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Much has been made lately of the explosion in applications for the iPhone and its market-leading app store. We’ve just recently been trying our hands at it. I’m a developer, and I’m on the bandwagon. This is why.
Why is a simple, fairly low-powered platform a good thing? While it reduces the number of things that you can do, the restrictions of the platform also level the playing field. The internet has become so massive that it’s often difficult to start a new idea and compete without a large amount of resources. Mobile apps, with their simple platform, effectively put a cap on how effective the big guys are able to be. Indeed, there are many very creative independent developers taking advantage of the platform and producing some very successful applications.
This can be a double-edged sword. For instance, “Simple UI” doesn’t necessarily mean “Easy to design UI”. Apps with clunky or unintuitive UI are going to be left in the dust. UI is an area where the iPhone and Apple have really driven user expectations up. We’ve seen this recently with the unit conversion app that hit the Top 25 in the iPhone App Store, and I’ll delve deeper into that later.
This is the most obvious piece to this. Commercials for the iPhone do a very good job of reeling customers in because they really demonstrate that “cool factor.” I’m a developer, but even I’m often stunned into thinking “how did they do that?”. The recently featured “bump” app had this effect on me as a friend and I downloaded and tested it to determine how exactly it functioned. In this case, the verdict was that it wasn’t quite as magical as I thought (you can “bump” from across a room if you just do it at the same time).
Apps like this demonstrate that there’s still plenty of potential for exciting innovation. Unlike internet applications where you just have the keyboard and mouse, on the iPhone you get multitouch, a compass, a GPS, bluetooth, an accelerometer, along with the entire internet and all the amazing APIs available. Honestly, I’m still trying to come to grips with all the possible inputs. But the bottom line is that both developing for and using the platform is fun.
There’s plenty of cool things on the horizon as well. See: Augmented Reality.
The large amount of Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter apps out there demonstrate that APIs aren’t going away. But extending your site isn’t something only those big sites can do - it’s definitely possible to extend your own website with an iPhone app. If your website is interactive in any way, you can port some of that functionality to an app, similar to how the Facebook iPhone app works.
Look at your customers - is there a possible mobile application that could be of utility or interest to them? If so, developing it and branding it for yourself might be a good way to market yourself in an area where it’s possible few of your competitors have ventured.
Monetization is one of the biggest problems facing people with websites and web applications today who want to actually make money off of them in a non e-commerce fashion. Rumors persist of Facebook, Twitter, or Hulu turning to some sort of paid subscription model to become profitable. Money from advertisers may not be enough to satisfy infrastructure costs as web applications grow larger.
I’m reminded of one of my favorite new TV Shows, Shark Tank (fun, although somewhat cheesy). An oft-repeated maxim on the show is that all entrepreneurs must ask the question: “How am I going to make money off of my idea?”.
App stores provide a very attractive, easy alternative to the traditional ad-based model. Many apps don’t even provide that much more functionality than a simple browser does. But because the web browser on the cell phones will always be somewhat limited, many apps have evolved as a way to provide a much better UI. For instance, the iPhone Facebook app is simply a more attractive and user-friendly way to interact with their site than trying to navigate it with the iPhone Safari browser.
It’s obvious that there would be a huge uproar if Facebook began charging for its services. However, it wouldn’t be so out of the question for them to have released their Facebook iPhone app at $.99 (they didn’t, however). At this point, people still expect to pay for apps. The centralized payment structure makes it even more easy - not only for the customer but for the smaller entrepreneur or developer.
I’m certainly not saying that every app on the iPhone or other mobile platforms will make bushels of money, but it provides a very attractive alternative to those who are pessimistic about dealing with advertising as their main method of making money for their web application.
It’s also important to note that while the iPhone is attractive in it’s simplicity, ultimately the amount of money you can make off of a single idea is probably limited - currently, it seems unlikely that one could make millions off of a single idea. That’s a restriction that doesn’t exist as much on traditional web apps on the PC. This article has some additional perspectives.
This one speaks mostly for itself, and was a no-brainer for app stores to implement. Delivering upgrades and patches is always a headache for developers and the centralized store certainly simplifies the process.
I’m unsure how long this platform will last in its current form. As time goes on, most of the former points will be affected. More apps will get released, competition will increase and we might see a recession of paid apps in lieu of more advertising driven ones. The platform will certainly get more powerful and perhaps less accessible to the little guy as expectations rise. People eventually will get used to the hardware innovations and the cool factor, and perhaps they will effectively run out of hardware improvements after a while (how many more things can they pack into the iPhone?).
One thing to note about the possibility of increased competition - just because an app (or multiple apps) has been released doesn’t mean you can’t innovate and improve on the same ideas. Just recently a unit conversion app was released on the iPhone that made the top 25 apps (and $40,000 in sales in it’s first 2 weeks). There are countless unit conversion apps already available on the iPhone - it seems impossible that one was able to rise above the rest. Yet it happened, and it showcases how good UI design matters. There are many parallels here to the successful apple products - the iPod certainly wasn’t the first MP3 player but it was able to rise above the rest due to it’s very well designed UI.
For right now there are plenty of opportunities, especially for the small entrepreneur. We’re excited. If you or your company have a good idea, or want to put a spin on an old one, get in touch with us and we’ll see if we can make it a reality.
If you use Brands of the World (BotW) often, you might have noticed that they have a new logo … but the real question is, does this prized time-saving tool for designers worldwide have your new logo? BotW now has Elexicon’s mark on board, and they should have yours too. Here’s why.
Having recently supplied BotW with our logo (Side note: BotW would be better named “Logos of the World” since the site is mainly a high-resolution logo repository — logos aren’t brands but rather ingredients of brands.) I can identify with the unease experienced in the upload process. With perhaps too much old school marketer in me, I felt a little uncomfortable tossing our infinitely scalable and yes, infinitely editable vector logo into a giant, heavily used bucket of brands (albeit a nice, well designed bucket with a navigable UI and search function). BotW has over 2 million unique visitors and over 30 million page views per month; and when you understand the importance of taking steps to protect your visual identity or that of a client’s, being cavalier about this is not an option.
So contemplating the decision to upload your vector logo to BotW can look a little like the self-retorting banter of Wallace Shawn as the Sicilian villain, Vizzini in the iocane poisoning scene of The Princess Bride … It seems that no matter what decision you make; or how long you take to make it, you’re going to keel over afterward. If you upload your logo you’ll have the angst of imagining someone misusing your mark in an infinite number of high-resolution ways ranging from comic mischief to fraud. However if you don’t upload your mark, other companies realizing significant benefits from public relations and marketing expediencies, external links to their site and global exposure will leave you behind.
BotW has their own list of usage benefits, but for me what tips the scales to the upload decision (or drinking the upload goblet?) is that I’ve been THAT designer. Plenty of times, I’ve had to scramble for a variety of logos to complete creative work on mission-critical (but somehow forgotten about until the last minute?) group promotions in print ads or large format applications. Sometimes there’s enough time to track down quality logos for each company through the proper channels. Other times there isn’t enough time. This results in a loss for both the company and the designer who either has to live with sacrificed quality or take enough headache medicine to painstakingly refurbish a poor quality version.
It might be a utopian dream, but a single repository for the most up-to-date and high quality vector logos of all the companies in the world (hooah!) would likely save many organizations and designers from ghastly reproductions of web-snagged GIFs and JPGs – or from having to omit the company from the piece. As of today, BotW is as close as it gets to that utopia. As to protecting your visual identity, the question becomes: How are you protecting your identity if a designer working on a legitimate but time-crunched project snags a small 72 dpi logo from your website and enlarges it by 500 jaggy percentage points for a trade show poster? (I – ahem — heard of – uh — some other designer doing that before). And of course, you can also post your logo usage guidelines.
Furthermore, downloading a logo from BotW is contingent upon agreeing to their terms of use and penalties including disallowing use of the logo without the owner’s permission. At the end of the day, if someone is bent on using your logo without permission, they’ll probably do so without the assistance of BotW and if a designer is trying to use it correctly, BotW can help. So while all companies are unique and should review their own policies regarding the provision of high-resolution logo files, I think the benefits of utilizing Brands of the World generally outweigh the risks.
Happy uploading … and like Vizzini wisely said, “Never tangle with a jaggy logo when your brand is on the line!” (I might have modified that a bit).
OK, designers. Next time you ponder that great visual identity, forget the “visual mark looks good on a fax machine, too” requirement. If Flogos, an Alabama-based special effects company gets their way we’ll all be putting our logo comps through the “looks great chopped out of helium soap bubbles and floating through the sky” test.
They claim to be ready to custom “float” your logo in size increments (diameter?) of 24, 36, and 48 inches. They already have contracts in place with Disney and Universal Studios and pro sports teams are raising eyebrows. In addition to assumed stress relieving benefits of this device to a skeet-shooting logo critic such as myself, the inventors also say they can vary the height of these “cloud advertisements” and the soap/helium mixtures are safe for the environment and airplanes.
There does, however seem to be a number of Flogos skeptics out there with cynical chatter appearing on LiveScience and Brand New over the conquest of pristine “blue sky” space for the purposes of marketing. While I see their point, daytime sky marketing isn’t a new medium (and we don’t even need to discuss “night time signage” using roaming search lights, fireworks, and other darkness shattering media). Airplane banners, sky writing, tethered helium markers and hot air balloons have been around for decades — and arguably do their work in a more visually obtrusive fashion than a few dainty bubbles. Colorado based GoFast, a sports energy drink has even sought to conquest the skys by sponsoring a jet pack team (didn’t know there was such a thing, but it looks like they’re having a “pilot search” if you feel like getting in line as a guinea pig ala flambe’. Boss, consider this my formal request for time off — yee haw!).
So whether you’re a Flogos cynic or a Flogos seeker watching for the first appearance of this thing in your neighborhood (I predict a used car lot), you have to admit there’s something captivating about a free floating logo drifting skyward, with only the wind to guide it. Just try and tell me you’ve never stood there in that crowd — stiff necked and squinting up at that tiny disappearing spec that used to be some kid’s helium balloon while everyone takes turns whispering, “I can still see it!” and “Where’d it go?”. So with that type of captivation, maybe this company has stumbled upon the advertising specialties industry’s lightning in a bottle — or in a bubble? But let’s not even bother asking if there’s a money back guarantee for those unexpected wind gusts.
Under Consideration’s “Brand New Blog” pulled off a nice April Fool’s this year. The blog, a favorite of our creative director Mike VerStrat, provides a daily, rolling (and entertaining) record of prominent corporate identity updates and other significant logo designs. On April 1 they tossed a Ford logo redesign out there and the initial impact was a bit breathtaking. “How could they do that?!?”
Makes you think, though. As troubled as the automaker is, one wonders if an actual makeover would help the company seem more fresh and edgy like their international competitors. However, in my humble opinion, “they are who they are.” What other brands and logos are this “untouchable?” I’ll throw IBM out there to start the discussion…
I really, really like State Farm Insurance’s new “Intersections” television advertising campaign featuring customers describing their situation in life (new father, father whose daughter just got driver’s license, etc.) while standing on a big red “spot.” Kind of like if you zoomed in on one of those maps with a big “You Are Here” spot to find that, well, there you are at the crossroads.
I’ll bet a focus group or survey would reveal that just about everyone picks up on the fact that the elliptical shape of the red spot matches the ovals in the State Farm logo. And to top it off, the “I’m there” slogan is a wonderfully minimalist update of the 65-year old company’s “Like A Good Neighbor State Farm Is There” classic jingle.
Finally something clever as opposed to the clichéd, sappy, over-the-top, or patronizing approaches from the relentlessly pervasive advertising for the FIRE (finance/insurance/real estate) industries.
More background and info: State Farm web site. (Doesn’t look like the campaign has found its way online except for this press announcement, unfortunately. There’s lots of potential…)
There’s a fun new viral web site for a fictional corporation called Buy N Large at www.buynlarge.com. It’s a fairly well-veiled promotion for next summer’s Pixar motion picture release “Wall-E.” The site makes no references to the movie except that the company’s “Robotics” line of products looks suspiciously like a jazzy cast of Pixar-animated characters. You almost “buy” the site as legitimate until you read a little deeper that Buy N Large robots are designed “to perform the tasks we as humans were never really meant to do — lawn mowing. vacuuming, food preparation, surgery, and political decision making.”
I wonder if Disney/Pixar hired actual branding and web design companies to develop the site or if it was created by Pixar writers and artists. Neither would surprise me, but either way this is a dream project: Create — from the ground up — a brand and web site for a “robotics, construction, retail, consumer goods, space, science, and media company.”
For all those of you who have a passion for both graphic design and team sports (I know for a fact my peers are many), you probably already know about the Uni Watch column on ESPN.com and its parent Uni Watch blog. If not, you must, frankly, be standing on the fringe of this demographic. So dive in!!!
Lukas calls his work the “Obsessive Study of Athletics Aesthetics,” with “obsessive” being a titanic understatement. For example, did you know the British Columbia Lions of the Canadian Football League introduced an all-new helmet design just for the post-season, featuring a Clemson Tigers-style “paw” logo? I know … isn’t it great!?!?!
This information really is great fun for design-oriented sports fans. Who among us creatives didn’t cut our identity-system-design teeth as youngsters drawing our favorite sports team logos? Or better yet, inventing teams and making up our own? The logos, the colors, the nicknames … good practice.
More often than not Lukas’ columns involve more than just the latest tweaks to stripes on sleeves and socks. In mid-October two consecutive columns featured downright fascinating (to me, at least) discourses on the real cause of Bill Buckner’s botched Mookie Wilson grounder for the then-cursed Boston Red Sox in the 1986 World Series (October 17) and a little, shall we Detroit Tigers fans say, “theory” about Kenny Rogers’ equipment choices during the 2006 baseball season and postseason (October 23). (This column goes on to provide an intriguing and cool study of the greatest monogram-style logo in the history of professional sports: The “Old English D.”)
Yet another example of the power of the web to inform, engage, and entertain. Uni Watch is one of my short little slices of The Long Tail. What’s yours?
Found an Apple ad archive on macmothership.com. In 1977 they had a brochure cover with liberal use of white space and the headline “Simplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication.” 1977 … talk about sticking to your guns.
http://blog.elexicon.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/apple.gif
Apparently this promotional video for Appalachian State University is from last year, which makes it all the more painful that it is likely one of the worst ever. However, is it a good thing or a bad thing considering it has been viewed 130,000 times on YouTube.
Spotted on Byron Center Avenue near the new Metro Health Hospital: COMING SOON: Starbucks.
I’m giddy that this is en route from my home, but I hope the strength of this brand doesn’t result in a rent increase for our nearby Elexicon offices 
An unintentionally amusing USA Today article (they’re good at those) a few weeks back raised my eyebrow. It says something that a publication would publish a front page article with the headline “Starbucks Nation;” but I’m a bit skeptical. A developer building luxury condos near a Starbucks? Now, that’s a great brand … but a great developer? Hmm.
Elexicon is an interactive design and development agency based in Grand Rapids, Michigan...More>
