I have the reputation of being somewhat obsessed with making projects “pretty”. It sounds like a very superficial job, but it’s more in depth that you may think. Good design can be defined as clear and effective information design, which is the ultimate goal in communicating any message. So, is beautiful design just born that way? Yes and no. Defining good is about 10% subjective with 90% being the subliminal science of pretty.

Perception is a complex process, but there are a number of explanations and theories to how we interpret what we see. Developing an understanding and awareness of the invisible and visible factors can help us create beautiful and more effective communications.

What We Don’t See
Aesthetics play a sensorial part in how we view and interpret everything. There is a secret world of visual hints that occur behind the scenes of our brains that we are never aware of. These micro events determine how people understand or respond emotionally to a message. We all make decisions based on our impressions of what we see every day. This article explains in detail how pretty can make or break your communication:

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/indefenseofeyecandy/

What We Do See
Although there are still psychological factors that come into play when we interpret design, there is a more physical side to it. We visually break down each element within a design. Essentially we find relationships, contrast and a visual path to follow.  These are the basic principles of perception; proximity, similarity, continuance, and closure. This article explains the importance of these visual relationships:

http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/visible_narratives_understanding_visual_organization

Sometimes, you become so immersed in your own company’s culture that you don’t see how it’s different and special. Take Launch. Take Meridian Group, its parent agency. Take Launch’s participation in our annual agency cook-off, the Q.

The Q is now in its seventh year. Everyone in the Meridian Group agency (including Launch Interactive’s web designers, social marketing specialists, programmers and account managers) is named to teams that compete for prizes and bragging rights as best cooks.

The Q is hosted by Joe Takach, Meridian Group founding President and lead epicure.

There are judges. This year’s panel included the food editor of Hampton Roads’ regional magazine and a hospitality management group’s VP of Marketing who has dined in and critiqued the nation’s best restaurants – including those at his own hotels.

The Q is a lot of work, and it’s fiercely competitive, in an “I’m pretending not to give a flip but I’ll break your leg if you take first prize in Pork Butt” kind of way.

Amazing food is the result. So is respect for colleagues who put real, smart effort into concepting, producing and presenting their creative output. Gosh, just like work.

So if you work in an office where the hot recipes being shared around are for Dump Cake and Moxie Salad (”steep one can fruit salad in one can Moxie Cola!”), then you might want to leave this page now.

Provided three meats (shrimp, pork tenderloin and ground sirloin) and a charcoal grill, each team met for about five minutes to nail down the following day’s menu. My team’s entries were:

• Grilled marinated shrimp wrapped in Bibb Lettuce with rice sticks, fresh mint, matchstick carrots and peanut sauce

• Crab, avocado and muenster topped burger, with sriracha sautéed onion and red pepper aioli, on Miami roll

• Molasses/Hoisin Pork Tenderloin, sliced thin over Asian slaw of baby bok choy, cabbage and peppers, with tamarind drizzle

We – Launch’s Melissa Williams and Kim Boykin, and Meridian Group’s Ha Koehler - came in second overall. We didn’t win awards for individual dishes, but we were strong across the board. It’s not so bad when you lose to some seriously good cooks. The winning burger was served with sliced fennel and figs. The winning pork was branded with a huge M – Meridian Group’s ID.

Each team’s dishes were the mouthwatering equal of anything found on a hot, local restaurant’s menu. The preparation and presentation were exacting and photo op ready.

The whole process was a reminder of the identities of Launch Interactive and Meridian Group Advertising.

We are driven to solve problems in substantive style. We adapt. At the Q, to delivering a “creative brief” in under 24 hours and to grilling in a downpour. In this economy, to devising marketing/branding solutions through creative that uses every aspect of the web to best advantage.

Want our recipes? Set up a meeting, and we’ll share them.

For much of my life I have enjoyed changing how things look. I have always felt that all made objects have a message to share. Whether it is the emotional tone of aggressiveness a sports car may have, or the functional layout of a calculator. All man made things are vehicles of communication. It is how we present that message largely determines the effectiveness of the method.

It is this approach I take to design and development and frankly, the reason why I design. I can think of no better way to help those around me but by creating more effective means of communication no matter what the message is.

There are those who will argue that design is about aesthetics, and the graphical treatment of things, that design is about makings things pretty, something you can hang on the wall like art. Or some may claim to only handle things in a very specific manner due to having a style Completely ignoring in many cases the intended goal of the piece they were originally commissioned to make.

While it is true that sometimes the objective of a message can result in very artful, beautiful and visual. It should be the best method of execution for the communication of the intended message, not the desire of the designer to make something trendy or pretty.

Communication is the key behind everything made to be seen by man. How what you say is received is up to how you present it to others. So if you have something to say and need help getting your message out there hit us up here at Launch, we’ll be glad to help you out.

The newest computer can merely compound, at speed, the oldest problem in the relations between human beings, and in the end the communicator will be confronted with the old problem, of what to say and how to say it. - Edward R. Murrow

Significant development time can be spent with databases. Database design can be a tricky subject, as normalization is desired, but too much normalization can create complex, expensive queries that are a headache to debug and bog down the system. On top of these traditional relational database, many applications are now built in object oriented languages and utilize object relational mapping to interface between the database and the application. This creates another layer of complexity that must be designed and developed. 

This may be fine when developing enterprise applications with large teams and budgets, but with smaller teams, all of this can be hassle that can be avoided largely with the careful use of key-value store. There are many great options available including Project Voldemort, Cassandra, and CouchDB. An overview of some key-value stores may be found here. The rest of this post will deal specifically with CouchDB, though many of the concepts may be ported to other similar databases.

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As someone who receives at least 300 emails a day, not to mention pokes, tweets, texts, etc, I am constantly replying, deleting, forwarding, creating email inbox rules and even critiquing emails all day long. While most of my emails are business related, I receive many, many “marketing messages,” some that I’ve signed up for and some that are unsolicited.

While most of my SPAM is filtered out automatically, as a digital marketer, I do enjoy seeing what people are pitching, selling, promoting, and marketing. What consistently shocks me is how awful many of these emails are: untargeted, irrelevant and just down right ugly! Many times it looks like there was not a designer involved or that the person creating the email simply took a print ad or flyer and cut and pasted it into the email.

Following are a few basic principles for creating emails that are effective communication devices and will actually yield you favorable results.

• The “list” is the No. 1 most important aspect of any e-mail campaign. In-house lists will always out-perform a bought list.
• CAN SPAM laws need to be taken seriously. Know how your list is compiled and make sure the recipients have opted-in to receive communications.
• Decent open rates are 5 percent for bought lists and 15 percent for house lists.
• Click through rates will vary by industry and by e-mail type (newsletter vs. promotional).
• The best open rates are typically on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but this will vary by industry. (for example, restaurants may do better toward the end of the week.)
• It’s best to send the e-mail so it reaches their inbox by 7 a.m
• TEST. TEST. TEST. (Subject lines, links, offers, creative, days of week, time of day, compatibility with different browsers… everything!)