Both of these are a few weeks old but I still wanted to call them out because I like them so much, for different reasons.
Chiquita Bananas: A Beautiful Brand Refresh
What I love about this was that they took branding that was already iconic and took it in a new, playful, and ultimately really memorable, direction.
Chiquita will always remind me sharing an office with Dennis, who’d eat a banana a day and cover his laptop with the Chiquita stickers from said bananas. Clearly he’s not alone in that endeavor and Chiquita is showcasing that behavior on the new site in support of this new campaign.
Just look at these things. They’re so f*cking cute I want to collect them all and nom the crap out of them.
Think rebranding bananas isn’t exciting? Here’s a great quote on finding that angle to build on when helping brands rebuild their identities:
Many times as designers we are tasked to help brands build or rebuild their identities. We may initially think that a clean slate is required to achieve a better identity, and in some cases that can be true if the existing brand identity has little to no value. But in most cases, there is always something that can be built on, discovered, or championed with any brand. It really just requires spending as much time as you can with the product, immersing yourself in it. Like method designing, you just have to live it and the work will flow through you.
The Heinz ketchup packet : A User-centered product redesign
Heinz’s effort is impressive because it improved both form and function, making the brand feel newer visually as well as functionally, addressing their major use cases, referred to as the “dippers” and the “squeezers.”
This is a redesign that just makes so much sense you wonder how it took so long to get here. Technology wasn’t holding it back. It was a matter of really looking at the problem from a user’s point of view and then making a change. Bravo.
“We nail facts into students’ heads and there’s nothing wrong with it if the goal is to employ someone for 40 years in a Ford Motor Company Model A factory.”
“The A students work for the B students, the C students run the businesses, and the D students have the buildings named after them.”
“Never ever hire someone who had a grade point average of 4.0.”
I highly recommend you take 4 minutes and 12 seconds to watch/listen to the whole thing.
The team at Panic have rigged up this amazing (and beautiful) real-time display of the data immediately relevant to their team. Projects that fall in the cross section of dataviz and productivity really interest me. It reminds me a bit of the dashboard that Crispin Porter + Bogusky set up to visualize the health and status of their ongoing projects.
Here’s some info from the team at Panic:
What’s on the board?
The idea quickly grew beyond “Project Status”, and has become a hub of all sorts of internal Panic information. What you’re actually looking at is an internal-only webpage that updates frequently using AJAX which shows:
E-Mail Queue — number of messages / number of days.
Project Status — sorry for the heavy censorship — you know how it is!
Important Countdowns
Revenue — comparing yesterday to the day before, not so insightful (yet).
Live Tri-Met Bus Arrivals — when it’s time to go home!
The Panic Calendar
Employee Twitter Messages
Any @Panic Twitter Messages — i.e., be nice! They go on our screen!
I highly recommend you head on over to their blog and read all about it.
I’m happy to announce that Tinker Studio will taking part in the Square beta program so as of today, I’m ready to accept payment for services via my iPhone + my Square. I also plan on making Square central to the massive stoop sale Karen and I are planning for when the season turns.
Not familiar with Square? Check out the excellent demo and you’ll know exactly why it’s important:
A couple of weeks ago, New York City-based online grocer, FreshDirect launched their iPhone app (iTunes link), enabling their customers to easily shop for groceries in a way that caters to the needs of an audience that is increasingly mobile.
This is doubly exciting for me: first, as a huge fan of the brand and weekly FreshDirect customer for the past 7+ years but secondly as a mobile designer as it was the last project I had the amazing chance to lead while I was at Schematic.
FreshDirect.com occupies a very unique place in the world of online shopping for many reasons that I’m sure you can imagine. At a high level, it presents a fundamentally different shopping experience because a) many of their customers shop weekly and b) those shopping experience involves building a cart with many more items than most other cart-based online shopping sites. This creates very specific interaction needs that that the team at FreshDirect has spent the better part of the last decade honing and improving on their website. Solving the problem of taking the relevant parts of that experience and making them mobile was a really exciting one to tackle and this app is the result of that process.
We focused on designing an experience that complemented and enhanced the primary web experience while always remaining cognizant of the mobile medium – giving you quick access to previous orders and custom shopping lists you’ve created on the site, browsing your favorite items and weekly specials, updating your delivery times or searching for any item in the store for those times when you remember that one thing you neglected to throw in your cart.
Working on a mobile product for a local brand like FreshDirect that, if done right, could make a weekly routine that people undergo more pleasant, efficient and rewarding, was one of the best professional opportunities I’ve had as a designer. I couldn’t be more proud of the team I got to work with on the project and I’m so excited that everyone’s work is now out in the world for people to use. Also, FreshDirect has a history of listening to its customers to continually enhance their products so know that any thoughts/feedback you have on the app. will be welcomed by their team.
If you’re in New York and you feel that you’ve got better things to do with your time than spend hours each week combing the aisles of your local C-Town, check out FreshDirect and make sure you give the new iPhone app a spin (iTunes Link). Hope you like it!
Update from the comments: Also, wanted to let everyone know Fresh Direct just launched a contest to promote the app. Grand prize winner gets $500 Apple Store credit + $500 Fresh Direct credit, check it out: http://bit.ly/FD_AppContest
The team at Made by Many is building a neat little visualization tool for SXSW to give their readers a simple + visually compelling way to keep up with the team’s activities while they’re in Austin.
Not only is the mini-product idea itself clever but they’re also exposing their ongoing iterative design process to their readers as they build it. Great stuff.
As far as design and product development goes, how can this list not get you totally fired up. Pow!
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I love design. I'm particularly partial to the intersection of mobility & social behavior. Years ago I co-founded dodgeball. I currently run a little shop in Brooklyn, NY called Tinker Studio.
A couple of weeks ago, New York City-based online grocer, 
