Martin Thorborg, co-founder of Jubii and SPAMfigther, now unveils his experience with eCommerse. It’s published online and you can read most of it for free.

By Rudolf

A series of newspaper ads from Saatchi & Saatchi, Italy, have been celebrated at the ADCI Awards. The ads are for a sale on Mondadori Books – a sale with a 30% discount.

The ads are praised for their brilliant copywriting, however, isn’t this a case of an idea or concept that basically writes its own copy?

Maybe it is just a matter of what you call different processes. In 1508 we would consider the Mondadori ads to be a concept rather than writing. Once the (really good) idea of combining a 30% discount with the title of famous books is conceived the writing is mostly a matter of finding titles and using a calculator. Still great ads, though.

By Wagner

P.S. ADCI = Art Directors Club Italiano (“warning” the site is in Italian).

We read about it all the time. The future of video and computer games. Leading specialists predict it’s going to revolutionize our world, and completely redefine how we organize our selves and interact with each other. Some even talk about games and the principles of gaming as the way we’ll organize how we work!

Obviously game design has some pretty amazing and promising aspects, but it’ll still be a while before we organize and base client and user participation around 3D-avatars and true ubiquitous computing (if this idea is still sound). I mean, in reality we are still organizing client participation around various kinds of workshop concepts.

So, what about good old board games, like monopoly? Can’t they be of some inspiration? We think they can – and we are certainly not the only ones. Since the early 70’s, different scientific groups and fields have tried applying the principles of fundamental game design to workshop activities - with promising results.

One outcome of this research is called design games. A game-like activity where participants are invited to share ideas and experiences – and contest the ideas of each other. Simple rules (like ‘turn taking’) contributes to structure the participation, and the playfulness of the game (i.e. dice and the game board) stimulates the creative potential of the participants (constraining participants to combine ideas, that at first may seem non-intuitive).

Finally the materiality of the game pieces helps visualize the state of the game and keeps the various discussions focused and on track.

As you can probably imagine by now, we see a lot of possibilities and future scenarios in this new approach, and we are attempting to adapt it and in the end make it a part of our UCD-framework. Currently we are in the process of becoming familiar with the concept, and we recently held our very first – and accustomed – design game (that’s what the picture show). A design game about future cooperation between teams and which core values to work towards. The game was a success. Although there, of course, were room for improvements. So we’ll keep playing. And posting…

Tired of watching the same kind of borring kind PowerPoint presentations, well check out Dick Hardts approach.

By Rying

Don´t have tons of space in your kitchen? -Well here is the answer to all your prayers. A complete dining room, all in one box. The solution, called Grandma’s revenge is a great combination of functionality, innovation and good design. Found on designboom

By Rying

Can you tell who made the above picture? You probably can. At least if you’ve seen Danish commercials… Well yes, I clipped it from the telephone company, TDC. The interesting question is why you know that TDC made it? That has got to do with colours and font. Font! Didn’t I just tell you that it’s from the web? If so, it must be a bmp, jpg or the like, since fonts on the internet are restricted to boring classics grounded usability issues? Well, not any more. When TDC re-launched www.tdc.dk a couple of days ago, they did it using sIFR and thereby emphasizing their visual identity. (sIFR is a new java/flash technology that allows you to convert traditional fonts into whatever font you like - even self made ones. Read more about sIFR.)

So from now on it’s possible to have specialized fonts on the web without making fonts to pictures (and thereby giving in on the searchabillity of your site). Something I predict to become a smash hit at 1508. You agree?

By Rudolf

We’re 40 people in 1508 but need 4 more: Developer, digital designer, graphic designer and web designer. Maybe one of the vacant positions could have your interest - or maybe you know someone who might be interested.  

Please spread the word…

NBC smash hit series Heroes is keeping me at the edge of my seat every time it airs. The series tells the story of people who “thought they were like everyone else … until they woke with incredible abilities”. Dun dun dunnnnn! A bit of a cheesy setup, but it works. The interesting thing about this is the viral marketing aspects.

The people behind the series, have chosen to put out some easter eggs on the net, partly on myspace.com and via one blogs. These easter eggs can be uncovered in the graphical novel that is released after each episode.

The myspace profile is Claire Bennet, one of the lead characters, and the blog is Hiro’s. Both are updated semiregularly to give the viewers a better understanding of the characters and their development.

However, I’m still pissed that the cheerleader I met on myspace turned out to be an actor. Bummer.

Everybody is talking about it, User Centered Design, User driven design, User driven innovation… Well the buzzwords are plenty. But it’s all about involving the end user in the design process of your new product. The Danish Innovation Company, Innovation Lab has just put this way of designing on the top of their R&D / Design HOTLIST of ‘06.

Lego, world famous Danish company, is on the cutting edge with this way of designing. They have started making end users design the toys of tomorrow. Check it out! 

If you are the reading kind of person, you can learn a lot about user driven innovation from FORA. If you do, you too can be part off the buzz.

By Rudolf

Searchengines can be funny. That’s what Microsoft tells us and that’s why they created the Ms Dewey search interface. The background is a futuristic cityscape and the site is all built in flash… and its a really bad search engine too… But at least we have fun, don’t we?