Welcome to the blog of Johannesburg creative agency Nicework. A fine selection of the best creative ideas, art, design and advertising.
Nike founded a country for Corinthian’s (a Brazilian soccer team) 30 million fans complete with legislation, ID documents, passports, a flag, a president and multiple citizens. The campaign amounted to nearly $8 million dollars in free publicity, $5 million worth of sales and 1.2 million new contacts on the Nike mailing list. Job incredibly well done.
Mashable did an interesting article on the success of the iPhone camera app Instagram. The application combines social networking with photography so well that in the eight short months since its release Instagram now has millions of users.
Let’s get to the current stats:
Total users: +5 million
Total photographs uploaded: +95 million
Average number of photographs posted per day: 860 000
That is pretty darn impressive. Instagram’s early success can be partly attributed to a very popular API that’s now being accessed by more than 2,500 applications.
Anirudha Rao is a mastermind behind this cardboard bike helmet. Not only is it sustainable but its four times stronger than a conventional polystyrene helmet!
French graphic designer Florent Bodart (a.k.a. Speakerine) created this awesome infographic of odd and interesting facts.
He also created these cool patterned t-shirt designs.
“Groupon has just launched Groupon Now, the company’s much-anticipated time-based deals app that wants to redefine how society eats and shops.
Groupon Now, which was first revealed in March, is a simple application within Groupon’s mobile apps that gives a user the ability to find local deals in realtime. This is accomplished by mapping a list of time-specific daily deals in the user’s vicinity. These daily deals can last anywhere from a few hours to a full day, depending on when and how long a business wants to run a deal.”
Currently, Groupon Now is only available in Chicago.
via: mashable
Suzanne Lee is a fashion designer and director of the Biocouture Research Project. She has developed a way to create a leathery fabric from the cellulose strands created by Kombucha cultures. Using food dyes and other harmless ingredients, she has created a line of clothing using this remarkable new material. Here is the video of her recent TED talk:
A great campaign for Mint Vinetu Bookstore that puts readers in the role of protagonists from classic literature.
via: love agency
Dieter Rams is a German industrial designer who is closely associated with the Functionalist School of Industrial Design.
Here are his ten principles for good design:
1. Good design is innovative
The possibilities for innovation are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for innovative design. But innovative design always develops in tandem with innovative technology, and can never be an end in itself.
2. Good design makes a product useful
A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional, but also psychological and aesthetic. Good design emphasises the usefulness of a product whilst disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.
3. Good design is aesthetic
The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products we use every day affect our person and our well-being. But only well-executed objects can be beautiful.
4. Good design makes a product understandable
It clarifies the product’s structure. Better still, it can make the product talk. At best, it is self-explanatory.
5. Good design is unobtrusive
Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user’s self-expression.
6. Good design is honest
It does not make a product more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept.
7. Good design is long-lasting
It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable design, it lasts many years – even in today’s throwaway society.
8. Good design is thorough, down to the last detail
Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the consumer.
9. Good design is environmentally-friendly
Design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment. It conserves resources and minimises physical and visual pollution throughout the lifecycle of the product.
10. Good design is as little as possible
Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.
via: Vitsoe
For those who’ve ever wondered what’s on the other side of websites, this website has solved the mystery.
via swissmiss
Ji Lee has always been one fo my favourites. Have a look at him speaking at the 99% conference on his personal projects. Inspiring. He is now with google labs.
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