January 11th we introduced our ‘Clover Gives’ campaign to the watching world.
January 12th Haiti drew our hearts in their direction.
We’re about a month into our new found philanthropy – our hearts are still stolen, and we can’t stop watching Haiti.
While we’ve selected Children’s Hunger Fund as our non-profit of choice, we were most interested in what they might be doing in Haiti given all that’s happened. What a few weeks it has been.
To back up a bit. . . for those of you not yet familiar with Children’s Hunger Fund, they are amazing. These guys are the real deal, and we’re happy to put our money (and yours) behind them. As we mentioned in our first post about it, we’ve decided that with each new site purchased from Clover (this quarter), we would donate the first month’s hosting to Children’s Hunger Fund. We really like what they’re doing. The impressive part of their approach is that they don’t just drop supplies and move on. . . they are really looking to transform lives. Working through the local churches (. . . what remains of the local churches) they are in for the long haul, and we wanted to cheer them on.
We wanted to invite you to join us . . and join them in transforming lives. Whether in Haiti or around the world, CHF is a worthy investment.
What a perfect fit Clover turned out to be for St. John’s here in Southern California! This site caught our eye and we thought you’d like it too. http://www.sjls.org/ Take a look around . . . we think you’re going to see how we couldn’t help ourselves from drawing some attention their way. They’ve done a beautiful job. From their Video Tours to their Newsletter Archives, you really get a feel for the school and their community. Great work St. John’s!  We’re excited to work with you. Read More…
I’ve finally had a chance to sit down and knock out a video showing off the new Media Player for Greenhouse 2.0. The first video is showing what your users will experience when using your media player. The second video shows what it’s like to customize and edit your player in the Greenhouse.
In the middle of recording these I was totally struck with how much bigger and feature-rich this player actually is. It’s amazing being able to dream about what this thing could be, and then actually pulling it off. To get the full grasp of this new feature you’ll have to play with it yourself (April 28th), but hopefully these videos suffice for now. Read More…
This guy has some of the most beautiful and unique collection of script style fonts, however it is his consistency and attention to detail that really impresses me. Hubert Jocham is a type designer with a vast portfolio of fonts and custom type design, but I believe his real expertise can be seen best in his display fonts and more specifically his script fonts. I mean look at the balance between elegance and legibility that he challenges. He’s artist and type designer… doesn’t that have a name? Oh yeah, a calligrapher.
If you want to check out more of Hubert Jocham’s other stuff (including his awesome house) you can go here: www.hubertjocham.de
Central Community Church demonstrates how the use of a design theme can bring together the components of any website design. Nearly all of the photos they have used on their site follow a theme of vibrant light images, also they have maintained the same font throughout all the images that they use. This is subtle but very important for keeping the site simple and clean. Check out their page titled ‘How Do I get Involved?’ for some inspiration on how to make your site a bit more interactive.
This has to be one of most unique and well designed sites that we have yet to see. The large welcome graphic introduces the site perfectly and really gives you an effective message of what Circle J Church is all about. While on the ‘Home’ page take a look at the leather background that they created for the navigation bar at the bottom, and the detail of the arrow that points to their ‘Events’ page is a great way of directing users to an important page on your site. These guys took such an awesome approach for one of our most unique sites.
Hey guys, I’m pulling my head out of coding for a minute to officially announce that we’re going to be launching the new Greenhouse 2.0 on April 28. If you’ve been reading the comments on the blog, you already know that, but I wanted to make sure everyone saw it.
I also wanted to say thanks to all of you who have been gracious and understanding, since we were originally planning on launching at the end of last year. And then at the beginning of this year… And I know that some of you are eagerly waiting on the new features so you can really push your web presence to the level you want. So thanks again for your patience in this development process. The truth is, in order to make this product perfect and feature-rich, it’s taken much more programming, UI development, and integration then we originally thought… Even conservatively. Instead of just making it better, we’ve decided to make it the absolute best that’s out there. Read More…
I’ve been pretty frustrated with my teapot lately.
I know that probably sounds pretty trite and prissy, but hear me out. We all have those products in our life that we wish worked better- Whether it be something as simple as a pen, or as technical as an operating system or cell phone, we have all encountered those products that make us ask the question, “Did anyone try this thing out before they started selling it?” For me, I’ve asked this question about my teapot.
There’s 2 major problems I ran into with my previous teapot (the white one in the picture above).
1. Every time I poured myself a cup of tea, I needed to use 2 hands to pour (because if I didn’t hold the lid on, the top would roll off the top mid-pour).
2. After I poured a cup, tea would run down the spout as I tipped the teapot upright, pooling at the bottom of my teapot. I needed to pour my cup with a napkin under the teapot if I didn’t want to drip tea all over my desk.
When you really think about teapots holistically, you realize quickly that their job isn’t tough. All they have to do is hold and pour tea, and while doing so, making sure every drop is transferred from teapot to cup without losing any scalding tea to the skin of the consumer or the table it rests on. Pretty simple.
Then how is it that a teapot left the development table that failed to do what it was created for? And how did the creator of this product feel OK about selling a faulty teapot that dripped all over the place and required the consumer to use 2 hands in order to not make a mess? And better yet, why have I gone so long without looking for another solution?
Here’s the lessons I have learned from my teapot about product design:
1. If a product is noticeably cumbersome and awkward, BLAME THE PRODUCT. This past year I have noticed that I tend to blame myself if a product is hard to use. I have a tendency to trust the packaging and what the creators say about the product over my own experience. Unless you’re purchasing schematics on the space shuttle you are making from scratch, you are probably the target market for the product you are purchasing. If it’s cumbersome for you, the creators blew it in development somewhere along the line. They didn’t think about the consumer of their product.
2. If you’re annoyed with your product, look for another solution. One of the most beautiful things about the market place today, is that we have options. Chances are if you are annoyed with a product, someone else was too. Search out your options- they’re probably out there. This is why Ben and I started Clover. We were looking for a solution for our church, and there was no other beautiful, intuitive solution out there. Clover was created out of necessity. Â Luckily, most products are out there already, and you won’t have to worry about months of development.
So what ever happened to my teapot, you (probably didn’t) ask?
My conclusion was that both the 2-hand pouring and dripping problem was a design issue. I’ll explain… Look at the picture above. The white one is the original teapot, and the turquoise one is my new and improved version.
1. Pouring issue solution: Even though the new teapot is a loose leaf teapot, there is much more control with 1 handed pouring due to the chrome, thumb brace sticking out just below the lid (see picture). It allows you to brace the contents and lid with your thumb so it doesn’t fall off during pouring.
2. Dripping issue solution: It’s a simple physics issue. Notice the the ends of each of the spouts. The old one is much more horizontal at the point of pouring, which caused the tea to trickle down the spout. The new and improved teapot’s spout is pretty close to vertical at point of pour, allowing any remnant tea to pour off into the glass rather then back down the outside of the spout. Interesting, huh?
Here’s a great way someone is translating the way we read magazines to a digital format. You can read the full story of this concept/prototype here. Read More…
