I’ve closed up shop and become what the Japanese like to call a ‘salary man’.
Well, not exactly. In early 2008 I started working with Jonathan and David Marcus on a ‘little shoe project’ which eventually turned into Superkix.com. Since then we’d been throwing round the idea of working together exclusively, and late last year we decided to go for it. After all, they were my favourite clients by a mile.
This is a big change. Even though the actual work is much the same, the situation of dealing with a dozen or so clients (essentially bosses) on a handful of simultaneous projects is very different from working on a single large project. As a product designer, I’m working alongside former Design Director at Vimeo, the one and only Jack Zerby. Jack’s an OCD designer with mad skills. He’s also the mastermind behind the interface on HiiDef’s other recently launched product, Flavors.me.
Jack Zerby gives some insight into customization on Flavors.me:
When Jonathan and I first discussed the design customization on Flavors, our first instinct was to offer various themes.
After giving it some thought, I realized that I didnt think themes were the best way to allow the user to create something unique.
The whole goal with Flavors is to give people a tool to create something personal, something special, something different.
That can’t be accomplished when you give people options like “Duckhunt”, “Steampunk”, or “OMG Jonas Brothers Theme”.
The argument for themes comes from the fact that most people aren’t designers, so if you give them the final product and allow them to slap their name on it, it becomes theirs.
My argument is that people may not be designers, but they are creative.
Using Layers instead of Themes
I came to a solution when I broke down elements of my own design process.
- Wireframes
- Fonts
- Colors
- Images
I obviously dont do any of this in any particular order, but every time I sit down to design I have to manipulate these elements to achieve my desired result.
Using this guide I created 4 sections of design options in Flavors.
- Layouts
- Fonts
- Colors
- Backgrounds
This allows the user to arrange these various elements in millions of different combinations, yet still staying within specific design contraints.
Design Controllers
There are many different approaches to design controllers.
1. Top drawer (via Tumblr)
2. Bottom drawer (via Squarespace)
3. Sidebar (via Soup.io)
4. Draggable (via Flavors.me)
I tried a ton of different approaches and finally settled on a draggable design controller.
The reason why I chose this approach
- If you’re designing and you want to move the controller away from where you are focusing.
- If you’re done designing and you want to hide it to see what the final presentation will look like.
- Doesnt bump your screen up/down or shrink the actual workspace.
Some things Id like to improve:
Colors: A better way to show a user which color affects which area of the page. I tried highlighting the area affected when mousing over the color swatch, but that was really distracting.
The Flavors brand started as a tree.
That’s because at the time, I didn’t really care about the brand, I just wanted to start working on the product.
What does a tree have to do with the word Flavors? Nothing…but it looked cool.
Jonathan and I work well together because he knows when I’m half-assing it. So after he called me on it, I ditched the tree and started at square one. (no pun intended)
Baskin Robbins has a lot to do with flavors. All 31 of them.
Everyone knows the colorfully delicious grid of ice cream behind the counter of a Baskin Robbins.
I started with circles.
That looked way to girly, as my wife Marisa told me from the other couch.
I tried squares, starting with a single square at 150px x 150px.
After that I realized I was on to something. We created this site to allow people create something unique. Every flavor at Baskin Robbins is unique, BUT it’s still ice cream. Every page on Flavors.me is unique, BUT it’s still within boundaries. (My sister Kayla just said she likes that line)
So I colored up these bad boys…
Now I had a grid to work with. Every page was born from this grid. I usually don’t use really strict grids (I forget most of the time), but this time it became such a part of the brand, I had to use one.
First the homepage…
Then finally the settings page…
I wanted a personal homepage that was better than my friends, and figured it would be more fun to think up something that could automatically assemble sites for everyone, rather than just me. During the first Facebook application craze, when every single company in the web ecosystem put life on hold to develop clunky widgets for closed, proprietary platforms, it dawned on me that API-level integration was key. I was eager to prove that the open web was infinitely more powerful than AOL, redux.
Q: What is your design/service philosophy?
The idea behind Flavors.me is that simple systems can produce complex patterns (A New Kind of Science, Wolfram); simple in that layout (wireframe), color palette, background and typography are common variables, and yet each site can look and feel uniquely custom. We employ a very layered approach, like a designer would in Photoshop or Fireworks.
Q: Where do you see the project heading in the next six months? The next two years?
In the next 6 months we need to add support for almost every 3rd-party service such as - LinkedIn, YouTube, Foursquare, Wordpress, etc., fetch data in real-time (we are about 10 minutes delayed for beta), and solidify our infrastructure. In two years we hope to establish Flavors.me and its sister property, Goodsie.com, which is similar to Flavors but for retailers, as the ultimate resource for creating an online presence, whether for informational, vanity or commercial purposes.
Q: What is the greatest challenge to your success?
Ensuring the service works like magic. Before starting the project, I said that if after 15 minutes a user couldn’t create something that felt magical, we were toast. Fortunately, I think we managed to build a system that can do it in 5 - 10 minutes. Aside from communication services like Skype or Facebook, very few services offer the immediate satisfaction and instant gratification that Flavors does. We struggled with the immediate wow factor at Vimeo (where I was VP / GM). Flavors is unique in its ability to add instant, real value to your entire online experience.
Q: What is the one thing you need to get to the next phase of the project?
There are simply no obstacles in our immediate 3 - 9 months plans. We are well capitalized and our development process is only getting more fine tuned as we go.
I’ve had an affinity for sneakers ever since I can remember. When I was really little, my father owned a Stride Rite store in a strip mall.
I was always so proud of his ability to size up someone correctly. Ill never forget the time when my brother, dad and I were almost held up at gun point for trying to return a defective pair of high-tops to the hottest sneaker joint in downtown San Diego, back when there were no gas lamps and those streets werent quiet as friendly. In high school, I was amongst the first to brave the newest patent leather Jordan’s in a real basketball game. I met my roommate and one of my closest friends one summer in New York because of a shared love for the tragically squeaky Air Max ’95s. And while Corporate America had a strong preference for straight laces, spreadsheets and Ferragamo’s, I eventually settled back into a vanilla pair of Nike dunks from 8th Street.
Sometime last April, awestruck by my brother’s gaudy and garrish ode to sneakers in his closet, we decided it would be cool to try and build the world’s greatest sneaker expo. We envisioned assembling one pair of every sneaker in a MOMA-inspired web setting. After picking up the recently expired Superkix domain for $7.99, we were off to the races, building the start-up dream. Along the way, Rob Morris (my hero in so many ways) graciously agreed to bring our idea to life, and John Bresnik tirelessly built the whole kit and kaboodle.
And so, after months of hard work, we are excited to present Superkix, the only search engine for authentic sneakers. Superkix makes it easy to find sneakers currently for sale at retail and get a sneak peak into what is coming next from Nike, Reebok, Adidas and other popular brands. Users can search sneaker inventory by size, updated continuously from 35+ leading online retailers and discover new styles set to debut using a consolidated and ranked feed from the 20+ most authoritative sneaker bloggers.
If you dont like sneakers, someone you know likely does, and would certainly appreciate knowing about our fantastic new site:www.superkix.com - search & discovery for sneaker lovers.
