Thanks for you patience on this one. It took a good deal longer to complete given the sheer size and level of detail the retina display has. It wasn’t a simple scale-up from the last file. It was clear as we created it that Apple has spent a lot of time considering how each element should be translated to such a dense resolution. What were single pixel elements are now two or three pixels thick and effects are exaggerated to become visible. For anyone designing for the retina display (640×960) it really is quite a different experience. When you work at 100% everything seems absolutely huge but small details get lost when viewing it on the device. You really need to be mindful of how it looks on the phone since your monitor displays things so differently.

The file is huge, both in file size (62.7MB) and dimension (4074×2986). You’ll need to work at 25% – 50% even on the largest screens to roughly grab elements before zooming into 100% for the actual work.

Pay whatcha’ like

We’ve always just created this file for ourselves and shared it freely. It takes a good deal of time to create and maintain but it saves us a lot of effort on projects and pitches – we hope it does the same for you. So, this time around we’re asking anyone who actually gets some use out of it to pay whatcha’ like. Hate it? Don’t pay anything.

iPhone 4 GUI PSD (Retina Display) (20.8MB)

(Thanks to Finn O’Hara for the lockscreen photo)

It’s been about 6 weeks since we started working on our first product; TweetMag. We thought we’d lift our heads from its design and development just long enough to share a screenshot with you.

For those who didn’t catch the first post, or who haven’t seen the tweets, TweetMag is an iPad and iPhone app that takes twitter feeds and turns them into wonderfully simple magazines. It works by finding links in a twitter user, list or search – then grabs their headlines, abstracts and media to create a TweetMag. Articles then become prioritized by what’s being tweeted about most.

The shot below shows what my TweetMag would look like:

If you want to stay up-to-date it’s best to follow TweetMag or leave your email address on the TweetMag site.

For the past 8 years we’ve struggled with what to do when we had a product idea that wasn’t related to a client. In the beginning, we’d simply let these ideas go and forge ahead with our client service work. Later, we’d try to work these ideas between paying projects. The problem with this approach, at least for us, was that in order to dedicate people to the project it meant we needed to turn away paying clients. In the early days of our business we couldn’t make that choice. We were too comfortable with client service work and too fearful of doing something different.

A few years ago we tried again, this time formalizing the process by moving a few people off client work so they could focus on building out one of these ideas. We time boxed these these initiatives and referred to them as labs projects. The process worked. We were able to focus on getting something done without going bankrupt. The labs project I’m referring to is Image Spark. Image Spark has steadily grown in popularity but it doesn’t make any money – it was never designed to. It was done simply to build something of our own from beginning to end and to take a break from client work.

Well, we’re trying something different again. This time we’re building out a small product group to conceive, design, implement and support profitable product ideas. There’s really only one constraint: Build a product people will want to buy in 60 days.

So what’s the first product?
The first product we’re launching creates digital magazines from twitter lists, tags and users. We call it TweetMag. We’re sure people will find some really unique ways to use this, but to us there will be no better way to remove the noise that often overwhelms twitter at times. Over the next few weeks we’ll be sharing details and screenshots of TweetMag during its development.

Follow TweetMag to stay up-to-date

Many of us entered the interactive industry because it was fast-paced, exciting and highly innovative. We saw an opportunity to help change the way business was done, and in so doing help consumers in fresh and engaging ways. Recently, we’ve noticed an unsettling trend. Agencies are becoming more and more similar. They’ve adapted the same processes. They create the same products. And for the most part, they deliver similar results.

For an industry that prides itself on a spirit of innovation, what we see happening doesn’t feel right. We believe it’s time to press forward. We believe that time to change is now. To that end, we are actively in the process of transitioning our Marketing Programs Group to an Adaptive Marketing model.

“Business has only two basic functions – marketing and innovation.” Peter Drucker

Adaptive Marketing is the next step in our evolution and will provide a truly progressive approach for our clients – one that we believe will become the approach that many marketers will use in the future. To the best of our knowledge we will be the first agency in Canada to provide this service.

Why are we doing this? Quite simply, we believe the days of doing traditional online marketing campaigns are fading. Linear programs based on reach and frequency are highly ineffective. As a direct marketing vehicle with clickthroughs averaging 0.02% they don’t work. And with banner-blindness being what it is, as a brand vehicle most efforts are largely ignored.

The reality is that consumers have changed faster than marketers. And they expect communication that delivers tangible value. Traditional campaigns that trumpet brand messages or focus solely on unique selling propositions are no longer considered the principle measure of value to consumers. To be blunt, what worked in the 50’s simply doesn’t work anymore. Today’s consumer demands more.

Value used to be derived from a consumer’s perception of what a product could do for them. This interpretation of value has evolved. And these days value is better characterized as, “what can a brand help me do?”

When we switch our strategic approach to deliver tangible consumer value – we are obligated not only to evolve the ways we engage with consumers, but also, to re-examine the approach (and processes) we use to create, monitor, deploy and continuously tune our marketing programs.

The Old Way

The “traditional online” marketing approach is linear and built on the idea of telling consumers about products and services through increased reach and frequency.

Forrester’s recent analysis of Adaptive Marketing issued the challenge that marketers and agencies need to change and move away from the old way of doing things. According to Forrester, agencies struggle to adapt because their models are still built for yesterday, in that they:

• Focus on campaigns rather than experiences
• Talk but aren’t very good at listening (or more importantly, conversing)
• Are built for waterfall versus iteration
• Treat customers as audience rather than participants
• Are mostly “unbundled” — creating disparate skill sets
• Have trouble mastering many new specialties at once
• Moved down the value chain and rarely distinguish themselves from each other
• Can only move as fast as their clients

At Teehan+Lax, our Programs Group is purpose-built to be the exact opposite. Our agile creative approach, small, team-based structure, and value-based compensation model (we’ll talk more about this in another post) allows us to create highly effective Adaptive Marketing programs.

The New Way

Instead of looking at projects as a series of requirements that extend the reach and frequency of a message we need to look at the problem differently. We need to first determine how to help consumers solve a problem. When we look at a marketing challenge this way, it allows us to identify a completely different set of success metrics and solutions.

If your marketing isn’t helping consumers, then you’re shouting messages from the sidelines.

In the past we were incentivized to create ads and microsites that would launch onto the Internet, exist for a while and then disappear. In the future, we will create programs and “things” that solve consumer problems. They won’t be ads, but instead, they will be solutions that need to be marketed. It’s a completely different approach. And a whole new ballgame.

The new way is about creating programs that continuously evolve as they go. They are build on the principle of listening to consumers, identifying what they need, and creating communication that helps them. There are several projects that we see as benchmarks for this way of thinking, notably, Domino’s Pizza Tracker, Pepsi Refresh, and Nike+ Chalkbot. We’d be well advised to learn from them.

In the future, programs must be iterative, highly adaptive, and responsive to consumer needs, market conditions, and technological opportunities.

The things we create will be as unique as the problems we need to solve… and our approach demands that we look beyond paid advertising as the first solution. Ultimately, what we will create are not campaigns (in the traditional sense of the word) but will be continuums of activity and initiatives – some small, some large, each of varying shapes and sizes – that each satisfy the real needs of consumers while delivering against a marketers connection objectives.

We believe that Adaptive Marketing is the right approach, one that will be the way of the future. We are extremely excited to move in this direction. And we’re looking for clients who share this philosophy.

Reading List

Forrester (registration required)

• Customer Experience Skills Are Critical To The Success Of Agency Relationships
• Adapting Agency Relationships In A New Marketing Era

BBH Labs

• So what exactly might ‘Adaptive Brand Marketing’ be?

Mullen

• Forrester debuts its findings on “The Future of Advertising Agencies”

Other

• Adaptive Marketing. How not to go the Dodo way
• Why is digital advertising so lousy? Industry is too smug to innovate.

How often, when you begin an assignment, do you have a clear understanding of what outcomes are desired by your client? An outcome is different than a deliverable. An outcome is the impact, benefit or change that is desired. A deliverable is a product of work.

In this video, Dean Kamen, talks about his work on an amazing prosthetic device designed for injured soliders.

What struck me was that when DARPA shows up at his door they ask for three specific outcomes:

1) The solider must be able to pick up a grape without crushing it.
2) The soldier must be able to pick up a raison without dropping it.
3) The soldier must be able to do this in 2 years.

There were no requirements for a specific technology, materials, process or staffing. There were some requirements for success (i,e, self contained, fit a 50th percentile female frame etc.) But these three outcomes shape the deliverables.

All too often we focus on deliverables rather than outcomes when we design. Clients are quick to specifically request what they want delivered rather than the outcomes they need. We need to setup clear outcomes up front and then let the design process define the deliverables.

We are currently seeking a full-time Art Director (5+ years experience). The ideal candidate is able to turn strategic goals into a coherent design direction and oversee projects from project kick-off to launch.

Qualifications

• 5+ years agency experience in the digital channel.
• College or University Graduate in a related discipline (design training with solid typography, graphic and interaction design skills).
• A Bitchin’ digital portfolio.

Skills

• Strong concept development and graphic design ability.
• Excellent understanding of composition, color, imagery, typography.
• Strong working experience with Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and optimization for web.
• Experience creating and working with site maps, online ad rich media storyboards, user flow, wireframes, and other information design documents for web sites and online advertising.
• Experience working with various online ad design specs and media requirements.
• Excellent understanding of user experience issues.
• Good understanding of HTML, DHTML, and JavaScript (rollovers, pop-ups) and the capabilities of web browsers and user interaction.
• Solid experience creating Web graphics, animations, user interfaces, icons, style sheets, color schemes, templates and layouts for use in online advertising and web site projects, ensuring site- wide color and typeface standards and consistency.
• Experience providing art direction to flash and web developers.
• Ability to self-manage projects and work within time deadlines.
• Team oriented, self-motivated.

What’s different about working at Teehan+Lax

We focus exclusively on front end user experience design for the digital channel. There are no back-end build teams, no offline divisions. Everyone you’ll be working with desires to create best in breed user experiences. In fact, 90% of the staff here hold creative positions. That means no Account Managers, no Managing Directors, no Business Analysts. We maintain very little hierarchy. There are two roles at Teehan+Lax: Partners and Associates. The people with the right skills are put on the right projects. We’re small and nimble. There are no pitch teams, no “B” teams. All of our staff work directly with our clients, so if a client has a question that relates to IA they’ll speak to the Associate or Partner who worked on it – not an account manager.

How to Apply


If you’re talented, smart, hard-working and dedicated, we’ll enable you to do the best work of your career. Send us a resume and portfolio of your work to “work [at] teehanlax [dot] com”.

Photoshop hacks need not apply.

• Include a link to your digital portfolio (this is key!). Please do not send us print examples.
• Must be located in the GTA.
• Have references available upon request.

Suitable candidates will be contacted promptly. Please no phone calls.

There are 2 kinds of documentation we often generate inside of an upfront strategy/IA process.

Live documentation is any artifact we use to express design decisions we make along the way. It’s a malleable and active representation of what we’re creating. Live documentation evolves, grows, changes. It’s an extension of our short term working memory.

Dead documentation is any artifact we use to express the fact that we’ve spent a lot of time working on something. It’s a hard to change, static representation of stuff that has little to do with what we’re actually creating. Dead documentation sits in the project folder or on the shelf.

The trick is to do more of the former and less of the latter.

Imagine that you were commissioning the development of a new home for you and your family. What would you look for in a bid from a contractor? Would you be satisfied with one option, one price? A quote that lays out averaged costs in the most generic of terms? Boiler plate descriptions of process and procedures that fail to address your specific needs and desires?

Buying a Web site (or any user experience) design shouldn’t feel like this—and yet, consider how we often pitch, scope and quote on projects.

We put together a statement of work that estimates the costs on an “average per-square-foot” basis (e.g. number of templates). We talk about us: our process, our people, our proven track record. If we’re placing a fixed bid, we typically propose one option and one price that studiously and reflexively attempts to cover off everything in the brief.

A couple of weeks ago, Jon posted up some thoughts on why we’re switching from costs-plus to a value-based pricing model. This generated a very lively discussion, which—if I were to summarize it—really boiled down to a sentiment of “that’s great, but how do we do this?”

Since then, we’ve experimented with a number of pricing options and strategies. I’d like to share one that we think shows a lot of promise.

A tiered model for value-based pricing

A tiered model lays out multiple options at different price points and empowers purchasers to make better, more informed decisions that feel less arbitrary. I wish I had a simpler name for it, because it really is a very standard and straight-forward way to price things out. Here’s a template that we developed for a recent client:

Each of these options also got a one-pager that provided more detail. Here’s why we think this approach works better than a more traditional costs-plus estimate:

Measured response

Very rarely are you presented with a purchasing decision where there’s one option and one price. In fact, if you were, I bet you’d have a hard time judging whether or not the price was worth it. We’re not wired to make absolute evaluations in a vacuum. We need points of reference to help set expectations, anchor and compare.

Laying out options gives clients a clear way to compare, contrast and ultimately be more intentional about who they decide to award their business to and why.

What are we actually selling?

Each fixed-bid option focuses on outcomes rather than costs. Clients don’t want to buy 20-30 templates. They do want to buy a digital experience that delights customers and gives them a competitive edge. It’s up to us to understand how this maps onto specific requirements and outcomes, and reflect the perceived value of those outcomes in our pricing. Clients need to have confidence in us and understand how we will execute the project. But ultimately, they care more about how they can derive value from the end result.

Meaningful choice

Rather than pandering to a brief that asks for everything at once, multiple options let us de-couple conflicting requirements (e.g. fast delivery time and lots of features). This means that from the start, we’re setting ourselves and our clients up for success.

We want each option to have a purpose and represent a viable option for the client. We can state exactly what problems we’re going to solve and what trade-offs these solutions will entail. For example, in this case we proposed one option that optimized time-to-market, a second that set specific parameters around certain kinds of innovative features and functionality, and a third no-holds-barred, multi-channel approach.

Final thoughts

The American philosopher John Dewey once said that “a problem well-defined is a problem half-solved.” The goal here is to creatively and conscientiously define problems well, right from the outset, and empower clients to make purposeful choices about what they really want. One thing I didn’t expect to get out of this process was that it was actually fun. Quoting and scoping projects doesn’t have to be a dry, automatic process. It can and we believe should be part of the value you bring to the project.

A few weeks ago I participated in a panel discussion at the IAB Canada MIXX event held in Toronto. The theme for the conference was emerging platforms and the opportunity we have to create truly innovative marketing in Canada. It was a call to action and speakers illustrated three key points:

• How Canadian media usage patterns have dramatically changed
• Why advertising within VideoGame, Mobile and Digital Out-Of-Home channels are poised to reach critical mass, and
• Where Social Media is being harnessed to drive sales.

Prior to the conference I got a chance to discuss these topics with Eyal Zilnik from One Stop Media. He delivered the presentation for the panel I was on, Do It Digital: How The Latest Advances In Digital Out-Of-Home Bring Internet, Mobile and Social Media To Life. Eyal did an excellent job of illustrating how DOOH has changed. And it was exciting to throw ideas around with someone else who gets as excited about Digital Out-Of-Home as I do. We came to several conclusions, namely

1. Marketers still regard DOOH as an animated billboard or a placement to run video loops (often running adapted TV spots without audio)
2. Few people understand that DOOH boards are more like desktop computer screens than they are Out-Of-Home billboards – they are integrated into a network with a unique IP and facilitate the full range of dynamic targeting we now take for granted in traditional online advertising, and
3. Few Canadian marketers have experimented with DOOH despite the low cost of participation, and fewer still have embraced the opportunity to link DOOH with mobile and social media.

These points were reinforced by the comments and questions we heard during our session. Several attendees came up to me after the conference and said they had no idea that the things we discussed were even possible. Maybe it’s because I’m interested in this topic but that came as a surprise.

To me, DOOH is much more than just another media tactic. DOOH will play a key role in the future of marketing. With the rise in smartphone usage and the recent introduction of the iPad (and the announcement of Apples’ iAd platform) consumers are moving away from the desktop. One only need look at consumer adoption of Facebook and the platform changes announced at F8 to understand that for many, social media is the backbone of current communication habits. Could a retail marketer integrate their social presence with DOOH (or their in-store signage network) and enable consumers to engage over mobile? Most definitely. The technology and systems are already in place.

My hope is that marketers will seize the opportunity to innovate and begin to create communication that does more than shout messages, but instead engage with consumers in new and profound ways.

Dave Stubbs is a member of the Emerging Platforms Council, IAB Canada

Apple has just announced iAd, their new mobile advertising platform and needless to say, everyone here at Teehan+Lax is very very excited. Details are sparse at the moment, but Apple has described iAd as an intersection between Emotion + Interactivity… Which happens to be a fairly suitable description of Teehan+Lax as well.

Advertising on the iPhone was been atrocious at best, and it’s even worse on the iPad. Uninteresting, static and unemotional ads have littered the mobile experience, and Apple aims to change that with iAd. Ads served up will be HTML5 only (sorry, no Flash), but the platform appears to be incredibly flexible. Animation, video & rich interactions are all possible — this really gives new meaning to “microsite”.

The big selling feature for advertisers is having their experiences stay inside of the applications — consumers can dip into the ad to find out more, without leaving the application at all. My assumption is that iAds will take advantage of the newly announced multitasking features, which will essentially pause the app while you explore the ad.

They only demonstrated ads running on an iPhone, so I’m curious to see how they’ll be handled on an iPad… my assumption is that advertisers will need to develop platform-specific ads for trafficking. Regardless, judging from the ads that are currently being displayed within iPad apps, I think iAd’s will really shine here.

We’ll be discussing more as additional details become available. In the meantime, here’s what Apple has to say about it:

“Apple’s new mobile advertising platform, combines the emotion of TV ads with the interactivity of web ads. When users click on mobile ads they are almost always taken out of their app to a web browser, which loads the advertiser’s webpage. Users must then navigate back to their app, and it is often difficult or impossible to return to exactly where they left. iAd solves this problem by displaying full-screen video and interactive ad content without ever leaving the app, and letting users return to their app anytime they choose. iPhone OS 4 lets developers easily embed iAd opportunities within their apps, and the ads are dynamically and wirelessly delivered to the device. Apple will sell and serve the ads, and developers will receive 60 percent of iAd revenue.”