So, a few people close to me have encountered my fascination with modern smartphone design. It’s a product that combines a lot of things, from industrial design to OS and interface design and back around to content and app design within an established language. And, that’s all actually very cool to examine and see how all the bits come together, and how decisions at one point are reflected throughout. And, it’s pretty easy to think that Apple with its ground-breaking and totally iconic iPhone is really the only “design” in the game, but that’s really just not true.

And so, I was glad to finally have a chance to sit down and watch this interview Engadget did with Nokia’s VP of Industrial Design, Stefan Pannenbecker, where they talk about several aspects of design within an ecosystem that extends all the way from a flagship superphone all the way down to regular old annual cellphone models, and just how much these every day objects are actively designed with goals and motifs in mind. If you haven’t stopped to think about just how much most of the items in your life have been designed, whether they seem “designer” or not, this is probably a good place to start.

And, if you’re a fan of the Lumia design aesthetic like me, you’ll probably be happy to get an actual answer about why the Lumia 900 has a flat screen instead of the elegantly curved one of the Lumia 800.

Check the video out from the external link. It’s worth it.

I’m a bad designer. Which isn’t to say I make bad design, I like to believe I’m at least competent at that. But, in keeping with my distaste for elitest discourses on painting techniques, I am not an incredible font snob. I trie of Helvetica’s popularity, but I am not among the myriad of frothing-at-the-mouth designers shouting for blood if someone should suggest Arial. There are dozens of nearly indistinguishable Helvetica clones, and you know what? Only designers care. Seriously.

But! That said, this article from a typeface designer with a deep-seated hatred of Helvetica pleases me, if only because those previously mentioned frothy designers have set-up something of a temple around that font, and I find that more than a bit silly. Plus, I have to admit, his Aktiv Grotesque font does look clean, and if I had a couple hundred to buy the common styles and weights for my own work I would. So there.

Old IMA Logo

In what’s actually a pretty good blog post, IMA blogger Meg Liffick compares IMA’s brand realignment to the very impressive efforts made by Coca-Cola over the years to keep the brand fresh and relevant. I’m less sure the new logo they have there does that. While it is new, it lacks basically all of the visual punch of the older one, reducing itself visually to a plane of green texture. Relevancy is nice, IMA, but don’t forget that the bigger part of a strong brand identity is maintaining recognizability and the ability to stand out. Your new text-heavy brand might end up being counter-productive in those areas. As a t-shirt or seasonal identity suppliment to your core identity I could see it working, but I’m less excited about it as a whole than the one you’re moving away from.

New IMA Logo

But that’s me. Anyone else have any feelings about the switch?

Old IMA Logo

In what’s actually a pretty good blog post, IMA blogger Meg Liffick compares IMA’s brand realignment to the very impressive efforts made by Coca-Cola over the years to keep the brand fresh and relevant. I’m less sure the new logo they have there does that. While it is new, it lacks basically all of the visual punch of the older one, reducing itself visually to a plane of green texture. Relevancy is nice, IMA, but don’t forget that the bigger part of a strong brand identity is maintaining recognizability and the ability to stand out. Your new text-heavy brand might end up being counter-productive in those areas. As a t-shirt or seasonal identity suppliment to your core identity I could see it working, but I’m less excited about it as a whole than the one you’re moving away from.

New IMA Logo

But that’s me. Anyone else have any feelings about the switch?

A good sans serif (at least of the free/open-source variety that I’m so fond of) is hard to find, no doubts there. Sans serifs are–given the decor around here–unsurprisingly my favorite flavor of font. They’re not just trendy though, they’re persevering. If you want to say ‘stylish and clean’ and not ‘traditional and stalwart’, you need a sans serif.

And, since I want the ‘sparkle’ project to say ‘stylish, clean, sexy, friendly’, well, I need a sans serif.

Fortunately, having plundered the open-sources for all the sans-serifs I could find and not finding a match, I stumbled upon Font Squirrel, which is indeed a sexy site full of sexy fonts. I think I might finally be getting somewhere…

So, this is a carry-over from my work at Roberts, where one of our biggest concerns with the web site is clearly communicating to our customers, who, like most web customers, can’t always be trusted to thouroughly read our notices, which leads to a spot of trouble here and there.

Let’s go back further. At the time, I was actually looking into how WordPress styles its notification boxes so I could hook into the editor page and add a dialog for best blogging practices, and I found a blog entry only tangentially related (in the fine manner Google searches sometimes go), about how too many web-designers aren’t using good error messages.

And, I liked it, and I like his elegant code for implementing what really has become the de facto standard for error messages. so, all you webbies out there, give it a read, it’s worth it, and I personally recommend giving it a serious thought.

Css Message Boxes for different message types