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As we move forward into 2010, we should nonetheless look back into 2009 and ponder on the things we’ve done and how to make that better this year.

No doubt we been busy. And since returning back into Draftfcb KL, I’ve asked a lot if some of the processes we undertook was done well enough and if not, how to make them better.

What struck hard was how some things worked well on it’s own, but not with others. And even more, that some items were very much done the way traditional advertising agencies do. In a traditional world. With traditional tools. Like any traditional agency would.

But ‘traditional’ we’re not. We are in a state where most our campaigns will be centered around Digital. Or at least, have a digital component to it. So let’s move forward. Let’s take a step up. Because as much as we would like our clients to have the brevity to jump into digital, we as an agency should play the vanguard and be trailblazers in this world. Especially in the areas of ideas, tools and services.

Let’s face it. If we are to conceptualise digital solutions for clients, we should first be proponents of them. Why preach the merits of social media and power of the hive if we ourselves have not gotten wet with online collaboration tools and how these trigger user behaviours? I’ve faith some of you are using them already. But some is not enough. I’d like all of you to use it.

So in 2010, we will change how we do things. We will now be the hive. And leverage off the power of the others to create, conceptualise, ideate, design, produce, track, manage and deliver projects better.

Here are the online collaboration tools that I recommend you to use now on.

Posted via web from drnoor’s posterous

Update: Here’s an extensive list to (almost) all iPhone branded apps on iTunes courtesy of @BrandedApps via Twitter. I like that it also list the agencies responsible for it. http://j.mp/brandedapps.

Previous post starts below.

GIG Finder | InBev | Free | Review | Download

The free application promises to keep music fans informed and for those simply in need of a night out a chance to see what’s on both locally and across the UK

Puma Index | Puma | Free | Review | Download

The PUMA Index is a global stock ticker with a twist. When the market goes down, our models’ clothes come off – right down to their PUMA Bodywear. So if you lose your shirt, at least they do, too

Parra Plays | Incase | Free | Review | Download

Poppers [like a touch screen version of "Whac-A-Mole." Touch the clouds before they pop!], Parrot [Loosely based on "Simon Says," but with a twist] & Pairs [Similar to the classic "Memory" card game]

Barclaycard Waterslide | Dare Digital | Free | Review | Download

In what’s clearly a lesson of how to get it right as far as apps that advertise go, Barclaycard’s “waterslide” iPhone game has seen 3 million downloads in just 13 days

A couple of demo applications made by third-party developers are already available on the Apple App Store and are built using the brand new Flash Professional CS5, of which a public beta with pre-release support for building applications for iPhone is planned for later this year.

(Read more at: TechCrunch)

Am not too sure if I’m surprised with what Mattel is doing with this Augmented Reality gimmick. No doubt ARs will open up numerous opportunities for toy releases. That’s for sure. Including virtual-only products. And kudos to Mattel for being ahead of this curve.

However I would have been celebrating if Mattel had used AR in a advertising blitz. Because as a buy-this-toy-card-and-get-to-see-things-online,… It’s kind of expected form a toy company. I’d expect to see a Barbie one soon too.

Here’s the Mattel Avatar AR ad.

(via: Mashable)

CHICAGO (AdAge.com)

Apple’s recent love for branded apps is a good sign for marketers trying to get their apps found in its crowded store. Barnes & Noble, Pizza Hut, Gap, Epicurious and Zagat were among those favored with free airtime in the new campaign from Apple’s creative agency TBWA/Chiat/Day. All of the marketers interviewed for this story said there was a measurable lift in downloads after the commercial first aired.

Read more at: Marketing: How Pizza Hut, Gap Wound Up in Apple IPhone Ads – Advertising Age – Digital

“Adobe® Flash® Catalyst™ is a new professional interaction design tool for rapidly creating user interfaces without coding.”

This is the new tool for coolest presentation and Flash web building and for all the designers we can forget about the Power Point already! This is next amazing software from Adobe® for Flash.

Do check the demo video here to see the Adobe® Flash® Catalyst™ in action!

Here is a series of GUI frameworks collected from various sources to help in visualising product and user interaction flow.

Mostly in Photoshop and OmniGraffle stencils (which can be extracted into EPS or Illustrator formats), these frameworks are quite useful when planning some sort of product schematic and features.

Advice for non-designers: One way I can recommend how these can be used is by exporting individual UI items into transparent PNG so that you can drag and drop them into your favourite compositing software (like Powerpoint) to do fast, quick visualisations. UI designers as usual, have the luxury of using these frameworks any way warranted to achieve the goal.

I may also have missed many more framework links. If so, please feel free to comment in. I’ll update soon as I get them.

iPhone User Interface Frameworks

iPhone GUI #1 (source: Teehanlax)

iPhone GUI #2 (source: SwissMiss)

Graffletopia iPhone GUI stencils for OmniGraffle (source: Graffletopia)

Ultimate iPhone Stencil for OmniGraffle (source: Graffletopia)

The Ultimate iPhone User Interface Gallery (source: Engadget)

Mobile Phones User Interface Framework

General Mobile Stencils for OmniGraffle (source: Graffletopia)

Mobile Device Wireframe for OmniGraffle (source: Graffletopia)

Google Code Mobile iUI (source: Google Code)

Steal This Template UI framework (source: Little Springs Design)

Yes seriously, Microsoft should start watching out for new application startups. Defend Microsoft and IE how you may but clearly the younger demographics are rebelling against their older counterparts in more ways than personal style alone.

As a service whose sole purpose is to track the applications that people actually use on their systems… The data comes from the over 75,000 Wakoopa users that have installed the desktop tracking software to enable the company to see actual usage. These users have logged over 525 million hours of app usage, across over 200,000 apps.

Some key trends in the report:

• Social networking usage tends to peak between 9 and 10 PM.
• Facebook, the most popular social network, usage is pretty constant throughout the day.
• Other web apps tend to peak at between 4 and 5 PM.
• Google Chrome is growing quickly, and is now past 15% usage across all Wakoopa users.

But some of Wakoopa’s charts in the report contain even more interesting information. For example,…

• Mozilla’s Firefox browser… is the number one app on both Windows and Mac platforms.
• And in every continent besides Africa, it’s over 60% usage among web browsers
• In Africa it’s (Firefox) still at 50%.
• Africa is the only continent where Internet Explorer finishes as the second most-used browser.
• On every other continent, IE is in third place among browsers — or worse.

While that may sounds a bit ridiculous given that IE is still by far the biggest browser worldwide in terms of market share, that has to be very troubling for Microsoft as it’s probably safe to assume that a lot of Wakoopa users are early adopters of technology and could signal a trend of where things could go for the general population in the coming years.

Also not a good sign for Microsoft: The older you are, the more likely you are to use IE.

• In the youngest age group, 11 to 20 year olds, even smaller browsers like Opera beat it.
• IE has been losing market share at a steady pace for the past several years.

More insights…

• Google products dominate the top-used web apps.
• Gmail is #2, YouTube is #3, Google Search is #4 and Google Reader is #5.
• YouTube and Gmail would be ahead of Google Search,
• Because people use their built-in search toolbars rather than Google.com to start searches.

Regardless, Facebook trumps them all.

(via: Virology.TV)

Hi Fellow MAC users.

Are your photoshop cs4 colours different when u save documents as web?

If so, here’s a solution and some reasons behind this.

STEP BY STEP SOLUTION: (for those who don’t wanna know why)
http://www.usabilitypost.com/2008/07/30/photoshop-color-profiles-for-web-images/

Have a read on this if ur curious instead:
http://www.viget.com/inspire/the-mysterious-save-for-web-color-shift/

Have a good day designing with synchronized photoshop > web browsers colours.
Choose your colours wisely friends (:

Just as we were discussing on cross browser testing yesterday, cos most of the designers here uses a Mac so there was no way to test our works on IE6, I found this website that has listed out the 7 ways to test cross browser compatibility.

“This post is written for designers, developers, or anyone else who has struggled with testing their websites across multiple browsers.

As little as one year ago, there were almost no good options for testing cross-browser compatibility of websites. The tools out there usually had significant drawbacks — either in cost, capabilities, or time required. Lately, though, there have been a lot of newcomers to the browser testing world, some of which offer truly excellent services.

In this article we’ve listed 7 fresh and simple tools for cross-browser compatibility testing, tools that actually make this stuff pretty easy. Not only that, but every single one of these tools can be used for free.”

Check out Freelancefolder.com for all 7 ways. It might just be what you have been looking for all these while. :D

Here’s an excerpt from Smashing Magazine’s Mobile Wed Design Trends 2009. Condensed for your reading pleasure. Click on each link to read in-depth about that topic.

Mobile Web Design Trends 2009 | Smashing Magazine

1. Simple options

One of the most intriguing things about mobile websites is the scaled-down options that are available to visitors. The mobile home page of Digg, for example, contains only 10 simple headlines and links, a log-in link and a few very basic navigation options. When it comes to mobile websites, simplicity is key. Because of the lack of space on the screen and Internet connections that are often slower, it’s important for visitors to have access to what is most crucial, and as little else as possible.

2. White space

White space is an important part of any design, and it’s something that’s usually a challenge in Web design because there is a desire to get as much as possible in front of the visitor. White space becomes even more of a necessity in mobile design because the typical screen size is so much smaller. A jumbled website would be very user-unfriendly and very difficult to pull off in the mobile environment.

3. Lack of images

As high-speed Internet connections have become more common in recent years, designers have been able to take more liberties with things like bandwidth-hogging video and images. The average visitor on a desktop or laptop wants to see a visually engaging website, and, as a result, images are heavily used. However, when it comes to mobile design, excessive use of images often does more harm than good.

4. Sub-domains instead of .mobi or separate domains

When the .mobi top-level domain (TLD) first became available, a lot of buzz surrounded the news. While some websites use .mobi for mobile versions of their websites, it is currently more common to see companies use a sub-domain or a separate folder on their primary domain. One of the major benefits of using a sub-domain is that it keeps everything on one domain, rather than spreading things out and potentially confusing visitors.

You’ll commonly see mobile versions of websites at such addresses as mobile.example.com, m.example.com, example.com/mobile, example.com/m and other ones along these lines. Some actual examples are m.twitter.com, mobile.washingtonpost.com and netflix.com/mobile/. Of course, there are exceptions to this trend, but as you look at the mobile versions of major websites, you will see more sub-domains than .mobi.

5. Prioritized content

Because of the simplicity of these pages and the general lack of many options, the content displayed is highly prioritized – for the visitor. While advertisements have largely become an accepted part of the Internet, most mobile websites are ad-free. The content available on a mobile website is typically of the highest priority to the average mobile visitor, not the company, although in the end the company benefits by having a more usable website.

You can see an example by looking at the mobile version of The Onion. Like most news websites, TheOnion.com does have ads with its stories. The mobile version, however, is ad-free.

For mobile web designers (or in-training mobile web designers) and mobile web content managers, CSSiPhone.com is a go-to site for inspiration and ideas on how to do mobile web design right.

Not because that CSSiPhone is host to some of the best looking mobile sites out there. But because it gives a clear indication of the mobile layout standards that should be employed when conceptualising new sites.

CSSiPhone.com

Clearly, the iPhone has the capability and the processing power to render beautiful websites. In fact, the iPhone can render as-is most online websites normally as one would see as though they were on a desktop monitor.

Yet, the designs for the mobile screens all implemented the typical approach of how mobile web designing – Top down content architecture, minimal images, simple navigation elements, very light total page weight, and content in context as a key contributor to the page design.

No matter how they are access, these sites will still look look good on non-iPhone mobile screens.