It's less than a year since Apple went open source and there are already 100,000 applications and counting but which ones are any good and which are really awful; Forbes.com have taken a look at what makes a successful app and somewhat unsurprisingly, it's how genuinely useful they are.

One of the app success stories of the year was created by Danika Landers, a 29-year-old Web designer. She walked into a public toilet and was so disgusted by the appalling conditions that she decided to create a web site fully dedicated to helping people find clean bathrooms: SitOrSquat.

SitOrSquat, which features user-generated recommendations of the best public toilets in the US, was such a hit that Procter & Gamble, maker of Charmin, signed the toilet paperbrand as a sponsor. It then rolled out a new SitOrSquat mobile application this year. With 400,000 downloads, the free app has become one of the most talked about among consumers and companies,  and is one of Forbes CMO Network's top 10 branded mobile applications of 2009. 

Read more.... 

Today is Black Friday in the States, so called because it's the day that retailers ledgers traditionally moved from red ink losses,  in to black ink profits. And this Black Friday has gone social with many retailers using the social web to promote offers and deals. Retailers including Target and Walmart, and department store groups Macy's, Kohls and J C Penney have used Facebook pages to publish the 'doorbusters' and 'early bird' deals, usually advertised in newspaper inserts on Thanksgiving, the day before Black Friday

Best Buy has over a million Facebook followers and they have been promoting deals on the social website; they have also used Twitter to promote their 'daily deals' in the shopping days leading up to Christmas.

 Read more.... 

Photograph by Luke Hayes. 

A new exhibition entitled "Less Is More - The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams" opened on the 18th of November at The Design Museum here in London. Dieter Rams was head of design at Braun, the German consumer electronics manufacturer, and emerged as one of the most influential industrial designers of the late 20th century by defining an elegant, legible, yet rigorous visual language for its products. The exhibition will showcase Rams’ landmark designs for Braun and furniture manufacturer Vitsœ, examine how Rams’ design ethos inspired Braun’s entire product range for over 40 years, and assess his lasting influence on today’s design landscape.

Top row: Dieter Rams and some of the products he designed for Braun in the 60's. 
Bottom row: Johnathan Ive's work for Apple.

 
Dieter Rams Ten Principles of good design:
Good design is innovative.
Good design makes a product useful.
Good design is aesthetic.
Good design makes a product understandable.
Good design is unobtrusive.
Good design is honest.
Good design is long-lasting.
Good design is thorough down to the last detail.
Good design is environmentally friendly

The exhibition runs until the 07th March 2010.
Design Museum | Shad Thames |  London SE1 2YD 

I won't even try and take credit for this, but we've recently been working with a writing group called (rather originally) The Writer, to help one client to re-engage people by binning the corporate language, looseningup and starting to write more the way we talk...

But I wanted to share a good question (and even better) answer that that came out of this.

Q.

"The way I talk and the way I write are completely different. I can't use the words 'and' and 'but' to start a sentence, that's just bad grammar..."

A.

So to dispell a few literary myths I will hand over to The Writer who had this great response...

Oneof the most persistent misconceptions about writing in English is thatyou're not allowed to start a sentence with ‘and' or ‘but'. Utterrubbish. In fact, sometimes they're the only words that will do – theycan give your writing pace, drama and oomph. And writers have beendoing it for hundreds of years.

But you probably knew thatalready. Maybe you're thinking ‘that's all fine by me, but my bossthinks it's wrong. How do I persuade someone else that it's OK?'

Show some examples
They're everywhere. But if you need one in a hurry, try:

‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.'
Genesis Chapter 1, The Bible, King James version
(In fact, the Bible can't get enough of it: 33 of the 35 sentences in Genesis Chapter 1 begin with ‘and'.)

‘Manyof these missions, including MoonLite, are far from assured. And thereis no shortage of people suggesting we're better spending moneyelsewhere. But who can fail to be inspired when they look up at theMoon on a clear night?'
BBC news website, 19 July 2009

‘Thecoalition's leaders, at least, seem to have grasped that it must behavenot as an occupying army but as a partner, whose aim is to build up thelocal forces that will ultimately ensure Afghanistan's security. Andsoldiers and civilians are beginning to understand that development aidcan benefit local people...'
The Economist, 17 October 2009.

Set a challenge
Ifsomeone says they get annoyed by sentences starting with ‘and' or‘but', ask them to check their newspaper. They'll have been happilyreading them for years, without even noticing. We only tend to spot theands and buts if we're asked to look at a bit of writing critically.

Today(5th November 2009), we skimmed through the Times, the Daily Telegraph,the Financial Times, the Independent and the Economist. Every singleone of them has sentences and paragraphs starting with ‘and' on almostevery page. And we lost count of the number of sentences that startedwith ‘but'. There were hundreds – three on the front page of theGuardian alone.

And if they still don't buy it?
Hey, there are still some people out there who think the world is flat. You can't win 'em all.

(For all things wordy you can find The Writer at www.thewriter.co.uk)

ART & COPY Trailer from ART & COPY on Vimeo.

We blogged about the Art & Copy film back in April of this year and see that D&AD will be bringing the first screenings of Art + Copy to the UK on Friday 27th November.

ART & COPY reveals the work and wisdom of some of the mostinfluential advertising creatives of our time - people who've profoundly impacted our culture, yet are virtually unknown outside their industry.

Exploding forth from advertising's "creativerevolution" of the 1960s, these artists and writers all brought a surprisingly rebellious spirit to their work in a business more often associated with mediocrity or manipulation: George Lois, Mary Wells, Dan Wieden, Lee Clow, Hal Riney and others featured in ART & COPY were responsible for "Just Do It," "I Love NY," "Where's the Beef?,""Got Milk," "Think Different," and brilliant campaigns for everything from cars to presidents. They managed to grab the attention of millions and truly move them. Visually interwoven with their stories, TV satellites are launched, billboards are erected, and the social and cultural impact of their ads are brought to light in this dynamic exploration of art, commerce, and human emotion.

More info here on screening date and location.