On the Origin of Species: The Preservation of Favoured Traces
September 30th, 2009This Java Applet, The Preservation of Favoured Traces, visually illustrates how the Origin of Species was revised through six additions and 13 years. Crazy! (via viz. and Googled randomly when I was doing an online search for something else)
Tokyo Fiber ‘09 Senseware
September 29th, 2009(via CubeMe)
An Engineer’s Guide to Cats
September 25th, 2009This is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time. RTed from @FunnyVideo55
10+ Tips and tricks for the designer’s foray into e-mail marketing
September 21st, 2009First time setting up an e-mail newsletter or mass HTML e-mail? The following tips are for the creative who not only has to design, but also slice up, and possibly distribute, a mass e-mail for their client.
1. Use HTML.
Even if the majority of your list recipients are on Blackberries, an HTML e-mail can be Blackberry-friendly without being a wall of text. This means using images where appropriate, using text where appropriate, and giving all images alt tags.
2. Get an E-mail marketing provider or software.
Really push the adoption of e-mail marketing software if your client has the budget. Without being able to look at your e-mail statistics, open rates, click-throughs, etc. you’re flying blind. There are also a host of problems when sending out e-mails through Outlook or Entourage – the alternative.
I personally recommend Blue Sky Factory since they have a really great system and wonderful customer service, but there are other providers with different services and different pricing packages. I posted previously about the topic, but here is the list repeated:
If your client insists on sending out the e-mail without software, they will need Outlook (Stationery) for the PC or Entourage (with SCHWIF2004) for the Mac, bare minimum.
3. “Can’t see this e-mail? View it online.”
It’s fairly standard to have a link at the top or bottom of your e-mail to an online version of the same e-mail. If the HTML e-mail does view incorrectly in the viewer’s e-mail provider, they can see the correct version online.
4. Tonight we’re gonna code like it’s 1999.
E-mail clients don’t read full CSS. This means that all HTML e-mails are created with table-based layouts, CSS applied with the style tag. Script tags in the header won’t work in most e-mail clients, so the class tag is out.
HTML e-mails also need to account for the client the e-mail will be viewed in, so the e-mail will need a small width. Most e-mails don’t have a width larger than 700 pixels. I typically design with a 650 pixel width.
5. Some weird extra notes about HTML e-mail code.
Avoid nested tables. Some e-mail providers will display them incorrectly when they’re nested too deep. I usually nest one table deep when needed, but no further.
Yahoo!mail translates all paragraph breaks into normal breaks. Use two breaks together to make one paragraph break if a large portion of your list recipients are on Yahoo!.
Not all e-mail providers allow for table padding or margins, so set padding and margins to 0 and use a 1px square transparent gif (spacer) to expand rows and columns.
Don’t overuse the spacer if a majority of your list recipients are on Blackberries. The img tag code displays in Blackberries.
6. CAN-SPAM.
Per the CAN-SPAM act, you’ll need an unsubscribe option and a physical mailing address on your e-mail.
7. Testing, testing, one, two.
Have your e-mail tested for e-mail client compatibility through your e-mail marketing service. If the option isn’t available or there isn’t a budget for it, set up dummy accounts on several common e-mail hosts and test the e-mail yourself. Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, and Outlook are fairly common providers.
8. E-mail marketing practices.
Keep your subject line, or the most important part of the subject line, to 50 characters max, including spaces. A lot of e-mail providers cut off the subject line in the preview beyond 50 characters.
Avoid the use of exclamation points, all caps, and common spam words like ”free” in your subject line, which can auto-Junk the e-mail.
The most important article or the call-to-action goes above the fold (i.e. at the top, before the user has to scroll down).
9. E-newsletter specifics.
Named-anchor links to articles in your newsletter allow viewers to both read e-mail contents and jump down to the article they’re interested in. Use them.
Give a very short descriptor paragraph with a link to the larger article online rather than each full article in the e-mail – no one wants to read a 4 page e-newsletter in their inbox.
10. Lastly: don’t use the term blast
You may be shunned in the world of e-mail marketing if you do.
That’s it: all of the weird and quirky things I’ve learned about e-mail marketing!
Have any additions or comments? I’d love to hear them!
Jeremiah Damian
September 14th, 2009Jeremiah Damian Photography. My quasi-nephew who will be graduating from AAU’s photography program in May. His work is really impressive.
Design copyright: the good, the fad, the ugly
September 11th, 2009In yesterday’s DCTH, someone asked the question “Is it really true that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? (copyright, plagiarism)”. There were a lot of answers, with designers coming down hard on copyright infringement. Copyright infringement is wrong, period, but I’d like to go more in depth regarding the fact that designers take inspiration from each other every day, whether this “borrowing” is right or wrong.
The Good.
“Paula Scher studied at the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and began her graphic design career as a record cover art director at both Atlantic and CBS Records in the 1970s. In 1984 she co-founded Koppel & Scher, and in 1991 she joined Pentagram as a partner.” She is both a renowned artist and graphic designer.
She also parodied Herbert Matter’s 1934 Swiss tourist poster (left) in a 1985 Swatch poster (right). The poster is still controversial in the design community years after its inception. It is also taught in design school today as an example of retro design and borrowing from the past.
The Fad (or movement, rather)
Piet Mondrian is known as the father of geometric abstraction.
Theo van Doesburg is known as the founder of De Stijl, an art movement in the early 1900s.
Mondrian helped found De Stijl with van Doesburg in 1917. The style is so specific that almost everything from the movement could have been created by one artist.
The Ugly.
If you’ve been involved in the design community online in the last few months, you probably remember the name Jon Engle. To sum it up, Engle took art work from StockArt.com, incorporated it into various logos he “designed”, was sued by StockArt.com, then drummed up outrage in the design community claiming StockArt.com artists had stolen the work from him. A good summary can be found at The Logo Factory. It was an obvious copyright violation.
Design inspiration vs. copyright infringement
There is a hard line between inspired design (the good, the fad) and copyright infringement (the ugly).
If a creative creates his or her own work based on someone else’s work and puts his or her own spin on it, this is not copyright infringement – despite how blatant an inspiration it may be.
If a creative takes someone else’s work and claims it as his or her own, this is copyright infringement.
Is (blatant) inspired design ethical?
It depends who you ask. It depends on the situation. Pablo Picasso said “Good artists copy; great artists steal.” Paul Rand said “Don’t try to be original; just try to be good.” Jim Jarmusch said “Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination.”
Finally, to steal a quote from another blog post, “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.”
—T.S. Eliot
So…steal?
In Annelys de Vet’s The Right to Copy, Alice Lo summarizes in an epilogue, “the only difference between an amateur and a professional is the thinking and the knowledge of the context.”
The point is that designers and artists can take a rough idea and make it better, make it powerful, or give it a new meaning. Theft is theft, and copyright infringement is nothing to trifle with. The challenge with inspired design – blatant or otherwise – is only to start with the initial idea, but turn it into something new and different.
“Make sure your work will be copied. Stimulate your own imitators. Copy. Appropriate. Imitate. Assemble. Mimic. Use. Fuse. Misuse. Don’t be shy about it.”
—Annelys de Vet
Just don’t be ugly about it.
Remember this one? Shaft of Light
September 8th, 2009I saw this over 10 years ago the first time. More just posting it for my own records since I tweeted it a week or so ago. I loved this animation.
The way is blocked.
What is blocking the way?
Infinite Stop Motion Animation
September 8th, 2009Backwards Day
September 1st, 2009Another stop motion goodie.