On productive fallacies The concept of “branding” is the holy grail of marketing. Unfortunately, I regularly get a mild bellyache from the ubiquitous, hackneyed sets of advice that pour out of this grail. …

How to explain »design thinking« to outsiders? Try using these pop culture mockups to mirror the process If you are somewhat familiar with the basics of UX Design, I would like you to read this text as a short and fuzzy kind of usability test. What will we be testing…

The »user« is a means to reflection that is empty and overloaded at the same time, blurring the traditional differences between reception, production and consumption. Its complexity grows tremendously, forcing the design process to treat the user as its ground zero of knowledge. The »User« is an empty formula. He/she…

This is the second part of a series about digital products, their similarities and differences to traditional communication media. Part One: Medium and Commodity. Turn on the TV and you will find yourself immediately in the program. We dive into the sound and pictures of one giant, never-ending broadcast that…

This is the opening of a small series about digital products. Its aim is to map connections and break-points between traditional audio-visual media and their digital successors. Keywords: medium, communication, consumption, user, flow, tool, strategy. From reception to broadcast: twenty years ago, the »new« of new media was their ability…

How to clear up? People don’t know anymore. Piling up things, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be a problem, if we take a look at our parents’ and grandparents’ attics and basements (if they are lucky enough to own a house). …

In his book Goods: Advertising, Urban Space, and the Moral Law of the Image, Italian Philosopher Emanuele Coccia reads advertising as a collective imagination of The Good Life. What are the benefits of that perspective? Take everything at face value and act accordingly. Advertising sucks, that is the mild description…