Top web design trends

Creative Bloq has put together seven of the top web design trends that are making waves online.

From social media to interior design, trends can be fleeting or enduring, and web design also relies on this innovation and creativity, in order to catch the eye of users and consumers.

With vibrancy and clarity being key themes this year, top trends include monochromatic schemes, blocking and hovering, and contrasting with duller colours.

Read more about each trend here and tell us which ones you like.

Scratch-and-Sniff banner ad

From the company that brought you 'the man your man could smell like' comes a new kind of banner ad. Old Spice, who are becoming renowned for their crazy ad antics has produced the internet's first scratch-and-sniff banner advert.

Unlike Google's April Fools joke, this one won't have you pressing your nose up to the screen, instead you fill in a form and they will send you "the smell of the Internet".

Another clever and amusing campaign from the brand, promoting their Wolfthorn line of products.

Take a sniff for yourself here or see it in action over on the Onion's Sport Page.

Bus stop with a window seat

We've all been stood waiting for a train or a bus wishing we could be somewhere else; perhaps a beach in Spain, visiting the vineyards of France or even taking a gondola ride in Venice. Scandinavian Airlines has played on this idea and created an amazing experiential bus stop ad.

The campaign was designed to promote the 16 new destinations that the airline has started to fly to.

A bus stop in Oslo was fitted with a digital screen and a mock airplane window. When the shutter on the window was closed and re-opened a new scene was displayed, with the view being of one of the 16 new destinations.

A clever way to advertise and encourage people to book that next holiday. Watch a video highlighting the campaign below.

Designs of the Year Awards 2013 Nominations

The Design Museum has announced the nominations for Designs of the Year 2013. Seen as the Oscars of the design world, the nominations will go on display in the museum from 20th March, whilst the winners will be decided by a jury and announced to the public on the 17th April.

Last year's winner was the London 2012 Olympic Relay Torch, and this year still has some Olympic contenders with the Olympic Cauldron by Heatherwick Studio being nominated.

Other nomination's include:

Acrhitecture - The Shard, London, UK
Designed by Renzo Piano
 
Digital - Rain Room
Designed by rAndom International

Fashion -Prada S/S12 RTW Collection
Designed by Miuccia Prada

See the full list of nominations here.

Explore the stars with Google

Explore the stars with this Chrome experiment from the Google Data Arts team - an amazing interactive exploration of space including 100,000 stars.

Start viewing the universe and zoom in to see individual solar systems and stars - click on the star to read more.

WOW!

Click here.

Get your Emergency Compliment

Are you having a bad day?

Then click here to receive an 'Emergency Compliment' that will help to improve your day.

Go on, feel good about yourself.

Print ads that come to life

Looking for a way to bring your advertising to life then take a look at this print ad for Lexus. With a little help from an iPad the ad comes to life.

Lexus developed a special technology for this that it's calling "CinePrint."

"Most traditional mashups feature print ads that redirect to a digital experience away from the printed page," the automaker says. "CinePrint technology flips that on its head, creating a tactile and visceral connection that brings one closer to the printed page with a multi-sensory experience that combines sight, sound and touch."

Take a look at the film below to see how it works. Brilliant!

Fancy running over your pretentious friends?

Ever wanted to get your own back on your pretentious friends on Facebook - well this is the app for you.

"Mitsubishi Unpretentious" analyses the content from your friends' Facebook pages to see which are your most pretentious friends and then runs them over with a speeding 2013 Outlander Sport.

It does not always get it right but it does most of the time.

Combining marketing with interactive online apps has become a great extension to consumer product launches, getting people to engage with products in a fun and interesting way.

Whether encouraging people to run down people they don't like is questionable but fun anyway.

Click here to get the app.

3D lenticular images by The Saline Project

The Saline Project are a Brooklyn based trio who are best known for creating music videos for the likes of Eminem, 50cent, and The Cure.

Their most recent project focusses on evolving the gif format to something they're calling 3D lenticular… to great effect.

The Saline Project is an award winning group of artists and have worked on many projects including when they were commissioned by ABC to make a title sequence to 110 Stories (below) which involved manipulating photographs taken on 9/11 in New York to give them depth.

Find out more here.

Who's buying which book around the world

Have you ever wondered what books are being bought around the world?

Well maybe not, but just in case The Book Depository has launched a Live site that allows you to see what books are being bought worldwide in real time.

Very interesting.

See the live site here.

Create your own modern artwork

Ever wanted to be a modern artist, then take a look at this website, jacksonpollock.org.

With the movement of your mouse and a few clicks you can create your own piece of modern art.

Enjoy.

Click here to get started.

Amazing images caught by Google Street View

The 'Nine Eyes of Google Street View' is a photo project by artist Jon Rafman named after the nine lenses mounted on a Google Street View camera.

He has collected many of the strange and beautiful images that Google has capture by accident from around the world.

See more of these amazing, weird, frightening and striking images here.

Inappropriate domains that seemed a good idea at the time

Here are some great domain names that have unintentional meanings - seemed like a good idea at the time.

See many more on makeuseof.com - good for a giggle.

Developing the creative campaign for the B2B Marketing Awards 2012

Having managed the B2B Marketing Awards event for the past five years, The Think Tank was approached by the organisers, Silver Bullet Publishing, to develop the creative theme for the 2012 awards.  

Seeking to engage a wider audience, and increase entry levels from  all sectors of the B2B marketing industry, The Think Tank was asked to produce a campaign that would resonate with marketers from both agency and client side and encourage them to engage with the awards at various levels. It was also very important that the theme could work in an integrated manner across a range of marketing channels as well as providing an engaging and fun format for the Awards event itself.  

The Think Tank developed several concepts that would answer the brief and the High Flyers campaign was chosen. This is designed to celebrate the outstanding creativity in the B2B Marketing sector and position the awards as the premier industry event, not only for agencies but also for clients side marketers.  

The flexibility provided by the 'retro feel' creative execution allows the campaign to be extended from launch to the event and beyond, offering B2B Marketing the continuity of message they were looking for in 2012.  

The Think Tank is continuing to develop an integrated campaign to promote the awards over the coming months and encourage entry and engagement.

For more information about the awards please click here.

Fifth Wall app interacts with performer

A new app for performing arts publication 2wice called “Fifth Wall” takes interactivity to another level, allowing you to interact with performers by moving your iPad screen.

It was created in collaboration with the choreographer Jonah Bokaer and 2wice publisher Patsy Tarr and takes advantage of the unique spatial and physical parameters of the iPad. In the app, Bokaer engages with the edges of the iPad screen and as users interact with the iPad, the performance responds to the movement of the user, flipping when the screen is turned, or changing when the surface is swiped. 

A great use of apps to engage an audience.

See the video of the making of the app below and click here to download.

Digital interactivity from Coca Cola

Fancy a bit of digital interactive fun then take a look at Happiness Islands by Coca Cola.

Explore the islands, selecting different activities and visit a series of micro-sites for some great interactive features, just right for a few spare minutes.

As Coca Cola says - Enjoy!

Created by Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam, Random Studio and Nacho Guijarro.

Does your website breach new EU legislation for cookies?

Is your website ready to meet the new data protection rules that come into force on 26th May?  

If you run cookies on your website to track and store information about users then from 26th May you will need their permission or you may be in breach of new EU legislation.  

The only exception to this rule, according to the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) is, 'if what you are doing is ‘strictly necessary’ for a service requested by the user. This exception is a narrow one but might apply, for example, to a cookie you use to ensure that when a user of your site has chosen the goods they wish to buy and clicks the ‘add to basket’ or ‘proceed to checkout’ button, your site ‘remembers’ what they chose on a previous page. You would not need to get consent for this type of activity.  

How you gain this approval is the next challenge. If you visit the ICO's website you will see that they now ask you the following question:  

'The ICO would like to place cookies on your computer to help us make this website better. To find out more about the cookies, see our privacy notice.'  

'I accept cookies from this site'  

Many sites will be able to ask a specific question when users register for a service or locked off content however others will also need to ask similar questions not to be in breach of the legislation.  

The ICO has issued a guidance document on this subject which you can download below.

advice_on_the_new_cookies_regulations.pdf (122 kb)

Measuring Online Advertising Response

We recently found a very interesting article in AdAge by Kathryn Koegel looking into measurement of online advertising and calls for definitions to be changed for when an ad is viewed.

Making Measurement Make Sense, or 3Ms, is an initiative backed by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, 4A's, the Association of National Advertisers, the Media Ratings Council, MediaLink and Bain Consulting and calls for a whole new definition of an ad, based on whether anyone actually saw it.

According to a recent study by ComScore in the US of 18 campaigns from advertisers including Kellogg's, Allstate, Ford and eTrade, up to 31% of online ad impressions served were never viewed, even though they counted as impressions in the campaigns.

This is because whether an ad is viewed or not is based upon whether the ad technically loaded on to a page rather than whether someone had the opportununity to see it.  

IAB Senior VP of Research, Analytics and Measurement Sherrill Mane commented,  "We want to put display-ad units on an equal footing with other media. The adoption of viewable impressions will ... give the media community comfort and security for brand advertisers to move forward."

Linda Abraham, CMO of ComScore commented, " Typically, top-of-page placements command highest prices, but research shows that in many cases these are overlooked in favour of in-content or below-the-fold placements -- it all depends on the type of content and how people consume it. What's surprising is how little of these publishers know and use.

"As an example, recipe sites actually have higher viewability rates of ads below-the-fold than top of page placements and we're now "able to unearth the gold below the fold."

This may be US focussed but an interesting article on measurement of online advertising and how it is being addressed.

Read the full article here. And you can find out more about 'making Measurement Make Sense' and their five principles here.