Infinite Web Design

My best friend Tom has enlisted us to help promote his new musical endeavor. MrSeley.com is now online promoting his music that kids really like. There are free ringtones via Myxer and you can hear 3 songs off the upcoming album Eat Your Books (And Read Your Vegetables). Tom is a really talented musician and writes songs for kids without veering into the moronic songs and huge bowties realm. Design wise we stuck with a more sophisticated and understated color palette that suits his style. You can sign up for the email list and he’ll let you know when the album is released and when he plays concerts you can attend.

Scott Karp wrote an interesting piece about online journalism. In it he makes a good point about what is often referred to as “stickiness” or how much you do to keep people on your site. Stickiness is important to site owners for a number of reasons, the biggest is often so that visitors will see lots of ads or buy lots of widgets. Mr. Karp makes the point that it is okay to direct people to another site. His example of site that is brilliant at making people go away is Google and yet you never hear Google criticized for not being sticky. People leave Google over and over and come right back. Being good at sending people away has earned them billions.
Continue reading Set Them Free

We’re pleased to announce another new site launch. Mandy & Pandy’s new website is online and taking pre-orders for Mandy & Pandy Say Ni Hao Ma?, the first in a 12 book series. We worked with the books author and illustrator to launch the site as well as creating a complete identity system including business cards, postcards, letterhead, order sheets, and banners, all in time for the Toy Fair 2007 in New York City.

We’re glad to be a part of this project. Mandy & Pandy books teach kids Chinese quickly and easily, rather like Dora the Explorer teaches Spanish. We’re glad to be able to offer not just our web design services but also to help with the marketing, print design, and business processes as the Mandy & Pandy enterprise gets off the ground. Brad and I have been working closely with the author and illustrator to help them deliver their vision to people.

Chris Lin, the author and creator of Mandy & Pandy, will be making appearances at local schools to read Mandy & Pandy to elementary classes. If you’d like him to read at your school in Metro Detroit just contact Chris or contact us and we’ll let him know.

(via Yahoo News)

Is really hard to see if you are blind.

“Links list dialogue.” “Links list view.” “Your Account — Two of 164.” This is what the Internet sounds like to Chris Danielsen. Danielsen is blind. He’s using a software program called Jaws that converts the text on a Web page into a computerized voice that comes out through a speaker, allowing him to surf the Web using keyboard commands instead of a mouse — the same way lots of blind people use the Internet.

But I’m more interested in the lawsuit facing Target. Apparently the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) is suing Target due to their websites poor accessibility. The idea of accessibility on the web is not exactly a hot topic; but If the NFB wins this suit accessibility may be the next buzzword to make everyone forget about “Web 2.0.” Kevin has been preaching about accessibility to our clients for years, but I’m sure not one of them has any idea what it means or why it’s important.
Continue reading One Small Step For Man….

Brad posed the question of whether spending money for quality design work is a good business decision. I’ve been thinking on that this week and in my biased opinion it absolutely, without question, depends on the business and project in question.
Continue reading Good Design IS Good Business