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How 3D Printing Is Changing Design as a Whole

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The revolution in technology continues to amaze us with each passing day. The new emerging tech practices have a strong impact not only on product manufacturing but on design, as well.

Being one of the fastest growing industries in the last decade, 3D printing has expanded towards various commercial enterprise sectors that treat design in different ways. 3D printers allow companies to broaden their horizon for progress by encompassing multiple design spheres with an innovative manufacturing product. [Read more…]

5 Ways to Get Trust Through Design: A Look at Healthcare Design

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Fostering a sense of trust in a business logo is always a priority; but it’s arguably even moreso with healthcare-related logos and websites. After all, the internet isn’t as secure as it used to be. According to published statistics, 50% of all adults in the U.S. are hacked every year, and issues from credit card skimming to identity theft crop up at increasing rates. Healthy skepticism helps keep consumers safe, and reminds them to practice due diligence… but it can also make them more reserved with purchasing decisions, and reluctant to provide identifying information online.

That said, it’s far from impossible to help consumers trust your website and brand. From traditional small practices to boutique healthcare offices, there are a few common visual aids which can help produce a sense of trustworthiness.

 

  • Avoid Common Pitfalls

 

According to this article on medical logo design by Chase Design, there are a few common pitfalls with healthcare logo design to avoid! The most egregious of these is to use common stock art. This is usually a hot-ticket item which can make your website feel illegitimate and spammy. Another big problem? Going too complex. Using several different font styles or crowded icons can give users a negative takeaway: plus, it can look like you’re trying too hard. Another issue to avoid is being too generic. If your logo could be used for any kind of practice interchangeably, it probably needs to undergo a little more personalizing.

 

  • Use the Right Colors

 

There’s a reason that blue is a popular logo color in and out of the healthcare community. In fact, roughly 1 in 3 logos use blue! The why is tied up with human psychology. Most people find the color blue cool, pleasant, and calming: which is just what you want when you’re trying to impart a sense of trust. Red is more stimulating and intense, likely to create a sense of urgency, which is why it’s used often to indicate emergency medical centers and urgent care offices.

 

  • Use the Right Font

 

It might be a surprise to hear that even fonts can impart trust, but it’s true! Writer and filmmaker Errol Morris once conducted a secret test with the help of the New York Times, and found overwhelmingly that the serifed typeface Baskerville was more agreeable than compared fonts, which included Helvetica and Comic Sans. But the right font needs to do more than just be trustworthy. It must also be legible at a variety of sizes, and fit optimally within your website.

 

  • Communicate Yourself Effectively

 

Your logo should accurately and concisely communicate any healthcare brand. For example, a clinic for prenatal services and a clinic for radiology wouldn’t be expected to look the same, and a high-end luxury clinic should communicate that sense of luxury in its logo. A great way to see if your brand is communicating effectively is to remove its text, and look simply at its icon. Would a stranger seeing this for the first time have a good general idea of your services? Work on your logo until the answer is ‘yes’.

 

  • Use Associated Logos for More Credibility

 

This last tip isn’t about the logo of your firm, but about other logos which could (or should) be placed on your website. Using Better Business Bureau logos in your footer, as well as the logos for other business or medical associations, can help foster a sense of security. On an ‘About’ page, you could also feature the logos of the publications which provide media mentions of your business.

The Bottom Line

It’s true that trust is important for any website: but healthcare websites in particular rely on building trust from the first second. When someone’s health and well-being is at stake, they want to rest assured that they’re in good hands! To help convey trust, make certain that your logo uses appropriate colors, a legible and trustworthy font, and fantastic iconography. Build more trust by artfully placing other trust-building logos at the footer of the website as appropriate. And of course, avoid the common pitfalls of using stock art or getting an overcrowded design.

Design Focus: Reading List

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These featured designs are all in keeping with a publication theme in terms of content and presentation. Although they don’t necessarily have to look like a shelf of books, it’s interesting to look at how they came up with such websites to accomplish their goals.

Designs of the Week

Build on DIYThemes’ Thesis Framework for rock solid SEO and great layout customization options.

Dark Water
Dark Water

A one-pager about a journal that looks nicely typeset and keeps that masthead feel with its footer credits. The way it’s photographed in the above-the-fold picture, not to mention the red accents, give it a bit of intrigue too.

The Hour
The Hour

This magazine featuring watches does a very clever thing with the background mimicking the second hand rotating round a clock. To the left you’ll see a couple of icons that switch between the magazine pages and its featured watches. The upper two links in both corners show content sliding in from their respective sides.

Reading Design
Reading Design

You don’t see “splash screens” too often except in asset-heavy, interactive sites. Here it’s a threshold to a text-heavy site, particularly an alphabetically arranged index of topics. Pretty much every detail here has that traditional print publication feel, apart from the quite-modern photo essays which you can view one at a time or as a grid.

Swiss in CSS
Swiss in CSS

A beautiful throwback brought into this century: the International Typographic Style is recreated as different dynamic posters with CSS, and I would have loved to read the thought process on what the animations were chosen for each design.

Publishing as (part-time) Practice
Publishing as (part-time) Practice

Covers of books arranged horizontally on imaginary shelf lines become vertically rotated “book spines” when hovered on. Very curious is the use of red, yellow, and blue as accent colors as you don’t see that everyday. Aside from that though, super elegant typographic details in here too.

Social Media Weekly

Need help in promoting your site? INeedHits has been in the search engine marketing since 1996!

Performance – Performance Budget Builder
“The Performance Budget builder lets you lay out your template types, set a size budget for each template type, then plug in the sizes for each asset category that will load in the template.”

UX – Any Research is Better Than No Research
“No matter how simple or complex your product, without research you are designing it based on assumptions.”

JavaScript – The Controversial State of JavaScript Tooling
“Other languages and ecosystems are victims of all-encompassing standard libraries, but the web development community takes pride in not having that problem.”

CSS – Learn CSS Layout the Pedantic Way
“CSS layout can be difficult to learn, because websites usually evolve incrementally. This means that you end up learning small tips and tricks here and there, and never learn the underlying layout algorithm.”

12 Kickstarter Projects Designers Want Under Their Trees

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The distinguished taste that designers have may not be so easy to satisfy in a run-of-the-mill gift shop, but have a look at these thoughtful, advanced, and downright clever products from Kickstarter and you might just keep your wishlist-checking, pat-on-the-back-for-a-job-well-done holiday shopping exclusively on this crowdfunding site! Here’s a hint: since most of these are 100% funded and already in production, click on the website on the sidebar and buy Kickstarter products now!

Ostrich Pillow Light

Ostrich Pillow Light
Ostrich Pillow Light

Get your power naps in anytime and anywhere with the Ostrich Pillow Light, which can double as a scarf and clings to your bag conveniently. kawamura-ganjavian and Studio Banana Things collaborated in redesigning the original pillow to make it more practical, portable, comfortable, and even stylish. It’s available in Dreamtastic Red and Sleepy Blue.

Hidden Radio & Bluetooth Speaker

Hidden Radio & Bluetooth Speaker
Hidden Radio & Bluetooth Speaker

A gorgeously crafted radio and speaker by John VDN and Vitor Santa Maria, HiddenRadio makes interacting with your audio a delight. Just twist and lift the cap upwards to increase the volume up to 80 decibels. You can use it wirelessly via Bluetooth, or through the 3.5mm jack for other devices. It’s just about the size of a soda can available in Metallic Silver, Graphite Black, Pure White, and Limited Edition Red.

Instacube

Instacube
Instacube

Stream Instagram photos to your living room in real-time with Instacube, a “living canvas” for your photos. It’s an Android-powered touchscreen box that displays your photos in full resolution over Wi-Fi. Push the Grid Button to toggle between single photo view and tiled feed, the Heart Button to like your photos straight from the cube, and the Circle Button to turn off.

Everpurse

Everpurse
Everpurse

No, your eyes don’t deceive you: Everpurse is a purse that charges your mobile phone. Instead of fumbling around for a cord, charger, and socket or a power bank, just slip your iPhone or Galaxy Series phone into the Everpurse and juice it back up. More than a fashionable dozen of fabric and leather options are there to choose from.

Satchel & Page

Satchel & Page
Satchel & Page

Imitating leather in user interface design may have fallen out of favor this year, but the real deal will always be classic. Satchel & Page offers heirloom quality leather bags with a lifetime guarantee. While they’re reminiscent of the 1940s era, these bags are designed with compartments that fit your laptops, smartphones, pens and other gear for today’s designers. Journals, wallets, and luggage tags are also in the collection.

Une Bobine

Une Bobine
Une Bobine

Une Bobine is a flexible stand and charging cable, available for both iPhone and Android device owners. And flexible doesn’t just mean physical flexing: it can be as utilitarian or creative as you want it to be. Go ahead and make video calls or take photos while shaping the gooseneck wire to your liking.

The Brooklyn Bridge in Letterpress Type

Brooklyn Bridge Letterpress Poster
Brooklyn Bridge Letterpress Poster

Cameron Moll is back with his signature typographic letterpress posters of iconic landmarks, this time taking on the Brooklyn Bridge. Not only does it take painstaking attention to detail to line up glyphs to produce such an epic image, he actually matched the colors of his print to the granite and limestone used in the bridge.

Philographics

Philographics
Philographics

Philographics is a series of 95 posters explaining different philosophical ideas using minimalist colors and shapes. Enjoy this collection of visual and intellectual treats in a format of your choice: wallpaper, ebook, postcards, hardcover book, or all of the above!

Whooz?

Whooz?
Whooz?

A cute and colorful solution to an overlooked problem, Whooz? are vinyl stickers you can wrap around your chargers for personalizing and identification. You can choose between solid colors or the wide array of quirky characters, and you get matching stickers for your earphones too.

Wipebook

Wipebook
Wipebook

Whiteboards are great, but they’re not the most portable things. Enter the Wipebook, the “erasable notebook for life”, which lets you scribble and doodle on a sleek, smooth surface, then quickly erase if you need to. Every Wipebook has 25 back to back erasable sheets, and available in lined, grid, or blank pages. You can also pick a package where correctable markers in various colors are included.

The FreedMan Chair

The FreedMan Chair
The FreedMan Chair

Simon Freedman has invented a seat that puts the spine and pelvis into the same posture one carries while standing. The FreedMan Chair will keep your back and legs relaxed and combat the harmful effects of sitting down for long periods at a time. It’s even won awards and gained rave reviews from trade shows, press, and industry experts.

Petcube

Petcube
Petcube

Stay in touch with your pet wherever you go with Petcube. You can watch, talk to, and play laser games with your feline or canine friend through the mobile app as you track its movements and interact in real-time. You can even dress up this aluminum box with plush skins.

Design Focus: Print Pubs

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Featured this week are sites that offer beautifully crafted print publications in the realm of design, with very familiar names at the helm.

Designs of the Week

Build on DIYThemes’ Thesis Framework for rock solid SEO and great layout customization options.

Offscreen Magazine
Offscreen Magazine

The top view photographs of the magazine are great. You can drag them sideways to explore more shots. There’s also an occasionally-animated violator linking to the latest issue right below the full header. The overall look screams sophisticated, and perhaps my favorite UI touches are found on the Buy page.

The Manual
The Manual

There’s a running theme in terms of aesthetics with these three sites: elegant body typeface with a contrasting industrial one for the titles. These latter two even have similar shades of red-orange for accent and buttons.

8 Faces
8 Faces

The “swipe to view more photos” feature is also available on this page, which seems to be the preferred pattern over the slider.

Social Media Weekly

Pagelines lets you build WordPress websites and it’s as easy as drag and drop, go check it out!

HTML – A Complete Guide to the Table Element
“You can think of it as a way to describe and display data that would make sense in spreadsheet software. Essentially: columns and rows.”

Mobile, Optimization – A Beginner’s Guide to Perceived Performance: 4 Ways to Make Your Mobile Site Feel Like a Native App
“While improving actual performance is important, it turns out it doesn’t really mean that much to the end user unless they can actually sense the improvement.”

CSS, Optimization – 10 Terrific Time-Saving CSS Cleanup Tools
“Everyone from the everyday visitor to the most scrutinous fellow designer will benefit from your diligent, clean CSS markup.”

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