10 Mega Business Trends To Watch For In 2012 -
As long as you can weed through the drastically over-written, buzzword oozing writing style, this is a fantastic article mapping out some broad trends in business for 2012. Trend number seven should be of note for any designers or design focused brands:
Strategic differentiation begins with great design. Strategic differentiation provides a desired reputation, creates a defensible competitive advantage, and influences preferential behaviors in the value chain. In a market of rapid commoditization of products, shrinking product cycle times, and global delivery of services, organizations can barely create and sustain market differentiation. […] Differentiation tools include positioning strategy, design thinking, and innovation program that drive next generation customer experience.
My translation without all the buzzword bullshit - Design matters. A lot. If you can provide an experience for you customers that delightfully surprises them, your brand will sit head and shoulders above the competition.
I think that social blogging platforms like Tumblr may see a huge growth in 2012. Your designs are helping lead the way in responsive and more customisable themes.
I no longer believe in web designers taking thousands of pounds to design a small biz web presence. Social is doing more to drive traffic, and I think it can stand up as strong as seo driving new customers.
An excerpt of a Style Hatch support email we got earlier today. Small businesses need for expensive, custom designed online presence is declining as more of them turn to platforms like Tumblr, Virb, Squarespace and others.
Highly skilled and strategic web designers and studios will always deliver value to small businesses, but mediocre designers should be worried.
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“When the song of the angels is stilled, When the star in the sky is gone, When the kings and princes are home, When the shepherds are back with their flock, The work of Christmas begins: To find the lost, To heal the broken, To feed the hungry, To release the prisoner, To rebuild the nations, To bring peace among others, To make music in the heart.” — Howard Thurman
Earlier this morning we just submitted Penman as our thirteenth premium Tumblr theme. With an oversized layout and a focus on typographical details it’s a perfect fit for those of you who want to post high resolution images and videos as well as longer text posts. Along with all our other Style Hatch themes, Penman is completely responsive with a layout that adapts from large resolution monitors down to tablets and smartphones.
On a more technical side, this theme was our first to experiment with combining the HTML5 History API with infinite scrolling. As you load additional pages through infinite scrolling you will notice that the URL updates (penmantheme.tumblr.com/page/2). This allows you to hit back on your browser and pick up where you left off if you click a link off from the blog.
To get an idea of how flexible Penman is, check out our alternate demo site Penman Dark featuring an all dark appearance.
If you have any questions about Penman feel free to email us at penman@stylehatch.co
Hand embroidered, oversized postcards by mixed-media artist Shaun Kardinal. Best of all Shaun is on Tumblr and frequently posts his handmade creations—go follow him!
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“Melancholy shouldn’t be confused with depression. Melancholy is an active state. When we’re melancholic, we feel uneasy with the way things are, the status quo, the conventions of our society. We yearn for a deeper, richer relationship with the world. And in that yearning, we’re forced to explore the potential within ourselves – a potential we might not have explored if we were simply content. We come up with new ways of seeing the world and new ways of being in the world. Melancholy and creativity go together.” — Alexander Stutterheim, post on Melancholy & Creativity
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Color is a live broadcast from your phone. Unlike videos, there’s no audio, editing, or uploading. You got 30 seconds to tell your story. Up to 5,000 friends can simultaneously visit your broadcast from their phone and Facebook.
So after rehashing the complete flop of the first version of Color, they’re putting their $41,000,000 in funding to use to launch a platform to broadcast 30 seconds of boring, soundless video to Facebook. Isn’t audio half the magic of video?
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Designing a product is keeping five thousand things in your brain and fitting them all together in new and different ways to get what you want. And every day you discover something new that is a new problem or a new opportunity to fit these things together a little differently.
And it’s that process that is the magic.
” — Steve Jobs(Source: daringfireball.net)
This tiny, ticker-tap like device from BERG design consultancy is their latest product launch that merges digital and physical to create a fun and playful gadget.
Little Printer lives in your home, bringing you news, puzzles and gossip from friends. Use your smartphone to set up subscriptions and Little Printer will gather them together to create a timely, beautiful mini-newspaper.
From looking at the Little Printer site, it appears that it is the first of many playful home electronic products that they plan on launching for their new BERG Cloud device that lives on your home’s network.
Previous posts about BERG - Making Future Magic: iPad Light Painting and Shuu.sh Twitter reader
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” — Howard Thurman, an influential American author, philosopher, theologian, educator and civil rights leader (1899-1981)
(Source: tumblr.heyamberrae.com)
Why Instagram Is So Popular: Quality, Audience, & Constraints -
More weight and significance is placed on each image, just because you have to consider it, at least for a split second, in your feed. Instagram forces you to focus.