According to an annual survey from NRF and BIGResearch, 30.8% of parents say they’ll shop online for clothing and supplies, compared with 22.2% last year. About one-third of respondents plan to use websites to compare prices in preparation for shopping. (InternetRetailer.com)

It’s no shocker that online shopping keeps increasing – but what this little factoid did get me thinking about is back to school. More importantly, Toughskins – the pants of a true champion, and on any parents back to school shopping list in the 1970’s.

So without further ado, I bring you the “Sears 1973 Toughskin Commercial.”

Enjoy!

In April of 2010, Google announced on their webmaster blog that they will now be taking site speed into account in their search engine algorithms and page rank. This has been talked about for quite a while, and with more devices becoming mobile, a faster site is more user friendly and uses less bandwidth.

The question is, how far do you go to create a site that downloads quickly. While doing some research for a client in the financial sector, we decided to check out what the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. website looked like. Surprising, we found it to be devoid of any imagery at all – only text and links.

Is Berkshire Hathaway so big that they don’t need to rely on branding on their site? Quite possibly, but I would say that they are one of the exceptions to the rule.

Most brands need personality. They need an image and a voice. What would Harley Davidson be with only a website full of links and text? Currently, they have a pretty heavy image based website. Harley will always be up high in page ranks because they are so well known, but what if they weren’t. A visitor may find them quickly, but if their site was nothing but page links and text to read, would they stay? Would it sell the brand or message? They may have gotten to their site quickly and found them faster in the search ranks, but unless a visitor makes the decision that the site they are visiting is right for them, they may look somewhere else.

People respond to captivating visuals. They like the car that looks cool, even though it may not run cool, they select the product with the best packaging, even if the product may be inferior, and if you’re shallow enough, you might even select a mate based solely on looks, verses what’s inside.

My point is, in a highly visual society, how far will stripping down visuals go when people have been dependent on them (for good or bad) for so many thousands of years.

I am for a formula of usability, form and function, and with the way technology changes so rapidly, time will shortly tell us.

Form and Function can be: Great Branding + Usability with Speed

Conventional wisdom suggests that a prominently placed ad would be more effective than one that is more obscure, but online that is often not the case. People have quickly learned to ignore things on a web page that are not content related.

First ignored was the banner ad placed at the very top of the page. To combat this these ads are often now placed under a page’s header and navigation to integrate them (as much as possible) into the actual content. In fact, studies have shown ads placed even further down the page have shown increased effectiveness.

Banner ad under page navigation

Ads placed alone the sides of web pages have also become easily ignored. Designers have tried using different shapes, sizes and styles to maximize the clickthroughs, but these visual techniques still leave much to be desired. People still focus on content – specifically text. To test this, we designed two homepages for a client. The latter replaced image callouts with text. It did little to affect clickthroughs.

Image-based callouts

Text replacements

 According to Google and other online media companies interstitial ads perform better and ads that blend in with content are best. Many online media suppliers allow you to match the style of ads that appear on your site to your design – at least font styles and colors.

Interstitial ad placement

Some sites have taken integration of ads even further and the results have been promising. If you can fool the visitor into perceiving the ad is content, or content related, it becomes more credible and clickthroughs increase.

Find the ad

Evolution is the key here and effectiveness is short lived. People adjust to what they’re seeing. To make your web ads more effective, think integration. It’s similar to the logic of subtle product placement in TV shows compared to the interruptive (and often ignored) nature of the 30 second commercial.

It looks like web developers now will have one more browser test. Google has made the first betas of its new browser “Chrome” available for Mac and Linux users. The new browser is said to be extremely fast compared to current available browsers in page rendering, JavaScript performance, and desktop client applications. A Windows version of Chrome has been available for about a year.  To learn more, check out Webmonkey’s recent review of Chrome.

Volvo recently commissioned artist, Esref Armagan to create a painting of his experience with the new Volvo S60. That doesn’t seem very amazing until you find out that Esref has been blind since birth. Finally, a car company that encapsulates the emotion and experience of the automobile – human relationship. I surely don’t get excited about watching a car drive down a windy road, but I certainly get excited when a car brand can deliver a message like this. Watch the video of Esref’s creation here.

Not a bad list. Enjoy.

Via Alltop. http://inc19.alltop.com/

Serif. Sans Serif. Slab Serif. Wood Cut. Script. Display Type. Ornamental. Condensed. Extended. Hairline. Outline. Web Font. Pixel Font…

There are quite a few to pick from when working through a design strategy and process. Being a creative you get to learn how to identify them in major nerd fashion when they are on television, in a movie, or floating around all over the place. Does my wife think I’m cool that I can ruin every movie intro by naming the typeface used? No… But hey… I still have to try…

Check out typography.com to further geektify yourself with all the newest typefaces.

With the future of Healthcare being the hot topic in the news, there are many opinions floating around on how to move forward.

For Big Wheel, answering the question of how the interactive design community can make an impact on Healthcare and simplify the lives of organizations and patients gives us hope. With more and more people turning to mobile devices instead of desktops or laptops for web connectivity, we see an opportunity here that many interactive and application developers see. Mobile and iPhone applications that can manage medicine, social activity, record stress levels, and connect patients with support groups to name a few. Many of these applications are already in the works and certainly can reach far greater than these examples.

For more information, check out Fast Company’s recent review of the University of Southern California’s “Body Computing Conference,” held earlier this month.

I’d like to give kudos to Walt for putting together a nice blog about the St. Louis ad scene. In addition to reading several posts, I took time to visit several of the blogs listed in his blogroll. Finally, the St Louis ad community is publishing some online content.