ml haynes design

The new integrated campaign for Dickies launched via online video “tough tests” last week. This initial offering — the first round of work from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners — shows 874 Work Pants taking a beating, literally, as they’re ripped apart by squealing choppers, torn and shredded by massive wrecking balls, and rolled down a meticulously groomed hillside.

Each black-and-white clip is a combination of the old “don’t try this at home” instructional film and “don’t try this with stuff you’ve paid decent money for” product demonstration. Taking what has been a staple of skaters, surfers, hirsute tradesmen, and wannabe rockers, the GSP team brings this brand to the hard core. You know those guys and gals: the ones with the biker chain clipped to their belt loop, the steel-toe boots, and the compostable lunch bag in their recycled rubber messenger bag.

Watching the series, I couldn’t help but think brand loyalists aren’t the type to be sold with old-school show-and-tell demos like these. They’ve been trained over a lifetime to be skeptical of these well-choreographed tests and product performances. Folks new to the brand are probably in the same place in regard to what influences their purchasing decisions. The rough characters who star in these films aren’t buying it either, and they certainly are not watching videos online. Hell, they’re still rocking classic rock radio in their pickup trucks for a good time.

What’s going on here? Choppers pulling a pair of pants apart. Levi’s denim tags sport a mule team doing the same and have been for decades. Product is attached to a swinging steel ball and aimed at a thick concrete wall. Check out classic commercials of the ’60s and ’70s, and you’ll see this has been a staple for more than half a century. It didn’t get more tough than a Timex watch attached to an arrowhead, shot through a pane of glass by a gentleman wearing a plaid flannel shirt.

What was that last “test” again?

That’s right. Those tough twill pants are worn by a gravity-loving, bearded hipster who simply cannot resist the urge to rock, roll, and bounce down a beautiful hillside obviously landscaped by a professional film crew and production team. Parkour, I think not. This guy likes a good tumble it would appear, and, well, it just isn’t that easy to get yourself a chopper at the last minute, let alone a wrecking ball without calling ahead. What better way to show the world that you — and your new pants — have earned the badass Dickies label?

“I’m a Mechanic.” A simple statement of fact, a powerful declaration of affinity and a message of belonging in a time of insecurity. It also happens to be a small, but hard-working microsite developed by my team at the nine-to-five.

We are about to develop and deploy the next phase of content and interactivity —with a side of social — for this brand portal. And as we kick-off this next round I’m thinking a lot about the creation/celebration of culture — the culture we identify with, the culture we gravitate toward, the culture we establish and define against previously mandated boundaries and borders. Experiencing the power of this brand in people’s professional and personal lives, it is no inconsequential task to steward the culture of both consumers and clients, people who have built this brand over generations. To authentically represent the brand and the people who have created culture around it continues to be our challenge.

Makes me think about the brands in my life. The brands that I would stand up for, declare an unwavering believe in, that encourage a feeling of “insider” for having stayed true and loyal. Not too many these days; how about you?

Much has been written about AOL’s new logo, debuting December 10th. Just weeks away, this Internet dinosaur will attempt its third re-branding.

Common wisdom has it that the first logo was an inside job; no one has come forward to claim that iconic pyramid with mirrored swooshes and Mistral-like typography. The first logo re-design was done by Desgrippes Gobé, a 3D pyramid-to-pointer-effect and script-to-rounded-sans-serif and the identity went boldly, if not generically, into the future. Next month, as the brand spins off from the Time Warner mothership, the logo will see another reinvention.

The first, and most obvious, change is in the typography. Enough of a household name to go by three letters alone, AOL will now be represented by title case, sans serif letterforms followed by a period. And much has been made of this period, for sure. Sam Wilson, managing director at the Wolff Olins New York office — AOL’s go-to branding agency — claims the period in the logo was added to suggest “confidence, completeness… AOL is the place to go for the best content online, period.” Completeness, yes, when used at the end of a sentence or within an abbreviation. I’ll even go for the end of a phrase, heck, it’s advertising. But at the end of three letters? I would’ve loved to have been in that pitch and heard that rationale hit the fan.

The second change is in the visual representation of the brand, the changing images and backdrop to the letterforms. Counter to the plain and accessible typography, these images represent everything from finger-paint swirls to vignettes of fish. The type knocks out of each of these images in varying degrees of legibility and logic. I get the metal fist (AOL does music) and the scribble (AOL does self-expression) but I’m still wondering what AOL’s going to do with that fuscia blob of brain matter. Or is it bubblebum? Jordan Crane, Wolff Olins New York CD, describes it as “a mix of do-it-yourself and high production values, crazy stuff and elegant stuff… simple and engaging and bizarre — all the things the Internet is.” Again: rationale meet fan.

Tim Armstrong, AOL CEO, in an interview with paidContent.org, supports the decision to launch this unorthodox identity program as an expression of corporate creativity. “The hardest part about brands is everybody’s got an opinion. What really matters is how well you like our products and services… We looked at a lot of different brand treatments. We felt this was the one that captured what was happening at the company underneath the surface. People see AOL as a big turnaround, but there is so much creativity at the company now.”

A campaign rollout is still under consideration. You’ll need to go to the AOL web site to see the changes as the transformation takes place the evening of December 9th and into the 10th. This revolution will not be televised. Instead it will go out to the already converted who will be looking, as Armstrong suggests, for improvements in service and product offerings. If that means that they’re greeted by fish and rockers, and their email is announced in some auto-tune robotic tone, so be it. For the rest of us — and clearly those of us interested in the process and politics of corporate identity — this could be an interesting way to ring out 2009.

A recent project put me, once again, into a mobile frame of mind. The design challenges that come with a mobile initiative can be daunting, but the opportunities to rethink everything from audience to content to usability can be a great “reset” for a designer/developer. I warmed up with a swift reading of Cameron Moll’s Mobile Web Design.

Moll makes an especially good point when referencing context, the “circumstances and conditions that surround a place, thing, or event.” While content and component (mobile device used) are important, it’s the context, the situation in which the user finds him/herself, and our attention to this detail that I think makes all the difference in an effective mobile web solution. I recommend this read to anyone designing in this space. I also recommend checking out these resources as well. Enjoy!

The Mobile Context by C. Enrique Ortiz

Mobilize, Don’t Miniaturize by Barbara Ballard

Global Authoring Practices for the Mobile Web by Luca Passani

Mobile Web Design: The Series by Cameron Moll

Resources for designing and building mobile apps and sites from Design For Mobile

Mobile Web Developer’s Guide from mobiForge

Nice piece on Pandora, the Oakland-based online radio service, in Sunday’s New York Times’ Magazine. The Song Decoders, written by Rob Walker, reveals the dot-com start-up’s hungry beginnings, the president’s (musician, Tim Westergren) thoughts on collaborative filtering and social networks, and what I think is the beauty of Pandora, The Music Genome Project.

Walker states that many of the Pandora users he interviewed for this piece did not know of the Genome Project. It’s this incredible human-based system of codifying music that drew me to Pandora and it’s why I’ve been an avid fan and promoter since that first listen. Recording the DNA of a music track. Mapping it to thousands of other tracks. Then letting the computer do the rest has made for true 21st century radio.

Listen here if you’ve never tried. Keep it up if you’re a listener. This intelligent and entertaining merge of music and methodology deserves the support. Your ears will thank you.

I was recently asked to “update the seo” on an existing web site. The concern was that we had, perhaps, been using “old keywords and phrases.” In a nutshell: The SEO had reached its sell-by date and stakeholders were eyeing the pitchforks and torches. Could I please use best practices to overhaul the site’s metadata, and could I do it by Wednesday?

Well, the timing didn’t bother me as much as the emphasis on “best practices.” I’m no stranger to the term and I’ve been known to toss it out for effect on occasion. But this stopped me. I was curious about an established to-do list and went in search of just such a thing.

It was a short trip.

Not counting the “experts” who blatantly borrowed from each other (without sources or credits, typical) and the bloggers who recounted results that, no doubt, could not be replicated, I came up with nothing definitive on this. Try as I might — and with years of sourcing SEO and SEM — I was disappointed. I was also (self-inflicted) now tasked with putting down in writing what I would consider my version of SEO Best Practices™.

Some of these are no-brainers; if you’re doing SEO now you’re putting these into practice at each juncture. Others might not be so obvious or you might have another way of getting to the same result. If you’re reading this and inclined to comment and/or add to the list, please do. I’d like to think that the next person who has to extinguish a colleague’s flaming hair will do so with a bit more confidence and clarity having found this post.

ML’s SEO Best Practices (v1.01)

Keywords: How are your keywords holding up and what kind of traffic are they bringing into your site? Notice I said “kind of traffic” because while traffic volume is a nice trend to watch, it’s the quality of that traffic that’s really having any effect on your site. Did you start out too broad, is the net you’re casting just too wide — bringing in visitors that “just aren’t that into you?” Also consider the alignment between those keywords and your content, which brings me to…

Content: Are your keywords in sync with the content on the targeted page? Will visitors find what they’re searching for or will they be disappointed to find that your page (your site, your brand) is not what they need to complete the task at hand. Don’t be fooled — the metadata on your page can no longer do the heavy lifting. Content is king and optimized content that makes good on the promise of search results makes all the difference.

Customers: Get to know them. Get to know them well. It’s not until you understand what they’re searching for — what task are they looking to accomplish — and why that you’ll truly know if your keywords and content are on point. Talk with customers (you may call them users or visitors, but if they’re “buying” what you’re “selling” they’re customers). What are they saying about your category, your competition, their desires and experiences? How can you better your site and pages to ensure that they have, consistently, the best experience on your site.

Conversation: Paying attention to what your customers are saying is one thing. Really hearing how they talk is another. By listening to the words and phrases that are being used you can boost the effectiveness of the keywords that you choose. Get out of your head. Stop using “insider” language. Get to know the words that your customers are using when speaking — and searching — in your category and you’ll be ahead of the “conversation curve.”

Nuts and bolts: Be aware of these “rules” — use 2-3 keyphrases per page; craft pages at approximately 250 words, adjusted as necessary; place keyphrases in headlines, subheadlines and hyperlinks within copy. Then ditch the “rules” and read the content you’ve created. Try again if you’re sounding robotic or nonsensical. Remember that while your visitors are looking for answers they’re also looking for reasons to care about your brand, your product or service.

Helpful links: Here are a few resouces that I’ve found handy. Comment and add to the list.

SEOmoz – Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Guide – Unleashed: Keywords and Content

David Mihm – Mihmorandum

Monopoly City Streets, promoted as “you versus the world in the biggest live game of Monopoly in history,” is the love-child of Hasbro and Google. A gargantuan MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game), City Streets takes play out of the virtual world, into the streets (quite literally) and back into the virtual world. Players buy streets and engage in “property empire building on an unimaginable scale.”

Off to a less-than-stellar start, the game failed — quite publicly — September 9 when 1.7 million people tried to register simultaneously. As Hasbro prepares to punch the “reset” button on the game, most insiders expect that an even greater audience will push the limits of the registration tool. The re-launch is expected to be this week; the blog is currently working overtime.

I’m not especially keen on playing, keeping up with Bay Area real estate is enough “game playing” for me. But I will be watching the lifecycle of this game/campaign. I’ve been waiting for a brand to pick up the Google Maps API and use it to enhance both the brand and the consumer’s experience of the brand. Pete Cashmore over at Mashable shared this insight into the creation of the game: “What the coverage doesn’t mention is the level of involvement Google had here: while in theory this could have been built on the Google Maps API with little input from the search engine maker itself, all reports seem to indicate that Google had a direct role in bringing the game to fruition.”

Let the game begin. Again.

Webtrends, the granddaddy of web analytics apps, launched Webtrends Open Campaign. According to their mid-August press release, Open Campaign is “a transparent look at digital marketing today through the execution of an integrated multi-touch campaign.” In other words, the folks who brought us traffic stats and other under-the-hood goodies are showing us how it’s done. Promises to be an interesting ride.

Using a broad blogging platform, social media APIs and a cast of in-house and partner characters, we’re invited to not only watch but participate in the digital marketing campaign for new product, Analytics 9.

Webtrends, once *the* analytics and measurement tool for web dev and marketers, was put into deep shadow by Google Analytics. Like so many other pay-to-play apps, this once standard tool was pretty much forgotten by most web dev and managers I knew. Google just made it so darn easy. And who can argue with free?

The Webtrends Open Campaign will pull back the covers on a comprehensive initiative. Marketers will no doubt appreciate the transparency and opportunity to poke around someone else’s plan and execution. I’m curious to follow the effects of audience participation on the process and the follow-through on transparency.

With an all-access pass to a new online campaign, I’m going to give it a whirl. How about you?

Sure, I’d seen the rumblings ’round the blogs and design sites. Read the rants of typophiles and fans of all things Swiss Modern. But this morning the discourse was taken to another elevation when I read this.

You know you’ve tapped into something when the New York Times weighs in. Either that or it’s a very slow news day at The Arts desk.

Go ahead. Google “Ikea” and “Verdana.” Then prepare to search through more than one million results, with everything from Flickr pages photodocumenting the grave deed to an “anti-Verdana” petition. Ironically, the latter came up on my screen in, wait for it… Verdana.

I’m going to go out on a limb and disagree with Marius, this particular petition’s author, and a league of fellow designers here. As a hybrid creative — comfortably positioned in both print and pixels — I’m challenged by designers and art directors who are so enamored of a typeface (and Futura plays a part quite often, coincidentally) that they refuse to see the limitations or liabilities within their design choices. I also understand what may well be the business driver behind the Ikea decision as well as others we see coming, seemingly, from boardrooms instead of studios.

I’ll be honest: Futura is a poor type choice for online. The modern curves and equally weighted lines that make this a classic face are nearly impossible to render on-screen. Readability is sacrificed and, counter to a designers intent, so is the very quality of the face. Just doesn’t work.

And as far as making a sound business decision, I’m of the mind that Ikea’s simply preparing a phase-out of their print catalog and migrating this sales material to its web-based sibling. The move might have been clumsy — pairing their logotype with the new-faced “2010″ on the catalog cover made me shake my designer head — but it was not the end of the world as so many have suggested. I wonder if those same designers would be in such an uproar about brand consistency across platforms if the company had made another decision altogether.

At the end of the day most consumers, and Ikea brand enthusiasts, won’t notice the change. Before the hub-bub would any of us really noticed?

[added 19 SEP 09]

This landed in my inbox today — Ikea chooses an ugly font — from Gerry McGovern. I’ve received his newsletter, New Thinking, for years and find that he’s always got something insightful and useful to share. This piece was particularly fitting and his perspective on the “why” of Ikea’s decision is spot-on, in my opinion.

Having just re-wrapped my own online porfolio, I gave it one more go to make certain I’d left no template unturned. Today I discovered a few resources that would have come in handy last month (and the month preceding, if I’m truly honest). Thought I’d share.

Enjoy!

Creating A Successful Online Portfolio
The “less is more” message here cannot be stressed enough. I make it a point to stress this to the designers I work with and advise. Taking that medicine myself — not always easy.

48 Trendy and Fresh Web Interfaces from Deviantart
If it’s coming from deviantArt, you know it’s fresh. Always nice to have a choice sampling in one place.

deviantArt site
A great source for inspiration and amazing example of creating online community with purpose and passion.