![Managing Criticism in Design Exploration
Nearly all successful teams understand and value a design exploration approach to solving problems, but how do you productively critic designs when so many options are being explored regardless of job titles or seniority?
Design decisions should always be based on what’s appropriate for the task at hand. If you find your design is being beaten down, the best way to fight back is to counter with “Well, when would my design be appropriate?”. Conversely, before you take pleasure in destroying someone else’s hard work, first make sure that you can answer “When is this solution great?”. […]
Lastly, always remember the golden rule of critique: don’t be a dick.
Read the full post from Intercom and check out their slick new “customer relationship management and messaging tool for web app owners”.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0xtawHXs01qzv45so1_500.jpg)
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Theme Updates - Spotify & Pinterest -
As soon as we got the details on the new Spotify player on Tumblr, Jess and I put in some long hours over the last two days (and nights) to pulled off major updates to all 15 of our Style Hatch Tumblr themes.
In addition to support for the Spotify player, we added Pinterest’s ‘pin it’ button to the share options. We will be publishing a full list of changes soon since some of the themes got quite a bit of additional love.
If you have any questions send us an email at support@stylehatch.co or hit us up on Twitter @stylehatch. Now we can get back to wrapping up a bunch of new themes we have lined up!
“With disappointment comes clarity, conviction and true originality.” — Conan O’Brien
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“In 2112, creativity will be the most valued form of work because creativity is about going against what everyone (including yourself) believes in. By 2112, our minds will be directly connected to computers. […] The ways of thinking and working that artists and designers embody so naturally will be in higher demand. These skills will be universally recognized as how we advance society’s future, rather than a nice “add-on” as they are perceived of today. Creativity will be the new currency of work, the world over.” — John Maeda, on the future and creativity
“Oh that’s really cool! I’ve never heard of ppl using fb to do customer support!! Most just try to shove items in our face and expect us to buy things off fb!! Lol” —
- Cher C., in reply to Style Hatch’s support on Facebook that we just rolled out
If you or the brand you work with has “Facebook eCommerce page” anywhere our your social media strategy, you should fire your team. Ok, that might be a bit harsh, but the truth is people interact with brands on Facebook to have a personal connection not have them “shove items in our face”.
Facebook and social media belong in the customer experience world, not “oh look we can sell our stuff there too”.
Nearly all successful teams understand and value a design exploration approach to solving problems, but how do you productively critic designs when so many options are being explored regardless of job titles or seniority?
Design decisions should always be based on what’s appropriate for the task at hand. If you find your design is being beaten down, the best way to fight back is to counter with “Well, when would my design be appropriate?”. Conversely, before you take pleasure in destroying someone else’s hard work, first make sure that you can answer “When is this solution great?”. […]
Lastly, always remember the golden rule of critique: don’t be a dick.
Read the full post from Intercom and check out their slick new “customer relationship management and messaging tool for web app owners”.
Just a few hours ago we debuted our fresh, new branding for Style Hatch along with a taste of our full site launching in April. After over a decade of creating sites, campaigns and brand strategies for large brands from Activision to Microsoft, we have shifted out entire studio to create fresh designs for individuals with the goal of helping you show off your inner genius.
We can’t wait to show off everything we have lined up! Now for a few fun facts, since our first theme Backburner we have launched 15 themes, pushed live 109 updates to the themes, and answered 27,697 support emails as of yesterday morning.
A part of the refresh we even had fancy new letterpress cards created just in time for SXSW. Check out a shot of the cards on Dribbble.
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How to Hustle SXSW for Fun & Profit -
Heading to SXSW Interactive this year? Danielle Morrill put together a great article on how to get the most out of SXSW including prepping your calendar (don’t do it) and prepare like a soccer mom on crack.
This year our entire Style Hatch team—all three of us @Moore, @iJess and @krisnicolemoore—are packing and heading to Austin for the week. We’re putting together the details for a mini-event since we would love to meet you in person and buy you a drink.
Email us at sxsw@stylehatch.co or send us a tweet @stylehatch with #sxsw, and we will hook you up next week.
“Among idealists and visionaries, there is no shortage of good intent, but there’s often a shortage on discipline.”
— Scott Belsky, Behance