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…
I normally don’t advocate downloading and using free fonts… They are typically a little off, cheap-looking, or way, way, way over used. Smashing Magazine just posted a list of “25 New High Quality Free Fonts“. A few of them are decent, and if you are a little broke in the design department, might be worth picking up and adding to your collection.
Be careful with free fonts, though… Especially if you’re  a designer. As with most things in life, you typically pay for what you get.
We’ve officially launched our Clover Groups program today. We’ve had a ton of requests for something like this over this past year, and we felt it was time we created a program specifically for those people wanting to buy Clover in bulk.
We are offering 2 different types of group sales programs tailored to your specific situation. We’re offering a Bulk Program and Individual Program. I’m sure those names aren’t the most intuitive, so let me quickly break them down for you. Read More…
Some of the things that we really appreciate about Table Rock Fellowship’s design is their attention to consistency throughout the site. You will notice that each page has a uniform, vibrant, and well designed photo to introduce what each page is about. Another great aspect is the large graphic that you are greeted with when you first enter the site. They used the same colors in the this full page graphic that are in the logo on the left as well as the accent color for their Clover site. Consistency and great branding is what makes Table Rock Fellowship our newest Green Thumb.
If you haven’t heard the news, Haiti was hit by a huge 7.0 earthquake yesterday. Read more here.
If you are looking for a very tangible way to help the situation over there, let me encourage you to come along side Compassion International’s efforts to provide vital food and water to families in Haiti.
In order to read more about what they are doing or to donate to their efforts, go here. Read More…
