• Ask reporter David Brooks a question http://bit.ly/jinrf Brilliant, because they are driving traffic with Facebook ads.
• RT @chrisbrogan & @1938media Im going to load up a flip with footage and give it to a follower to make a vid. Me: I’m in. Sounds fun. in reply to chrisbrogan
• Estimate the daily traffic of any website http://bit.ly/bS1vh HT @A3PixitesMunier Useful and addictive.
• A big hello to our newest client, The Johnston County Nursery Marketing Association (as in trees). Time to make the donuts @georgegumpert

• It’s Friday, have a beer: http://bit.ly/24DqGb Download the “original” size, big enough for wallpaper on any desktop. Salut! #
• My profile in Skirt Magazine came out today http://bit.ly/FLXKL This is embarrassing. #
• Amazing sights from Google Street View, delivered in a tidy 140 char form @gsightseeing #followfriday #
• I like new words. That’s why I follow @mrdictionary #followfriday in reply to mrdictionary #
• Rondo just threw Hinrich onto the scorers table. Flagrant one. Getting chippy. #
• Bulls up 14-11 over Celtics at first time out #
• Off to lunch and a quick (hopefully) shoot in North Raleigh. #
• Affordable and unique for Mother’s Day: French perfume http://www.fragonard.com/ Boutique perfumer now sells online around the world. #
• New TV spot for J. Alane’s Fine Lingerie http://bit.ly/8YOAm Shot on mini DV, music composed in Garage Band. It’s a great world. @pogue #
• Carpenter Farm Supply http://bit.ly/BUdrC A little bit of North Carolina for your desktop. #
• Going to the gym now to de-stress. Don’t say anything clever in my absence. That means you, @badbanana #
• Just shipped the miniDV lingerie spot to the station. Fingers crossed. I’ll post the clip to YouTube if anyone is interested. #
• Lemme ask you this @Pogue: Firewire? USB? Play nice with Final Cut? Hard to beat miniDV. #
• Off to band practice. Catch y’all later! #
• 7 Ways the Social Web Benefits Business http://bit.ly/13R7dj Good summary for reluctant clients. HT @mashable #
• At Open Eye in Carrboro http://twitpic.com/4874t #
• Obama’s Flickr channel: http://bit.ly/4hZZH Behind the scenes look at life in the White House. Great use of social web. HT @mashable #
• Great style channel blends infotainment and ecommerce nicely http://www.shopflick.com/ HT @mashable #
• Dos Equis new slogan: Stay Thirsty. Counter-intuitive for a beer, no? #
• Watching the NBA. Haier TV commercial is still really lame. #
• Coloring before dinner http://twitpic.com/46kl0 #
• Dianthus & indigo from our garden http://twitpic.com/46kcz #
• Go ahead, fan A Fifth of Blues on Facebook http://bit.ly/jTbnq It won’t kill ya. #
• Tune I recorded with keyboardist @mpelzsherman now on myspace http://bit.ly/UMpry Garage band rocks #
• More on Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives http://bit.ly/f7F0A We were way ahead of the curve on this. Still an important construct. #
• Digital Immigrants vs. Digital Natives: LexusNexus study of workplace habits http://bit.ly/iYEVF RT @10000Words One of our favorite subjects #
• Test your web page for search relevancy right now http://bit.ly/11SCsZ We use this tool all the time. #
• In case you missed it, me in a skirt http://bit.ly/13mftk From a shoot for a magazine profile coming out in May. #
• While we’re waiting for the lingerie spot to be ok’d, watch my anti-smoking PSA http://tinyurl.com/c3×9jg Won a Cannes Lion #
• Harris Teeter, on the other hand, is an all-American Palace of Food http://twitpic.com/466pb #
• I love a car with a critter on top http://twitpic.com/4633w But I wouldn’t get take out. #
• Cary is still heaven for developers http://twitpic.com/46322 #
• Aldi reminds me of shopping in Europe-bag your own, quick & cheap http://twitpic.com/461r2 #
• Rendering the lingerie spot. Off to lunch and the supermarket. http://twitpic.com/45xnx #
• Desktop of the Day: Pastrami on Rye http://bit.ly/9NIYk This is fast food to die for, people. #
• Mixing #
• Working on titles for a new TV commercial. Contemplating making the logo smaller @mtlb #
• RT @jayrosen_nyu @stevebuttry Today’s “reinventing newspapers” story http://bit.ly/6cIWb Good reading and good thinking. Bookmark it. #
• RT @nextnewsroom Seattle Times Keeps 98% of PI print subscribers http://bit.ly/mUlvB Newspapers are good business, but not enuf to save news #
• Interesting analysis of commenting culture and patterns by Virginia Heffernan in the Sunday Times Magazine http://bit.ly/dY04P #
• Took my kids out for a cone http://twitpic.com/44c0k http://twitpic.com/44c1b #
• Me in a Skirt http://bit.ly/13mftk From a shoot for Skirt Magazine coming out in May. Truly Shameless. #
• RT @mashable HOW TO: Build Your Thought Capital on Twitter http://bit.ly/BMnpF (via @tweetmeme) Brilliant. Short. Worth Reading. #
• RT @Padmasree Most profitable tech companies, Cisco is #4 http://tinyurl.com/cupjqr I’m loving my router, but what is the human network? #
• Your Help Please: Any community journalists out there? How was your experience creating UGC for newspapers online? #
• My url shortener uses the country code of Libya? Should I be concerned? http://bit.ly/YVN21 #
• A big shout out to @60SecondTwitter Short marketing tips everyone can use. #
• IBM to Take On Jeopardy http://bit.ly/VYflh Harks back to Deep Blue, the chess-playing computer that played Gary Kasparov. #
• RT @60SecondTwitter 250 million people use Wikipedia each month. It’s the 4th largest website on the planet. But it’s run by only 25 people. #
• “Duct Tape” economy is the Boston Globe’s front page buzzword; consumers repairing, patching, resurrecting…but not buying RT @mrdictionary #
• I woke up this morning with a mild case of hamster flu. No biggie, just a runny nose and an irrational desire to run in circles on a wheel. #
• Monday Desktop: Rocco’s Pastries http://bit.ly/lswcJ Baked goods to die for in the West Village. #
• Looking forward to WordCamp in Richmond VA @wordcamprva #wcrva #

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Malls, mixed-use developments, shopping centers - call them what you will, they dot the landscape of America.

Many of the larger developments have websites. For the most part, they’re pretty awful. So, when we were asked to produce a new website for North Hills, a mixed-use development in Raleigh, NC, our goal was to help bring the category into a Web 2.0 world.

Two months after the launch, we have every reason to feel we’ve achieved. Stats are great, everything works, and best of all, a continuing content stream is beginning to bloom. It’s interesting stuff, too - stories, bios, pictures and video.

So here’s a checklist of things we think a contemporary mall or mixed-use website needs.

The Basics

1. A page for each merchant
2. A picture for each merchant
3. Descriptive text for each merchant (more than just a phone number and an outside link)

It is surprising how few big developments have reached this level of information. See our collection of links for malls and mixed-use developments on Delicious (and please feel free to add links to other sites in the category).

The Finer Points

1. Interactive Map
2. Continuing Content Stream
3. Ad Platform

(1) The interactive map is a challenging bit of engineering and UI. We’ll write more about it soon. (2) In most cases, developing a rich content stream requires cultural change for clients. Training and continued support are mandatory to advance evolutionary adoption of web 2.0 tools like blogs and twitter. (3) Big developments like North Hills have the potential to draw big traffic. Why settle for pennies on the dollar when you could have it all with your own ad platform? Tune in again for a discussion about implementing your own ad server.

Best Practices

To boost the performance of a site in this category as measured by key stats like Time On Site and Page Views, here are a few best practices we can recommend:

1. Minimize outside links
2. Run outside content in an iframe within your site
3. Drive traffic to niches with CPC advertising
4. Pay attention to what Analytics tells you about your audience

The Last, Most Important Point

Like all other advertising and marketing ventures, success is rooted in a good agency-client relationship. We are deeply grateful to Kane Realty Corporation for their vision and their patience throughout this project.

Special thanks to:

• Anna Smith
• Mike Smith
• Bonner Gaylord
• Jon Masterson
• Katherine Knott
• Angela Slater
• Paul Newcomer
• Walt Stewart
• North Hills Security

For Goodtree & Company:

• George Gumpert, master programmer
• David Holt, design
• John Dixon, flash
• Leslie Huffman, merchant database and blogging diva
• Hal Goodtree, precious little

Thanks also to Allen Weiss, Michael Kimsal, Lindsey Chester, Paul Harnett, Dorothea Bitler, Jill Harris, Fiquet, Kevin and Stacey Jennings, Wick Morgan and Jason Peck. And thanks to Jake St. Peter and Mike McTaggart for their generous time.

Please contact us for more information about mall, shopping center and mixed-use development websites.

Full story here:

http://tinyurl.com/cu3rt7

All kinds of trends, inspiration, tools and tricks for web designers.

See some cool examples of the avant garde in navigation design for websites.

North Hills is a unique place. It has more local merchants than national chains. It has restaurants, not just fast food. It has underground parking.

It took vision to redevelop an old-skool mall into a modern urban village. In building a new web site for North Hills, we’ve tried to live up to that standard.

North Hills told us to focus on creating quality content. Each store, restaurant and spa has its own page, its own picture and descriptive text. After researching the category, it was surprising to find how few developments had this much information.

We’ve taken over 1500 pictures for the new site (our favorite is the flash panorama on the home page). Many thanks to the management and merchants at North Hills for all their help and patience. Special thanks also to North Hills Security.

Goodtree & Co. credits:

• Leslie Huffman - Project Manager
• George Gumpert - Design & Programming
• David Holt - Senior Designer
• Hal Goodtree - Creative Director

Also thanks to Allen Weiss, Michael Kimsal, Paul Harnett, Anna Smith, Dorothea Bitler and Mike Smith.

More about the things we’ve learned from this project later. Surf up the NorthHillsRaleigh right now and let us know what you think.

Tarski is first and foremost a very readable theme. Navigation, categories, comments, tags - Tarski is clean and makes sense throughout the entire layout.

Even better, Tarski is one of the most customizable themes we’ve experienced. You can easily add your own header and sidebar widgets plus many other theme options.

Check to make sure you get the right version of Tarski to run with your WordPress. Look for the release on the dashboard if you’re not sure.

Photos by George Gumpert & Hal Goodtree. Design by Goodtree & Co.

We write a lot about WordPress and blogging. One important trick of the trade is installing a custom theme to give your blog a unique look. Here’s how it works:

1. When you install the WP blog engine, it loads up the default theme, a plain white page with a solid blue header.
2. To give your blog its own flavor, WP provides an ample tool set for using a custom theme.
3. Hundreds (if not thousands) of custom themes exist. Most themes are free or just involve a modest cost. One of the best places to search for themes is the WP Theme Viewer. You can narrow your search by selecting a color, number of columns and lots of other criteria.
4. Select the themes you like best, download them to your computer, then upload them to your server inside the WordPress directory, wp-content/themes subdirectory.
5. Surf up your blog and log in to the admin panel. In WP 2.5 or greater, navigate to the Design tab (in earlier versions, navigate to “presentation”). You’ll see thumbnails of all the themes you have uploaded. Click on the theme you fancy. Presto! Your blog has a new look.

Some themes include a picture in the header. To really jazz up your presentation, you can replace the header picture with one of your own design.

Find the header picture you want to replace. It’s usually in folder labeled “images” inside the theme directory. Sometimes the appropriate file is labeled “header,” other times not. Just have a quick look at the files in the images directory and the header picture should be self-evident.

Load up the header picture in any imaging program such as Photoshop or Fireworks. Design a new header to your own liking, but don’t change the overall dimensions of the picture.

Upload the new header to the appropriate directory on your server replacing the old header (use the same file name). Shazamm! Your new header is now active.

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For our pro bono client SmartGrowthGirl, we used a photo of the author and combined it with an illustration we purchased from iStockphoto. The resulting picture adds personality and uniqueness to the blog, plus tells the story of what the blog is all about. See it here.

We also re-themed our own blog to better match our new website.

For advanced blogging geeks, you can even change the color, typography and layout of the theme by editing the css file. But that’s fort another day.

Our theme for SmartGrowthGirl is adapted from a theme by Nathan Rice called RockinBizRed, available as a free download from Rockin Themes. For our own blog, we adapted a theme called Mushblue by Mukka-Mu.

We’ve been working on a new website for major mixed-use development project in the Southeast. We’ve looked at lots of mall and development sites. Unfortunately, we have to report that the Mall of America site ranked dead last.

FATAL ERROR

Mall of America’s site failed our test for one simple reason: the home page doesn’t load in Firefox.

We’ve tested the site on multiple computers over more than a month. No luck.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the show?

NAVIGATION FOLLIES

Navigation works best when it is as simple as possible. But consolidating a large site into concise navigation is not a simple task.

We counted 8 separate navigation panels incorporating 36 items. Many of these items include drop down menus. That’s way too much to be an effective user interface.

When we give viewers too many options, they choose nothing. They bail.

Too many options make the viewer work too hard to understand the site. It creates enormous friction in the user experience.

We suspect that the MOA site development was supervised by a committee. Everybody wanted their info to be prominently displayed. No one looked at the big picture. But remember:

It’s not about what you want to say. It’s about what the viewer is ready to absorb.

Ten pounds of fertilizer in a five pound bag, anyone?

LET THEM EAT CAKE

The MOA site showcases sophisticated design, high level programming and a mountain of effort. But, like Marie Antoinette, it is fatally out of touch with the needs of the public.

By all means, fix the Firefox error. After that, contemplate streamlining the UI and creating a more user-friendly experience.

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We’ve surveyed almost 40 mall and development sites. See all the links here.

THE BEAUTY: GORGEOUS FLASH

Our neighborhood Eleanor pointed us to a realty website called LiveGoodBeHappy.

LGBH features gorgeous, innovative flash menus, pages and features. It’s all rolled together seamlessly.

THE BEAST: WHY AM I HERE?

Linda & Mimi (the realtors behind the site) seem like two very nice people. Major props for making an investment in something different.

But I want to buy a house. I don’t want to wait for graphics to load. I don’t want to be directed to pages that fail to satisfy.

Here’s the Listings page:

See any listings?

Here’s the home page:

What are all those initials in the left nav? WCR? CRS? GRI? Huh?

Remember this:

• A web 2.0 audience wants to know instantly that they are in the right place
• They want to discover quickly the information they have come to find
• They want to get on with their lives

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BTW - ran LGBH through the SEO Analyzer:

This is not a good report.

The Web 2.0 How-to Design Guide breaks down the basics into succinct, practical sections:

Not so fast, you say - web design is not quite so formulaic as all that. But these are the basic touchstones - greatness is in the nuances of your execution.

To make it all easier to grasp, we found lots of great examples in each category. Just scan the tutorial page to get a snapshot of good Web 2.0 design. Do it now!

Final note: once a style has been around long enough to be covered in this depth of polished, analytical detail, the style itself may be getting long in the tooth. So avant-gardists will undoubtedly be moving to flat poster colors and 3D environments. Or something.

But for the rest of us, the Web 2.0 How-to Style Guide is worth a visit.

Web-2.0-ness is many things - design, concept, functionality, inter-connectedness. Sometimes, just looking at a few links is worth a thousand words.

Therefore, I’ve updated my Web 2.0 links on del.icio.us so you can see it all in one place.

Blogsolid offers expert advice and tips on the full range of blogging culture - basics, growth and power blogging.

Even the design makes this blog worth visiting. It’s original and unusually easy to understand. Have a look at Blogsolid right now.

See a lot of really good work, all in one place, in an easy to browse format (just mouseover the thumbnails and a screengrab pops up in flash) - Best of 07 on BWG.

Awards are scheduled to be presented in April 2008 in San Francisco.

Many of the most famous logos have no inherent meaning. Think of the Nike “swoosh.” The meaning is created by a consistent branding and marketing message tied to the abstract image. So don’t stress to much about the design - consider the long-term support for your brand and the logo itself as just one piece of the initiative.

Scenario #1 - A Company Embodied in a Picture

Some companies, like Apple Computer, have a natural jumping off point for logo development. If this is the case in your organization, go with it. Using a picture that literally captures the brand name creates a strong bond between the logo and consumer recognition.

Scenario #2 - A Logo as an Abstraction

Unfortunately, many companies do not have the luxury of simply picturing their brand. Nike, for example, could have used a winged goddess, but how many people would have associated that with the brand? After all, a minor deity is not as recognizable as everyday table fruit.

This is the situation for most companies. Think Chevrolet, Sprint and Citibank. What’s a marketer to do when managing the design for an abstraction?

I. BRAINSTORMING

1. Start with a color palette - color carries a lot of emotional weight. Is your brand friendly or edgy? Male or female? Who is your target audience and how can you connect with them by using color? Work up your “color story” as a starting point for logo design.

2. Abstraction or Portrayal? - This is a key inflection point. An abstraction suggests the nature of your business. A portrayal creates an image that literally communicates the brand. A portrayal might use the name of your company, it’s initials or a picture of the product. But beware of too obvious a choice - Chevrolet could have chosen a picture of a car, but how would that be different from any other car company? Abstraction gives a brand a better shot at uniqueness and offers the possibility of brand growth. Wrestle with this issue, make a decision and stick with it.

3. Brainstorm Key Attributes - This could be as simple as a list of adjectives that describe your company, it’s features and benefits. For a radiology practice, we designed a logo that had an element of transparency - you could see through the layers of the design suggesting the basic feature of radiology. But since radiology is more than just x-rays, we also included a donut hole in the center of the design to suggest MRI & CAT scans.

4. Should You Use a Name or Initials? - It’s easy to like a logo that includes your company name or initials. Maybe too easy. Initials run the risk of creating a separate brand entity. In most cases, it’s better to create a memorable image than rely on words to communicate the message.

II. THE PROCESS

Once you’ve answered these four questions, you can get a designer (or designers) involved and give them clear direction. Because this is so subjective, here’s a checklist to help you manage the process:

1. Designer or Designers? - Either choice can work as long as the process is fair. No one wants to compete for spec, so plan on paying for this initial phase. Set a budget, divy it up among the participants and let the games begin. The winner gets additional funding to finish the design and pool it out in various deliverables like letterhead, business cards and the like.

2. Who’s Judging? - The more people involved, the more messy the process. Figure out who really needs a say in the process based upon expertise and responsibility. Those are two separate fiefdoms. Expertise means people with professional experience in marketing (and maybe production). Responsibility means the key stakeholders must be involved so you don’t go down your merry path only to be vetoed at the end of the yellow brick road. Keep the group small. If the CEO gets final say, have that person on the committee. Don’t allow a bunch of surrogates to imagine what the boss will think.

3. Up or Down Votes - The worst possible process is a free-for-all where a committee tries to make everyone happy by combining elements from different designs - the “one from column A and two from column B” approach. This almost never yields a happy result (or a strong design). Get everyone to vote thumbs up or down, winnow the choices and keep voting until you have one favorite.

Polish up the favorite, maybe create a few variations, vote up or down once again and be done with it. Now you can focus on associating the meaning of your new logo with the attributes of your company through the deep channels of advertising, marketing and promotion.

————————————————————————————-

A final note about typographic treaments. Whether you use your name within the logo or alongside it, you’ll need to do all the things necessary in the creation of the logo itself - color, feeling, readability and so forth. Start with the brainstorming in Part 1 and then move to the process in Part 2.

————————————————————————————-

Remember, this whole process is difficult because it’s not rational and objective - it’s emotional and subjective. Recognize that “business types” are often very uncomfortable with this kind of task, so break it up into smaller, more easily digested nuggets. Make decisions and stick with them.

Lastly, keep it simple. Remember your audience - they are not studying your logo, they’re scanning it. Recall the words of architect Mies van der Rohe:

“Less is more. “

It’s called ColourLovers. CL brings a soupcon of science to the anarchy of developing a color palette.

See what’s hot in the design community right now. Check out the most popular palettes for the web and for print. Build you own color palette or hobnob with the experts in the discussion forum.

Besides all the fun interactivty, ColourLovers will change the way you think about color. Hw many websites can say that?

se man tics - noun 1.a. the study of meaning.
- Dictionary.com

When is a particular design choice simple and functional and when does it crossover into being self-absorbed minimalism? We’re talking about web page tabs.

We’ve noticed two schools of thought regarding the coloration of web page tabs:

1. Tabs that show a change to indicate a live page
2. Tabs that don’t show a change to indicate a live page

WMBDB (we may be dinosuars but), we like to know what page we are on. We don’t like to hunt around for basic info - is it in the address bar? in the title bar?

SO: Tabs which change to show a live page are simple and functional. Tabs which leave a viewer searching for the information are just minimal.

They’ve worked for Calvin Klein, the Musee D’Art Moderne and Bjork. And it’s well-beyond just graphic design, typography and inventing fonts - they’ve done magazine covers (Paris Vogue), stage sets and music videos.

One wonders how and when M/M’s ideas will work their way into the mainstream. Is there some way we can use their thinking in web design? Email campaigns? Inspiring stuff.

To get a better feel for their work, go to the Times article and watch the multimedia presentation.