The product display was called Fresh Cosmetics and not only was there display beautiful and interesting one particular product caught my eye: their mascara.

There mascara types are Supernova and Firebird.  And they are both designed for different things. Supernova has a black and white dramatic design with swirls and is obviously meant for a dramatic look. Firebird is meant for a feathery look; It’s design is blue and with golden feathers.

I think Fresh really accomplished there message they wanted to get across to their audience with they’re designs. They’re message is that they want to show modernism as well as indulgence. They also want there products to be effective and well worth the money they’re consumers are spending. When I saw the designs I thought about the Rococo and how reminiscent it was of its style, which portrays pampering and indulgence (royal attitude).

www.fresh.com

The story centers on a young high school girl, named Zoey that struggles to fit in with her human life; she feels like she just doesn’t belong.  She has some family issues, a loser boyfriend, and she is also of Cherokee descent making her very spiritual. The only person she really trusts is her grandmother because she is the only person she feels cares about her and understands her.

Zoey’s life changes suddenly when a tracker comes to her school and marks her. She is then sent to the House Of Night (vampire school) and her life changes even more drastically and becomes even harder. When she starts going to the House of Night she finds not only is she going to a new school and has to make new friends and try to fit in all over again; on top of all that she is turning into a vampire. And not only that, she has a special mark from the Goddess, Nyx. Lucky for her, she makes friends quickly and they help her through this.

I have only read the first book in the series: Marked. But there are also Betrayed, Chosen, Untamed, Hunted, Tempted and possibly more to come.

The first time I saw these books their intriguing design on the cover caught my eye. They are done in mostly black and white with some interesting photography and they compliment each book with a color, which personifies each book.  There are also intricate patterns that contrast between glossy and matte. They are bumpy when you touch them and they are very interesting and very much attuned to the content in the book. Which is the fact that during the Change from a fledgling to a vampire, the goddess, Nyx, gives them special markings to show that she has touched them. They are gifts.

I find that if a good effort goes into the imagery of a book cover I am more drawn to buy it. And I’m sure it’s the same for any consumer.  Pique the consumer’s interest and they are more likely to buy the product.

here is a link to the House of Night website: http://www.houseofnightseries.com/

There are seven different kinds of gum in the 5 Gum collection.  Rain, Cobalt, and Flare were introduced first; second came Lush and Elixir; and most recently Solstice and Zing. The reason they are called “5 Gum” is because their motto: “Stimulate your senses,” suggests that it stimulates five of the human senses.

The package design consists of black and a signature color that goes with a particular flavor:

Rain: Green
Cobalt: Blue
Flare: Red
Lush: Yellow
Elixir: Pink
Solstice: Teal/Light Blue
Zing: Light Pink

Along with the black and complimentary color, the box uses relief in their design (indents in patterns) and contrasts between matte and glossy. (This is also used on the gum wrappers.)

The box design is very functional the top flap has a tab that inserts to keep the box closed and there are relief marks on the tap that give the tab a grip to open the box easier.

5 Gum has also incorporated its design into its website: http://www.5gum.com/

Have a nice day and dont forget to “Stimulate your senses.”

I think that the design of LUSH is extremely different than anything I have seen before and that could quite possibly be part of the reason its become so popular. LUSH believes in making effective products from fresh, organic fruits and vegetables, the finest essential oils, and safe synthetics. They invent their own products and fragrances and make them by hand using little or no preservative or packaging. They use only vegetarian ingredients and they tell you when the product was made.  They do not support testing on animals and do not do business with companies that do. In an attempt to be environmentally friendly some of the packaging that is used (the black jars) are reusable. The guy at the LUSH at West Ed informed us that if we bring three jars back the the store we get a free bath bar(Kind of an incentive to recycle.)

To save money, space, and shipping costs LUSH designs its products so that packaging is not needed. In the compact hard form they use, shampoo is both lighter and smaller, making it easier to ship. There reusable black jars may not be much to look at but they are designed to help the environment.

Just because they don’t design packaging doesn’t mean that they can’t still design how the product looks on the shelf. With the shampoos, soaps, massage bars, bath bars and body butters (And other products too of course.) a bit of design has gone into them.

LUSH Karma Komba Solid Shampoo

LUSH Ice Blue Soap

LUSH Heavanilli Massage Bar

LUSH Christmas Eve Bubble Bar

When you look at what materials have to be used into the designs of LUSH’s products it makes you think that the designs of their product might be quite limited. They have to work with the ingredients that are in the product and manipulate its shape in some way. One thing they use a lot of it color. Most likely to catch the customer’s eye. But you have to remember the customer is going to take this product home and dunk it in water. The most important thing here is not the gorgeous design, it is whether or not the product works. The gorgeous design just helps to pique interest and then help make the final sale

If you are interested in learning more about LUSH I’ve posted their website in my blog

http://www.lush.ca/shop/english

A while ago, whilst reading my anthropology textbook, the thought occurred to me that our evolution might also be considered design; meaning we humans may also be considered a functional design. If you think about it every part of our human design is put there for a reason and every part of our being is jam-packed into one body.

As primates we come with many features in our design. We are quite generalized and we have kept many ancestral traits other mammals have lost. For example, our limbs are flexible and generalized in such a way that we are not locked into one specialized form of locomotion but we are more inclined towards an erect posture, also our feet have adapted to be able to carry a heavier load to support our inclination. Our hands and feet have a high degree of grasping ability and five digits and an opposable thumb make that possible. Our teeth have adapted to our omnivorous diet. We have incisors for cutting, canines for grasping and piercing, and premolars and molars for crushing and grinding.

The functionality of our design has evolved over time much like the design of a car or any other piece of technology has. What these examples have in common is they’ve gotten more and more complicated so that they can perform they’re functions better and better.

The Newton • 1993

•Was a major flop when released to the public

•Laid the groundwork for future portable device, like the iPod

Classic Line

G1 iPod – 2001

•Apple’s White Design

•Mechanical Wheel

G2 iPod – 2002

•Touch sensitive wheel

G3 iPod – 2003

•Entirly touch sensitive

•Designs start getting thinner

G4 iPod – 2004

•Used the click wheel from iPod Mini.

•Harry Potter and U2 editions developed from this model

G5 iPod – 2005

•”iPod Video”

•Black design instead of white

G6 iPod – 2007

•New “iPod Classic”

•Aluminum design

Classic Line branched off into Shuffle, Nano, Touch and iPhone

Shuffle Line

Shuffle 2005

•”Life is Random”

Shuffle – 2006

•Smallest device made by Apple

•Used flash memory rather than a hard disk

•Available in a variety of colors

Nano Line

G1 Nano – 2005

•Stainless steel back

•Available in black and white

•Thinner

G2 Nano – 2006

• Aluminum design

•Available in variety of colors

G3 Nano – 2007

•Shorter, wider design but just as thin

•Variety of colors

•Video as well as music

G4 Nano – 2008

•Back to tall thin design

•Aluminum

iPod Touch and iPhone – 2007

•Only one button

•Stainless steel back

•Touch-sensitive screen

•Music player as well as a cellular phone

•Stainless Steel back

•Touch-sensitive screen

Apple’s designs have changed along side technology, iPods too. The designers keep challenging themselves and from that they keep improving their designs. iPods have gone form dull and clunky to sleek and stylish with a modern twist. They’re popularity will only continue to grow.

Site I used for information:

www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/01/the-evolution-of-apple-design-between-1977-2008/

Cool video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sQEpl2n5wo

]]> http://mjchris.wordpress.com/2009/09/30/ipodolution/feed/ 1 mjchris newton ipodfirst ipodsecond 3g_ipod_in_dock1 ipod4g1 ipod5g ipod_classic_6th_generation ipod_shuffleold shufflecolours ipodnano1g ipodnano2g ipodnano3g ipodnano4g ipodtouch iphone http://mjchris.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/bestworst/ http://mjchris.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/bestworst/#comments Thu, 10 Sep 2009 22:51:26 +0000 mjchris ]]> I figured everyone would be writing about how to design a good website so I thought I’d switch up things a bit…. Instead of telling you how to design a good website I’m going to tell you how to design a bad one. I know all of you are smart enough to not listen to me and do the opposite. Don’t try this at home/work/anywhere!

To make the best worst website you have to make the viewer really regret ever looking at your site. It should be torture for them to look at it and after they see it they will never forget what a horrible site it was. Your number one goal in this endeavor will be to make sure they will never type the address of your site into their browser ever again. That is unless they blocked it from their memory and forgot they were even there in the first place.

At the viewer’s first glance the jumbled mess that you call your website should leave them both blind and confused. This can be achieved by the proper use of text, links, and graphic elements.

Text should be torture to try and read. I find the best way is to choose a type that is too small to read and a bright color that clashes with the background. Also if your feeling particularly nasty you could fill your paragraphs with so many spelling mistakes that even if your viewer put in the extra effort to try and read your type they wouldn’t be able to read it anyway.

But now that you’ve trapped your victim into your abysmal website they will have to try to find their way out (if they haven’t closed the window already) and if you have placed your links in the proper places this should be a synch. Links work best when they are hidden from view and put in the most inconspicuous places possible.

Photos and other graphic elements can be whatever your heart desires they don’t have to have anything to do with the material covered in your site and serve only to confuse the viewer further.

As I said, folks, this information is NOT the correct way to design a website but I hope I at least taught you what NOT to do. Good luck and use this information as you choose.

This link has some good examples of bad websites if you care to look:

http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com

Also some good webpages ones here:

http: //www.coolhomepages.com