As the launch date for Chimps Should Be Chimps approaches, we’re taking a look back at our development process. In this interview, our art director explains how Manning’s company philosophy informed decisions behind the app’s design.

What made the iPad a good fit for Project ChimpCARE?

Patrick Mouser: The iPad and other emerging platforms are really changing the way in which companies, organizations, etc can reach their audience. Traditional media such as print, TV and even the (capital I) Internet can’t rival the level of engagement possible with the iPad. The device is highly mobile – people use it everywhere, it’s intuitive – used by toddlers and grandparents alike, it’s tactile – you literally hold and touch it to interact. Additionally, most users think of their iPad as technology that enriches their experience: they download apps to make things easier, do things faster, to entertain, to learn, to connect. They trust it and welcome it into their lives. And so the relationship they have with the device creates an environment that is fundamentally more conducive to engaging people than the bully pulpit provided by traditional media. And so it’s interesting to explore the idea of how to communicate with users within this entirely new dynamic.
Continue Reading →

The legal profession has been turned upside down by changes in technology, new competition, globalization and the recent recession.  Firms have been forced to rethink their business model, to reevaluate their practice areas, provide alternatives to hourly billing and implement new technology, all of which are radically changing the way law is practiced. But many firm websites don’t reflect these changes – and remain the same static law firm brochure websites of 10 years ago.

We’ve spent a great deal of time looking at these sites in conjunction with the work we do for our law-related clients and are truly surprised by what we see. While there’s some variation from site to site, we observed five troubling practices with these brochure style sites. Continue Reading →

Heads up–this post is exceedingly boring and more than a little technical.

But at least the data loss was not as bad as it sounds. I recently had one large RAID 5 NAS (network-attached storage) array lose its partition table and wind up in a pre-format, factory default situation. With sufficient redundancy built into the system, it would have been easy enough to reinitialize the RAID, reformat the drives, and re-copy the data.  But that wouldn’t be much of a learning experience, really…

Continue Reading →

Last week AIGA Chicago sponsored a discussion with legendary Designer James Victore on his first book Victore, or Who Died and Made You Boss? Though familiar with Victore’s raw, political, sometimes controversial body of work, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the man as speaker.  But his humorous, somewhat profane, and surprisingly motivational speaking style drew me in from the get-go, as he shared stories that ranged from how and when to fire a client, to convincing the MoMA to write a letter to his mother.

Victore went in depth about both the form and design of his book (created by Paul Sahre), as well as its contents: a retrospective of his work created over the past 25 years. What consistently impressed me throughout was his love for graphic design as a tool for communication, and his steadfast fearlessness to express himself and what he believes in. Below is a taste of works that can be found in his book:

Continue Reading →

Q&A is our chance to get inside the head of some of our industry’s movers and shakers. In this installment, I interview Kyle Smitley, founder of environmentally-friendly childrens clothing company barley&birch. Her designs can be seen on the children of celebrity moms like Jessica Alba and Sheryl Crow.

PM: So in the interest of full disclosure…you’re a perfect interview for what you’re doing with b&b, but it doesn’t hurt that we’ve known each other for a long time. (Kyle and I are from the same small town in rural Ohio.) Do you want to sort of start out with the Reader’s Digest version of your background and what you’ve been up to in the time leading up to starting b&b?

KS: Well, I graduated from DePauw University with degrees in Philosophy and Environmental Geoscience and minors in Spanish and Chemistry. While there I was lucky enough to travel the world and work with a lot of great organizations helping others. After graduation, I took the LSAT while working in Washington D.C. and then got out to San Diego, where I surfed all day and dreamed up a business where I sold childrens clothing in order to fund the dozens of good causes with which I’d worked in Haiti and Central America.

The business was born as barley&birch and we opened our doors in February of 2009, in some of the darkest moments of the recession and right int he middle of my first year of law school. We had no money whatsoever, so we worked hard to get all the free press we could. I didn’t sleep for about 8 months of my life, I believe.

In November, I was named one of Inc. Magazines Top 30 Under 30, and by our first anniversary, we were selling in 30 retail stores, moving into larger office space, and revamping the website we’d quickly outgrown. We have funded 3 schools and a clinic in Haiti and El Salvador. We hope to see upwards of $1.5million in sales for 2010. We will be announcing a plethora of great partnerships and undertakings.

Continue Reading →

We’ve been hearing a lot of discussion lately from folks looking to harness that Web 2.0 phenomenon known as “social media” to help promote their brand/business and generally gain exposure to the millions of people blogging/tweeting/yelping/facebooking/youtubing/what-have-ye. While we’re all for reaching out to clients and promoting transparent interactions between businesses and users, I often get the nagging sensation that some people are approaching social media the wrong way, and so are losing out on what it could and should be.

Continue Reading →

I, like a number of my Manning colleagues, come from a film/video background. One thing that you learn early in this medium is that pre-production holds the keys to success for a moving picture. For whatever reason, however, pre-planning for web projects can seem mysterious, pointless or as a means to pad budgets. Just like a film production, pre-production and planning are vitally important for web success. I have a stumbled across a number of succinct and well written articles about planning and preparing for web projects that I would like to share. Continue Reading →

A living (or dynamic) document is a document “which may be continually edited and updated”. Wikipedia is a fantastic example of a living document, especially when contrasted with a physical printed volume of a traditional encyclopedia. In essence, all websites are living documents because they can (should) change overtime, whether it be copy changes or the addition of fresh content. To be honest with you, as a former video producer and academic, the idea of a living document excites me. I challenge you to find a media textbook written in the last 15 years that does not include a clause like “the specifics of this book will be outdated by the time it goes to print” in the introduction. However, as a web project manager, I have come to fear the hidden repercussions of the living document.

Continue Reading →

I like that our agency has a variety of clients. Some are big, some small. They come from different industries. Each client contact has a different job description. That variety helps keep our work fresh. But it also allows us to see how smart our clients are, each in their own ways. They know their business, customers and business goals like the back of their hands. The reason they hire us is because they value what we do, and what we do falls outside of their areas of expertise. I would like to think that we do a good job of forming partnerships with our clients, to become the means to extend their brand, their presence and their business goals to exciting new markets. I hope that we help them articulate their frustrations and aspirations to find unique and successful solutions for them. I hope this is the case, because the alternative scares the hell out of me. Continue Reading →

Curtis asked me to write about the “big crunch/big bang” of digital content distribution.  I think this is a wonderful topic, but not something I can address at the moment. I would like to do a fair bit of research and reflection before tackling the subject. In the meantime, here is something completely unrelated. A couple of weeks ago I swear I saw a post in the NASA twitter feed that contained a nasa.gov branded shortened URL. I have combed the hundreds of posts from that time period but can’t seem to find it; perhaps I imagined it. Maybe I am crazy… like a fox.

Continue Reading →