About two years ago we decided we were long overdue for a new Web site. The old pbdh.com site, while still mostly functional, wasn’t quite the spring chicken it was when we launched it back in 2003. So we got together and started to figure out how we could improve the site as a whole. The look, the functionality, the usability and even the overall purpose of our site were considered. When all was said and done we came up with one major goal: simplify. In the words of Albert Einstein we decided that “everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” We started by looking at the many different sections and pages we had produced over the years. Some of them were from the original site-map, others were add-ons cobbled together over various marketing initiatives, and one or two pages just showed up one day out…
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Sorry I’m late with this year’s picks for trendiest must-have colors. I got mixed up in some Web site redesign project and I haven’t really seen the light of day in several weeks. But, like the groundhog who ponders his own shadow, I’ve crawled out of my design cave just long enough to see the future of color for 2008: It’s five more months of rainbow! (I have no idea what that means.) Anyway, here are the colors that all the cool kids will be forced to use from here to December. Get used to them, you’re going to be seeing a lot of these. (CMYK and RGB values available upon request.) Remember: if it’s not trendy, it’s original.
It was never my design objective that the furniture be different or novel; only that it be good to sit in, good to use, good to look at, and easy for everyone to buy. Charles Eames Designer, architect and filmmaker
I am somewhat of a magazine hound and I’m always on the lookout for new and interesting publications. A recent find is Monocle from Tyler Brûlé, the man behind Wallpaper* back in the nineties. Monocle has a lot in common with its predecessor and the attention to detail is what you would expect: great typography, tight layouts, stunning photography—even the various paper stocks are worth noting. What makes it better than Wallpaper* is that the articles themselves feel a bit more substantive. In a recent review of the magazine Business Week asks: Can rarefied information be sold like a luxury product? That appears to be exactly what Monocle is trying to do. But I think what most attracts me to Monocle is a seamless (and beautiful) transition from print to Web. So few magazine Web sites live up to their print counterparts and magazine brands are quite often diluted and…
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Don’t covet your ideas. Give away everything you know, and more will come back to you. Paul Arden Creative director, writer and filmmaker
When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong. R. Buckminster Fuller Architect, author, and designer
Fortune magazine presents Brand Smackdown.
Hotels in the afterlife.
Seattle vs. Dubai
It is a lot easier to be new than it is to be good. The criteria for being new is only based on the past few years, but the criteria for being good is based on everything we have learned since the beginning of time. Jeffrey Keedy Designer
