Must Design

Social Mobile Web Blowing Up Web Design
The boxy unidirectional web design controlled by wireframes (boxes within boxes) is gone. The social mobile web is crushing, spinning and recreating web design as we write this sentence.

Don't let old "web design thinking" enslave. Help create a revolution in web design by sharing your favorite story of website PAIN. Every shopper, web designer or marketer has a favorite Website PAIN story.

SHARE YOUR STORY to help change the story :).M
http://www.curagami.com/featured/burn-your-website-down/

This holiday selling season (2014) will happen as close to real time as any thanks to the social / mobile web. Listening and curating are going to be important, but so is tapping the nostalgia and spirit of the season in creative and collaborative ways.

Future Of Web Design In 3 Parts
What does the future of web design look like? So much is up in the air this Haiku Deck is my third and the topic is far from exhausted:

Future of Web Design 1: Web design in a SoLoMo world.

http://sco.lt/61eqNF 

Future of Web Design 2: Web  design when THEY and US &  OUT THERE and IN HERE are the same. 
http://sco.lt/7r6zkf 

Future of Web Design 3: How does a semantic and mobile web change design, marketing and sales. 

What happens when TIME becomes a perpetual now, sales happens in real time and marketing is about curation? Web design as we've known it is about to change as much as something can change. 

Why? I scratched the surface of why in How Entropy Is Creating Web 3.0 Right Under Our Noses:
http://scenttrail.blogspot.com/2012/11/how-entropy-is-creating-web-30-right.html  

Bottom line is everything is changing FAST so rewards go to the quick and flexible. If you have the courage to throw out almost everything you believe about everything once again you may just WIN BIG.  

We asked several developers what their favorite sources are for web design and code inspiration, and they pointed to these 17 wide-ranging sites.

Marty Note
I like several of these designs including Web Design Ledger and The Source for their creative balance between images, copy and headlines. There are so many things dancing on the head of a pin on any homepage such as:

* Your desire to SHARE everything.

* Their (visitor's) desire to find what they want.

* Navigation.
* Images.
* Headlines & Copy.

Getting all of these dancers to tell a coherent story in 9 seconds is the challenge. Usually as content being shared increases understand decreases. Several of these designs manage to present a lot of options intelligently.

Which one is your fav?

We've had a HUGE Day over on GPlus today. I wrote a post about why G+ is magical thinking (https://plus.google.com/102639884404823294558/posts/F5fXyrkTPCr ) and my post got picked up by my friend Mark Traphagen (@MarkTraphagen) and it BLEW up into an amazing conversation.

Given the MONSTER day we've had I thought it would be a great idea to share some of the most successful G+ Brand pages. GPlus is a massive Blue Ocean for most.  Blue Oceans are where your content gets MORE traction with less work. Red Oceans are where your content requires more investment to generate LESS return.

GPlus is really a set of TOOLS. Incorporating Hangouts, maps, communities and other widget-like tools. The first website or agency to figure out how to combine those powerful tools in unique combinations is going to WIN big. Some of these examples approach the top of the mountain, but G+ has more power than even anyone here captures.

Beats By Dre Web Design Lessons
A friend shared the impressive NEWSJACK Dr. Dre and his Internet markeing team pulled off last week. Beats By Dre (http://www.beatsbydre.com ) has some cool web design tricks to steal too such as:

* Consistent images across channels (the Richard Sherman image rode the crest of the wave created by his "controversial" statements after last Sunday's game).
* HUGE RED BUY NOW Call To Action on the home page.
* Hero moves but does so SLOWLY so it isn't jarring.
* They've programmed their Richard Sherman page so his picture matches to every style, something I bet the site does for all celebrity endorsements (cool and NEW).
* Their social buttons are a little low for my taste, but they are well labeled as the "Beats Army" and every major social net is there and they are robust and fresh on all social nets.
* I like how they handle the colors too via the small swatches.

All in all a great ecommerce site in support of one of the best NEWSJACKS I've seen (see my notes on Dr. Dre's multi-channel attack of the web here:   http://sco.lt/8bJiDJ

Doing good is increasingly the right thing to do and that is the good news. The bad news is many companies are jumping off the "cause marketing" ledge like so many lemmings. 

This new website explains how to embed cause marketing into design, sales and marketing in order to enrich all.  

Steal emotional storytelling tips from these top 10 charities ($ is expenses and use as a model gauge):  

1. American Red Cross $3,329,153,7072
2. Feeding America $1,559,486,3353
3. Smithsonian Instiute $1,101,404,2234
4. World Vision $1,078,549,1555
5. Dana-Faber Cancer Institute $965,097,7186
6. Food For The Poor $950,853,3607
7. American Cancer Society $943,813,2978
8. City of Hope $898,752,8669
9. St. Jude $896,335,00610
10. Nature Convervancy $756,406