The New York Times continues to impress with their ability to integrate elegant and useful tools into their ever-evolving index page. Tonight, they displayed a Twitter ticker below the featured story showing Reader’s Reactions to President Obama’s speech on the Gulf oil spill.

I find this to be a wonderful example of a traditional media company breaking away from traditional UI practices to experiment with the user behavior of their audience. I can only guess that most users visiting the index while this was rolling felt as though they had more information, from an extended source of contributors in real time. It’s a pretty amazing way to incorporate the opinions of captain random alongside the musings of rock-star, online journalists.

The times they are a-changin’.

Seattle’s Best Coffee has been around since 1970, kicking things off in the city that was to become the mecca U.S. coffee culture: Seattle, WA. Over the past 10 years or so, Seattle’s best has even become a fixture for Colorado coffee zombies with their beans available in most grocery stores, shops inside all Borders bookstores and even two standalone stores in the metro area. Seattle’s best is also the nation’s second largest coffee roaster behind Starbuck. Interestingly enough, Starbucks bought Seattle’s Best back in 2003.

Today, Seattle’s Best announced a major push in its distribution by adding their coffee to the menus of other retailers like Subway, Burger King and AMC Entertainment. In tandem, they’ve also unveiled a radically new logo, designed by Seattle ad agency Creature.

The approach to the design seems to gel with the business plan — solidifying Seattle’s Best as the go-to vending machine coffee brand. That might sound a bit harsh, but it’s actually true. In addition to the new distribution partnerships, Seattle’s Best is indeed planning to offer their brew via cafeteria style, coin-operated contraptions. Does that make the brand more approachable? Maybe. But I also think the new logo has a sterile feel that, aside from making me want to donate blood, feels too generic.

I’m not a huge coffee drinker, but those that I’ve polled said the quality of Seattle’s Best is not accurately represented by such a simple, contemporary design. The more detailed, classic label-style logo from yesterday speaks to a more established company offering coffee with a refined flavor which, in their opinion, rivals that of Daddy Starbucks’.

As I start the day (and anxiously wait for Stueben’s to open) I thought I’d share some fantastically fashioned birthday cakes. Bakers/Designers like Duff Goldman are, in my opinion, amazing craftsmen who’s artistry have inspired on so many fronts. Mostly on the eating front, but also on showing us the delights of playful designs that help keep us young at heart.

Also awesome? Jennifer’s birthday cakes! And today I’ll be enjoying a lovely chocolate peanut butter and jelly cake that’s going to force me to spend the rest of my birthday weekend at the gym. Totes worth it.

My crew has been working on designs for a kitchen and bath fixture manufacturer and it’s given me the opportunity to soak in some great faucet designs. Yes, faucet designs. I’m often enamored by the fixtures in bathrooms of fancy restaurants and have even considered remodeling our home bathrooms with some slicker aesthetics after seeing all these. Hope they’re inspirational for you as well.

http://www.fuelyourcreativity.com/sleek-sexy-faucet-designs/

A good newsletter will inform, stir interest and sell. As simple as this concept may seem, many organizations seem to struggle with user engagement and I think it has to do with how easy it is to lose site of the impact a good set aesthetics and proper timing can have.

With timing, let’s consider that most organizations send out their communications on a set schedule. To counter this practice, I often argue that the age old philosophy of saying something when you’ve got something to say should apply to email blasts. Users don’t mind getting messages when there’s something intriguing and timely to look at, but they do care when they get a predictable message that doesn’t offer them anything useful — even worse is when the message has too much, bottled up information seemingly forced into the message since they last heard from you.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t take advantage of calendar events, like holidays and birthdays when sending things out. Piggy backing on special events to make a stronger point or improve engagement on call to actions is a no-brainer. Try to send emails that are interesting, relevant and have timely information while getting the the point across without too many words.

When thinking about the “design” of your newsletter, here are some fundamental principles to keep in mind.

1. Match your brand – Your newsletter design should not be a complete departure from the source website. It should also retain consistent branding so that users are familiar with what they’re looking at. If possible, reference the same CSS file.

2. Make a good first impression – Grab the readers attention with a slick, well-designed header and strong copy to match. If you catch the user off guard, with useful information they’re more likely to take that ever important first scroll down the page.

3. Be consistent – Stick to a strong, well laid out template and keep information in the same location from blast to blast. Open with big news, and place fun, interactive buckets towards the bottom.

4. Keep it clean – Do your best to use few of type faces and keep the number of bordered elements (boxes) to a minimum. Also try to use fewer background images for header backgrounds and use large, readable fonts for said headers. Minimalism may not be your cup of tea, but cutting out unnecessary clip art helps with user engagement.

5. Create good separation – Obvious stuff here: Contrast the type face (bold, large for section headers), contrast with over sizing important visible elements, and contrast buckets (layout) with extra wide outset margins to create lots of white space. Stacked layouts, rather than a columned approach is also a good idea .

As the 2010 Winter Olympics draw to a close, I can’t help but reminisce about all the lovely, Olympic inspired designs I’ve stumbled across recently. Among my favorites are those in this collection of designs that whimsically parallel the spirit of the games in the form of print assets, television spots and throwback posters.

While poking around designerfix.com, I also found this list of wonderful Google Olympic logos from past to present. The latest are definitely the greatest.

And even though the logo for the 2012 games looks like something the 80′s threw up (sorry London, it’s hideous), I’m still looking forward to seeing what other goodness designers piece together to celebrate the world of Olympic sports.

In giving some guidance to a neighbor on his Stapleton Helpdesk logo, I eagerly recommended Marina for the type face. It’s in the Serif family of fonts (just barely) with tiny points protruding from the edges of each character giving it a subtle elegance that screams “We’re legit. We’re trustworthy. We’re good at what we do.”

One of the things I pay very close attention to (and enjoy the most) when putting together logotype designs is pairing the organization’s personality and brand message with the right font. Some of the stronger dyads that come to mind are Google’s (Catull), Apple’s (Garamond Light Condensed), Twitter’s (Pico Alphabet), and Yahoo!’s every so memorable and brilliant custom font.

Here’s some more “fresh and extremely useful” fonts to help inspire your next logo design endeavor.

More than anything, this drive shaft powered bicycle is a work of art. The sharp angles, solid white, matte finish and hub-less wheels exude industrial design hotness.

And as practical (and beautiful) as the bike may seem, I don’t think drive shaft technology will ever replace the tried and true chain configuration that has carried bicycling through the last 130 years. Besides, where do you expect BMXers to attach pegs for gnarly rail grinds?

Check out more photos from Falling Pixel here.

I just came across this collection of fantastically clever advertisements from around the globe. Take note that most of them are aimed at foreign demographics, likely due to the fact that too many of us in the States might be offended by some of the visuals. It’s sad, really, to think that such a progressive nation as the good ‘ol U.S.A. is still so sheltered from edgy concept art and marketing metaphors.

Or is it something else? It irks me to think we’ve become a culture that’s just not clever enough to “get” these ads and barely have the wit to react to dumbed-down, kid-friendly versions. *sigh*

Nonetheless, hope you enjoy.

I spend a lot of time thinking about CTAs (or call to actions) over the course of an average work week. My team puts together advertising units, widgets and mini-site mock ups almost daily for big name brands and it’s important to create CTAs that are clear, eye catching and effective in converting to clicks. Some of the things we pay attention to mirror the tips mentioned here but there are a few more things to keep in mind that can help ensure you’re designing an effective CTA:

1) Size matters – make sure the CTA is big but not obnoxious. I’ve seen designs that go so big that the CTA ends up resembling an ad unit rendering it invisible to less savvy users. Find a good balance between your buttons and the surrounding elements but always strive to make it stand out, without scaring the user way.

2) Shape it up – Making your CTA look like a nice, inviting, rounded corner button makes sense about 90% of the time, but if you’re designing within an existing site or ad unit be mindful of the existing style. Sometimes, a link may be your best bet rather than using something resembling a button or badge. Whatever you end up doing, remember to use high contrasting colors to draw the eye and mouse.

3) Stick it where it counts – Positioning the CTA is probably the most important thing to consider. Remember that a user’s eye will generally track from left to right, top to bottom so the top-right portion of whatever you’re designing will be your hot spot. It often seems natural to place the CTA at the right/bottom-right of your design, but we’ve found that even with something like a 728×90 ad unit the CTA on the far left will perform more effectively. This is an excellent example of good positioning. Learn it.