The Interactive Advertising Bureau Launches Digital Video In-Stream Ad Format Guidelines

The Interactive Advertising Bureau Launches Digital Video In-Stream Ad Format Guidelines: "The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) today announced the release of “Digital Video In-Stream Ad Format Guidelines.” Created by the IAB’s Digital Video Committee, a group comprised of 145 leading interactive companies, they are the definitive format guidelines that directly address digital video advertising.

The guidelines focus on the most widely used current in-stream ad products, including linear video ads, non-linear video ads and companion ads. They were created in order to meet the following marketplace needs:

• Simplifying digital video ad buying across multiple sites through minimum common ad specifications for video, overlay and companion ads.
  
• Achieving more efficient operations through a common set of creative submission guidelines.
  
• Increasing consumer understanding of ad interactions and environments through best practice recommendations for creative development and player environments."
  

To view the guidelines, go to: www.iab.net/dv_guidelines

Album Cover Designers: The New Iconographers

When I was younger, I distinctly recalled noticing the dilemma faced, by album cover designers, when cassette tapes were introduced. Going from the large format LP to the small awkwardly vertical cassette cover had a big impact on design solutions. The CD reintroduced a canvas more square in shape but still diminutive compared to a real "album cover". Fast forward to today and you can see the latest challenge for album cover designers, the digital version of album art. Digital music players like iPod and Zune, that can now display album art, have reintroduced the importance of design and branding in music. There was a stretch there, where artwork was not so easily attached to the digital music. Apple's Coverflow (purchased from original creator steelskies) reintroduced the metaphor of browsing through a pile of records, albeit very tiny records .

How will this change trends in album art design? Will there be bolder, larger, simpler designs? Or is this no different from the challenges faced by traditional LP cover designers who aimed to make a large format record stand out on a shelf in a record store? We shall see, but I expect to notice a greater influence as album art designers start thinking like icon designers. One recent example, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails just released a free full length recording "The Slip". Like his last free album before it (Ghosts), each song has its own piece of artwork associated with it. 10 'covers', and a PDF booklet for one 'album'- now that's something new.

ECO-ICONIC

The May/June 2008 edition of Trend Briefing is now online, highlighting three new 'green' trends: ECO-ICONIC, ECO-EMBEDDED and ECO-BOOSTERS. "It's a hands-on take on how the branding and design of eco-goods and services is about to enter a new phase..."

Where does design belong in your organization?

Here's a nice article from cooper.com: "These days, more and more companies are recognizing that design and innovation are essential to their strategy and bottom line: effective design sells products and services, improves your position in the marketplace, and turns customers into loyal advocates for your brand. If you've gotten your organization to this point, take a moment to enjoy your success! Creating demand for design is no small achievement. Unfortunately, to reap the full benefits of design, you probably still have a lot of work to do on your organization's structure, processes, and culture.

One of the first things you need to do is determine where in your organization design belongs..."

Major points covered are:

• In-house vs. outsourced
  
• Internal consultancies
  
• Design teams assigned to products long-term
  
• A blended approach
  
• What's right for your organization
  

Read the full article at cooper.com

Internet Explorer: A Browser Breaks

"Enterprises aren't loving Internet Explorer 7, so how can its successor do any better?...

For businesses looking for a standards-compliant Web browser, Internet Explorer won't be the choice in 2008, with IE 6 entrenched and IE 8's release as much as a year away—or more, if closely aligned with Windows 7. For Web developers, the standards headaches will continue as long as IE 6 enterprise adoption remains high...

There is huge competitive opportunity for Mozilla, and even Apple, to exploit Microsoft's browser problems. Both organizations have highly standards-compliant browsers that can be deployed at lower risk."

Cause/Effect, Design As Change Agent

The Pursuit of Design | VIDEO: "Zoom In Online presents the first in a new Pursuit of Design mini-series, "Cause/Effect". This episode features "Design As Change Agent", a one-day event taking place at Parsons The New School. In this video, a wide range of designers, creatives and artists gather with students to discuss how design can be a powerful agent for change on both the local and global levels..."

Click here to watch the video online

"Business-Minded" and other more meaningful alternatives to the word "workaholic"

There's been much buzz out there about a recent blog post by Jason Calacanis. Specifically on his original comment: "Fire people who are not workaholics.... come on folks, this is startup life, it's not a game. go work at the post office or stabucks if you want balance in your life. For realz."

Techcrunch seized this post and offered some friendly criticism, suggesting Calacanis Fires People Who Have A Life. 37 signals took the interesting counter-perspective of firing the so-called workaholics.

This caused Calacanis to attempt to clarify his position: "My work *is* my life..."

What this all may boil down to is that the term 'workaholic' is not a compliment. Don't use it as a positive attribute, ever.

The common thread to all the banter really revolves around the desire to work with talented interesting people who have their own quirky way of living their lives while simultaneously being so interested in their work that it tends to be in their thoughts throughout the day. Better terms for this might be:

• Entrepreneurial
  
• Business-minded
  
• Problem solvers
  
• Strategic thinkers
• Innovators
• Results-oriented

Seek these types of people over workaholics, and you will hopefully assemble an effective team. The real challenge for business leaders at that point will be to walk the walk and be sure to avoid old-school workplace paradigms that will drive these free spirits away.

The geotag icon is born

The Geotag Icon Project is a good example of community collaboration via the Internet.

read more | digg story

Adobe AIR and the experience brand

User experiences on the Web have become increasingly better. Now, instead of abrupt page refreshes, it's possible for users to input and access data and content without interruption of the experience... RIA design practices and methodologies appear to have hit the main-stream...

read more | digg story

Amazon storage 'cloud' service goes dark

Amazon.com Web Service's hosted storage service went down Friday morning, frustrating many Web site customers and refreshing concerns with the ballyhooed approach of cloud computing.

read more | digg story

Fight Your Way To Breakthroughs (Why Some Fighting is Good)!

Many creative teams believe that their greatest mistakes are made when nobody argues. When multiple people have a strong opinion, you’re bound to disagree - and clash. Your approach to managing the impassioned “fighting” that ensues is a critical factor in your ability to find the best solution.

read more | digg story

Flow - What Adobe Version Cue should have been?

GridIron Software Announces "Flow" - A revolutionary approach to content management: "Flow is a revolutionary approach to digital content management that dramatically simplifies the design process for creative professionals working on graphic design, web and video projects. Flow automatically tracks your work from idea to end result and manages your assets and applications for your most complex projects- all without changing the way you work."

Flow was included in the Macworld Best of Show winners list. The information about the forthcoming product on their site shows a lot of promise. Now that Leopard has incorporated Coverflow into the finder, and Adobe Version Cue + Bridge has lacked traction, the timing could be good for a desktop-based asset management tool that moves beyond tracking files and adds some intelligence regarding process, versioning, and (ahem) "flow".

Features that seem like standouts include: Workflow Maps; Workflow Calendar; Visual Versions; Project Packages; Project Reports.

There's a difference between ALL of the files that someone generates for a project, versus the smaller subset of files that they may want to actually share with a workgroup or client. While some Web 2.0 DAM solutions like fluxiom or box are great for the latter, flow might be an intelligent bridge between what you have and what you need to share.

They are accepting Beta program requests. I'll be keeping an eye on this software.