Super-Sized TV Remote: “With giant buttons, this extra-large remote is easy to use and impossible to lose.” Even with all that room they still need to use acronyms (e.g. CAB and AUD) instead of full words?

No Ideas But In Things says, “Probably a lot can be discovered and utilized from the multiple buttons and levers of a typical motorcycle’s hand controls. Imagine a mouse as functional.”

The Black Box (concept): “The Black Box concept is to recall and respect the classic long-time conventions and real-world experiences of using various common tools and devices; keep only the meaningful and minimal interface elements to fulfill the maximal user desires.”

Cork’d Blog

The original corked blog had a Cabernet color scheme…

...but now it’s more Chardonnay. Could it be that light type on a dark background doesn’t age too well? Fwiw, Apple’s decided the cool factor of a dark background is worth the legibility cost at its MacBook Pro and other screens.

T-Mobile

T-mobile gives credit card context to demonstrate phone sizes.

Safety scheme
Needapresent.com is trying to make you feel safe with this badge. But first off, the headline (“Internet shopping is safe.”) is a bit too sunny. Reminds me of the old addage that whenever someone insists they are your friend it’s a pretty good sign they probably aren’t.

Second, an unknown acronym (ISIS) and the word “scheme” aren’t exactly great ways to instill confidence. Might as well talk about the site’s great “PTHX security racket.”

The Fart Button
Online advertising reaches new lows (too painful to show here). JSM writes, “I know I know, ads like this are easy to take for granted, but I stopped and had to think of the person who actually had to sit and make this.” Coming soon: The pull my finger pulldown.

Got an interesting screenshot for Signal vs. Noise? Send the image and/or URL to svn [at] 37signals [dot] com.

(via Craigslist)

William Utermohlen’s self-portraits reveal his descent into Alzheimer’s (story).

1998

1999

2000

We recently gave some love to Threadless’ RSS shopping feed and pointed out the Chicago Tribune (finally) profiled the company. More things to like about Threadless:

1. It’s not Web 2.0.

Threadless isn’t about Web 2.0 buzzwords, technology for technology’s sake, doing the VC tango, etc. Threadless is about kicking ass as a real, profitable company and taking care of its customers (the loyalty of customers is the #1 priority).

2. Community…no, really.

A lot of sites pay lip service to the notion of building a community. Threadless actually does it. And it’s not just having a blog or a forum (though the site has those too). Check out the site’s navigation where “Shop” and “Participate” are given equal treatment:

It’s no accident. Threadless isn’t just a place to buy stuff. It’s a place where people do stuff too. The people design the shirt ideas, decide which shirts get made, post to forums, upload photos of themselves wearing the shirts, etc. The result? People are attached to Threadless. As Don Norman says, “We are much more emotionally attached to products for which we feel some involvement.”

Threadless makes people feel like partners, not just customers. That’s why people become MySpace friends with Threadless. They start blogs about Threadless (like this or this or this). They care what happens.

3. It’s playful.

Threadless nails the playful part of the process. Check out the “A song about this tee” MP3 on shirt pages like the one for Happy Hospital. Or how about the Willy Wonka inspired Find the Golden Tag and Win! (“if you receive your order and your shirt has a gold foil tag you win a free tee of your choice!”).

This coy tone extends to copywriting and staffing too. Check out this bit from the coffee-stained FAQ.

Q. How do you become a skinnyCorp employee? How can I become a skinnyCorp employee?

A. You have to be amazing. When we hire, which we don’t do very often, that’s the first thing we look for. Amazingness. Followed very closely by awesomeness, and then insaneosity. You also have to be able to hold your breath for 6 minutes while completing a mile-long sprint. Do you have what it takes?!

When the site asks for a birthdate it follows up with a link that says, “Who wants to know?” instead of the typical “Why do we need this?”

This playful attitude is part of why people get excited about Threadless. Here’s what Kathy Sierra says about playfulness: “Brains love play. Find a way to bring more play (or at least a sense of playfulness) into someone’s life, and you might just end up with a fan. Brains evolved to play, and apparently the bigger the brain, the more likely it is to play. Play turns the brain on.”

The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón:

Our desire to adapt The 9/11 Report arose from the desire to render the complex accessible. After both of us struggled with the verbal labyrinth of the original report, we decided there must be a better way. Then it occurred to us (though to be precise, it occurred to Ernie Colón first) that visually adapting the information in the report—comics, the graphic medium—was the better way. We could tell the story graphically to make it more easily understood. For example: by creating a visual timeline of the four planes on that terrible day, we could tell the simultaneous happenings of that calamity more clearly than any attempt to do so using just words. What was more, we could make it more informative, more available, and, to be frank, more likely to be read in its entirety.

Here’s a Flickr photoset with photos of the book.

In Beautiful Evidence, Edward Tufte says, “If you’re running a business, figure out how to pack a huge amount of information onto a single 11×17” sheet of paper and print it out on a laserprinter, then give it to decision makers. With that one sheet of paper, they will have as much information as 15 computer screenfuls or 300 PowerPoint slides.”

So why don’t more web sites do this? Occasionally you’ll see a dedicated one-page takeaway sheet (Left: Regonline offers a “One-Page Brochure” PDF in the sidebar). But usually a crappy print job is the best a visitor can do. That just doesn’t pack the same punch.

There’s an underlying issue here: Site builders often assume the person visiting a site is the one who actually makes the call on purchasing decisions. In real world business settings, that’s not always the way it works. The person who signs the checks often isn’t the most web savvy person or is too busy/apathetic to really dig into nitty gritty site details.

One-sheeters like Regonline’s can be left on the boss’ desk. In a lot of places, that can be the difference between being ignored and getting in the game.

NewsDesigner reports that one of the newspaper industry’s responses to sagging ad sales is adscapes.

‘Adscapes’ are the latest look in newspaper advertising. No longer are newspaper ads relegated to squares and rectangles. Today, advertisers can attract attention with a variety of shapes and sizes.

More examples in this PDF.

The thread features some designers complaining about the trend but commenter Robert Kruger counters:

Why do you think ad reps find it hard to sell the space they already have? Because newspapers are BORING. These new ads are an attempt to change that, to bring a little STYLE into a space dominated by little people stuck in their little boxes. Newspaper subscriptions aren’t down simply because of the internet, bad writing, and bias, they’ve also gone down because of the rigid aesthetic thought, as shown by the designers kvetching here.

This week’s Time magazine features a brief shoutout to 37signals as one of “Five hot sites to watch” and calls our products “elegant” and “easy to use.” It’s in a sidebar to The Next YouTubes article but since the sidebar isn’t shown in the online version of the story, here’s a look.

Related: 30boxes, also mentioned in the story, wonders why Google is slow to respond to the piece: “One would imagine that Time would be quickly included in Google News and then echo out from there, but 48 hours later, searching Google news won’t lead you to the Time article.”

In part three, our designers discuss recommended books and who/what’s overrated (e.g. Jonathan Ive, Getting Real, 2advanced, blog celebrities) and underrated (Nazarin Hamid, Jared Christiansen, Eric Jordan, scrolling).