Marina City and the Old IBM Building

So as we went up and down the river, our tour guide described the basic details of each building including who the architect was, the type architecture and how it fit into the history of the city.  Within the first 10 minutes of our tour we pulled up to the old IBM Building and Marina City (where I happen to currently live). The old IBM building (see on the right in the photo) is a clear vision of modern architecture, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Meis believed in a simple philosophy, “form follows function”. “Form follows function” simply means that functional usability should come before creative design. This was fascinating because as a Creative Director I’ve followed this philosophy for years. With each of his buildings Mies spent a great deal of time understanding how his buildings would be used by people rather than the creative framework. Most of his buildings use industrial steel I-beams, conformed with glass at perfect right angles. In fact when describing his buildings Mies referred to them as “skin and bones”.

Right next door to the old IBM Building you may recognize Marina City.  They are two corncob-shaped, identical residential towers that sit on the river at 300 N State Street. The architect,  Bertrand Goldberg was a student of Mies.  Ironically Goldberg believed that nature has no right angles and nor was it necessary to put right angles into his buildings. As a resident of Marina City I can assure you there are almost no right angles in either building.  What makes this so interesting is that the Marina towers are circular and each unit is the shaped like a slice of pie.  My bedroom is a small slice and my living room is a big slice.  This made arranging my furniture a big challenge as I am sure it is for all residents of Marina City. Being such a believer in “form follows function” I can’t help but wonder how much Goldberg consider this functional problem?

So here comes the question.  Should form always follow function and are there any occurrences in creative design when function should follow form? Post your comments.  I would love to hear everyone’s opinion.

On our side, we’re proud to present such a comprehensive ecommerce site. Douglas has long been known for his incredibly large stock of purifying products, and translating that to the web in an organized and functional way was no easy feat. We think our presentation of his huge inventory maintains the tradition of friendly service, while also serving as an informational resource, just like the Douglas staff would in person at the store. Along with the new site, Ocean also provided Douglas with their new logo, brand identity and brand character.

And congratulations to our intern Lindsay for completing the daunting task of data entry with ease and a smile on her face! Check out the online store of Douglas Allergy Relief below, or at their new site. Read more about the launch here.

Happy Friday!

To get your weekend started here are some links that have our office buzzing this week.

1) Mashable highlights the importance of appearing generous in one’s online strategy. This does not necessarily mean giving things away, but rather having an open brand that rewards interaction. This generosity needs to be expressed by celebrating your customers and sharing more about yourself. 

This goes for web design as well, having a clean and user friendly interface definitely makes brands appear more generous and inviting. Rounded logos and bright color schemes definitely portray generosity as well. A great example designed by Ocean: Earth Mate Lighting. 

2) Another from Mashable, CrowdEye is looking to challenge Twitter in real time search. For us SEO geeks, this means paying more attention to real time information as more web traffic finds websites from real time conversation, rather than more traditional web channels. 

3) From the Econsultancy blog, Bing’s traffic has been rising steadily since its inception two weeks ago. Microsoft has placed a lot of capital into a television marketing campaign that definitely seems to be generating buzz. With the rise of both real time search and Bing, Google’s exclusive hold on the search market may be eroding slowly. Knowing Google however, innovation to squash its competitors should be on the way. 

4) Another post from the Econsultancy blog, looks at the redesign of a furniture website and how it has translated in to an extreme bump in sales. Great example of how good web design can improve your business exponentially. 

Alright enjoy your weekend, and feel free to share your thoughts on the linked articles!

It has been a busy week here at the Ocean Agency. Here are some interesting creative web design links that our web design firm will be thinking about this (hopefully) sunny weekend.

It was widely speculated that Microsoft would unveil their new search engine, Bing today. Alas, they have been completely overshadowed by Google who unveiled the first looks at their “Wave” platform today.

Wave will combine email, instant messaging, live editing of documents and online photo and video sharing all on one platform. This has the potential to really shake up the internet world. This is a developing story that is definitely worth following. TechCrunch has a full analysis and interviews from the Google developer conference. A preview of wave can be viewed here.

Beyond this huge news in the internet world, here are some interesting links that deal with creative web design:

1) Darren Rowse, who runs problogger.com, writes on SitePoint about sneeze pages for you blogs. Most blog posts go unnoticed once they leave the front page or recent stories tab. A sneeze page is a great way to show off your archives.

2) From PSD/Tuts (Photoshop tutorials),  has 45 step by step photoshop tutorials to create interesting websites. While you should always leave web design to the expert design firms, these tutorials are great for creating simple individual web pages, or to give you or your business ideas of how you want you web page to look.

3) For those developers out there, here is a great article on SixRevisions.com about how to speed up web page response times. Really helpful tips.

4) From Designer-Daily, 11 ways to increase your RSS feed subscribers. Great suggestions to increase your visibility as a blogger, writer or designer.

5) Lastly, for those who enjoy Hulu, but want a more television like experience, TechCrunch reports that Hulu is launching a desktop application. This means that you can now browse hulu with you computer remote. I recommend hooking up your laptop to your TV with an HDMI cable and enjoying hulu on the big screen. A new labs section also launched on Hulu today, so be sure to check out the new features as they go live.

Enjoy your weekend!

Now, it’s easy for potential customers to find what they need– the properties are easily searchable by development, location, price or other attributes. The new site has extensive photos and videos, so users can really experience the property, too.

The Magellan experience has also been refocused on the online community of Magellan owners, renters and potential buyers. You can read the blog of Magellan’s Senior Vice President of Sales, Leila Zammatta, or see what’s going on from the Magellan side of things by checking out the News blog. You can catch up with the Magellan team on Twitter and Facebook, right from the homepage of Magellan Sells. If you’re interested about what’s going on in Chicago, take a look at the Chicago Life section of the site, where you can find events and entertainment throughout the city.

To make information easily accessible for potential buyers and current clients, Magellan invested in a renewal for their web presence, and our web design company was proud to be involved with the largest development company in Chicago.

For senior citizens in Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and Illinois, you can visit the new site to get the information you may need about your medicare supplement plans. As the Medicare and insurance markets change with the administration, Medicare Supplements For You can help you understand the changing policies and choose which plan is best for you.  With one simple step of filling out a contact form, you start the ball rolling. Medicare Supplements For You will find and compare the best options for your supplemental plan, and supply with a quote of the lowest rates available.

Mayhem Studios gives recommendations on how to better brand your Twitter presence with a customized background– check out the do’s and don’ts.

Web Designer Depot talks branding, too, and shows us 50 great circular logos. Check ‘em out. We do love NASA and Wordpress!

Smashing Mag talks cool (but maybe impractical) business cards. It’s good to have a stand-out card, but don’t get this attitude.

Finally, advice on pleasing clients is always good. Vandelay Designs gives some good tips on understanding your client from the get-go.

Have a safe Memorial Day weekend!

First off, Smashing Magazine came in with two convincing and helpful articles– one on how to increase conversions, and one on how to publicize your content. Combine the two, and you could have a very successful website!

A List Apart reminds us that a huge part of a creative web design being well-received is communicating with your clients. Set clear goals, stay organized, and finish on time are some of the tips they give.

Web Designer Wall shows all the great uses of hover– it’s not just for changing text color anymore.

Graphic design is still the basis of great web design– check out this video of the design process from Think Vitamin.

That’s all we have this week! Keep your eye on the design until next week.

We redesigned  iTrees.com’s website and identity to better reach their business goals. The site itself needed to provide an easy-to-use shopping platform for the merchant’s unique offerings– selling large trees online and then delivering and installing them at your home. The branding and messaging of the new site needed to make users confident about purchasing trees online, while also communicating accurate details about the products and services provided. Through an eye-catching design and a friendly feel, the navigation of the site is now simple and clear, making shoppers more confident in their landscaping decisions.

Check out the new site’s design below, and shop mature trees here!

PayLeap’s unique offering is that they bundle the services of a merchant account and payment gateway into one simple and affordable solution for merchants, developers and resellers. We helped them out by creating a logo and brand message that conveys the simplicity, trustworthiness and advantages of their service, while also implying a greater level of professionalism and customer service than their competitors.

Our designers created a navigation on the site that seamlessly targets PayLeap’s three main markets and represents the distinct benefits offered to each group. Information on the site is presented with the transparency that PayLeap prides itself on.

Having a confusing or poorly designed website is a direct reflection of the kind of customer service you offer, and you don’t want to mess that up. Ensure that your current site gives the message you want to show to first-time and returning customers.