Designer Florists
Source: Cool Hunter
In many cultures around the world, we are used to seeing and shopping for fresh items – vegetables, fruit, meat, fish, spices, bread or flowers – at public markets, at individual old-fashioned neighbourhood specialty stores (the butchers, fishmongers, bakeries, flower shops) and of course at large grocery stores.
The waning influence of mega-influencers
Source: The Atlantic | Taylor Lorenz
Three years ago, Lisa Linh quit her full-time job to travel the world and document it on Instagram, where she has nearly 100,000 followers; since then, she has stayed in breathtaking hotels everywhere from Mexico to Quebec to the Cook Islands. Often, she stays for free.
Linh is part of an ever-growing class of people who have leveraged their social media clout to travel the world, frequently in luxury. While Linh and other elite influencers are usually personally invited by hotel brands, an onslaught of lesser-known wannabes has left hotels scrambling to deal with a deluge of requests for all-expense-paid vacations in exchange for some social media posts.
Source: Mobile Marketer | Robert Williams
The declining engagement rates for Instagram influencers, as measured by InfluencerDB, indicate several trends that mobile marketers need to consider when embarking on a social influencer campaign. The good news is that sponsored posts tend to generate higher engagement than non-sponsored posts, likely because influencers put more effort into creating high-quality posts when they're being sponsored and because Instagram's algorithms give higher precedence to sponsored posts, per InfluencerDB.
The bad news is that engagement rates for influencer content are declining as Instagram feeds get cluttered with sponsored posts.
Source: Business Insider | Rachel Hosie
With certain influencers commanding followings into the millions, securing an endorsement from one can seem like an incredibly powerful move for a brand.
However, the tide is slowly turning, and brands are increasingly seeing the benefits of working with micro- or nano-influencers — meaning it's actually possible work with your favourite brands, even if you have only a few hundred followers.
Into the Future with Patricia Reiners
Source: Adobe Create | Brendan Seibel
Adobe Creative Resident Patricia Reiners is a UX/UI designer living in Berlin. She calls her residency focus "Future Cities," and it includes new technologies like augmented reality, voice control, and artificial intelligence, and how they might change interfaces and the way we design. She focuses on the areas of smart living, new work, and mobility.
However, technology is not the driving force behind her work. “What I find so inspiring and interesting about UX design is that the human being is in the center,” Reiners says. “You’re trying to find the perfect solution for the human.”
Sneakers are set to outsell “fashion” footwear in the US for the first time
Source: quartz.com | Marc Bain
When the sneaker industry got going around the middle of the 19th century, the shoes were a niche product—footwear for the rich sport of lawn tennis (hence the enduring term “tennis shoes”).
By now they’ve so far transcended just athletic use that market-research firm NPD Group forecasts “sport leisure” sneakers—the casual sort, as opposed to performance shoes meant specifically for athletic use—will become the largest footwear category in the US in 2020. The incumbent front runner they’ll overtake is what NPD calls “fashion” footwear, a category including most of everything else: shoes, boots, sandals, and slippers.
Amazon’s Beautifully Designed And Failed Three vs. Two Column Layout Experiment
Source: goodui.org
Amazon found the courage to run a beautiful a/b test where they put their old three column product page layout against a new two column one. Although the two column layout was arguably more beautiful with the addition of white space, margins and shadows, it was nevertheless rejected.
The True Power of UX Goes Beyond Digital
Source: Medium | Jared Spool
There’s a tendency to think that when we’re designing for a user’s experience, we’re only talking about applications, websites, and other digital products and services. Yet, UX design encompasses far more than digital design. It always has.
What do brands need to do to be future ready
Source: Brand Equity | Amit Bapns
“To be built to last, you must be built to change.” These are the words of noted American author Jim Collins that Sanjiv Mehta, chairman and managing director of Hindustan Unilever, finds inspirational. Mehta believes that it is important to understand that business is a paradox made of “lasting stability and continuous change”.
Increasingly brands are realising that just because they may be indispensable to consumers today, does not mean that they would continue to be in the consumption basket of tomorrow’s consumer. Suresh Narayanan, chairman and managing director, Nestlé India draws a parallel with the karmic wheel of life and says, “Brands like human beings go through the stages of infancy, adolescence, energy of youth, maturity, debilitating pains of age and the pangs of life-cycle changes and uncertainties.”
The Future of Design
Source: Arch Digest | Meaghan O'Neill
Much of human progress over the past century has been magnificent. Technology that brings information to the remotest corners of the world and medicine that heals diseases once thought incurable are all signs of what humans can accomplish. Game-changing innovations are what we need more of right now, too. With just 10 years to reduce our global carbon dioxide output by 45 percent (or else), we need unprecedented and far-reaching solutions across industries, policy, and all sectors of society. Luckily, the design community is ahead of the curve.
Merci’s “Upcycling” Collection Spotlights Sustainable Luxury
Source: Cool Hunting | Evan Malachosky
Merci, an eclectic concept store in the Marais, contributes to the lengthy itinerary of Paris Design Week (6-14 September) this year with an exhibition of their own. The shoppable display, titled Upcycling: A New Lease on Life, features dozens of products made by skilled craftsmen and talented designers—each employing sustainable materials or highlighting a reused object.
Jordan Brand Reveals the Air Jordan XXXIV
Source: HYPEBEAST | Torsten Ingvaldsen
Jordan Brand has delivered its latest signature shoe, the Air Jordan XXXIV. Crafted with the intent of bringing the best in lightweight performance to the court, Nike’s latest Jordan Brand sneaker is one of the lightest basketball shoes ever created — a size 9 weighs in at just 13.1 ounces.