Non-designers are always amazed when I explain the concept of “one in ten” for my business plan. Its quite simple.

• For every 10 “potential leads” I get; one will turn into a qualified client. For the record, a “qualified” client is one that is; a. reasonable in their expectations, b. interesting, c. meets with some of the contraints for the type of work I like to do.
• For every 10 qualified clients I get; one will actually sign a contract. For the most part, this is anyone who is unfazed by my fees and is genuinely enthusiastic about their project.
• For every 10 signed jobs I get; one will actually proceed to a point where the design is fully developed. The best clients here are those motivated by deadlines, product releases or impending life changes.
• For every 10 designs that go that far; one will be built.

So if my math is correct… (more…)

The thing with practicing architecture is that it takes a long time to see the results of your work. This project is a recently completed effort. Its still missing some landscaping, but is essentially finished and is being well lived in.
My business plan is pretty explicit with my design intents. I prefer to pursue projects that have a more modern sensibility. I made an exception in this case because of the enthusiasm and genuine interest that the clients expressed. I have the luxury of picking and choosing clients, and in this case I suspected that the clients would be interesting, receptive and generally a pleasure to work with. I was right on all counts and this project turned out to be a lot of fun. (more…)

Although not really breaking news, we’re happy to announce that the redesign for the Klocwork.com website has gone live.

Our first iteration of the site was released about a year ago. It integrated a refreshed and more evocative brand imagery that suited the nature of the company’s business. This current design is a refinement of the key themes initially developed.

Klocwork provide “static analysis” software. Essentially, they have a series of tools that automate the identification of defects in software code. The have found a niche in helping companies that produce significant amounts of code (multiple millions), commonly measured as “LOC” or “lines of code”. Their name is actually a reference to that measure (KLOC being a “thousand lines of code”). This fundamental aspect of their business was the core to the brand identity developed by KDA. Previously, Klocwork has been frustrated by agencies representing their “metier” in binary code images (meaning 1′s and 0′s). The truth is that “source code”, the actual machine instructions, is very different from the “binaries”, or the compiled code. We printed out some source code and meticulously cut it up and photographed it in our studio. Funny side story; a developer discovered some Klocwork marketing material in a coffee shop in Europe, he quickly recognized that the source code represented in the image was something he had written for Mozilla as part of an open source endeavor. Weird eh? The beauty of this insight (the lines of code thing) into their brand was that we were able to leverage the idea into numerous variations that were consistent and compelling. For the first time in the life of the corporation, the brand image was a) relevant, b) consistant across all their marketing endeavors and c) compelling to their customers and staff.

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I was showing my son Google Street View, which was recently unveiled in Canada. Like every other geek in Canada, I immediately navigated to my house to see if I got caught outside in my bathrobe. Unlikely, since I’m sure I would remember the combination of being outside in my bathrobe and having the Google car go by. Turns out it was a dull, early spring, daytime photo of my street. My son, not picking up on the fact that it was evening (and now dark out), immediately asked to zoom into the house to see if he could catch us looking at the computer (and by extension…looking at Google Street View).  It was this 8 year old’s expectation of technology that really blew my mind. It wasn’t a miracle enough that this corporation took sequential photos of every street in North America ( and most of Europe), but here, he expected the photos to be in real time and infinitely detailed. Now, I’m sure that feature will show up in the next couple months, but until then I’d like to postulate on some of the reasons why Street View is so compelling. (more…)

On Monday October 5, Adobe announced LiveCycle Enterprise Suite 2 (ES 2). Livecycle is Adobe’s enterprise offering for document-based workflow systems. Part of the suite will include a new portal-like technology, called LiveCycle Mosaic, for creating custom workspaces where employees can view contextual data from back-end systems in a series of windows, or “tiles,” on their computer screens.

We are pleased to have been associated with the design and development of this ground breaking product. Kevin Deevey Architect Inc provided user experience design consultation for the product. KDA worked as a part of the development team leveraging the Agile Development Process. (more…)