BRAND INFECTION » Design

Apple’s Attention To Detail

Nader — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:36:54 +0000

…shows best with this picture: a miniscule but still significant change from OS X 10.7.2 to 10.7.3. I just wonder why they had to bend the pointing hand, it now looks a little bit like Mickey Mouse’s hand to me.

[via fscklog]

iPod Air Fresheners By W5 Carcare

Google Now Analyzes Ad Placements – Improves Search Ranking Algorithm

Nader — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 05:07:02 +0000

Yesterday Google announced a major(!) upgrade to its search ranking algorithm which will drastically change the way designers and more importantly online marketeers will think about their website layouts. In Google’s ongoing effort to help users find more high-quality websites in search results, the company will introduce an improved algorithm. From then on Google will not only analyse content and keywords but also the page layout, more importantly the placements and usage of ads.

This algorithmic change does not affect sites who place ads above-the-fold to a normal degree, but affects sites that go much further to load the top of the page with ads to an excessive degree or that make it hard to find the actual original content on the page.

In one way or the other Google will penalise websites that place too many advertisements above the fold. While this is good for user experience and actually finding relevant information, other websites such as niche websites, that are heavily marketed (“Adsense Websites”), will probably lose quite an important stream of revenue.

So sites that don’t have much content “above-the-fold” can be affected by this change. If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience. Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.

Matt Cutts from Google says that only 1% of global search queries will be affected by this change but I kind of feel that this will have major implications and leave a sustainable scent mark in the world of online marketing.

By the way, Google itself is not really a good example. The search company has a page full of ads above the fold, as you can see in the picture below.

Google itself is full of ads above the fold

Personally I would like to know about what “above the fold” exactly means since so many different screen resolutions exist. Are we talking about 1024×768, 1280xXXX…? Another question remaining is what Google’s definition of “normal degree” is: two ads, three, four…? We’ll see in the future!

Free Christmas Icons

Nader — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 09:44:40 +0000

The season has already started and you might need to design something around christmas. Here is a Christmas icon set (Download) by Offset Media that looks gorgeous.

The pack is available as EPS and completely free to use in personal and commercial projects without any restrictions.

Chiquita Banana Gets Rebranding: Make Bananas Cool!

Nader — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 19:09:17 +0000

Chiquita Banana recently got a rebranding and introduced their sticker characters. Staying true to themselves with that familiar blue and yellow color scheme, it was imperative that they build upon their brand equity rather than start from scratch.

The client’s goals were kind of like that dream brief you get handed that simply says: “Make bananas cool.”. As a branding and design junkie myself I think this is one of the most awesome rebrands lately.

The cornerstone of the campaign relied on the little blue stickers, the biggest icon for the brand, and the biggest way to get the word out…

Designrelated got a chance to interview the art director DJ Neff about the process of making bananas even cooler.

Click here for the campaign site.

Not enough? Here is a huge collection of Chiquita Stickers from all over the world and something funny for halloween: a Chiquita Banana Costume

Brand Keyboard For The Infected

Nader — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 08:27:53 +0000

While this keyboard design concept by Ignacio Pilotto would be hard to use for untrained typists it shows the power of brands when replacing the letters to which the brand logos correspond. The repetition of logos used by the advertising psychology causes us to systematically recognize the brands, getting us to recognize the logos rather than our own alphabet.

BRANDS : Adidas – Burger king – Coca Cola – Disney – Ebay – Facebook - Google – Hp – Intel – J&b – Kodak – Lacoste – Mac donald´s – Nike – O2 – Pepsi – Quaker – Rolling stone – Shell – Twitter – Unilever – Virgin – WordPress – Xerox – You tube – Zippo – (GENIUS)

In reality Photoshop would look like this

Nader — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 14:18:24 +0000

Ever wondered how Adobe Photoshop would look in real life?
Art Snob Solutions have rebuilt the software with natural, real materials. The color swatches, ruler, font panel, tool palette, … simply everything is handmade. This is NOT a photoshop job!

The build process can be seen in their online photo album.

Architecture meets Product Design