The cult of transparency and why secrecy is dying

“Radical forms of transparency are now the norm at startups – and even some Fortune 500 companies. It is a strange and abrupt reversal of corporate values. Not long ago, the only public statements a company ever made were professionally written press releases and the rare, stage-managed speech by the CEO. Now firms spill information in torrents, posting internal memos and strategy goals, letting everyone from the top dog to shop-floor workers blog publicly about what their firm is doing right – and wrong.” [via BF]

Logos that look different each time you see them

“Saks’s chopped-up logo is the latest and most visible example of what graphic designers call a dynamic visual identity. That’s design-speak for a logo that looks different each time you see it — like MTV’s graffiti-esque initials or the customized symbols with which Google celebrates Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day — as opposed to the old-fashioned corporate ones, which always look the same.”

Call for a Blogger's Code of Conduct

“There’s an attitude among many bloggers that deleting inflammatory comments is censorship. I think that needs to change. I’m not suggesting that every blog will want to delete such comments, but I am suggesting that blogs that do want to keep the level of dialog at a higher level not be censured for doing so.”

Why do icon designers deliver icons individually sized in PNG or GIF files instead of a single vector file?

“When you take a vector image, originally sized at 24×24 and scale it down to 16×16, the relative proportions do not match. There’s no way you can evenly distribute 24 pixels of information into 16 pixels of space (remember, there’s no such thing as half a pixel). So the image blurs…Now this is fine if you want Fisher Price icons, but not desirable if you’re looking for crisp and clean.”

Using blocks of color to create a grid in Photoshop

“Instead, I create blocks of solid color — usually in Web-safe #FF0000 red — to represent my grid, group them together in a layer folder ordered at the top of my layers palette, and set each of them at roughly 40% transparency. This allows me to toggle the grid on and off, and also to swap variants on the grid — different combinations of units and columns — at will. Much, much easier than using Photoshop’s guides.”

Over the years the “people don’t scroll on the web!” mantra has been both supported and denied. Today I think it’s pretty fair to say the majority of people have figured out how and when to scroll a web page. This has pretty much become a non-issue.

But there’s another scrolling issue worth thinking about: Email scrolling. Standardized emails are too long. These usually take the form of “Welcome to our product” emails or verbose auto-responders that have one line of steak and 150 lines of sizzle.

People don’t read these things. They’re too long, they’re too wordy, they’re too fluffy.

Welcome emails seem to be the biggest offenders. Welcome emails have become the place where copywriters and web designers shoehorn all the stuff that didn’t make it onto the web site. “Ugh, just put it in the welcome email.” They’re the bastard child of the signup process.

Long emails get ignored and filed away. Short emails get read. People see the value without having to get out the reading glasses. A welcome email shouldn’t be a novel.

We used to have a really information packed welcome email for Basecamp. It had everything you’d ever need to know about your Basecamp account. And guess what? We got lots of support emails asking about the things people should have spotted in the welcome email. But they couldn’t see through all the fog we put in their way.

Ever since we cut the welcome email way back we’ve seen significant reductions in basic support questions such as “What is our URL?” and “How can I upgrade” and “What’s my username?” Small change, noticeable results.

Here’s an example of the current Highrise welcome email:

Short, sweet, to the point. That’s everything someone really needs to know right now. And it’s everything they can find later on if they need to. No wading, no translating, no digging through piles of words to find the quick answer.

Kare.com is the site of famed iconographer Susan Kare.

My work has continued to be motivated by respect for, and empathy with, users of software. I believe that good icons are more akin to road signs rather than illustrations, and ideally should present an idea in a clear, concise, and memorable way. I try to optimize for clarity and simplicity even as palette and resolution options have increased.

Some of her work from the 80’s:

The legendary Homaro Cantu of Moto restaurant in Chicago talks about his plans for edible advertising and “multitools” like pans that can change shape. He covers sustainability, how we need to think differently about food as the population balloons, the difference between organic and local, and more.

He also discusses patents (he patents a lot of his food inventions) and later open-sourcing these patents:

Yes. I’m very big on open-source and that’s a contradiction for me, because I patent everything. But why do I patent everything? Because I want to be first to market. Most importantly, I want to take those patents one day and make them open-source.

He also talks about the benefits of their paperless kitchen:

Right now, downstairs my cooks are looking at a giant 60-inch screen projection and they follow their prep lists on this. We don’t use paper. And when they’re done, it knocks those things off the prep list. It can also speak with dishwashers who might not speak English.

Next time you’re in Chicago get a reservation at Moto. It’s fascinating, educational, experimental, multi-dimensional, mind-expanding, and most of all, really fucking tasty.

Moto is the best dining experience I’ve ever had by a factor of 10x. If you can swing it go for the 20 course Grand Tasting Menu and you might even get to don a pair of laser-proof safety goggles for a trip into the kitchen. And don’t forget to ask the bartender for a Bacon Martini.

For a limited time: If you upgrade or sign up for a Highrise Premium or Max plan, or a Basecamp Max plan, you’ll get a Campfire Premium account at no charge (it’s normally $49/month).

We don’t know how long we’ll be running this promotion, so if you’re interested you should act soon. Once the promotion ends you’ll still be able to keep your free Campfire account, of course.

Details on how to claim your free Campfire Premium account will be included with your Basecamp/Highrise welcome or upgrade email.

Thanks for your business.

A couple of months ago I let my innate love of gadgets get the better of me and I picked up a Sony Reader. I’m going to gloss over all but the most interesting bits, you can find all the technical details on Sony’s site.

Our next Fireside Chat is with icon designers from Cuban Council, Firewheel Design, Hicks Design, and Icon Factory. What question(s) would you like to see us ask?

Last week we launched a new feature in Highrise called Public Contact Cards.

The idea
Public contact cards make it easy to share someone’s contact information with anyone who needs it. For example, if a friend asks if you can recommend a plumber, and you have one you’d recommend in your Highrise account, you can share that plumber’s public card with your friend — even if they don’t have their own Highrise account. Now your friend has all the information they need to get in touch with the plumber.

The feature that could have been
As we thought about how to implement public contact cards we started thinking about all the possible options we could offer.

• One-click to import the data into your own Highrise account
• hCard support
• Email this contact info to someone
• Subscribing to the data so you’ll get updates if it changes
• And the list goes on…

The feature that is
When you face a long list of possible add-on features you need to step back and ask yourself: “What’s the core value? Why are we building this core feature?” In the case of public contact cards, the core value was being able to quickly share someone’s contact information over the web with anyone you want. It wasn’t hCard support, it wasn’t subscriptions to contact information, it wasn’t one-click import into your own Highrise account, etc. Those things might be nice, but they aren’t part of the core value. The core value is the simple display of the contact information. That’s 90% of the value.

Orvis

Gregory Maher writes:

I was just checking out some gear on the Orvis Web site and found this interesting feature. When checking out, you can round up your purchase for charity. Orvis will quadruple your offering making a donation to the McCloud River Redband Trout. Pretty neat.

30 second portfolio

Tim Van Damme writes:

When you arrive at The Consult’s homepage, you’ll see a link in the top right corner saying “Short on time? View our 30 second portfolio”. My first reaction was: “I’m always short on time, and I am indeed interested in getting a quick overview of your work!”.

Vista

Des Traynor writes:

Found a screenshot that is the antithesis of Simplicity…

Is there ever, EVER an excuse for a dialog like this (taken from Windows Vista).

You’d think after the joke that was the XP Puppy Search, they might put more effort into these dialogs. (Note: I’m pretty sure this isn’t default search prompt, but thats still no excuse.)