(thanks for the tip, Jamie.)

Imagine that a small startup exists, and that they provide off-site customer service infrastructure for companies that make software, web apps, etc. Pretty good idea, right? Many companies don't provide this service, or don't provide it well.

Now imagine that they create pages on their site for thousands of companies without their consent. They use the companies' logos, look and feel, etc. to make their page look like an sanctioned location to get official support for these products. The only indication on the page that you're not at an official support site is a badge that tells users that the company in question is "not yet committed to an open conversation." They also sell ads to competitors' websites on your page, unless you buy a plan for $100 a month. Pretty bad ideas, right? In fact, they sound downright malicious, and if they're not, they're horribly negligent design decisions.

Now imagine you're an a-list blogger, that your company provides great (famous) customer service and support, and that you find out about your page on this off-site help resource. You're obviously pretty upset. You write a blog post lambasting the company for their obviously shady practices, which ends up effecting change in the product. (Many of you will be aware by this point that this is a true story - it happened at the end of March.) Pretty good idea, right? I'm not so sure.

Titian, David and Goliath, 1540s

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Greenpeace recently released a very nice campaign promoting the use of energy-efficient light bulbs. This campaign really speaks to us, as it exemplifies both an ethical kind of messaging and a clever, reductionist aesthetic. We really like the (visual and content) drama of the light bulb-noose double entendre. It's powerful stuff.

We might have suggested an inversion of black and white, which would have also served the double function of instantiating material reduction (by requiring less ink), and "lit up the room" so to speak, showing the light bulb as it functions, rather than as a dormant artifact waiting for employment.

Nevertheless, a very solid idea well-executed.

I spent Monday griping about those little bags of screws that come with Target DIY pressboard bookshelves and their like. I also intimated then that the (if not flatly unethical) lame strategies behind them have a couple of lessons to teach us all: Wordpress template factories, real estate agents, Etsy store proprietors, and big three automotive companies alike. As promised:

Be generous

Send me an extra screw, you jerks. (Image via.)

If you make design and logistical decisions using a mentality of maximizing profits, the logical conclusions will all have zero tolerance for error. Case in point the bag of hardware: There is no doubt that sending exactly the correct amount of hardware is the most cost-effective option for these companies, which is why that's what they do. However, when the factory screws up, it costs them huge, leading to frustrated customers, employees, and balance sheets. If they had just planned to throw an extra washer in every bag, they wouldn't have any of these problems.

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Via

We talk a good game about restraint around here, often with regards to features or aesthetics. Restraint means to hold something back, to hold in those impulses for more, and eliminate excesses that might get in the way of user experience. But what about excessive customers?

It’s a problem we’d all like to have, right? But today, I’m going to pose a serious question: Are less customers better than more?

What started me thinking about this was my experience with the Dungeons & Dragons Facebook application. The game was minimalist, but addictive. So addictive, in fact, that the servers were slammed almost immediately.

Everything was going great. Then the server failed its saving roll...

All weekend long, my page requests kept coming back lost, but I persisted. It was annoying, but it didn’t keep me from leveling up my character. By Monday, the application had so much traffic that it was completely unresponsive and was taken offline.

When the servers recovered, the news came that the databases had crashed and everyone’s characters were lost. My halfling rogue was dead and no Resurrection spell could bring him back.

Now, I’ll put up with a lot for something that is free and fun, but after losing all my progress I decided I just didn’t want to play anymore. The spell was broken. They’d lost me for good.

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We've said it before, and we'll say it again. Designing a restrained billboard might be rare, and even culturally antonymic, but when it's done right, it's incredibly effective.

Billboard Advertisement for the Denver Water Public Utility

Here, the Denver Water Public Utility takes the Eskom strategy one step further, actually chopping their billboard down to about 20% of its allotted size. This is not only highly effective because it capitalizes negatively on our perceptual fluency for billboards, but it's also quite apropos to the content. Nicely done.

Billboard Advertisement for the BIC

Secondly, this incredible billboard for BIC razors makes excellent use of many of the principles we at DLB hold dear. Specifically, (1) the aforementioned confounding of perceptually fluent expectations, (2) the Power of Profiles (here, capitalizing on the unique and recognizable shape of the BIC disposable razor), (3) the judicious use of the context/environment of the design, and finally (4) a very interesting (sculptural) complication of the figure-ground relationship.^*

All these excellent factors add up to an almost completely blank billboard. Chew on that.

^* Please note also my near-giddiness that this billboard allows me a second occasion to use the Claes Oldenberg tag.