Importance of design in every day world

An interesting statement came from the president of world’s famous food chain, McDonald: “People eat with their eyes first. If you have a restaurant that is appealing, contemporary, and relevant both from the street and interior, the food tastes better.”

This follows new McDonald’s strategy to win further share in consumer market by leading a way through modern designs of their stores. More on this here.

I applaud them for it and am impressed to see once again that company that is on the top of the game does not rest its case but constantly pushes itself to even higher standards.

The strong and public recognition itself - design of products and environments is important to humans - is a fantastic news for a designer like me. Living in London, in a creative hub of Europe and an important design centre of the world, I do not need to fight an ignorance that design is not important very often, fortunately. However, it always pleases me to see that design has been publicly acknowledged once again and by a company that seemingly does not have much in common with design or advertising at all.

Another company that does a great work in promoting high-quality designs and thus training an ordinary public in appreciating well designed products is, of course, Apple.

People can love these companies or hate them. But if you are a designer, you simply must stand up and applaud them.

New Apple MacBook Air

Apple has just introduced a new MacBook Air.

This ultimate portable laptop is a work of art on its own.

What I wanted to highlight today is a new addition to Apple’s homepage: http://www.apple.com/uk/

If you open the page up, you will notice that for the first few seconds, the whole browser screen goes black and all you see is just an image of the new Apple MacBook Air.

It is a small touch and some might find it a bit over the top but I would actually place a bet that this effect will become quite main stream and we will see it more and more on various websites in the days to come.

iPhone OS 3.0 SDK

Apple introduce the new iPhone OS 3.0 Software and with that also the new SDK, which is a Software Developer Kit for iPhone.

SDK allows developers to use all advanced features of iPhone mobile as well as its new operating system.

I have to admit, I have been captivated by the Keynote presentation and am hooked up: I would love to try to develop my own application for the iPhone!

If you too are developing for the iPhone and/or have some ideas for new applications, drop me a line!