Karsten Rowe • Director of Product Design
Design Leadership
A simple aim; create a one page web project template – an easily customisable, flexible platform to showcase your latest work.
Please feel free to download and use in your own projects.
Brand guidelines also play an important role in a designer’s efficiency. In the current climate, where everyone has their eye on time and money, a well-managed visual identity can equal greater creative output. All the hard work has already been done, so it’s just a case of implementation. Therefore, you spend less time worrying about the how it looks and can focus your efforts on generating great ideas.
From a designer’s point of view, we like following rules. We can’t get enough of them. Grids, colour palettes, point sizes, ‘x’ heights, margins – we love them. What we hate is being restricted. It is important to give designers enough room for interpretation, that’s why brand guidelines should be just that – a guide, not a creative straight jacket.
To grow and maintain a strong brand, consistency is by far the most important factor. This ensures that your brand is immediately and unconsciously recognisable, wherever and whichever medium it is found.
It’s been a long time since I’ve spent any considerable time in Adobe InDesign. Enjoying the experience, a few features that I would love to see in Photoshop.
A Google Maps tooltip that made me smile. “This map is built for you”. Software for humans.
Brand is the big picture. It’s what differentiates one business from another.
A lovely use of color – TriplAgent for iPhone.
A bright and bold design doesn’t have to be brash.
A company’s brand is paramount. It expresses your culture and character and, in turn, helps establish your reputation in the minds of your customers.
Learning to limit the numbers of colors in a design is important. The more color you add, the less prominence it has.
A few well crafted brand marks.
Now verified on Google+.
A clever & unique logo.
I’ve grown to like Buffer. Their chrome extension just works.
Always challenge the old ways.
Gmail is renowned for its minimal UI. An example of removing surplus pixels, where possible.
A simple website to showcase new design work.
By no means a ground-breaking or innovative design and very much a work in progress, but having a point of reference is important.
Currently admiring the simplicity of the Google Drive UI.
Feedly have a new underbar design.
An example of a good welcome email – Slack.
In terms of a quick design inspiration fix, Pinterest is a great place to be – composition, form, typography, color, texture.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4H6U_28MDk&w=480&h=360]
Why I use Gmail – keyboard navigation.
Square Space on dribbble. I’m not sure what else to say but a showcase of inspiring work.
People tell me “print is dead”.
I love shopping for a new Swatch watch.
The term “remarkable” means being worthy of notice or attention or, in the context of the web, naturally persuading the viewer to mention or recommend a website to a friend.
Design is not purely visual. Visual or graphic design is only a small part of what we do. Knowing that your first role as a designer is “problem-solver”, rather than “guy who draws stuff” is a good place to be.
I take time out of each day to sketch.
A nice package arrived in the post, courtesy of Newspaper Club.
Even the nicest car won’t make driving in traffic enjoyable.
Do you label a button Submit or Save or Update or New or Create? That’s copywriting. Do you write three sentences or five? Do you explain with general examples or with details? Do you label content New or Updated or Recently Updated or Modified? All of this matters.
I recently visited the Käthe Kollwitz Museum, Cologne, Germany – stumbled across these great posters on the way in.
When you write like everyone else and sound like everyone else and act like everyone else, you’re saying, “Our product is like everyone else’s”.
I’m stilling loving Feedly. Web, kindle & iPhone. All my news in one place.
I think most clearly when I’m running – Nike+ helps me keep motivated.
A good pitch starts with a crystal-clear exposition of the problem you are trying to solve. The unspoken response you want in the minds of your audience are: ‘He may not have solved it yet, but this guy really knows what our problem is.’ Then elaborate.
GitHub – making intelligent version control less painful for design folk like me.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A9AoCJTuVU&w=480&h=360]
An incremental improvement – a quick demonstration of keyboard navigation and tab :focus on www.karstenrowe.com.
Stress is not attractive at all. We love people who work hard but we don’t want them to be white and shaking.
Go on a ‘re-launch’ programme to get yourself in better shape, get a tan, tone up and dress a bit more interestingly.
Think about your customers and think about what those buttons and words mean to them. Don’t use acronyms or words that most people don’t understand. Don’t use internal lingo. Don’t sound like an engineer talking to another engineer. Keep it short and sweet. Say what you need to and no more.
Build predictable websites. Design what the user expects. Do not try to build the next big web feature unless its absolutely a better, more intuitive way to complete an old task.
Always anticipate that a user may not use your website the way you intend. Predict how they might misuse the website, and don’t let the consequences of misuse be undesirable.
Great brands work, they say to people that you care about quality.
Always a pleasure to see Nutshell in the wild.
Always look as good as you can and as good as you wished you felt without being too fussy.
Good writing is good design. It’s a rare exception where words don’t accompany design. Icons with names, form fields with examples, buttons with labels, step by step instructions in a process, a clear explanation of your refund policy. These are all interface design.
