A great ten minute video by Jeff Patton on how to approach product development by focusing on the behavioral changes you want in your users while addressing the uncomfortable truth that there are too many ideas, most of them suck and we can’t tell which doesn’t.
So much in product development are either broken or measured in a way that doesn’t promote methods to actually succeed in providing the value that ensures a long term sustainable business.
I’ll likely write at length about product development from my UX and PM perspective going forward and I will make no claims about knowing what I talk about all the time, it’s a learning process for me too. Product development is complex and it’s nowhere near “figured out”.
For “we’re-printing-a-book-with-baby-photos” reasons I’m currently forced* to use Google Photos to organize the photos we want included. And I’m baffled. I just assumed that since Google Photos has been around for so long it would be at least a couple of steps ahead of iCloud Photos Library.
But oh no. This service is clearly not built by people that care about photos. Or people. Or use cases. Or volume. Or curation. Organise albums in folders? Nope. Batch delete? Nope? Different types of views? Faces identification? It’s complicated for unknown reasons.
The only thing I’ve found that I was pleasantly surprised by was the ability to batch edit dates of a group of photos while keeping the time relative to each other. That’s quite neat. But that’s all.
It makes me truly appreciate iCloud Photo Library even more, how far it has come. I need to up my game to convert my Xbox loving, Windows hugging, Android swinging future wife to be to join me on this side.
*the only service we’ve found that supports the amount of pages we want is Optimalprint, which allows for Google Photos integration or direct file upload. However, if you want the book chronological, direct file upload doesn’t work since they will come into the order they are uploaded which is not sequentially, so it turns into a mess. And there’s no meta data, search or filtering, so you then have to re-arrange based purely on looking at them. That’s a no go. That leaves Google Photos.
Friskis & Svettis is an institution in Sweden. A non-profit movement started in the late seventies with the goal to get Swedes to become healthier by way of exercise. All Swedes are familiar with Friskis & Svettis, it’s a very strong brand, in fact one of the strongest in Sweden. And they have this beautiful timeless logotype that has been around since the very beginning, inspired by blood vessels and pumping blood. Designed by illustrator and typographer Lars Laurentii, and his personal favorite or all logotypes he designed. It’s a beautiful logotype with immediate and positive brand recognition nationally.
That’s why it pains me to see them make more and more use of a poorly spaced plain sans serif font like pictured above. I see it on busses, trams, billboards and online. It shows an organisation caving to recent design trends. Specifically the typographical logo trend to replace whatever you have with a minimalist sans serif font (the sans serif invasion) that says nothing about you as a company except that you’re now following instead of leading. The glimmer of hope here is that this generic font (Aperçu) didn’t outright replace the old logo, for now only appending it or as a variant. The old logo is not out, but something is definitely in. And it has me worried and I hope they back away from this.
They already messed with the original logo once, making a less than stellar job updating it by making the lines thinner and adding rings. The changes disturb the harmony of the original, reducing the legibility and making it a little more sterile. And to no discernible benefit other than change for changes sake. Which is also a red flag of misguided attempts to address some type of challenge you as a company think you have.
Not all companies have great logos. Most don’t. And for misguided design departments or desperate marketing teams, I see the allure to follow suit when big successful brands change their logos. But when you’re sitting on one of the highest regarded brands with a price winning logotype everyone recognizes in positive terms, brand affinity through the roof, you should probably think twice before touching it. If your business is in need of change related to trends or globalization or competitors or other business challenges, look elsewhere for change than your logo. Your logo is rarely the reason for your current challenges. And messing with a good one can cost your brand a lot, see also Tropicana.
