or moving pictures? Or a toaster? How would Thomas Edison react to Marc's argument? Wait...how would Marc circa 1993 react to Marc's argument today?
Nice Collection of Web Testing Tools
This is nice (and kinda...weird), Test Everything is a single destination that lets you hit tons of different testing tools that test all sorts of stuff.
Posted by Richard Ziade on June 20, 2007, 10:20AMThe Style Archive
The Style Archive is a nicely browsable collection of templates for Movable Type, Livejournal and Typepad.
Posted by Richard Ziade on June 13, 2007, 10:32PM10 Things We Can Learn From Apple
There's no need to restate the high reverence (or pangs of envy, depending on where your loyalty lies) of Apple. They have innovated, floundered, and in recent years, risen from the ashes to make one hell of a run in computing and electronics devices. Love them or hate them, you can't deny that they are adored by their fans. Their brand has reached that highly sought-after place in the world of marketing: they can do no wrong.
So how did they get there? Is it dumb luck? Or are they just much smarter than the rest of us? The most common reason given is Apple's rabid devotion to design. That is, without a doubt, a key component of Apple's success. But I think there's more to it than that. Here are ten reasons why I think Apple is so successful today, and what we can learn from them:
- Understand The Total Experience. Apple is not a software company. It's also not a hardware company. It's an experience company. Software and hardware just play a part in the broader experience. Imagine your iPod without iTunes. Hardware and software are industry demarcations that the masses could care less about. By ignoring that separation and focusing on solving real problems in a cohesive way, they obliterated the portable music market.
- Less Is More. You see it in all of Apple's interfaces. That "clean" look. Sure, the power is there, but wherever possible it's hidden away. As for controls, there's hardly a single button on an iPod. Hell, there isn't even a power switch. It seems counter-intuitive to the engineering mind. Less features and less controls appeal to people more. But it makes sense. With less, there's less room for error. Less to digest. Less to learn. In other words, a shorter path to enjoyment.
- "He's Got His Father's Eyes." Take a look at an iPod. Then take a look at the Apple remote. Load up iTunes. Then visit apple.com. Nearly all of Apple's products share common genetic characteristics. One of the most striking examples is a previous version of the iMac that actually looks like an iPod. Why is this important? Two reasons. First, by reinforcing common conventions, the learning curve is flattened. Second, these familiar profiles reinforce Apple's signature. You could probably pick an Apple product out of a line-up that you've never seen before.
"I'd Like To Introduce You To Some...Thing." How many other companies do you know of that introduce a product line personally? Rather than a press release. Or a meme that starts out among a collection of bloggers. Or some sort of email list. Apple personally introduces their products to their loyal fans. Often times, it seems like magically, their web presence is simultaneously updated - sometimes allowing for purchase of just-introduced products. - Control The Hardware. This isn't even a secret. Steve Jobs said it bluntly at the iPhone introduction: if you want to build great software, you have to control the hardware. This is precisely why the iPhone feels four or five generations ahead of any portable device available today. Phone carriers like Sprint and T-Mobile fish around looking for sexy, powerful hardware from electronics manufacturers like Samsung and Motorola. Microsoft will go to bed with just about anybody to promote their software platform. Apple knows better. To create truly compelling experiences, you need to have a hand in all the pieces of the puzzle. The iPhone is a great example of that synergy.
Hide The Screws. This is a classic Apple move. Mimic real world artifacts and make things feel less like technology devices and more like something you'd find in the real world. Pick up your iPod. It has no visible screws. It isn't even clear how the device comes together. Hiding the ugliness of technology makes these toys more endearing. Features like coverflow and the upcoming time machine further this notion of pulling design inspiration from the real world. 
"Go Ahead. Touch It." People are scratching their heads wondering why the Apple retail stores are so successful. Gateway tried it years ago and their stores are all gone now. Dell is trying to sell through retail as well...through Walmart. Somehow, I don't think finding Dell laptops across the aisle from 60 lb. bags of fertilizer will amount to the same shopping experience. Above all else, Apple stores are designed to allow you to touch, play with and interact with every one of their products. You're implicitly invited to approach an iPod or Macbook and just play with it. This evinces a confidence in the ease of use of their products, and more importantly, a confidence in you. - Feeling & Thinking. Good functional design and thoughtful product management is a struggle to appeal to and connect with others at a cognitive level. While that's important, Apple understands there's more to it than that. Their products have a welcoming, anthropomorphic quality about them. They lack the rigid right angles and black tones that dominate so many computer devices. They appeal to our emotions as well as our intellect.
Great Design = New Invention. The MP3 player was around for years before the iPod hit the scene. While others were vying to somehow coax consumers towards this new way of carrying and listening to music, the iPod reset everything. It was, for the great majority of people, the real invention of the portable music player. Apple understands that great design (not just good design) can have such a staggering impact that it can introduce a product to the uninitiated masses. Another example is Spaces, one of the new features on their upcoming operating system. Virtual desktops have been around for years, but one look at Spaces and it feels brand new. 
It's About People. The one over-arching theme that seems to penetrate everything Apple does is their basic understanding that every single thing they sell will be touched by a person. They don't build API's. They aren't integrating with back-end systems. They aren't making sure machines talk to machines. They're creating things that people are going to touch and, at the risk of sounding hokey, have relationships with. Every bit of their philosophy - from how a box is opened to how a clickwheel feels - reinforces this unavoidable fact.
Ultimately, the points listed above are really lessons about design. If we think through what makes a great design, it's something that someone else connects with - whether emotionally or intellectually or both. When they connect, it's a great feeling of achievement and connection with the creator. Never mind the features and wiring and CPU's underneath. They're all a means to that single, common end. Apple understands this better than any other company in the world. And we can all learn a lot from them.
This post was also published on the Arc90 blog.
Posted by Richard Ziade on June 11, 2007, 09:10AMAdobe Flex Builder 3 Beta Now Available
Adobe just keeps on truckin'. A beta of Flex Builder 3 is now out on Adobe Labs. Adobe's Matt Chotin has all the luscious details. Did I somehow miss Apollo being renamed to Adobe AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime)?
Posted by Richard Ziade on June 6, 2007, 11:33AMMoleskine Hard Drive Enclosure
Man, Moleskine notebooks sure are dashing. Even more so when you can encase 160GB of pure MP3 and xVid goodness. Who needs to sit around a jot down poetry in a cafe when you've got all that highly-compressed goodness at your disposal?
Zonageek understood this well and went ahead and devised a Moleskine hard drive enclosure. The lovely details are here.
Posted by Richard Ziade on June 5, 2007, 09:43AMCan I Greasemonkey My Life?
In yesterday's post, I pointed to a collection of photos of urban settings without the logos. I found them to be wonderfully soothing. In response, Rachel Murray pointed out the art of Matt Siber. His work is pretty interesting as well (and also kinda soothing). He manipulates photos so that logos float in space. It creates a pretty bizarre effect.
So this got me thinking about...Greasemonkey. What's Greasemonkey? It's the venerable Firefox add-on that lets you load in all sorts of user-created scripts that end up manipulating/mangling/scraping clean web pages after they've landed in your browser. Greasemonkey is used for all sorts of things, but one of its most popular uses is to remove ads and banners from web pages. There are ad remover scripts for just about every popular site.
There's value in getting rid of stuff. As the bombardment on our poor little senses continues to get louder, I'd pay good money to shut things off. Really. Wouldn't it be cool to be able to filter out ads from radio programs? Or shut off the news tickers on the cable news channels? Or turn off the ads behind home plate (also known as the Homeplate Rational)?
Of course, this is all easier said than done. Greasemonkey only works on web pages. We need a Greasemonkey for television, radio and billboard ads. Of course, this is a pipe dream. WIth Google's success around contextual ads, we're headed in the other direction. Backlash anyone?
Posted by Richard Ziade on June 4, 2007, 02:24PMCNN.com Beta Is Up
A new beta version of cnn.com is up. It looks cleaner (and less filling). A lot nicer integration with their video content too.
Our World...Without The Clutter
I'm a big honkin' believer in clean design. The more we clutter our world, the more painful it is for us to take in. Yeh, Times Square is kind of cool...for about five minutes. Someone was kind enough to painstakingly remove the logos, branding and nonsense from everyday urban photos. Without all that noise, the images are actually...beautiful?
Clean design isn't only appealing in furniture and fashion. It's appealing when applied just about anywhere. Think about the next time you design anything really...a web site, a logo, a business card. Don't underestimate the power of nothingness.