Design Guru is a design & development agency based in Somerset West, Cape Town. It was founded by Creative Director/CEO Jorge Brunner in 2007, and has grown from a single employee to a fully functioning team of 12. This group of talented individuals consists of a creative team of designers, a development team as well as a managerial team. Each of their creative staff offer an array of dynamic solutions and are prepared to work side by side with their clients to ensure that their visions are met. The team creates digital designs that engage their client base and evolve their brand communication. Some clients that have been acquired thus far include; PlayboySA, Riaan Manser, Triggerfish, Andrew Neethling, Hidden Pixel and GraySwan just to name a few.

In order to carry out these tasks, Design Guru finds itself comfortably situated within the CBD of Somerset West. The agency located within the Fairview Centre, has an eclectic mix of industrial rawness and clean modern surfaces. The exposed industrial sections create linear perspectives that compliment the clean white and black walls with a quirky juxtaposition. Wall art pieces, hints of vibrant colour and a closed off brainstorming and relaxation area ensure that the  environment has an inspiring and creative feel.

The open-plan office consists of three main sections: the entrance to reception where clients are welcomed and introduced, the main meeting room that doubles as a photographic area, and the team’s designated work area complete with a recreational section with couches, a foosball table and design inspiration magazines and books. The work area ensures that the Design Guru  team has an efficient environment to tackle the selection of tasks delegated and also a comfortable space to unwind and recharge the creative mind.

BandwidthBlog loves the iconic Banksy image on the door and splashes of bright colour.

Thanks to Design Guru for providing the photographs.

That trend is the decline of the need for technical proficiency due to increasingly cheap and powerful infrastructure. I am not saying that you will still need computer scientists solving difficult algorithmic problems. Millions of records in a database and the difficulty of scaling is still an issue. Serving fast pages and responsive designs is a big part of a great user experience and you can’t do that without having a technical person on your team.

The thing is, at some point, serving a website with bad quadratic algorithms will be equally fast (or negligibly so). With the current cheap architecture available such as Amazon’s EC2, AWS and Heroku, a lot of developers in the past can now run services that would’ve taken considerable effort a few years ago. The point has been surpassed where a developer can make a livelihood for themselves without the need for incredible technical knowledge and this trend is going to continue.

You can do more with less. Just look at Instagram. They are close to about 11 people (about 4 were hired during the past month) and have 15 million users. This is impressive and they are mainly using Amazon’s architecture.

What is starting to matter is not whether something can be done, it is whether someone will want to use it.

That is why the newly started designerfund is backed by Khosla Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz. 2012 is the tipping point. They realise that what is going to make or break a start-up is not the technical infrastructure. If it is bad, your users will notice. If it is good, your users won’t notice, because that is the way it’s supposed to be. It is becoming increasingly difficult to be bad at it due to the increase in amazing infrastructure. If your design is bad, users will notice. If your design is good, your users will definitely notice it.

So, while you are learning to code with codeacademy, do also learn how to understand what makes a great user experience. Learn about design, colour patterns, visual hierarchy, Fitt’s Law, Hick’s Law, etc. Do some basic marketing courses. Read up on A/B testing. Whatever.

The startups who are a success purely based on technical merit are dwindling. You have to start producing value and a superior user experience.

The case utilises the company’s pioneering special paint technology that enables them to repair themselves quickly once damaged. The self-healing paint finish, developed in 2005, has already been put to use on a number of Nissan Infiniti models.

Created by Nissan in collaboration with the University of Tokyo and Advanced Softmaterials Inc., the case that appears gel-like is crafted from ABS plastic which allows it to be highly flexible and assists with providing a better grip.

Nissan launched the case at an automotive event in Dubai and distributed some of them to a number of journalists and customers for beta testing. Should the case get a positive review and demand proves to be strong they will look into general sales at the end of this year.

Nissan has explained that “The outer ‘paint’ is made from polyrotaxane, which means that when damage occurs to the coating in the form of a fine scratch, the chemical structure is able to react to change back to its original shape and fill the gap – ‘healing’ the blemish.”

The company, that admits that the case won’t be able to repair deep scratches that cut through the clear top layer, has already licensed its self-repairing paint technology to Japanese operator NTT DoCoMo, with the company using the Scratch Shield technology on its Style Series N-03B mobile phones.

Source: The Next Web

The search giant’s streaming video arm launched a total site overhaul with the aim of reshaping the entire media landscape around the concept of ‘the channel’. Until now, Google concedes that YouTube viewers haven’t seen the site as a destination for channels filled with varying content, but rather a place to view different videos found on the web. With the re-design Google intends for the YouTube audience to become a destination site for media. Instead of presenting a grid with random one-off videos, the front page features a feed running down the center of the site, that displays the top channels in a user’s stream. Every feed will look different, with selected channels based on YouTube recommendations and sitewide viewing trends, what a user’s friends are sharing on Facebook, Twitter and Google+, as well as those channels specifically chosen by the viewers themselves. The overall design is cleaner and more streamlined.

The redesign and new layout also serves to enhance the experience of users discovering new content that interests them who may have previously found it difficult to navigate the millions of videos uploaded on the site in search of what they liked.  A.J. Crane, YouTube product manager explains that “we are trying to make everyone an effective programmer on YouTube.”

The re-design is not only for  consumers but also aims to appeal to content creators with Partner content providers having the ability to customize their individual channels to display media in whatever order they prefer. Appealing to the major industry players is in line with YouTube’s recent activity in improving the site’s premium, professionally produced content that was publicised in an announcement last month that it would begin building out a network of content providers who would produce original videos across multiple categories. YouTube also made a major deal with Disney, furthering the availability of co-branded content.

In addition to its aesthetic focus, Google will also be launching a new Xbox application in the near future that is in line with Google’s theme of media convergence that will stretch YouTube’s reach across multiple devices outside of the desktop.

Take a tour of the new YouTube in the video below:

source: Wired

The black horizontal bar at the top of the screen will now be replaced with a new Google menu that will drop-down from the Google logo.

Watch the video below:

The YouTube redesign highlights include:

• A slight colour scheme tweak with a new gray background.
• YouTube’s favicon will also be replaced with an updated version.
• All homepage content will be displayed in a single column allowing a focus on larger preview images for videos.
• Improved Google+ integration will show off YouTube content your Circles have shared to Google+, letting you surf user-recommended videos from people you have something in common with and know.
• New left-column dashboard sorts your Subscriptions and more into easily-clickable sections.

The screen shots below showcase some of the new redesign features:

LinkedIn recently announced on its official blog that it has unveiled a new statistics dashboard for groups so admins can gain insight into the growth, activity and demographics of their groups. The dashboard is available to every group on the business social networking site with relevant information about the group being delivered in an info-graphic type display.

LinkedIn Data Visualization Designer Anita Lillie explaines that “We’ve designed each info-graphic view to highlight the most important signals you’ll need to help you understand your group better.”

While all the information is summarised on the Group Statistics dashboard, it can be further divided into the three different areas: growth, activity and demographics.

The activity panel focusses and comments and discussion as well as recent job and promotion counts for the group. In the growth area, users can see how the group has grown over time and how many members the group has gained. The demographics view shows exactly who is in the group including location, position, seniority level and industry type.

LinkedIn has been placing a greater emphasis on its Groups feature recently and last week, the company announced that its members created more than 1 million groups.

Total Access Communication PCL, under the dtac brand,  is one of Thailand’s leading telecommunications firms. The company’s headquarters in Bangkok is home to 3, 200 employees and the company has ensured that all of them are inspired and excited by their daily surroundings. The design is aimed at communicating the brand’s business approach of “play and learn” and enables staff to enhance communication, increase creativity and react quickly to changing conditions.

Australian-based designer Hassell (who also designed the ANZ Centre in Melbourne) created a space that is open and flexible with natural wood, natural light and purpose-built spaces. The office has an indoor Funfloor equipped with an indoor soccer pitch, table tennis, running track and concert area. There is also an exquisite amphitheatre-like library where staff can research and work on their laptops. The many other available chill-out areas are to encourage face-to-face communication among staff members and customers.

source: The Cool Hunter

Google+’s timing for the launch of it’s Business Pages is not only questionable but the new feature appears to fall short of Facebook’s even at this initial stage and it has already received some criticism as lacking in “innovation” and “interest”. Their Business Pages would have to at least possess these qualities in order to justify the timing, give Facebook something to compete with and launch with a sense of excitement and curiosity. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be the case. While the design is typically clean and simple of Google, the initial features are very basic and therefore the Business Pages are in no way distinguishable from any other Google+ user pages in a way that makes any impact or creates buzz.

Google’s networking platform also comes across as inflexible as it seems incapable of integrating with the business’s own apps, service offerings and third party programs. So, without this integration the business pages themselves offer very little engaging content, useful information or incentive for spending time exploring the page. Overall it doesn’t seem to take the user beyond the actual page itself.

At this point, Facebook’s Business Pages offer even superior standard features to Google+. Google+’s familiar clean layout makes for easy readability and its standard features include a list of breaking news posts and links to footage, ability to comment on posts, share posts and of course add the business page to your circle of Google+ users. Photos can be viewed within an album and basic company information is provided. But, even at this initial stage, is this enough? The communication between user and business seems almost non existant as Google+ offers little opportunity for each party to engage with the other in any meaningful way.

In addition to more superior basic features with wall posts, an info page, photos and video pages, locations page and an events page, Facebook has also created a space with which businesses and users can communicate with one another through the wall. This is crucial for businesses who enter into the social media environment. More importantly, Facebook allows businesses to integrate outside apps such as third party content with their Facebook Business Page for a richer more interactive experience. This may include job listings, a Twitter feed or access to company merchandise that takes the interaction between business and user even further. Sooner rather than later Google will have to roll out their API to allow third party developers to do the work for them by building a variety of applications on top of Google+ before users lose interest.

Despite the initial criticism, Google does acknowledges that it has a long way to go before it is satisfied. The official blog stated that “With Google+, we strive to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software. Today’s initial launch of Google+ Pages brings us a little bit closer, but we’ve still got lots of improvements planned, and miles to go before we sleep. So stay tuned.”

source: Infoworld

Here at BandwidthBlog we love hearing about promising new startups and Google Umbono seems to agree with us as SampleBoard.com, a design-focused website, has been selected as one of four start-ups in the first ever Google Umbono programme, for online entrepreneurs.

SampleBoard, that launched in 2010, offers a cloud-based image editor for creative professionals to quickly and easily output inspiring designs and digital mood boards which are an essential element of the creative process and ensures that client briefs and concepts are on track throughout a project. Where before, fabric samples, photographs, tape and cardboard were used, SampleBoard provides an eco-friendly, time efficient web-based alternative. The website allows users to upload images, use any of the 30 000+ images available in its library and export and share the finished product.

SampleBoard is actively used by interior designers, fashion designers, wedding planners, landscape architects and more and has also had significant growth and success globally, with its largest user base in the US.

SampleBoard’s founder, Rosslyn Tebbutt said that “I realised there was a gap in the market for a professional web-based creative tool combined with an extensive image library that would amalgamate the most-commonly used functions of image editing software, but without the immense expense.”

The aim of the Google Umbono programme is to assist in transforming a vision into a business by providing seed capital, furnished office space and bandwidth, business skills training, access to a network of mentors and a platform for exposure.

Discover SampleBoard.com for yourself!