A garage door on West 21st Street, NYC. Photographed and posted with my iPhone.
Category: Design
I’m a freak for mobile these days. One only needs to take a look around and see that the number of people using the web on their mobile devices is growing exponentially. And if one is smart about his or her web presence, the mobile audience is of utmost importance and cannot be ignored.
I spend a lot of time with my blog, and it is imperative to me that I provide the optimum experience for my visitors on mobile devices, whether they are reading my text, looking at photos or using the multimedia that I integrate into my web content. I built my blog with WordPress, my platform of choice which enables me to add “plugins” to the blog to make it do just about anything from video integration, photo gallery management, contact forms, spam protection, e-commerce, or whatever. My absolute favorite plugin, however, is the WPtouch plugin from a company called Brave New Code.
WPtouch Pro: my Home page, the menu, and the "share" screen, enabling the mobile visitor to share the content.
The WPtouch plugin automatically converts my WordPress blog in to a gorgeous interface that is specifically designed and optimized for touch-based smartphones. It automatically detects that the visitor is coming from an iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, Blackberry, or Palm Pre/Pixi. What’s best? The standard WPtouch plugin for WordPress is absolutely free, with some nice customization options in the admin panel. Just install it into WordPress and activate it. The plugin does the rest.
WPtouch Pro
But if you’re anything like me, you want more options and more aesthetic control. Going further, the boys at Brave New Code developed a premium version of the WPtouch plugin called WPtouch Pro. The pro version enables me to customize just about every aspect of the plugin, giving me the ability to provide the best user experience I can for my mobile visitors. Among the astounding features, my favorite is “Web-app mode,” which enables user to bookmark my site, get a “GH” app button for the iPhone screen, and then use it like a fullscreen app. Thrilling.
Futureproof
WPtouch is also “futureproof,” which means that it is “built to handle newer technologies, including newer WordPress versions.”
The pro version is just $29 per website, $59 for 5 website licenses, or $199 for unlimited website licenses. Very reasonable, I’d say.
My hat is off and my gratitude is extended to Brave New Code partners Dale Mugford and Duane Storey for building the smartest, most useful, most thrilling and thoroughly-supported WordPress plugin I’ve ever worked with. I’m spending more and more time on WordPress for myself and for my clients, and this plugin is a total game changer.
If you’re serious about your website, then you need to be serious about your mobile visitors. And if you’re working with WordPress, get WPtouch. You’ll be glad you did. (And if you’re reading this on an iPhone, you see what I mean.)
My latest launch – Bagabones – has made its merchandise available at one of my favorite local shops: Domus on West 44th Street between 9th and 10th Avenues.
Bagabones (http://bagabones.org) is a small 8-item startup shop that sells incredibly cool bags, tees, tags and bears. The site is built and powered with WordPress using the WP Commerce plugin. We launched it today.
Massimo Vignelli's 1972 Subway Map
The new New York City Subway Map is getting a new face… inspired by its old face.
In 1972, Massimo Vignelli introduced his beautiful new map, which featured the now famous and still used Helvetica Neue Bold typography, and stylized renderings of New York City and its environs served by the subway system. From what I understand, the map was met with a lot of criticism because it wasn’t literal. Central Park didn’t look like Central Park. Manhattan wasn’t the exact shape of Manhattan. Distances between two points weren’t exactly accurate. Blah, blah, blah. It didn’t look the way NYC looks from a satellite photo, and people bitched.
Then, in 1979, the city quelled complaints with the version that we’ve used until now. The distance between stops was accurate and the shape and proportions of the boroughs was topographically correct, satisfying the literalists.
The new map, which will be introduced in print form this summer and is now downloadable as an iPhone app called the KickMap, was originally designed in 2007 by Eddie Jabbour in his spare time. It’s beautiful.
Eddie Jabbour's 2010 Subway Map
If you look at the design, it is clearly influenced by Vignelli’s original 1972 design, complete with stylized renderings of borough shapes and more whimsical angles indicating turns in a track line.
Unlike our current (1979) map, Vignelli’s 1972 map was understandable and legible. It wasn’t the cluttered headache we’re currently working with. The new map makes a refreshing restoration of clarity, legibility and simplicity, enabling the user to merely “scan” the map to get one’s bearings, as opposed to the optical surgery we need to do on the current one. Jabbour also thankfully preserves Vignelli’s signature use of Helvetica Neue Bold.
Jabbour used much more vivid colors than Vignelli to indicate water (blue) and parks (green) and much less taupe. For my own taste, it’s a little too pre-school technicolor, with the blue of the water dominating the design. In terms of any color that pops, I think the star of the show should be the color of the actual subway lines. But overall, I think it’s a nice improvement and a nice nod to a true design icon.
I’ve already downloaded the iPhone app, and I’m excited to see the new map in print. As Massimo Vignelli once said, the designer’s life is a fight against ugliness. More ugliness fought and beaten here. Thanks to Eddie Jabbour.
Download the KickMap for iPhone
Download the KickMap for iPad
