Successful brands must be both memorable and expandable.

Mint Analytics is the epitome of this requirement. It has both a memorable name (http://www.haveamint.com), and a website analytics package that is tailored to that name.

Why is this brand successful? It invites consumer memory by engaging multiple senses at once.

First, the brand name gives the website a natural color scheme. Mint green is an enjoyable color scheme.

The word “Mint” conjures up color: that particular pastel shade of green. There’s also the taste of mint. Peppermint. Wintermint. Mint gum. Minty breath. There’s freshness and newness. And then there’s the fact that mints are where money is made. That conjures up an entirely new set of images.

The word Mint is a Lego brick, because it forms the base component of a dozen different words. Because of this, it also invites memorable modules and extensions. In other words: expandability. Peppermill is the name of one extension that’s been programmed into the software. Some of the other module names include Prank, a module that provides Page Rank data, and Crushes, like the peppermint kind.

A service must be packaged in a user-friendly format. The user experience of Mint goes above and beyond my standard user experience with Google Analytics. The brand invites me to enjoy a delicious environment while I view statistics, and this makes doing web analytics faster and more profitable to my employers.

This was a fun experiment. Pretty simple and quick to do. Used some layer effects, text warps, rounded corner rectangle under shapes, happy fonts, and a color scheme. Maybe 10 layers in all.

What is synethasia? A condition where the wiring of one’s sense organs is crossed and confused. This allows subjects to see sound and hear color. Literally.

LSD has been known to induce the temporary effects of synethasia in those who take it. Hence, the tagline of the image, “Synethasia today, gone tomorrow”.

I. Design Geology

Fig 1: My workspace.
I work from library pieces to build media. I utilize fonts, swatch collections, and webdings. The Illustrator document functions as a left-to-right geological period. In this way, the overall design and its constituents can be mapped as a function of time. Team members can see the design in all of its interactions. Ideally, the most fully developed concepts will appear on the right side of the page, in the ‘Holecene’ or current period of time.

Fig 2: Fonts

When I was little I had Legos. Now, I have digital bricks. I like them. I have a lot of them. I collect them whenever rationally feasible.

Fig 3: My Research.

I was trained in sociology/anthropology. I also studied communication, advertising, geology, and history. I understand the value of combinatorics, efficiently, and group collaboration.

Fig 4: My Environment.

In architecture, there’s the idea that a building makes the interaction. In creative work, the surroundings either increase or decrease the ability for one to create.

I believe in working at a big table where everyone can see everyone else, and getting excited about work by involving each other in the development process as it happens. I follow the antics of the coworking collectives in cities like New York and Denver.

Fig 5: Blogging.

I began Amber Extraction because I needed more experience writing. Since I keep a drawing journal every day, I felt that keeping a blog journal every day would develop my ability to interface with the writing surface of the net.

Amber Extraction is a blog made from my private blog. It serves as a digital repository for my own thoughts and ideas about the future of the net. It tracks methods of design and productivity, as well as trends and ideas. Additionally, it applies Anthropological theory to better explain what’s going on today in a theoretical and historical perspective.

Fig 6: The Spirit of the Times.

What is the spirit of the times? It’s RSS feeds as actual food, glowing shiny icons, striped backgrounds, logos with reflections, orange, light blue, white, black, and tan interfaces.