What a beautiful sight to behold. Why, you ask? Well naturally due to the prospect that the new iPhone will be added to the store today.

The Apple World Wide Developers Conference begins in about 10 minutes (12 CST). Hopefully Mr. Jobsy will have lots of cool new Apple devices to talk about, most importantly the 3G iPhone.

Head over to Engadget for live updates. I would take on this task but I have another job I must attend to. After all the news breaks be sure to come back and let us know what you thought of the keynote and if the 3G iPhone will have an impact on the way websites are designed for mobile devices.

Monday productivity is sure to drop for the next couple hours.

- Eric
- Out

For a while I’ve been watching Adobe Labs and there’s some nifty stuff happening there. Thermo is a project that might just address some of the work flow needs for designers who want to more simply turn Photoshop art into prototypes for presentation or general concepting. Check out Thermo… I hope they are going where I think they are going…

The goal for 2M’s site redesign was to showcase their community, values, business, and support for the arts online.

Mort Meyerson, the CEO of 2M Companies Inc., and the rest of his team tasked RD2 to convey their mission to seek the greatest good for their communities, and operate under the principle that “philanthropy and business are purposefully intertwined.” With this vision in mind, RD2 used photography and multimedia to expressively portray many unique sides of 2m’s organization. The result is a beautiful online experience.

Our project plan says, “Creative Brief: June 9th, 2007.” That’s just six weeks ago when we were still “talking” about the design ideas and the creative direction for the new Blogher.org redesign. Lisa Stone is always up for an enthusiastic late night call when it comes to talking about the design for the web’s number-one destination for women’s bloggers. Had it not been for the opportunity to get to know Lisa before taking on this effort, I don’t think we would have been able to make this happen…

So, many of you know the rest of this story. The reader’s digest version goes something like this:

• Scores of late night Skype calls between designers, developers and Blogher
• A few rounds and revisions of design
• A few color tweaks and changes
• Some very random late night ideas
• Some new functionality and aesthetic things to add
• Setup Drupal environment
• Build Drupal templates
• Database this and Drupal module that…
• Build/test, build/test, build/test…
• You know the rest…

Before I knew it, the time was 3:00 am. I was on a four way Skype call with Graham, Jeremy and Michael. At this point we were past the point of no return as we were deep into the migration process. These guys had not slept in days but they were cool, calm and collected. Sure, there was the occasional four letter word when the inevitable surprise occurred, but this is when they would systematically triage and remedy each issue as it would come up. I was imagining that this was like a very complicated surgery. A procedure that would last for hours and where the body was in a strange sort of balance. I pictured the team in their surgical clothes, shoe-cover-thingies, masks, rubber gloves and special microscope glasses. Passing the tools around the table, a few stitches here, suction there and an organ transplant every now and then.

This launch has a happy ending as we went live in the early hours of the morning on July 24th, 2007. In this business we just expect launches to be challenging. There are always surprises and special circumstances. It was particularly challenging since we were also repopulating thousands and thousands of old posts and comments into a new Drupal 5.1 system and theme. While being persnickety about the code, we were faced with the challenges you might expect from a community made up mostly of user generated content.

Please note the word “beta” on the Blogher logo at Blogher.org. We have a bug list and soon will redeploy the creative team to sift through the details, comparing the approved color comps to the actual site…..while our coding team tests in every browser.

Sometimes life rewards us with rare opportunities to fade into that special blur where we just go into overdrive and turn out great work. Making new friends with people like the Blogher team is the unexpected bonus that is extra cool and great.

Blogher is an amazing community that we are sure has a business model to carry it very far. Thanks so much to Lisa, Graham, Jeremy, Brandon, Jenny, Mike, Candice and Gabe. Great work, and get some sleep for crying out loud!

I saw Black Rebel Motorcycle Club on Saturday night at the House of Blues. It was a great show! The House of Blues is by far the nicest venue in Dallas now. The staff was extremely professional. But watch out, the drinks aren’t cheap.

I meant to post these gems Friday evening but strange things were happening and I just wasn’t in the mood.

This is a unique idea. I haven’t seen this done before. Reminds me of the city model from the Beetlejuice film.
Small World

Advertising genius.
Cool Visual

This really is fun.
Confetti

What it’s like to be God.
Flickervision

Meet the world.
Flag Campaign

My favorite this week. Caution: Not for the epileptic!
Wildcard

And finally, a true sign of the times. Last week we ordered Palmolive for the office online.

This week’s coolest.
Tasty

Unbelievable dedication.
Inmate

Feeling uninspired with your palette?
Help

Make people wonder.
Humor

Never be upset by the attendance at your show.
Respect

When no one’s looking.
Cubicle fun

Full Speed Ahead! Admiral is named after the owners’ famous family ancestor, David Farragut, the civil war admiral whos quote “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” has become an American legend. This family-owned company has held up to the legend by growing from a small cabling provider to a full service consultant providing high end phone systems, corporate A/V rooms, and state-of-the-art security in a very short time. In the midst of substantial growth, Admiral came to RD2 looking for a brand overhaul that reflected the high-end service provider they had become. We started from scratch with a creative brief, new brand direction, and competitive landscape. Out of that came a new color scheme, logo, stationery, and website.

The new Admiral identity is a clear leader in their industry. The logo and site make them look like the big league service provider they are. It makes them look timeless and reliable while still looking compelling enough to draw attention from their wide range of audiences.

Please view the Admiral Communications portfolio.

This story begins as we, a Dallas Design and Branding studio, were sitting in the den of the top litigation attorneys in the state of Texas. To them, we were another design agency with a strong web focus. To us, they were the sharpest knife in the drawer who needed a design studio to position them as a human brand in a completely original way. How do you impress a group of super stars in their business? Be original. Be real. And reveal how you think the world needs to see them even when the lump in your throat just won’t go away.

Fast forward to the beginning of April, 2007. We had won their trust, even when recommending that we move in the heavy equipment for an up close and personal set of interviews. It was unlike anything we had seen in their business. And these guys were such unique characters. Full of passion and energy. Boiling over with the desire to win. It was the perfect storm and the combination of these elements meant that redeveloping their brand needed a grand finale to take the stage on their web site.

Matt Cooper calls it a “Multi-Media Portrait.” And when the cameras started rolling, they were perfect. Talking about their marketing strategy, their competition, their passions for their clients and how seriously they take winning. We wanted 3 minutes of great footage. We got 40. We had three cameras, a sound specialist, a lighting specialist and a truck load of equipment. Alan Loewinsohn, Jim Flegle and David Deary were awesome and we were just spellbound as the cameras kept rolling.

We have launched a new brand to showcase a firm that has evolved. It started with pencil sketches, but after the engraved sign went on the door and all of the paper was printed, we knew we were in business. Everything about the identity has changed, and the stage is the web site, where these brilliant Litigators are staged. They are truly different, and that is obvious when the online community gets to know them on texasverdict.com.

The story continues, as we work with our partners, Loewinsohn Flegle Deary L.L.P., to step even further ahead. Stay tuned.

The recent trend of companies with classic logo designs poorly re-branding themselves has hit the Dallas Independent School District with some “American Idol” style. The district accepted 275 designs from students and staff and then voted upon those designs to give themselves their new identity. I saw the result on Brand New this morning and it boiled my blood so much I had to spread the word. The original logo was designed by an excellent firm here in Dallas called RBMM, a powerhouse in logo design, and the consensus here is that the original logo is excellent and possibly needed at most a color update.

There is more information about the logo redesign on the Dallas Morning News site. The design didn’t go over too well with the DISD School Board seeing as how they were not even aware of a need for a new logo. It was critiqued as being “real busy”, “a little goofy”, and other such truths. My personal opinion is that it reminds me too much of the FedEx logo in color and layout.

This re-design is taking the user generated content idea a bit too far when you base your organization’s identity off of a competition that took entries from 3rd graders. It’s time to roll up the collective newspaper and give DISD a nice hard slap on the nose. NO DISD, That’s a BAD DISD!!!!

Shopping.com came to us a while ago wanting a big, fun corporate blog. We proved that the idea of “fun” and “corporate” could co-exist when we worked with Southwest last year. I can say however, it takes a lot of creative energy from both us and the client to keep the spirit light and the executives happy. Luckily, Shopping.com proved to be another great company to bring into the blogosphere (WhatsInStoreBlog.com).

We are always working to be a creative shop that insists on a good concept before design begins. In this case the challenge lies in finding a visual look for a blog that could potentially talk about 100,000 different products. The concept that emerged was a 25 color palette and a huge mosaic representing every product Shopping.com offers. Obviously, this is a pretty big chore but to the team’s credit, it looks great. Special thanks to Jeff for drawing hundreds of products by hand.

Once the concept is in place and the client is happy (Shopping.com was happy after round 1, thanks guys!), we start designing the function of the blog. Its amazing how simple it is to make good design decisions when the concept is solid. In this case our major goals were a tag cloud that actually looked well designed, and a special Q&A blog post. This is where our integration with the front-end architects is crucial. We are always willing to ask and they are always happy to work with us to find a solution that is up to standards and well designed.

In the end, the blog went live with a few days to spare and looked just like the comp the client loved. Well done to everyone involved. We are getting this blog thing down to an art. Next big chore: re-doing our own blog.