Introducing the Journal of Design

We’re happy to announce the Northtemple Journal of Design, our newest offering to the design community.

The Journal is our place to be a bit more serious, to polish the shoes up a bit and present brand new and completely original articles on everything design. We’ll be publishing these articles online and in print, on topics ranging from web and print design to design methods and processes. And starting today, we’ll publish a new article every two weeks on the site, and wrap them all up every quarter in printed form for handy desk reference.

Unlike our other articles, Journal articles will be longer, more polished, edited, and planned out in advance much like any other publication.

We’ll be posting our first article today.

Also new today is our Studies section, where we will be posting in-depth case studies on our techniques, styles and thinking. We’ve received many requests for more detail on what we do every day, and with 30+ designers we do have quite a bit of work to show. These won’t be on any sort of schedule, and much less formal than the Journal, but will dig deeper into our design process than we ever have to showcase what and how we work around here.

Studies will range from tutorials, to musings, to full on case studies. We’ve got quite a few of these in the works, including Chris’s fabulous JesusChrist.lds.org design, and how we rebuilt Northtemple.

Thanks for paying attention. We’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions. Do you have any ideas for articles or case studies?

posted by jason on Monday, Aug 18, 2008 · 6 comments

I just watched an ad before an ad

I know TV is all about advertising, and what with DVRs all the rage these days, TV studios are scrambling to figure out how to make money. Hulu.com seems to be getting it right, with totally unobtrusive ads that don’t get in the way of watching TV. But on NBC.com, home of one of the founding studios behind Hulu, totally obtrusive and irrelevant ads litter the site like the offerings my neighbor’s little dog left in my yard before he mysteriously disappeared. I even had to watch an ad before I watched one of the new Olympic-themed ads for the Office.

Yes, I had to watch an ad before watching an ad.

I have to think NBC is getting paid way more for ads on full episodes of the Office than the small annoying ones they show before ads of the Office. Taking 8 minutes out of my half hour to show ads is one thing – taking 20 seconds before a 30 second ad is another. Is NBC a little too focused on making money?

Perhaps they are falling victim to a classic blunder – target fixation. Being so focused on an end goal can make you forget to pay attention to what’s happening around you, and what you might be doing that is detrimental to achieving your goal. Oftentimes target fixation can result in actually colliding with the target (not applicable to archery).

How could NBC fix things up? Maybe NBC.com doesn’t have to generate revenue on its own, maybe it can simply advertise NBC’s core business of making good television. Or maybe following a simple rule can help us all avoid a similar fate: paying attention to our surroundings and how our work is effecting people. Does NBC know their website reminds me of my backyard?

Do you know how your work is being perceived? How many people has your product alienated today?

posted by jason on Monday, Aug 11, 2008 · 0 comments