You’re hired to design a website for a new client.
Do you present one design or multiple options?
I’m of the one design persuasion. It’s counter productive to show multiple designs to client, which inevitably cedes design decision-making to them as they begin to take on the multiple designs like they’re at a salad bar.
“I’ll take the beveled edges from Design 1 …some gradient backgrounds from Design 4, and I love the purple text highlights from Design 37….”
Multiple designs also mean your vision isn’t clear (or your creative/art director’s isn’t). You’re essentially saying to your client, “Of all the designs up on the wall today, I have no real opinion on which is the strongest, so I’d like you to pick…”
As a designer, it is your responsibility to provide clarity, focus and vision to your client. Keeping the options to one design helps to ensure this. It doesn’t mean there won’t be changes, but it does ensure they everyone stays on course.
Some people choose to show variations on a theme. This is different and isn’t the same as showing multiple directions. Take heed if you decide on this approach because variations can easily mutate into different designs.
But hey, I’m just one dude. So I decided to ask a few of my colleagues what they thought:
Gianni D’Alerta, Owner, Lift Here
“I usually present 2 designs, but depends. I usually drop the first design and see the reaction …if they love it then I’m good. If not I’ll show one more design and have them them choose, or I’ll revise towards one direction.”
Jedd Flanscha, graphic designer
“The number of designs I show depends on the budget, but I usually show 2 designs. If I have the time, I like to show a few options – even if they’re variations of the same design.”
Jory Kruspe, Analogue
“I show one, but there are pitfalls because many times clients have had experience with other designers so they’re accustomed to seeing options. I think this stems from advertising – and design is not advertising.”
Victor Brunetti, Associate Creative Director, roundarch
“Always show two. Your recommendation for what the project should be and one
that tries to match the tone and manner of what you think the client is expecting. So effectively, 1 “boundary-pushing” and 1 “safe”. No more. No less.”
Len Wilson, Super Starr Interactive
“It depends. Never show a shitty comp. They always pick it. Always show 2-3 that are dope. I usually outline upfront how many designs I will present, but never show a shitty one.”
Dale Garcia, Dalematic
“It depends on the designs. I’ll show one …if they have a bad face, them I’ll show the others. Lately I’ve been showing one, but I’ve also found out through experience that showing one is bad luck because it leads to quick approval and is followed by a bunch of edits that just bastardizes everything.”

I just got an email invitation this morning from a design colleague to join a professional network called Naymz.
Call me shallow, but I don’t want to join.
Why? They have a horrible name and names mean a lot. They say a lot about you.
When you create a new company, you have the rare opportunity to create an amazing name that will be part of your company brand and identity.
I have four words for Naymz – I Can Has Cheezburger?

Normally I like to ‘unplug’ on vacation. No computers. My vacation to Honduras last week was different. I brought my iPhone with me, despite knowing that I would be out of my coverage area and wouldn’t be able to make calls. Even though it mostly sat in my pocket inactive during the day, I found that it was extremely handy when I needed to convert lepiras to dollars in order to figure out how much I was spending.
Along will the helping with simple calculations, I’ve discovered that my iPhone is my new reading device. Part of my rationale for ‘unplugging’ during vacation has to do with removing work-related stress and distractions, but with my iPhone I find it very relaxing to sit on the couch at the end of the day and flick through the RSS feeds in my Google Reader to find articles to read.
It’s commonly known that reading large amounts of text from a screen strains your eyes. With my iPhone, even on long articles, I’m able to quickly digest text in small amounts (it doesn’t hurt that the screen resolution is over double that of standard computer monitors, 163 ppi). Add to this the fact that I’m not hunched over a computer at a desk, or sitting with laptop on my lap.
Even down in Central America, I was able to get up on Sunday morning and read my Sunday Times.
I like that.

What separates the amateurs from the pros?
Nuances.
Details.

I’m back from Honduras.
Pictures are on the way.

So I’ve been thinking about this Newsweek article, Revenge of the Experts, and some of the more solid responses to this article like The Experts vs. the Amateurs: A Tug of War over the Future of Media and Crowdsourcing vs Expertsourcing: A Misleading Comparison
Here’s a great piece of the Newsweek article:

In short, the expert is back. The revival comes amid mounting demand for a more reliable, bankable Web. “People are beginning to recognize that the world is too dangerous a place for faulty information,” says Charlotte Beal, a consumer strategist for the Minneapolis-based research firm Iconoculture. Beal adds that choice fatigue and fear of bad advice are creating a “perfect storm of demand for expert information.”

I’m not going to reiterate the articles I noted above (I just found more at BuzzFeed)
My response to this article is quite simple. In life, a small handful of people rise to the top in their selected fields. They rise to the top because a few key ingredients:
a) they’re driven
b) they’re talented
c) they have the right connections
d) any combination of the above
This equation applies to the world of blogging and online journalism as much as it does any other ‘professional’ field. Some people like to dismiss blogging because it has an amateur connotation associated with it. Fuck these people.
Example:
I read Daring Fireball daily. Jon Gruber is an excellent writer …and researcher …and thinker. I don’t distinguish him as any less professional than any of the news sources his routinely tears down even though it would be easy to regard him as just a blogger.
Ironically, he routinely points out all the inaccuracies and fallacies in the “real journalists'” articles (for a taste of his asshole-ripping, check out, How Leander Kahney Got Everything Wrong by Being an Irredeemable Jackass).
Robert Scoble is another great example. Even before he was associated with FastCompany he was a popular blogger. He personally drives me nuts and his head is waaaaay too big, but it’s very, very evident why he is where he is today – drive. Dismiss him as a jackass all you want, but he loves what he does (and he loves himself). Ego has a lot to do with where you end up in life.
So if we look at the Newsweek article in a different light, “Revenge of the Experts” is a correct title. In the early days there were a lot of poor blogs, but as blogging has matured, the professionals have risen to the surface – whether or not they’re associated with a professional publication or not.
The premise of the article is still very incorrect – as some of the other articles I mentioned above also note. User-generated content is not out and many of the examples the article gives as ‘professional’ examples

Color Chart: Reinventing Color from 1950 to Today – Great data visualizing and navigation. (via swissmiss)
Publicis & Hal Riney – It’s not perfect by any means, but really makes me think of the possibilities… (via theFWA)
Microsites = waste – very good read.
And while we’re on the topic of bad practices on the web, check out, Think Different: Maybe the Web’s Not a Place to Stick Your Ads (via Design View)

Google Exec: Android Will Outsell iPhone
Is he sure? I’m not …and I wanted to burn this into database memory that someone at Google uttered these words.
Of course there’s a chance this could come to pass, especially considering it will/could show up on devices from Motorola, HTC, Samsung, and others.
Questions that have yet to be answered are:
Will all phones from Motorola, HTC, Samsung and others be using the Android OS?
How well will Android operate on the range of phones out there – from basic models to feature rich smart phones with QWERTY keyboards?
The reason Apple’s products work so well it because of the complete synchronization of hardware AND software. There’s a lot of benefits to a controlled environment.
Developers are bitching and moaning about how the iPhone can only run 1 program at a time – none can run in the ‘background’. I encourage these clowns to develop their own applications, jailbreak their iPhones and see how well their iPhone runs when they have disregarded the technical specs on memory and CPU.
There’s a chance Apple might know a little bit about performance optimization. Just a chance.
With Android, there isn’t a well-designed SDK and GUI to develop, test and troubleshoot applications with, so I can’t foresee it integrating seamlessly across the board on all the various phones it could end up on.
Call me crazy.

A zoom-in on one of the jellybean status icons from iChat:

Zoom-in on the sound visualizer in iTunes:

When Picasso was quoted in saying, “good artists copy, great artists steal” – the folks at Meizu took the ‘copy’ part and ran with it (found via Engadget):

As someone who has been working as a professional interactive designer for over 8 years, I can’t count how many times I’ve been inspired by other people’s work. Without getting into a whole discussion on ‘what is originality’, all artists (architects, painters, sculptors, designers – clothing, product, environment, interactive, web) are influenced by everything they see, hear and touch. No one exists in a vacuum.
Picasso didn’t copy African masks in his Demoiselles d’Avignon – he stole them. Stealing for Picasso – and all other great artists – involves a sophisticated level of mutating the original ‘stolen goods’ and creating something new with them.
Paul Simon also stole from African music on his amazing album Graceland. You can hear the references, but the music is entirely his.
Other artists ‘steal’ things in more subtle ways that aren’t immediately visible – in the form of geometric shapes and proportions and physics theories (where would we be without simulated friction in interactive design?)
Meizu is copying the iPhone.
I can’t imagine doing what Meizu did and being comfortable with it. If they were doing it purely as a ‘phase 1’ before evolving their own designs, that would be fine. But they’re not.
The sad part about this is that the interface Apple created for the iPhone is just one of many amazing solutions that is possible. Apple has not created the only possible interface for a touchscreen smart phone.
If people would do more stealing than copying, they would know this.
In the end, it’s just sad, because Meizu is missing a great opportunity to create something new and fresh.

Adobe Pushes DRM for Flash (via) – Ahhhhh damn. Here we go again with the DRM.
MacBook Air stock selling out almost daily? – I really want to keep hearing these reports of the Air being a ‘flop’. The naysayers really can’t conceive of a person that is so digital that they don’t require a DVD drive or an (wired) ethernet connection.
FastCompany.tv – Ummmm. Ok. well, this site is kinda grey ain’t it? It also feels very stagnant, like there’s not a lot of activity going on here.
…and why must I be welcomed with Scoble’s fat gob?
I hope they keep iterating until they get it right.

Apple haters love to screw themselves with outrageous predictions and claims.
This clip makes me smile, I believe it was shot in ’07, right around the time Apple either announced the iPhone or launched it, I’m not quite sure:

Most expensive phone ever in the marketplace? Ha! I know people who paid more for their Razr’s when they first came out. Hell, I paid over $300 for my Nokia 8290 back in the day when it was a “hot” phone.

Mashable.com has an article on the various websites that have changed their logos to a Valentine’s day theme.

At first, I was inclined to credit (or blame) Google for establishing the precedent of changing your company logo for different occasions and events.
…but I thought about it again I realized this wasn’t true. Does anyone remember Paul Rand’s playful freestyle-mixup of the IBM logo?

Not every designer is Paul Rand, so if you decide to start experimenting with your logo, be careful. You can up with something beautifully unexpected or you can end up with a train wreck.