The graphic designer(s) responsible for the new London 2012 Olympic games logo should be dragged out of their office(s) and drowned in the same vat of 80’s nostalgia they drew from when creating their abomination. Oh. My. God. It’s ugly.

Via Daring Fireball.

Blogging about a little app he created to demonstrate the Twitter API, developer Brent Simmons had this to say:

Folks who aren’t developers sometimes think that apps like Twitterrific are 90% under-the-hood plumbing and a 10% sprinkling of user interface. The truth is more likely the opposite: 10% plumbing, 90% user interface.

And it struck me that his comment could have just as easily been made about the medium ideapark works in. Ninety percent user interface (design, function, message, strategy) and ten percent plumbing.

Via Darling Furball.

AOL is showing their new “AOL 3.0″ homepage. It’s a nearly perfect clone of Yahoo’s homepage. Sad. Really sad.

Via TechCrunch, as is the image.

At Saturday’s Minnebar, we caught up with David Heinemeier Hansson of 37Signals. David is the creator of the web-application framework Ruby on Rails. Leonardo da Vinci once stated “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” This is what David has developed with the Rails framework. David talked about his passion for developing aesthetically pleasing code that inspires web developers to do great work. Although most marketers wouldn’t need to know (nor necessarily need to care) about Ruby on Rails, for us it is an instrumental tool to ensure our clients’ marketing message and metrics are achieved on the web.

David’s technology foundation – although not visible to the customers – is the major strand of the DNA for the 37Signals brand. It comes across in their no nonsense approach. It shows in their passion for delivery solutions that customers need, not what they want.

David’s company develops phenomenal products that we use daily at ideapark to foster collaboration and creativity. From left-to-right: Chris Henslin (ideapark) David Heinemeier Hansson (37signals) Brian Brown (ideapark)

Btw, this meeting in the Twin Cities was the largest BarCamp outside of India. (What is BarCamp?) Even though it’s the un-conference, great job to the organizers. Noted blogger, Graeme Thickens, gives a great overview. Photo credit to Graeme with yours truly captured looking back from the throngs of attendees.

We also strive to deliver what our customers need, not necessarily what they want. David, thanks for making the trip up.

UPDATE: Leslie Brooks Suzukamo’s article in the Pioneer Press

These new animated BP ads are awesome. Fresh, engaging, different. Plus, they crack my kid up every time they come on.

• Lighthouse (my favorite)
• Fuels
• Babies (outtakes, even)

Too bad the site they send you to is so mundane. After the visual feast of the ads themselves, the site seems like an afterthought.

Author Miranda July has created a website for her new book, No One Belongs Here More Than You, using nothing more than a dry erase marker, her refrigerator, gas stove, and a digital camera. It’s simple yet effective and a lot of fun. Kottke says:

The No One Belongs Here More Than You site is a lesson for web designers: the point is not to make sites that follow all the rules but to make sites that will best accomplish the primary objectives of the site.

Sounds good to me.

ideapark’s annual “Vernal Equinox Party” is a time to celebrate with our customers, employees, and business partners the transition from winter to spring and exchange insights on emerging trends in marketing for the new year.

We also showcase emerging uses of technology for marketing professionals. This year, ideapark partnered up with Michael Bragg and talented team at Digital Dialogue to demonstrate SMS in a fun and engaging way. One of the best examples is how American Idol uses text messaging to drive audience participation. How can we make this relevant for traditional marketers within a reasonable budget?

For example, let’s say you are a major sporting event (or a vernal equinox party) and you want to capture real time insights from the audience.

Here’s how it works, ideapark develops an engaging and branded SMS experience for your audience via cellphone or interactive kiosk. You offer the audience the latest product information, prizes (like a Wii), discounts, or an update about their order. In return, you can gain valuable insight into what matters most to them.

Here’s an example of one the questions we asked as part of the demonstration. The answers were surprising:

We also asked fun questions and almost 70% of the attendees knew the answer to: “What is the airspeed velocity of a laden swallow?”

We were able to turn this around in less than a week.

Also, congrats to Charlie, Maryanne, and Dennis!

If you’d like to see how we did this and the outcome to some of the more serious questions, just drop me a line at mark@ideapark.com.

Fifteen web principles from the British Broadcasting Corporation:

1. Build web products that meet audience needs: anticipate needs not yet fully articulated by audiences, then meet them with products that set new standards. (nicked from Google)

2. The very best websites do one thing really, really well: do less, but execute perfectly. (again, nicked from Google, with a tip of the hat to Jason Fried)

3. Do not attempt to do everything yourselves: link to other high-quality sites instead. Your users will thank you. Use other people’s content and tools to enhance your site, and vice versa.

4. Fall forward, fast: make many small bets, iterate wildly, back successes, kill failures, fast.

5. Treat the entire web as a creative canvas: don’t restrict your creativity to your own site.

6. The web is a conversation. Join in: Adopt a relaxed, conversational tone. Admit your mistakes.

7. Any website is only as good as its worst page: Ensure best practice editorial processes are adopted and adhered to.

8. Make sure all your content can be linked to, forever.

9. Remember your granny won’t ever use “Second Life”: She may come online soon, with very different needs from early-adopters.

10. Maximise routes to content: Develop as many aggregations of content about people, places, topics, channels, networks & time as possible. Optimise your site to rank high in Google.

11. Consistent design and navigation needn’t mean one-size-fits-all: Users should always know they’re on one of your websites, even if they all look very different. Most importantly of all, they know they won’t ever get lost.

12. Accessibility is not an optional extra: Sites designed that way from the ground up work better for all users

13. Let people paste your content on the walls of their virtual homes: Encourage users to take nuggets of content away with them, with links back to your site

14. Link to discussions on the web, don’t host them: Only host web-based discussions where there is a clear rationale

15. Personalisation should be unobtrusive, elegant and transparent: After all, it’s your users’ data. Best respect it.

Brilliant.

From Tomski, via Cuene.

Digg, our favorite social news website, has launched a new design today. Simple, functional, and absolutely gorgeous.

Check it out.

Yes, reflections are the new drops shadows. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Via Daring Fireball.