Art & Enterprise

Growth in business is expected, quarterly. If you’re not growing, you’re dying.

But for a startup, growing too fast can kill you. Particularly, if you’re a social startup.

Caterina Fake on growing too fast:

My perspective is it takes a while to grow this stuff. It takes time for the culture to grow. You need time to develop antibodies to spammers and trolls.

This is another why I think it’s a good idea for startups, especially those who are consumer focused, to evolve and grow out of the spotlight.

According to Fake, the worst thing a social startup can do is to buy advertising to attract users. Growth should happen organically. Users that find value in the service will invite their friends, she said.

If users don’t come? Build a better product.

Building software isn’t easy. The amount of thought, planning, design and development that goes into even a relatively simple app is staggering. 

A guide like Apple’s Start Developing iOS Apps Today, is exactly the high-level overview needed for someone getting started in iOS. This type of document transmits knowledge but also culture.

Beautiful documentation goes a long way.

The Miura fold was invented by Japanese astrophysicist Koryo Miura and has been used to simulate large solar panel arrays for space satellites. However, when most people see the animation below they first think of folded maps.

At TOC, they’re using this method to fold their Guide to San Francisco. The map can be opened or closed in one smooth motion. There’s no need to think about how to re-fold the map without tearing so it will fit nicely into your pocket.

The design is how it works.

Matt Gemmel has shared a follow-up to his previous article, How Designers Can Help Developers.

In this piece he covers the reciprocal situation - How Developers Can Help Designers.

The most difficult part of commissioning a graphic design job is knowing the sort of result you want.

I wholeheartedly agree. Many clients think they know what they want but have trouble communicating their desires. i.e., “I’ll know it when I see it.”

I do take exception with the following:

It’s not so common for the actual work files (Photoshop PSDs, Illustrator AIs, etc) to be included in the fee - indeed, it’s normal for those to cost significantly more. This is normal, and equitable - if you need them, be aware that it’ll cost extra, and be willing to pay it.

Equitable? Artificially limiting the extensibility of assets is hardly equitable.

In any case, taken together, these articles are a great guide for developer-designer relations.

Mister Default. He’s the featureless silhouette that serves as the default profile picture for every social network you’ve ever joined. Facebook’s incarnation is likely the most famous.

According to Jamie Dihiansan of 37Signals:

He forces everyone to look like him regardless of gender, race, and physicality. He’s also very boring.

Jamie has shared his progress in re-inventing the default profile photo for 37Signals.

His progressive work is raising the bar for user experience designers.

As humans, we’re hard wired to see faces and this work definitely taps into pareidolia. A commenter suggested these pieces are reminiscent of Mark Rothko’s work. I see traces of the Picasso inspired Mac Finder Logo.

Jamie sums up his work as follows:

The difference now is straight away, out of the box, Basecamp will have color, personality, and vibrancy…

To me that is the key take away - out of the box vibrancy. When an app loads for the first time, it’s really an empty shell. Most of the time, there are no images or data. Design to fill the void.