Site SPOTTED. EN Japanese Brasserie.. EN in Japan run a chain of restaurants specializing in a homey, pub style of dining called izakaya, but their first U.S. outpost is a much more finessed sophisticated American cousin. Chef Abe Hiroki creates and cooks with the seasons. Working with his favorite fishmongers, foragers and farmers, chef Hiroki takes you through a downright extraordinary Japanese culinary experience. Tofu in various fresh-made forms should not be missed. It’s skimmed into thin sheets of tofu skin called yuba, or steamed in clay pots with yams and bits of crab, or scooped into lacquer boxes and served warm or chilled, with different varieties of soy sauce. The website typifies EN’s artistic take on Japanese fare. Clean and tidy content pays homage to classic French brasserie menu design while beautifully realized still life photographs scream Japanese all the way. Check it out in person and don’t forgot the tofu…
Category: Digital
The art of the email
Barneys New York | Of course, when you are hawking designer duds and the world of luxury, it is a bit less challenging to create communications that are both effective and easy on the eye. Barneys New York has a long history of distinctive and renowned retail marketing. Under a completely new management team, there has been a much warranted focus on e-commerce and email marketing. Emails, all are consistently formatted with the site’s navigation bar anchoring the header. Individual efforts feature unique photography or typographic layouts that push new wares, events or supporting promotional videos. Always clean, well written along with the critical call-to-action. S H O P N O W…
Express yourself
Selfie animé. (ol-art)
Watson, your personal shopper
In need of some retail therapy? Soon you’ll be able to bring IBM’s Watson along. As the cognitive technology behind the Expert Personal Shopper app in development, Watson will be able to help make smarter buys based on one’s preferences. Like an uber-clued-in, trend-savvy sales associate that fits in one’s pocket, only without the attitude or high pressure sales pitches.
Promoting an appealing opportunity
Kellyco@work | THE BLAKE (brand identity, naming, advertising, web design, graphic design, sales promotion, content development). Created brand identity and integrated marketing program to assist developer and sales staff in selling luxury rental apartments. Designed and wrote sales materials and website promoting building and apartment amenities as well as lifestyle photography to communicate the benefits of the coveted location to younger upscale target audience. Created advertising campaign to launch and support sales efforts.
Physical + Digital
Seeking innovation? Look for the intersection of physical and digital worlds.Take, for example, Tesco supermarkets in South Korea. The company wanted to increase sales without creating more stores. Tesco understood that Koreans work long hours and have little appetite for shopping at the end of the day so they created virtual grocery stores at subway stations. These virtual stores, shelves and all, are projected on the walls of subway stations. To purchase items, shoppers simply go to a Tesco app on a smartphone and scan the projected items’ QR code. When purchases are completed, the order is delivered to shoppers’ homes shortly after they get home from work. The Tesco app was downloaded 400,000 times in one month after the launch and Tesco skyrocketed to number one in online sales in Korea. Simply, wow…
Different ideas at different stages of maturity
“You have to be patient with yourself and find new ways to persevere in the face of external skepticism. Having a pipeline of different ideas at different stages of maturity keeps you going.” — Suparna Bhattacharya, Senior Technical Staff Member, IBM Research, Inside The Inventive Mind.
Site Spotted: IBM
IBMblr. Big Blue on Tumblr. Go figure. You’ll certainly find all types on Tumblr. From the cute and clever to the impressively philosophical and artfully prolific. Increasingly, business and brands are joining the fray. IBM looks to celebrate their long legacy of innovation with IBMblr. “IBMers are a pretty humble bunch, so we wanted to mainly just celebrate the inventors, and the joy of inventing,” said Sam Mazur, creative director at Ogilvy, the agency that worked on the Tumblr. IBMlbr is meant to be mostly targeted at techies, but also designers, business people and anyone else who is curious and wants some new ideas and information for their own creative processes. Diverse, easy-to-digest, frequent lighter content dominates the effort. We applaud both IBM and their incredibly smart and creative partners at Ogilvy for showing us and the rest of the business community how to think both strategically and creatively. Hopefully, more to come…
On a lighter note
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Republican critics of Obamacare rose up in anger today, claiming that, after two months of fixes, the healthcare.gov website is now “unacceptably fast.”
Leading the howls of protest was the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who accused President Obama of designing a website that operates at a “blistering, breakneck speed.”
“With pages loading in milliseconds, this website is insuring people before they know what hit them,” Rep. Issa charged. “Clearly, this is what the President and his team had in mind.”
Additionally, Rep. Issa said, at such high speeds “it is questionable whether this website is even safe for consumers to use, particularly the elderly.”
The California Republican said he would call for hearings this week to investigate the dangerous new velocity of healthcare.gov, telling reporters, “If anyone can slow this thing down, it’s me.”
Online retailer positioned for the hipper guy
Site SPOTTED. Oki-Ni is a global, London-based men’s apparel retailer, featuring both established brands and progressive designers. Extraordinarily high on the hip factor, the company and its site have progressed into a lifestyle brand featuring engaging editorial, edgy photography and an impressive “mix series” showcasing some of the biggest DJs. The site itself is cutting edge with just the right mix of stylish layout, motion and a spanking clean sense of product display and e-commerce functionality. The site launch video (from last year) is a great promotional effort to support the company’s innovative image. Great all around brand and digital presence (especially lovin’ the sneaker lineup)…
