Look around the page. Your internet is now very clean and familiar. Squarespace has made everyone's personal website look like the inside of Monocle magazine, and every app is much the same — and not by accident.
The Windex-ing of the internet has gone so far that "ugly websites" are now a web design trend and not just the majority of your browsing history. We actively accepted this abundance of sans-serif and white space, of course. By choosing Apple or Android, you've agreed to live by the feed, where your only design choice is your profile picture.
Although Instagram, with its rows of tiny boxes and pre-determined filters, is hardly a rebellious place, some of the accounts it hosts offer a much needed respite from #unfiltered nights in the Cinque Terre.
The real world is still plenty ugly, after all. People are still dumping mattresses on the street and a few intrepid ugliness-seekers are willing to take the photo evidence for you to enjoy. That would would be the Instagram account, Mattresses of Melbourne.
Tom Lee, the creator of Instagram account The Australian Ugliness that seeks out architectural oddities (disclosure: Lee is a friend), told Mashable Australia that in many ways, finding ugliness was an easier proposition for him than prettiness.
"From my perspective, I was uncomfortable with the idea of doing something that was beautiful or pretty," he said. "It's a lot harder for me to feel a sense of certainty about the aesthetic judgments associated with the beautiful than with the ugly or the irregular."
So much of the internet is about presenting the picturesque, or failing that, the cute, that pictures of suburban artefacts ranging from the banal to architectural fever dream fill a gap. These bespoke collections of ugliness are also about demonstrating knowingness — an in-joke available to anyone who can click "follow."
"By choosing beautiful things, like sunsets, you run the risk of coming across as naive," Lee added, "where ugliness is the genre of the more aware."
Give your tired eyes a rest, delete those breakfast inspo accounts and cleanse the palate with these horrid Instagram accounts. So ugly, so soothing.
Shit Gardens
Australians hate grass in the front yard, always have.
The Australian Ugliness
Bless those local councils who still bother to beautify a four-lane highway with some yellow splodges.
Inner Northern Delights
Someone made these lawn features. With their hands.
Ugly Melbourne Houses
The sweet little grey bunker you always dreamed of living in.
The gadget world moves fast, and tech innovations almost never keep pace with the wild ideas designers and engineers dream up.
Some companies like Apple like to wait until technologies are mature before integrating them into products. Others like Samsung take a different approach and throw many things at the wall in hopes a few will stick. Neither approach is wrong.
With the launch of Samsung Galaxy Note7, the best smartphone you can buy in my opinion, it's worth taking a look back at how Samsung turned its "gimmicky" and "niche" curved-screen edges into a signature design element on its flagship phones.
To understand the Note7 design, we need to take a trip down memory lane back to 2014. Instead of a just a single Galaxy Note 4, Samsung also released the Galaxy Note Edge. The Note Edge was the first Samsung smartphone with a curved edge.
Technically speaking, the Note Edge had two separate displays: the main flat portion of the screen and the curved edge panel that ran along its right side.
The Galaxy Note Edge released in 2014.
IMAGE: LIZ PIERSON/MASHABLE
Samsung touted the Note Edge as the ultimate productivity phablet combining the Note 4's S Pen stylus and dual-app multitasking features in Android with a bent display that could provide quick access to app shortcuts and notifications.
Samsung changed the conversation from being "Why own a big phone?" to "Why own a phone that looks like every other phone?"
Though Mashable Tech Editor Pete Pachal really liked it, the phone's extra $100 premium over the regular Note 4, asymmetrical design and wider width — not to mention the panel's limited third-party support — ultimately doomed it.
The Note Edge was written off as a gimmick by many. iPhone fanatics, who were just starting to get behind the idea of a phablet with the the iPhone 6 Plus, laughed at it.
Samsung may have failed with the Note Edge in terms of selling it in large volumes, but it succeeded by implanting its futuristic design into the public consciousness.
By launching the Edge Note, however proof-of-concept it was, Samsung changed the conversation from being "Why own a big phone?" to "Why own a phone that looks like every other phone?"
One foot in and one foot out
In early 2015, Samsung aggressively moved to turn the Note Edge's single-curved edge panel into a real differentiator between it and other phones.
But as usual, Samsung had one foot in and one foot out. It couldn't commit to such a radical change.
And so we got the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge at the same time. The two phones were identical save for the dual curved edges on the S6 Edge. And again, the S6 Edge commanded a $100 premium over the flatscreen model.
Galaxy S6 vs. Galaxy S6 Edge
IMAGE: LUKE LEONARD/MASHABLE
Mashable ended up concluding the regular S6 was a better phone than the S6 Edge on account the extra hundred wasn't worth it just for the curved-glass aesthetic. And not just that — the S6 Edge's "Edge" features were also less useful than the vision the Note Edge laid out since it didn't even have shortcuts to apps, only shortcuts to five of your contacts.
Months after the S6 Edge's release, Samsung still wasn't sure what to make of it. There were reports the regular Galaxy S6 didn't move the needle and Samsung underestimated the demand for the curved model. And by the time Samsung got the mix right, consumers had moved on to either an iPhone or one of the many cheaper midrange phones that started to offer premium design and features for a lot less.
Maybe it was the extra premium or maybe the Edge features were too gimmicky. Whatever the reason was, there was one thing consumers couldn't ignore about the S6 Edge: It looked hot as hell — like a device from the future. Samsung just needed a better reason to hook people in on the curved glass beyond mere looks.
One thing consumers couldn't ignore: The curved edges on the Edge phones looked hot as hell.
In the second half of 2015, the company release the Note 5 and S6 Edge+. Once again, the two phones were virtually identical internally.
But Samsung sent a mixed message to consumers again. While the Note 5 was marketed as a phablet for power users (it's got the S Pen, after all), the S6 Edge+ was marketed as more of a phone for consuming entertainment.
The distinction would have worked if not for the fact the S6 Edge+ had additional Edge panels like the app shortcuts that were missing on the S6 Edge. With the extra features, the S6 Edge+ was arguably well-suited for productivity, too... minus the S Pen, of course.
A firmer stance on the Edge
The benefits of the Edge's curved screens were better marketed this year in the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge.
As before, Samsung kept the specs the same on both phones. But this time, there were good reasons to buy the Edge model over the regular one: a larger screen, useful Edge features and a larger battery. Samsung finally justified the $100 premium.
Anecdotally, I've seen more S7 Edge's in the wild than I've seen the smaller S7, which isn't a surprise.
The appeal of the S7 Edge goes beyond its curved-glass features. Like its Edge predecessors, it's more fashionable than flatscreen phones, which all look very similar at this point. The Edge's curved glass sides literally give it an aesthetic edge over the iPhone.
The curved screen edges are no longer an experiment, a gimmick, a nasty bend that catches unwanted reflections for the sake of design.
As I wrote in my Note7 review, Samsung's curved glass has evolved quite a bit over the past couple of years and it's finally culminated into the phone's gorgeous design.
For two years, Samsung wasn't sure if the Edge's curved screen would stick. With most critics giving the Note7 rave reviews, it's pretty obvious now that merging the Note7 with the Edge was the best decision Samsung's made in years.
The Note7 gives you all the productivity features of the S Pen and Note series and all the power-user features from the S7 Edge.
Samsung's Edge is now the thing that makes a Samsung phone a Samsung phone and everyone knows it.
Look around the page. Your internet is now very clean and familiar. Squarespace has made everyone's personal website look like the inside of Monocle magazine, and every app is much the same — and not by accident.
The Windex-ing of the internet has gone so far that "ugly websites" are now a web design trend and not just the majority of your browsing history. We actively accepted this abundance of sans-serif and white space, of course. By choosing Apple or Android, you've agreed to live by the feed, where your only design choice is your profile picture.
Although Instagram, with its rows of tiny boxes and pre-determined filters, is hardly a rebellious place, some of the accounts it hosts offer a much needed respite from #unfiltered nights in the Cinque Terre.
The real world is still plenty ugly, after all. People are still dumping mattresses on the street and a few intrepid ugliness-seekers are willing to take the photo evidence for you to enjoy. That would would be the Instagram account, Mattresses of Melbourne.
Tom Lee, the creator of Instagram account The Australian Ugliness that seeks out architectural oddities (disclosure: Lee is a friend), told Mashable Australia that in many ways, finding ugliness was an easier proposition for him than prettiness.
"From my perspective, I was uncomfortable with the idea of doing something that was beautiful or pretty," he said. "It's a lot harder for me to feel a sense of certainty about the aesthetic judgments associated with the beautiful than with the ugly or the irregular."
So much of the internet is about presenting the picturesque, or failing that, the cute, that pictures of suburban artefacts ranging from the banal to architectural fever dream fill a gap. These bespoke collections of ugliness are also about demonstrating knowingness — an in-joke available to anyone who can click "follow."
"By choosing beautiful things, like sunsets, you run the risk of coming across as naive," Lee added, "where ugliness is the genre of the more aware."
Give your tired eyes a rest, delete those breakfast inspo accounts and cleanse the palate with these horrid Instagram accounts. So ugly, so soothing.
The popular OnePlus 3 smartphone is, like pretty much every handset these days, going gold. However, the Android upstart is hoping to outflank its competition with a different shade: a "soft gold" color that's more muted than most gold- or rose gold-colored handsets. Could this be the beginning of a trend?
Calling the color variation "a subtle texture reminiscent of holding fine, silky-soft sand," the company says the new color design option was inspired by traditional tones found in Japanese art.
But although gold has traditionally been very popular in China, according to some, the color is increasingly being seen as a tad gaudy and, according to some, associated with the country's nouveau riche. That may explain OnePlus' decision to tone down the gold color of its handset to this new hue dubbed "soft gold," which is more subtle (dare we say "elegant?") than some of the other gold-colored mobile devices available.
The new version of the handset went on sale on Tuesday in the U.S. and arriving in Europe, Hong Kong and Canada on Aug. 1 (users in India will have to wait for the company to announce availability at a later date). Apparently, the company expects the new model to be such a success that it even crafted a new video (below) to promote it.
This "soft gold" version of the handset joins the already popular graphite-colored model. Given the popularity of gold mobile devices in China, this design move from OnePlus was fairly predictable, but it's still a refreshing addition to the lineup.
To date, the OnePlus 3 appears to be the most robust iPhone challenger to emerge from China, hot on the heels of South Korea's Samsung in terms offering a winning alternative Android device paired with top-tier design aesthetics.
According to the company's announcement on its website, the color option will only be available in limited quantities.
Uber may have been the target of considerable (and deserved) flack for its new logo in February, but the rideshare company has bigger design challenges on its mind than simply rebranding.
Uber wants to make transportation "as reliable as running water," Ethan Eismann, Uber's director of product design, said at the Semi Permanent design event in Sydney Thursday. To do that, they're going to need an app that works in more than 400 cities and counting.
Eismann spoke with Mashable Australia after the event to discuss how the platform is approaching this considerable design task, when everything from traffic conditions to mobile coverage to local customs are enormously different in each city.
Adapting to local conditions
For Eismann, how Uber adapted its product in India is a canonical example of its ability to design for the intricacies of local markets.
When rolling out in the country, the company realised the lack of credit card penetration could become a problem. It began experimenting with cash payments in certain cities, despite having built itself as a cashless platform.
"That's such a unique and special case, because it defies some of the core concepts of the fundamental model: where you press a button and a car comes, you get out, and that's it," he said. "That wasn't an easy decision for us to make."
Now they have the ability to offer a cash option, Uber can more easily implement it in other suitable markets, such as Singapore, which launched the cash payment option in April.
In cities like Mumbai, Uber will also have to adapt to local infrastructure, such as the frequent lack of street addresses. "We're thinking about ways to allow riders to take photos of the location where they're at and share that with the driver," he said at the event.
Ethan Eismann, Uber's Director of Product Experience.
IMAGE: UBER
Another significant challenge is the differences in mobile network coverage — places where 4G or even 3G may be nonexistent. If GPS drops out for example, the team is working to ensure Uber is able to understand your route even if you're offline for a certain period.
According to Eismann, it's important for the design team to think not only of the ideal Uber experience in ideal conditions, but also how they can scale it back when mapping conditions are less robust or data speeds are weak — essentially, building an experience that works just as well in 2G.
"We're not going to design an experience that will fundamentally require a massive amount of data to download," he added. "We're essentially 'degrading gracefully' in areas where people don't have as much data bandwidth."
Designers become anthropologists
Uber wants its app to be global, of course, but also to become irreplaceable in each city where it operates — a goal that requires local adaptation.
To that end, the design team aims to make each rider's experience with Uber "75 percent consistent" across each city, Eismann said. The remainder will be customised to local conditions and customs.
This approach means Uber's designers themselves need to adapt. "They may come from a product design background and be used to pushing pixels around a screen ... but ultimately, they need to become economists when working on a marketplace," he said. "They need to become anthropologists, because they're working with people. They need to become sociologists."
The majority of the product team is based in San Francisco, but the basic platform they design there is intended to be adaptable across different markets.
"We essentially share that out with city teams across the world, and they're able to customise it to meet the local needs," he said. The company also has research teams that travel to China and Southeast Asia, in particular, to investigate what might work best in the market.
If its design approach is successful, Eismann even suggested Uber could become something of a travel aide.
"You might get off a plane and the first thing you do is open up Uber," he explained. "If we can be there for you, helping you understand how to get to your destination, while giving you a feel for the city that you're in, that's a magical experience.
Situated in Brooklyn’s Gowanus neighborhood, blocks away from a Whole Foods and the Morbid Anatomy Museum of death-obsessed hipsterdom, the cavernous storefront of social impact design studio Hyperakt stands out.
The open studio is quiet — the only sound comes from the humming tubular vents overhead and a handful of staff who confer in whispers. Most of the others focus quietly on their iMac screens.
Unlike stereotypically pristine, carefully curated design studios, Hyperakt's space is a little more freewheeling. Utilitarian shelving units are haphazardly packed with supplies; dark, reclaimed wood desks with metal legs are pushed together to form long working spaces, flanked by contemporary office chairs on wheels.
Founded in 2001, Hyperakt's 15-person team has focused on social impact design since 2009, when its cofounders, designers Deroy Peraza and Julia Zeltser, phased out the types of clients who needed things like dog leash branding or Camel cigarette ads in Spanish.
For the past seven years they have worked exclusively for NGOs, nonprofits and other social good organizations.
“It’s really satisfying to see memberships increase, donations increase and the caliber of volunteers rise,” Zeltser tells Mashable, decked out in a colorful woolly sweater and scarf of magentas and reds.
One of their latest projects is a beautiful, interactive map that chronicles 40 years of global refugee migration using data from UNHCR, the U.N. refugees agency. It's an important topic, but one that also points to Hyperakt's roots.
Peraza was an asylum seeker from Cuba, arriving in Miami as a child in 1984. Zeltser was a religious refugee from Ukraine who landed in New York as a teenager in 1993. The two met on the first day of classes at the New School's Parsons School of Design in New York City in 1996.
“I was an annoying, arrogant loudmouth,” says Peraza, who has a healthy swath of hair on top of his otherwise closely shaved head. “Julia’s more studious, the good kid.”
While at Parsons, they discovered a healthy competitiveness and a shared drive to succeed, which they attribute to being immigrants.
“You just don’t take shit for granted,” Peraza says, noting the many "rich kids" who simply cruised by. “Every opportunity we got, we busted our butt to do it.”
Projects that resonate
Hyperakt leapt into the social good sector full-force because it’s where the team created its best work.
Zeltser cites one client as a good example: educational nonprofit iMentor, which they’re currently helping to rebrand their mentorship program. Other clients include big names like the Ford Foundation, United Nations, NAACP, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Sitting in Hyperakt’s conference room, moments after Zeltser shrieked with laughter when Peraza rustled up an old Camel ad they made, they reveal their two essential and successful marketing tools.
First is the active creation of community, both virtually and physically; for example, their once-a-month Lunch Talk series holds free and public forums among creative people, "designed to foster knowledge, sharing and casual conversation" over food and beer.
Second is spending time and resources on experimental, self-generated projects, which often go viral or land on design blogs and magazine pages. In 2008 they created posters in support of then-Senator Barack Obama that led to an exhibit at Flux Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. Hyperakt also took a challenge in 2013 to rebrand the teaching profession, an assignment from Kurt Anderson, the host of radio show Studio 360. And a noteworthy work in progress is On the Grid, a neighborhood guide for cities around the globe created in collaboration with local design studios.
Clearing her throat, Zeltser teases Peraza that she usually works on the jobs that bring in income, while he gets to experiment with viral hits like these.
“It’s the self-generated stuff that gets all the attention,” he counters, sounding slightly defensive
Popular
Tags
Videos