swissmiss hearts GENEVA

GENEVA XL Stereo

Last week, I cam close to hugging the lovely chap that delivered and installed a GENEVA XL in our studio. I kept bouncing up and down, snapping pictures going YAY! I must have *so* annoyed the heck out of him.

We have now been using the XL for a good week and we give it a 12 thumbs up. (That’s how many thumbs are in this studio!) Even though it comes with built in radio and CD Player, we mostly stream Pandora stations from our iPhone’s all day long. The sound is fantastic and the piece is a beauty and a real conversation starter. Now, every morning when I enter the studio, I say hi to both our Ideapaint wall and our red little friend, the GENEVA XL! See all pictures of the unboxing here.

On a sidenote: GENEVA is having a contest where you can win one of their fantastic stereos: genevasoundcontest.com

swissmiss studio: Convert

Convert
Convert

My fab developer John and I launched a new site last night for a NYC based Green Roof Service called Convert. I not only designed the site but also had the opportunity to help my client find an appropriate name for their business. When they came to me, they did business under the name of New York Green Roof, which was simply too generic and not memorable. After a long discovery process the client picked ‘Convert’ which not only perfectly expresses what they do (converting roofs) but also entails the word green (vert). I am happy how this little gem of a site turned out. Yay for launching new sites! Yay Internet!

www.redefinetheskyline.com

DUMBO AIGA Event: Stories From The Front

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Ever wonder what other designers do or say to get their jobs? Finally, your chance to be a fly on the wall for other designers’ presentations. Five design icons will recreate actual presentations that won work or solved problems, demonstrating skills in PowerPoint, patter, and bravura. Short descriptions of the original RFP/Design Briefs will be presented so that we’ll know what the presenters received before creating their solutions. This recession-special event combines revelatory techniques on how designers win jobs—and lots of drinking. The five presentations will be followed by open questions, honest answers, and genuine commiseration from the audience. This event will be hosted in DUMBO, at Galapagos, an event space equipped with a bar.

AIGA | Stories From The Front: My Dog and Pony
Wednesday 29 April 2009 7:00–8:30PM

The event has been combined with a DUMBO Open Studio Tour beforeheand, swissmiss is one of them!

Foggy

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Today’s foggy view from swissmiss studio. Like out of a movie, no? Better in big on flickr.

Wanted: Intern at swissmiss studio

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I am looking for an intern to help me at the studio 2 or potentially 3 days a week. (Must be someone in the NYC area) Send me your online portfolio of sites you’ve worked on and tell me why you think you’d be a good addition to swissmiss studio. Email me at internship@swiss-miss.com.

swissmiss studio: Lydia Denworth

Lydia Denworth

We just launched a web presence for Brooklyn writer Lydia Denworth. The site launch coincided with the launch of Toxic Truth, her first book, which has already received raving reviews. Toxic Truth is the first book to tell the story of two men behind the bitter thirty-year fight to protect children from lead.

Apple/AIGA Talk: Thank you for coming out.

Design Remixed with Tina Roth Eisenberg

A big thank you to all my loyal swissmiss readers that came out to my AIGA/Apple talk last week. According to the organizers it was the biggest Design Remixed turnout they’ve ever had. Hooray! If you were there, let me know your thoughts: Was there anything you wanted to ask but didn’t? I’d love to hear your feedback in how I can improve the presentation for another time?

Also, if you took pictures of the event, would you mind to add them to our flickr pool? Thank you so much!

For all of those of you who emailed me about possibly seeing a video of this event, I am sorry to say that I wasn’t allowed to tape it. (Which still makes me scratch my head. If I was Apple or AIGA I would film these talks and put them on the web. What a lost opportunity, no?)

5 Inspiring Web Design Conference Speeches

Chris compiled 5 Inspiring Web Design Conference Speeches you Shouldn’t Have Missed in 2008. I was lucky enough to see Paul Boag’s speech On how to get clients to say yes live at this year’s FOWD here in Manhattan.

Flexible Fuel: Educating the Client on IA

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Information architecture (IA) means so much to our projects, from setting requirements to establishing the baseline layout for our design and development teams. But what does it mean to your clients? Do they see the value in IA? What happens when they change their minds? Can IA help manage the change control process? More than ever, we must ensure that our clients find value in and embrace IA—and it’s is our job to educate them.

If we want our customers to embrace IA, we must help them understand why we need it. IA is about selling ideas effectively, designing with accuracy, and working with complex interactivity to guide different personas (potential customers) through website experiences.

The following talking points may help your clients understand the value of IA.

Flexible Fuel: Educating the Client on IA, by Keith Laferriere

swissmiss studio: recent work

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John and I launched version 2 of abitareshop.com today! Abitare is a wonderful gift and accessory store in the heart of Brooklyn Heights. Together with John Ford of Aldenta, I had the pleasure to design and build abitare’s first web presence. Up until yesterday you had to email the store owners to order a product but starting today the order button says ‘add to cart’ instead of ‘email to order’! Besides adding the full blown e-commerce capabilities we’ve also added product categories and a product thumbnail navigation once you’re on a product detail page.

Abitare is one of my favorite stores in my neighborhood and the owners, Lizzie and Joanne, have made it on the very top of my list of ‘favorite client ever’. If you’ve started your holiday gift shopping already, check their site or better, drop by their lovely store on Henry Street.

Email Standards Project

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The Email Standards Project is about working with email client developers and the design community to improve web standards support and accessibility in email. The project was formed out of frustration with the inconsistent rendering of HTML emails in major email clients.

swissmiss studio coffee + chat

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Our studio was filling up quickly…

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Scott Bellina had one coffee too many :)

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Tom Tinervin toasting to our first ‘virtual skype guest’ Billy Davenport in Knoxville.

So today was the kick-off to our new coffee+chat series here at our studio. What a great turn out! Thanks for everyone that made it out to DUMBO so early and showed the will-power to walk up 6 floors! (What great timing for our elevator to break down!)

I met lots of interesting folks and simply wished there would have been more time! But don’t despair, there will be another one of these events next month! The plan is to connect each meetup with a topic and a potential short presentation. If you have a topic you’re passionate about and would like to present at one of our upcoming events, email me. Also, if you run design studio in DUMBO (or Manhattan) and would like to host one of these mornings, email me as well. You can view some pix of today’s event here.

Thanks again to Saul from Freshbooks who sponsored today’s breakfast!