The app that organises all your social media feeds in a personal magazine was named Apple’s iPad App of the Year 2010. Initially designed for Apple’s iPad the app is now also available for iPhones.

So, how does it work? It’s easy. You tell Flipboard where to find all your feeds – RSS feeds, Facebook status updates, Twitter, Instagram, you name it -  that’s it. Flipboard then compiles all your incoming information in a magazine-like layout, where every box represents a feed. Tapping on a box will open the whole feed allowing you to flip through posts in chronological order.

The big benefit you get out of Flipboard is that you can view all your information streams in just one app. It offers a revolutionary approach to how you consume information. The app allows you to post Facebook status updates and Twitter tweets, ‘like’ posts and write comments on other users’ content.

It’s interacting and creating content where some weaknesses start surfacing. For example, you can ‘like’ a Facebook post instantly by tapping on the like-button that appears with every item in the list. To be able to comment, however, takes another two, sometimes three steps. The same goes for most social media services the app can connect to. Flipboard also doesn’t seem to know about Facebook pages and will not allow you to post any updates to pages that are connected to your Facebook account.

The bottom line is that Flipboard can make staying on top of your social media feeds a lot easier but, at this stage, you probably won’t get around using the individual apps.

The Flipboard app can be downloaded from the iTunes app store.

Many advertisers tend to overlook the quality of their media placements in favour of quantity, often missing the opportunity to communicate to the most appropriate audience for their product.

In television media, individual programs can provide very different audience profiles.  The latest Roy Morgan Research highlights the degree of difference in audience profiles and consumer habits between MasterChef and My Kitchen Rules viewers.

Roy Morgan found that MasterChef viewers are big spenders and are more likely than the Australian populations to skew to well known national brands across many categories including ice-cream, sliced cheese, butter and margarine. My Kitchen Rules viewers are 81% are more likely than the Australian population to purchase a supermarket’s own brand in each of these categories.

Masterchef viewers also have an average income 13% higher than My Kitchen Rules viewers – an important attribute for marketers to be aware of when advertising their product.

A few years ago a group of web developers created a Flash application that allowed designers to use almost any font in websites without compromising on search engine visibility. The application is called sIFR and is still used by many designers and developers – but there’s a new kid in town.

The sIFR technology replaces certain bits of text (i.e. page headlines) with a Flash element. This Flash file reads the content of the text element it replaces and renders it in a different font. Any True Type font can be assigned. We used sIFR for one of our client’s websites www.integrateimprove.com. While sIFR helped revolutionise the way in which websites are designed and laid out it has always been relatively tricky to set up and configure. And an even bigger issue has surfaced rooted in the fact that all Apple devices, including iPhones and iPads, do not support Flash.

While sIFR defaults back to the HTML text when Flash is not available it forces web designers and developers into a compromise and accepting that their websites will look different on different devices.

A new solution called Cufon promises to fix some of the sIFR issues. Cufon is very similar to sIFR in the way that it replaces a piece of text with a new element. But it sets itself apart in the fact that it is JavaScript based and does not require Flash. Hence the replaced Coufon text is visible on iPads and iPhones as well as every other device that supports JavaScript.

In order to get Coufon to work the font you are planning to use on your website has to be uploaded to the Cufon website cufon.shoqolate.com/generate. The website will read the font file and generate a java script file in which the outlines of each character are stored. This Java Script file can then be included in the website that features the Cufon replaced text.

We have tested Cufon in our web development team and are confident to use it for our clients’ websites, if the need arises.

Make it your new year’s resolution to pump up your RAK – that’s Random Acts of Kindness!  In 2011, a serious RAK strategy could boost your brand in the marketplace. It’s a trend that is responding to consumers’ desires for the human touch, from picking up the tab to sending a surprise gift, and is one of the most effective ways to connect with (potential) customers, according to trendwatching.com.

Fuelling the RAK trend are the social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter, which allow brands to know consumers’ moods and events daily.  And your RAK will extend further than you think, with the recipient sharing their good news with friends and followers. Interflora and Dutch airline KLM’s have launched social media campaigns. Interflora engaged a team to monitor Twitter looking for users that might need cheering up with a surprise bunch of flowers.

Perhaps the next time you catch your staff on Facebook you can ask them if they are increasing their RAK?

Love it or hate it, football is rating high with TV networks and for some advertisers should be considered, with strong viewership across the board.

According to Roy Morgan, AFL remains the code with the highest total number of viewers with 36.6% (estimated at 6.6 million) who will watch “Always” or “Occasionally.”  The NRL State of Origin is a must watch program for 20.3% (estimated at 3.6 million) of Australians, achieving the highest rating for “Almost Always” watching of any code.

Both codes have a strong following in the Cairns region and may be worth consideration in your next advertising strategy.

The effectiveness of radio is sometimes questioned however it shouldn’t be overlooked.  In a study conducted by Roy Morgan radio was identified as a medium that provides advertisers as a unique opportunity to target hard to reach professions.  The report showed small business owners, skilled workers and farm owners/workers were the highest listeners of radio – skilled workers consume approx 20 hours per week.  Knowing behaviours like this helps your advertising dollar target the right people at the right time.  Whether the radio makes some workers more productive or not is probably another question!

After attending this years Semi-Permanent in Sydney I was inspired by the ‘young’ American typographer and illustrator, Jessica Hische. Her work displays a keen eye for detail, love of hand-lettering and a body of work to die for. What also caught my eye was her use of a retro colour pallet which made her designs and illustrations come to life and gave them personality.

Jessica’s story showed that years of hard work, pure determination and love of type has led her to pursue a successful freelance career. She has worked for such clients as Tiffany & Co., and The New York Times along with being featured in most design and illustration publications including Communication Arts, Print Magazine and The Graphis Design Annual to name a few.

And just as they say ‘all good things take time’, Jessica says some of her styles like ‘ribbon type’ take ‘FOREVER’ and that’s a long time in the commercial world. And you would need a client that is willing to pay for whatever ‘forever’ costs.

In the meantime we will keep waiting for that client to come along and I’ll keep appreciating hand-crafted lettering (and cats).

Check out her site and be inspired…
http://jessicahische.com

I was flicking through the preferred non-commercial channels on TV and came across a great program on SBS called ‘Eye Candy’, about David LaChapelle’s work. He is a photographer/film director who covers advertising, fashion, and fine art photography in his portfolio. His photos are fresh and vibrant, some surreal, some humorous, but all in a bold and original style. Maybe one day the advertising gods will give us a client who wants a smoking hot photoshoot and has the bucks for it.

Here are a couple of examples of work he has done for Lavazza coffee and the ‘high fashion’ label Iceberg. The product is not always obvious, but it’s a nice brand association.

If you like this ‘out of the box’ stuff (or nudity), here is a link to David LaChapelle’s official website

David LaChapelle’s official Website

“It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things super-human, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law.”

More than a century later Sullivan’s wisdom is still applied by designers across the globe, particularly in web design – shortened and reduced to it’s essence – form follows function. In a very black and white way, that’s what makes a website work. Unfortunately obeying this general rule makes it almost impossible to create a website that is outstanding in its design. According to usability guidelines, the main navigation in a website should be up the top or on the left side of the layout, the logo that brands the site should be positioned in the upper left corner, search boxes in the upper right corner or top center, text links should always be underlined and ideally blue and you should never use serif fonts in a website because they tend to look blurry if used in small font sizes… and there are dozens more. These rules are part of the reason why most websites look sort of the same. At the end of the day, it’s only a set of guidelines not a law, which allows website designers to make flexible decisions and prioritise some rules while ignoring others.

Web designers can generally be divided into two categories – the usability guideline obeying designers on one hand and the designers with a very visual approach, who try to push the boundaries of design and functionality, on the other. As a small or medium business with a need for a corporate website you are better off with the first kind of web designer.

Keep in mind that there is a reason why most websites follow a very similar content structure and layout. After almost two decades of internet use we have learned how the internet works and we have developed subconscious expectations on how a website should work. If a website does not meet those expectations we have to put more effort into understanding the structure of this particular website. The surfing experience all of a sudden becomes work instead of an intuitive process. The internet is a particularly unforgiving medium when it comes to negative experiences, because (unless you sell a very unique product or service) an alternative is only one Google search away.

Following usability guidelines does not necessary mean you will end up with a visually boring website. The trick is to find the right balance between a visually appealing layout and user-friendly functionality. That is exactly what our aim is when designing and developing new websites for our clients.

You can find a selection of recent work examples in the Web Design section of our website.