Bellstrike


Bellstrike is a new service that allows nonprofits to launch a professional looking website in virtually no time, without any coding or design skills.

But it goes beyond just being a static website; Bellstrike lets a nonprofit accept donations, send out donation receipts, get the word out on social media channels and offers the possiblity to maintain a blog. All that at no monthly cost. If someone does makes an online donation, Bellstrike takes 9.5% of the total amount and covers all transaction fees.

The founders Dodd, Marshall and Sean sure put some love into all of this. Also, they have a great sense of humor. Pull the string next to their faces on the about page.

But, why does the bell not ring when you click on it on the homepage? That’s what I wonder!

Bellstrike Intro Video from Bellstrike on Vimeo.

(thank you zach)

Codecademy

Codecademy is an interactive guide to coding, for beginners.

(via chrisglass)

Designers vs Coding

In his most recent blog post my studiomate Frank Chimero takes on the very frequent question asked by design students: “Do I need to know how to code?”

The Art of Clean Up

I am completely fascinated by The Art of Clean Up: Sorting and Stacking Everyday Objects, by Swiss artist Ursus Wehrli.

Under what rock do I live? Why did I miss his TED talk?

(via @Typeconf)

Gimme Bar

My studiomate Cameron and his FictiveKin crew have been cooking up a fantastic new service and they didn’t let me write about until today! Now, talk about torturing a blogger!

Gimme Bar is the name of their brilliant visual booksaving service. Yes, you read right, I said visual bookSAVING, not visual bookmarking. Whenever you ‘gimme bar’ a photo/website/recipe/text you save the item. Literally. How? You well, by saving it to your Gimme Bar page and by saving it to your Dropbox account. You gimmie something and boom, it’s not only on your Gimmie Bar account but also on your hard drive.

Gimme Bar‘s interface is clean and a pleasure to use. It lets you organize your findings in collections, easily follow what your friend’s collections and add their content to yours, all with just a few clicks.

Gimme Bar is still in private Beta but they are opening it up for 3 days for my swissmiss readers, starting today. Take advantage of this and sign up *now*. They’ll close it up again thursday night!

Not sure yet why Gimme Bar is better than other seemingly similar services? Well, watch the demo below and you’ll be in the know.

www.gimmebar.com Sign up is opening up for three days only!

ps: It’s Cameron’s birthday today! Let’s make it a good one and share that GimmeBar Goodness!

Email Closing Lines

This blog post is a few years old but still timely: Liz Danzico makes us think about our Email Closing Lines.

If a closing line can be so meaningful, so important, why are emailers squandering the opportunity, putting no thought in the closing? Time, perhaps, iPhone-finger exhaustion, multi-tasking—they’re all possible excuses. And many times, acceptable ones. We can’t be expected to neatly tie up every email every time. But once in a while, it would be delightful if people applied the same sincerity to the last impressions that we do to first ones.

My personal closing line “Waving from Brooklyn” is not on her list. What’s yours?

(via @brainpicker)

Zucchini Fritters

Zucchini Fritters? Yes, please.

Airplanes Box Set

This portable wooden airplanes box set is simply beautiful. Oh, the temptation to get one for our little Tilo. #ohm

Kitchenware that made me smile

I couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight of these Kitchen Utensils over at Fab.com designed by Raia Studio. From left to right: Sud Green Dish Brush, Gaby Green Cheese Grater and Marshall Green Potato Masher. For the next three days you can get them over at Fab.

I admit though, that I am afraid my kids would want to play with them, not ideal, especially in the case of the grater.

Inker Linker

The Inker Linker site is a perfect example on why I love the internet. Inker Linker lets you easily find a printer near you. Hat tip to the fabulous Jessica Hische for yet another fabulous addition to the interwebs.

♥ / ScratchBook

A big thank you to Expired Software for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed.

First thing designers pick up when inspiration strikes is pen and paper, to quickly sketch out the idea. But sharing sketches on paper is hard. That’s where ScratchBook comes in, a simple, straightforward, easy to use, sketching app for the Android tablets.

Got ideas? Sketch it and share it, right from the app via 37signals Campfire, Email, Dropbox, Evernote, Twitter and much more?

ScratchBook is available in the Android Marketplace and Amazon Appstore. Find out more at: www.expiredsw.com/scratchbook

(Interested in sponsoring a week of my RSS feed, learn more here.)

stripes

This sea-loving stripes meet minimal modern bedding by Unison gets two swissmiss thumbs up.

TYPO London


Do you live somewhat close to London? Then you should consider attending TYPO London, a broad inter-disciplinary design conference for professionals and students, based on the hugely influential TYPO Berlin Conference.

I was invited to speak and am heartbroken that I can’t go. The speaker line up is fantastic and the organizers are wonderful people. You should get your ticket before august 31st if you’re thinking about going, cause that’s when the discounted price ends.

Sugru Hacking Putty

I don’t know about your iPhone cables but mine break, right where the cable attaches to the connector. My friends over at Holstee found a perfect hack: SUGRU PUTTY.

Team SUGRU (gaelic for play) was tired of not being able to fix broken gadgets, so they developed SUGRU, a moldable silicone that is sticky like Super-Glue and fun to use like Play-Doh:

1) Roll it to warm it up
2) Mold it the way you want it
3) Let it cure for 24 hours

Brilliant? YES! Order SUGRU over at Holstee.

Quora Posts for Startup CEOs

Here’s an interesting round-up of Quora Entries Every Startup CEO Should Read.

(via Chris Glass)

The 80s are Calling



Considering that my 18month old son likes nothing more than launching my iphone across the room, this 80s Cell Phone case might be just the right case to protect it.

I am not all that serious, of course, but it definitely made me laugh.

Will the Hurricane hit Sesame Street?

Sesame Street put together a Hurricane Kit to help you teach your children about Hurricanes.

(via the kid should see this)

How To Work Better

I just stopped over at my friend BB’s blog and had to chuckle upon discovering the-above-oh-so-familiar photo. It’s the »How to Work Better« Mural is by Swiss artists Fischli & Weiss and covers an office building in Zurich-Oerlikon. You can prominently see it from the train when you get into Zurich station.

Mrs. Easton

I just discovered this select-a-spring photo over on Mrs. Easton, one of my favorite blogs that I visit regularly.

It’s run by Melissa Easton, a very talented industrial designer with a keen eye for interestingness. How refreshing is it to admire the packaging of vintage Pen Nibs, a button selection or French Curves.

Yep, Melissa is on my list of people I’d love to have coffee with one day.

Do Watcha Like

Arianna of Paperjam Press just recently added a few more prints to her collection of hand pulled, short runs of words to live by.

Thinking of a Masterplan hangs above my desk and makes me happy on a daily basis. The Do Watcha Like made me chuckle. See them all here.

Wickelfisch

As swimming in rivers is big in Switzerland, the invention of the Wickelfisch makes total sense: The Wickelfisch is a waterproof bag that allows you to take your belongings with you, while you go for a swim. Why would you want to do that? Well, as the stream in a river makes you float away from where you started out it is oftentimes not possible to get back to your belonging all that quickly and easily.

Hat tip off to the designer. At this point you can only get it in selected stores in Switzerland, listed here (all in German). There’s a contact email over here.

(thank you Jaqueline)

Handy Duster

Yes, you can certainly live without a $34 dollar duster. But you have to admit, this Handy Duster is a thing of beauty, at least in my (minimal) book.

Looking Backwards

“If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later. Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

– Steve Jobs

A quote from Steve Jobs 2005 Stanford commencement address about the creative value of dot-connecting and cross-disciplinary curiosity.

(via curiosity counts)

NYC Evacuation Zones

G thinks is pro-actively thinking about how to prepare best for the approaching hurricane. I am a bit more optimistic (or is this called ‘denial’?). I am mostly wondering if we have enough wine in the apartment.

Anyhow, do you live in the NYC area? The above map might help you prepare for approaching Hurrican Irene. (you can zoom in an out!)

Update: Looks I really need to stock up on wine tomorrow. Just read this NewYorkTimes article about how NYC is preparing for Irene.

(via @davedawson)