Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category

I had a client approach me and ask if I knew how to customize MySpace. I replied “Sure can!” thinking that it couldn’t possibly be that difficult. Oh sweet merciful Jesus was I ever wrong. Instead of elegant semantic code full of classes to hook into, MySpace is a horrible mishmash of tables, divs, and transparent spacer images. You can’t directly style any ID elements, since hash marks (#) get stripped out whenever you save profile edits.

I dug through googled pages of style templates until coming across Hacking A More Tasteful MySpace by Mike Davidson. However, this was written almost 2 years ago, and MySpace code has become even more convoluted since then. Enter Alexander Agnarson (LOOK at that MySpace, WOW!) and his update to Mike’s excellent hack.

Honestly, my initial efforts pale in comparison. I’m a neat freak though, and my goal was to make all of the content boxes line up with even widths down the column and even gaps throughout, so mission accomplished. It’s still a WIP, now that I have the alignment all sorted out I can work on the flourishes.

I’ve been pretty busy this week. Set the axe to the grindstone and finished the site layout for MB Design. Had it go live on Sunday, so now I can FINALLY put together business cards to hand out. It’s still a work in progress, as I’m not entirely happy with the copy, but I have a wonderful team of professionals (read: relatives and my lady) pouring over it with a fine toothed comb. I suppose that this is my first real usability test. It’s being done on the cheap, as described by Steve Krug in his excellent book “Don’t make me Think”, the premiere guide to solid web UI design.

As for business cards, I’m going all-out. In every “top 10 cool business cards” blog article I’ve read, there is always ALWAYS a transparent plastic card included. They’re durable, stylish, and definitely leave people thinking. I’m going to throw my hat in and try to capitalize on the trend. The one catch that I’ve noticed is that a plastic card isn’t exactly the easiest to write on. People are always writing additional info on the back of their cards. Should I sacrifice that functionality for style? Hell no! I’ve got a way to get the best of both style and function. I noticed that a lot of plastic card printing companies can add a credit-card style signature strip to the back of a card. Who says it can only be used for signatures? DUH! I’m totally going to use those as a writable area for the back of my cards.

I have a relative (always hit up those connections) that owns a promotional materials company. Strangely enough, he doesn’t have a website for me to plug (I smell business opportunity). He’s looking into pricing. Will post pics of my bitchin’ business cards when they come in.

New & Busted





Old Hotness

Though La Rosa’s is a far superior pizza (with full emphasis on the Cincinnati hometown bias), I’m no stranger to Donatos; a pizza chain started in Columbus, OH in 1963. Back in February Donatos launched a new brand identity complete with new logo and store remodeling courtesy of Engauge, formerly TenUnited (surprise surprise, marketing firm websites with too much Flash that take too long to load).

Bland. Plastic. Unemotional. It’s exactly the type of logo that is cranked out by design committee; the kind of people who would use a word like “behaviorists” in a press release (look at the link above, they did). If you went to art school, you know the type; the ones that got their degree based on the amount of bullshit they could shovel rather than quality of their work.

Compare the two logos in the context of what they’re designed to do; sell pizza. What does the old one tell you about the product? It has that classic old-world style, with the fat serif lettering and “wooden sign” oval shape. “Hey, we make a quality pizza. How about you come in and try it?” The new logo screams fast food. “Here is your order, may I help the next customer?” Assembly-line pizza served by teenagers being paid minimum wage. Both are undoubtedly generic, but the context makes all the difference.

There are plenty of “Italian family” type pizza joints with corresponding logos, but at least the customer can identify with that family feel. The new logo is the bad kind of corporate generic, where you can just tell that the company exists to make money and the product is an afterthought. It’s funny, then, that their rebranding is in direct opposition to the stated goal of “We want to make pizza night special again” coupled with corporate jargon of “people want to trade-up for a more premium food experience.” What? I guess that means customers want TASTY PIZZA.

Quality of product comes before flashiness of presentation. Donatos pizza isn’t bad, but when your customers become a demographic rather than, well, customers, and you’re targeting your design around that, you’ve lost your focus. You can put a new coat of shine on it, but it’s still the same cheap pizza that it was before. If you want to be the better pizza experience, then make a better pizza. Blinging out your stores doesn’t magically make the food better. The redesign looks like a rejected Circuit City revamp that heavily cribbs from competitor Dewey’s Pizza (who puts out a higher quality/more expensive product than Donatos) with a touch of Chipotle thrown in for good measure.