Science Illustrated

Nick Woods

Explaining why humans are capable of language is a topic that spans millions of pages. It’s one that’s been bandied back and forth for centuries, that requires nearly 150 sources to adequately explain on Wikipedia. So we’re lucky the team at Also Online gets the fact that abstract concepts like these are often best explained visually – That’s why I’m a big fan of their new book, The Where, The Why, and The How, which compiles illustrations from 75 of today’s most celebrated artists to explain some of the world’s most complicated mysteries. Interested in learning where life came from? Or whether more than three dimensions exist? If the success of visually-oriented media like Instagram over text-based ones like Twitter reveal anything, it’s that you can learn a whole lot more by looking, instead of reading.

The Right Quote at the Right Time

DeChazier Stokes–Johnson

The right quote at the right time can truly inspire. So apparently, this past weekend was the right time for me. George Bernard Shaw writes:

“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”

His words perfectly illustrate a world I want to live in.

But Does It Float

DeChazier Stokes–Johnson

But Does It Float is one of the best online sources of visual and literary inspiration. The site pairs short quotes from a plethora of different authors with art from a variety of fine/graphic artists and designers. It’s great to be exposed to creatives and authors that I would otherwise never encounter, like Matthys Gerber who created the image to the left.

Compressing Images Can Save Bytes

Jose Coronado

Images saved from programs like Fireworks can contain kilobytes of extra comments, and use too many colors, even though a reduction in the color palette may not perceptibly reduce image quality. Uncompressed images can take up more space than they need to; for users on slow connections, it is especially important to keep image sizes to a minimum. So whenever possible, the recommended format to use is a “jpeg”.

Why Rational People Behave Irrationally

Bill Eisner

In their book, Sway, authors Ori and Rom Brafman point out three forces that make us all susceptible to the irresistible pull of irrational behavior. This first is loss aversion or our tendency to to go to great lengths to avoid possible losses. The second is value attribution or our inclination to imbue a person or thing with certain qualities based on initial perceived value. And the third is the diagnosis bias or our blindness to all evidence that contradicts our initial assessment of a person or situation. As we gain insight  about irrational motives that affect our work and personal lives, fascinating patterns emerge, connecting seemingly unrelated events.

What’s The Benefit Of The Benefit?

Bill Eisner

Here’s a great tidbit from Chip and Dan Heath, authors of Made To Stick, Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. Companies often emphasize features when they should be emphasizing benefits. John Caples who wrote the famous headline, ‘They Laughed When I Sat Down At The Piano….”, has said the most frequent reason for unsuccessful advertising is advertisers who are so full of their own accomplishments (the world’s best seed!) that they forget to tell us why we should buy (the world’s best lawn!).’ And old advertising maxim says you’ve got to spell out the benefit of the benefits. In other words, people don’t buy quarter-inch drill bits, They buy quarter-inch holes so they can hang their children’s pictures.

Inspiring Word Of Mouth – Integrity

Bill Eisner

A couple years ago, I was asked by nonbox partner BJ Bueno who is also the co-author of The Power of Cult Branding, to help contribute to the writing of , Why We Talk, The Truth Behind Word-of-Mouth. We came up with seven governing principles for inspiring WOM. The first is INTEGRITY. Essentially, people know you have an intention, and that you’ve figured out they known you have an intention. What this means from an advertising standpoint is that they know you’re trying to sell them a product, and you are aware they know they’re trying to be persuaded. Unless you get very adept at meeting their needs, you’re going to encounter a nearly-impenetrable barrier. READ MORE @beliefbrandman blog.

Eight:48 Magazine

DeChazier Stokes–Johnson

I’ve been reading this creative news paper since issue number one. It’s a fairly young publication but already I’m a great fan. Eight:48 is a newspaper that doesn’t have any set release date. I love this because they wait until they have something important to communicate or discuss rather than just throwing an issue out based on seasonal expectation. This keeps the quality of the paper high. Each issue revolves around a certain relevant creative topic or centralized question and artists and designers asked to discuss and or answer the question are creatively relevant.