37signals is an iconic web agency that built a world famous project collaboration app called Basecamp and has a great development philosophy described in a Getting Real ebook. They are admired by graphic designers, web developers, freelancers and by many others dealing with online technologies. They share their best practices on Signals vs. Noises blog. They also have a great taste when it comes to graphic design and usability with their minimalistic approach. In their new office in Chicago they proved that stunning work environment is something they have high on their priority list. Have a look and enjoy specious working areas and incredible patterns on their walls. They really pay attention to details!
A quick private call was an escape from a daily routine
The quote below shows how important it is for everybody in a company to have experience with customers. For Amazon and Zappos client satisfaction is their main goal. Every employee, including CEO is asked to spend a few hours a year in their customer support call center. We start to work a client in mind. All employees should be sales oriented, including designers.
Graphic Design at its basest level is to communicate something visually. The best way to communicate something better is to understand what customers need or what they’re looking for. Jamie, On the Front Lines, In the Trenches, Signal vs. Noise
Smashing Magazine is a source of great content and information for web designers and developers. They are extremely popular and respected by a design community. Every month they offer inspiring and creative wallpapers for you desktop created by artists from around the world.
Does your office look like this? Imagine yourself working there – so close to the nature in a top-notch working environment. Would you seek for inspiration in this beautiful vast space in front of you or rather stare all day at the trees?
I usually run out of space with whiteboards especially when drawing mind maps. One day I came across IdeaPaint that you can cover any smooth surface with and so it becomes a whiteboard. Creating large spaces for your ideas and utilising walls for brainstorming sessions only adds flavour to outside of the box thinking. If you have any experience with it – please share it.
Victorinox is well known as a maker of the original Swiss Army Knives. They decided to add new flavour to their brand and called it Remade in Switzerland. Christopher Raeburn from England is a young designer behind this project as he created a unique collection of men’s and womenswear utilising decommissioned military stocks of uniform and parachute fabrics. They look really fashionable and stylish. The collection will be available in September 2011.
When I saw the first video presentation from TED I quickly realised why there are so many people eager to pay $6,000 per year to attend this conference. For many years it was only available to the small group of people who could afford it. It changed in April 2007 when TED conference became open to everyone with high quality videos published on its website presenting many inspiring, funny, jaw-dropping talks of the “world’s brightest minds”.
It presents “Ideas worth spreading” by the best speakers in the world talking about variety of topics from Technology, Education, Design to Arts and Global Issues. I believe that TED changes the world. I really do. There is so much inspiration, passion and enthusiasm in the air about all presented topics and life in general. I have just created a category called TED and will share with you the most interesting presentations. I am sure you will enjoy watching them and that they will push you more towards living the life you love.
Sir Ken Robinson – “Do schools kill creativity?”
Instead of introducing this presenter I will just quote one of his lines:
“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.”
After receiving a few questions regarding the way I redesigned Copyblogger theme by adding leftbar and making it 3-column template, I decided it will be the easiest way to make it available for everyone to dowload from SharingMatters.com (this blog is no longer using it, as you may see).
To customise the theme, just replace images/header.jpg (990x146px) with your own image. To remove text from the header, go to header.php and delete the following line:
Let me know if you found any problems so I can improve it and please keep all the links in the footer (you can remove SITEMAP or add your own in the pages section and it will link to it automatically). Just recently I have fixed a few bugs that occurred in IE6.
Edited on 30/04/2008: Below is a list of basic plug-ins that I recommend installing in the first place:
All in One SEO Pack – to make sure your blog structure is search engine friendly
Sociable – automatically add links on your posts to popular social bookmarking sites
In this video, Jeff Han and Phil Davidson demonstrate how a multi-touch driven computer screen will change the way we work and play. This looks like a perfect experience with PC -more natural and efficient. But is it really the way you would like to work for 10 hourse a day? After an hour your hands can become tired.
Remapping the Universe
Of course, you can change an orientation of the presented screen to horizontal but still I think the future is in the devices where a small move of your fingers, or even your thought, simulates movement presented in the video. Like a trackball – little effort and a pointer goes from left to right.
Paul Montwill specializes in Digital and E-commerce Strategies, Online Marketing and industry analysis. He is an E-commerce Sales Director in one of the European IT companies, a blogger and he offers consultancy.
About | Get in touch!
When I saw the first video presentation from 
