Coexist Culture

Coexist Hits the Links

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 08:18:37 PDT

Sun. Nature. Relaxation. Giant metal clubs. These are the great things about golf. Coexist decided it was time for a break and that golfing was the way to go. Seeing as no one could really play the game we decided it was best for us to do a scramble / best shot. Apparently a few people lied about their lack of skill. The level of play ranged from 300 yard drives to hitting balls backwards. This difference didn't deter on the overall outcome of the event. Sunburns for all. Maybe sunshine isn't such a good thing for people who sit on computers all day long.

We had a blast and showed that Coexist is multi-talented. The winning team was only 4 over par. Pretty impressive for a bunch of computer geeks don't you think?

Spring
2008 Conference

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:06:00 PDT

First we let Ohio State check us out. Now we turned the table and invaded Ohio University in Athens for the Spring
2008 technology conference.

Headlining the event was Eric Meyer, a renowned CSS voice who spoke on the benefits of controlling page styling by hand. Sessions were also given for Flash, Flex, Air, Podcasting, Accessibility and Usability.

As expected, we came back with a few new ideas and new contacts. The conference was a steal at the low prices they charge. Let’s keep that part just between us though; we don’t want to give them an excuse to join the other conferences at 1K a pop.

If you didn’t get the chance to attend this year, check out their site and hopefully we’ll run into you at next year’s event.

A Visit from Ohio State

Tue, 20 May 2008 07:50:00 PDT

Last week we had a visit from The Ohio State University's Department of Industrial, Interior, and Visual Communication Design.

The Design 514 "Graphic Production" course has been attending various businesses related to the design industry for the past 9 weeks, with a focus on the world of print design. Clearly, the world of design is much larger than the printed page.

Coexist partners Christian + Dan took it upon themselves to provide a glimpse of the interactive design world from a production perspective—what exactly goes into all that we do?

Of course, all of this couldn't be crammed into a 2 hour visit—nevertheless, hopefully we were able to spark interest in the minds of the student design community.

Adobe Flex's its Muscles

Thu, 15 May 2008 06:22:00 PDT

I recently had the opportunity to explore the Adobe Flex framework and although it's really just Flash on "component" steroids, I came away impressed. Novices and experts alike can build rich web applications with ease in just a few lines of Flex code. What really had me impressed was the fact that Adobe opened up the source to the free SDK, and based their design of the Flexbuilder application on the widely popular Eclipse IDE. The one downside is that the components themselves aren't easily customizable, so more advanced users who want to create visually pleasing applications will have to devote a little "eye candy" time before deploying their code.

Follow this link to the Adobe website if you want to learn more about Flex. Also check out the Vector Magic website, which is quite possibly the most amazing example of a Flex application you will come across today.

Sad

Tue, 06 May 2008 11:16:17 PDT

Forward thinking, progressive design, fully committed to balancing environmental issues and sustainability with business objectives — all of these could have been used to describe nau.

I don’t get it. Great ideas are always supposed to prevail.

Their stores were revolutionary, their online experience was beautiful (if a bit clunky to shop but I'm hyper-critical in this area) and their product delivered. It was lead by savvy, former execs from companies like Patagonia and Nike.

What went wrong?

Micro-experiences with food

Thu, 01 May 2008 10:44:51 PDT

When you work in a microagency 24/7 - there is nothing better than jumping outside of your world and into another that fully appreciates what it means to live by a "micro" mindset. Just last night, my wife and I decided to visit the culinary stylings of Dragonfly - a local vegan restaurant that prides itself on offering a place that embraces agriculture, artists and gourmets alike.

As you pull up to the restaurant located just south of the Ohio State University campus, you will notice a small garden in back that has been meticulously set up to grow all sorts of vegetables and herbs - most of which you have probably never heard of or even seen before. The garden’s completely maximized use of space, no bigger than a typical 2-car garage, can feed up to 50 diners with the efficiency of a full on corporate kitchen. Obviously I can't help but draw parallels with the Coexist studio and our approach to efficient collaboration and I begin to blush.

Once an order has been placed, the very personable waiter teases diners with a mini salad-type of appetizer aptly dubbed "micro-greens" and the presentation of color and ultimate pay-off with a burst of unexpected flavors makes me smile as I contemplate the beauty of this micro-offering. The subsequent plates that follow are amazing in both originality and taste and it just becomes so crystal clear as to why the micro-approach from dining to creative agency makes so much sense.

I am sitting in this quaint, yet perfectly sized restaurant and everything speaks to me in this moment - from the host and waiter to the seating to the artwork on the walls to the dim lighting to the ambient music piped through at the perfect decibel - this is the way it is supposed to be. Intimate, personal, original, inspiring and fulfilling.

A very peaceful hour and a half later we get our check as well as a complimentary order of micro-beignets and again I reflect on this wonderful evening. Wow - what a difference a focused micro-approach provides. Whether it be some strange mushroom dish that I can't wait to tell others about or that new online demo we just launched that must be shared with others - the micro way is the only way to go.

Mac vs. PC - Tales From The Cave

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:30:00 PDT

It’s often easy to overlook the inner computer workings of a company. At Coexist, we have the pleasure of mixing the designers’ Mac machines, with the Windows PC that the developers use and keeping the battle lines drawn between the two camps. You can’t do this on the server side because at some point the design will need to be developed and moved into the Windows environment.

We, like all growing companies need to upgrade from time to time and the mixed environment we live in can cause some unexpected challenges. One such challenge came to light when we began to move our data to a new location and wouldn’t you know it, Windows didn’t want to handle some of the Mac files. Naturally, we as creative developers found a small shareware application to do the trick.

Why can’t Microsoft and Apple Coexist better? If a small software company can create the fix to a compatibility problem, why can’t the multi-billion dollar Microsoft? It may sound like I’m only blaming Microsoft here, when I really put the blame on both parties. It’s easy to point out the examples of Apple being stubborn, but I don’t believe they’re at fault for this one.

To Apple and Microsoft – Neither one of you is going away, so let’s step up the effort to make those of us who live in a mixed world lives easier!

A Coexist Buffet

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 12:10:00 PDT

I'll admit it. When I first heard the term "buffet table," my stomach got happy. A Coexist buffet?! Food, particularly when it is free, is always a glorious occasion. I'm still in college—so I'm allowed to have absolutely no modesty regarding this subject.

After coming to realize that "buffet table" did not involve food in any form, I began to settle down. Thanks to the handy wiring skills of our team, the move happened overnight.

It's been over a week now since we switched all of our desks into this "buffet" desk layout. We're still working out the details, like a fully surrounding cork-board, but so far, I dig it.

We'll photograph the space when it's finished, with or without a giant honeyglazed ham.

Shades of green

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:57:03 PDT

We all know that we need to reduce our footprint on the environment. We also know that it feels really good to let the world know that we are doing our part to help initiate change for the better.

Here's the catch - I keep reading traditional newspapers that inform me that Fortune 100 companies are now creating and distributing "sustainability reports" in addition to annual reports. In a quick recap - trees were cut down to create a newspaper that informed me that the corporate world is now cutting down more trees to create brochures that highlight how many trees they are not cutting down.

Hmm. Maybe we need to develop different shades of green to determine how environmentally friendly everybody really is.

I bet you think those digital annual reports are looking pretty sexy now.

Candidate Aesthetic Comparison

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 13:31:00 PDT

As an interactive designer I am always intrigued to see how businesses and people brand themselves on the web. This is especially intriguing with political candidates. The visual aesthetic of their web presence is critically important to their public perception. There is a huge difference in the way the remaining candidates have chosen to portray themselves. So let's examine what these people are saying with their websites (on their visual quality...not their politics).

John McCain
John McCain has a dark and ominous site complete with a black and white flag. The eye is overwhelmed with a cluttered information structure that serves only to confuse the viewer. On the positive side the identity system is successful in relaying his military experience. His tout area feels very fresh and portrays the candidate in a positive light. However, the tout doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the site.

Hillary Clinton
This site is so busy and disorienting, I have no way of interpreting the messaging. The background is trying to be soft and feminine while the site retains none of those qualities and feels overly aggressive. I believe it was supposed to be an intentional juxtaposition but it only serves to magnify the lack of clarity. Also the image of the candidate is eerily missing from the site structure.

Barack Obama
Simple, clean, refined, and sophisticated. The background feels like it is relaying his message of change and hope and is also connected to the rest of the site. The open space makes the viewer feel more relaxed and allows the viewer to navigate the site unencumbered. The color is both rich and soft and the rotating tout area always feels fresh and beautiful.

I think these sites are a major component in the presidential race. They prove how important aesthetic quality are in defining the viewer's perception.