Web Development & Design | Online Marketing
Unsolicited notes, links and advice from an online development firm in Kansas City.
It took 18 hours and 4 phone calls to technical support for me to activate my G1 in the UK. However, once the device was finally working, I needed just a few minutes to conclude Google and T-Mobile have missed a huge opportunity to demonstrate a genuine commitment to improving the mobile user experience.
…it’s kinda downhill from there. Ouch.
Amazon.com is taking on the frustration many internet shoppers feel, myself included, when they order an item online and then receive small box packed in a bigger box. It’s usually wasteful and serves no purpose. Almost every time I’ve ordered something online and had my box in a box show up, I’ve thought to myself, “Why can’t they just ship it to me in one box?”
Well, Amazon is launching a multi-year initiative working with manufacturers to develop ship-friendly packaging that items can be placed in as they come off the production line at the factory. But that’s not all, the frustration free packing materials are also designed for opening without the use of knives or other tools and are 100% recyclable… Ah, lazy environmentalism, this is just my style. Bravo Amazon.
Here’s an excerpt from the Amazon Frustration Free Packaging FAQ:
What’s the difference between Frustration-Free Packaging and traditional packaging?
The Frustration-Free Package (on the left) is recyclable and comes without excess packaging materials such as hard plastic clamshell casings, plastic bindings, and wire ties. It’s designed to be opened without the use of a box cutter or knife and will protect your product just as well as traditional packaging (on the right). Products with Frustration-Free Packaging can frequently be shipped in their own boxes, without an additional shipping box.
Also, not to completely rain on the green-design parade here, but Amazon recently shipped a “ready to ship” box… inside another “ready to ship” box. Oy!
Never-the-less the above announcement gives me hope.
This is good information design. It’s the back of a new coin that won a Dutch design contest and will soon be in circulation. Some details about the above picture:
More pics of the process below.
Here’s the final product:
This was just the back; the front is great as well. Read the blogpost by the creator. He explains his thought process and provides pics every step of the way.
Zipperless, water-proof, sand-proof, shock-proof, orange…
I want one. The Seattle Sling bag by Made is targeted at photogs heading into hardcore environments. It looks like something Gordon Freeman would carry, with beefy quilting, big fat plastic clips and a standard waterproof bag on the inside in contrasting orange. It’ll keep you’re stuff safe in all conditions and looks good to boot. (It had better for $150.)
Independent dairies are finding a classic solution to a classic problem – how to differentiate their products. For inspiration, they hearken back to a time when ice cream was made on the farm, and milk was sold in glass bottles. For older people it’s a taste of nostalgia, for younger people it’s a novelty.
The appeal is simple – many aficionados swear milk tastes better from a glass bottle, and looks fresher too. Unlike plastic or cardboard, glass doesn’t alter the true taste of milk and it looks amazing on the shelf. “The glass, it just jumps out at you,” says Leroy Shatto, maker of Shatto Milk (shown above.) One thing is very clear. This old-time design approach is so retro, it’s trendy. To keep this trend alive, support your local dairy farmers by enjoying their yummy milk in glass bottles. But, most importantly – rinse, return and repeat the process.
These modern video-gaming classics re-imagined in Atari 2600 packaging is a weird walk down a memory lane that wasn’t. Very clever.
Before the over the top, logo heavy madness of today’s next-gen masterpieces became the visual norm for video game cover art, there was the basic beauty of the Atari 2600’s approach to package design. Clean composition and vague descriptive text came together to create something that was just so…intangibly fresh and mesmerizing. But what if the biggest games of now fell into the hands of a 2600-era artist? We’d have Atari Modern Classics, a vintage look at our new favorites through the pixelated beer goggles of an era where simplicity was king.
Check out the full gallery at The-MinusWorld.com.
Baking a personality into your product with design like this doesn’t cost anything. Why wouldn’t you ? Innocent Drinks, UK.
What do you do when people, by definition, hate interacting with your product? Just add bacon…
WHAT: An alarm clock that wakes you up with the smell and sizzle of cooking bacon.
WHY: No one likes to wake up, especially by an alarm. This clock gently wakes you up with the mouthwatering aroma of bacon, just like waking up on a Sunday morning to the smell of Mom cooking breakfast. Unless you’re Jewish.
HOW: A frozen strip of bacon is placed in Wake n’ Bacon the night before. Because there is a 10 minute cooking time, the clock is set to go off 10 minutes before the desired waking time. Once the alarm goes off, the clock it sends a signal to a small speaker to generate the alarm sound. We hacked the clock so that the signal is re-routed by a microchip that in responds by sending a signal to a relay that throws the switch to power two halogen lamps that slow-cook the bacon in about 10 minutes.
WAKE n’ BACON by Matty Sallin.
[via Designer Daily Link Blog]