Google Inbox app heads to tablets, Firefox, Safari

It's still an invitation-only app, but Inbox is opening up beyond the confines of smartphones and Google Chrome.

Google is expanding the reach of its latest email application onto more platforms.

In a blog post Thursday, Google said that its Inbox email app is now available on the iPad and Android tablets. Previously, the app was restricted to the iPhone and Android smartphones, though it was also available via the Web. You can download the iPad version from Apple's App Store and the Android version from Google Play.

And in another change, users can now access Inbox via the Firefox and Safari browsers. Previously, Inbox was restricted to Google Chrome.

Unveiled last October, Inbox is a new type of email program for Google, separate and different from Gmail. Instead of placing your messages into the traditional folders, Inbox displays each email message based on categories, or bundles. Emails deemed important may be placed into one bundle in your inbox, while those related to specific areas, such as social or travel, are placed into a different bundle. The aim is to have the software organize all of your email so that you don't have to.

That means you're relying on the smarts of Inbox to determine how individual messages should be categorized. And that's always going to be a hit-or-miss proposition -- some people may like the way Inbox works and others may prefer a more traditional email client.

One thing that hasn't change is the way you get Inbox. The app is still available on an invitation-only basis. You can download it, but the app won't work without the invitation. To request access to the app, you have to contact Google at inbox@google.com, and the company promises to let you in as soon as more invites are available.

Nokia: the rise and fall of a mobile phone giant

From making rubber boots in a pulp mill to leading the world in mobile phones, Nokia failed to meet the challenge of the iPhone

Nokia admitted it was slow to react to the rise of new devices such as the iPhone. Photograph: Dave Thompson/PA

Nokia can trace its roots back to 1865 and a pulp mill in south-west Finland. A century and a half later, Nokia's handset business is being bought by Microsoft for €5.44bn after a troubled few years for the mobile phone giant. Here we track Nokia's rise, and subsequent fall.
1865: Mining engineer Fredrik Idestam sets up a wood pulp mill at the Tammerkoski Rapids in south-western Finland.
1871: The Nokia name is born, inspired by the Nokianvirta river on the banks of which Idestam opens a second mill.
1898: Eduard Polón founds Finnish Rubber Works, which later becomes Nokia's rubber business, making everything from rubber boots to tyres. Nokia wellies are still made today, though not by the telecoms company.
1912: Arvid Wickström sets up Finnish Cable Works, the foundation of Nokia's cable and electronics business.
1967: The official merger of Nokia Ab, Finnish Cable Works and Finnish Rubber.
1979: Nokia creates radio telephone company Mobira Oy as a joint venture with leading Finnish TV maker Salora.
1981: Launch of the Nordic Mobile Telephone service, the world's first international cellular network, and the first to allow international roaming.
1982: Nokia introduces the first car phone – the Mobira Senator – to the network. That same year, the Nokia DX200, the company's first digital telephone switch, goes into operation.
1984: Nokia launches the Mobira Talkman portable car phone – a chunky piece of kit but a start.
1987: Nokia introduces the Mobira Cityman, the first handheld mobile phone. It weighs in at 800g and comes with a price tag of 24,000 Finnish Marks (about £3,400). The Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, is pictured using one to make a call from Helsinki to his communications minister in Moscow.
1991: The Finnish prime minister, Harri Holkeri, makes the world's first "global system for mobile communications" call, using Nokia equipment.
1992: Nokia launches its first digital handheld GSM phone, the Nokia 1011. The Nokia president and chief executive, Jorma Ollila, decides to focus on mobile phones and telecommunications, and the process begins of selling off its rubber, cable and consumer electronics divisions.
1994: Nokia launches the 2100 series, the first phones to feature the Nokia Tune ringtone. It goes on to sell 20m phones worldwide in the 2100 series. Nokia's target had been 400,000.
1998: Nokia becomes the world leader in the mobile phones market.
1996-2001: Nokia's turnover increases almost fivefold from €6.5bn to €31bn.
1999: Nokia launches the Nokia 7110, a phone capable of rudimentary web-based functions, including email. It uses the Orange network to access the internet using Wireless Application Protocol (WAP).
2000: Nokia does a deal with music publisher EMI enabling users to choose their favourite tunes as their ringtones.

Where to Find Inspiration for your Logo Design

Whether posted to a web page or plastered to the side of your building, a logo provides an immediately recognizable image for your customers to connect with, if you’ve hit a roadblock, we’ve got just the thing.


Complementary shapes, colors, fonts and images, a good logo also imparts a message without delivering a full sales pitch, designed with a wide range of scalability; enabling it to be printed at any size and, in some cases, even without color. But unless you specialize in graphic design, it can be tough to come up with ideas that cut to the core of your product or service. Here’s how to get started.

The 5-step process of logo design

The best logos are those that contain a concept or “meaning”, often revealing the unique aspects of your specific product or service. So when creating your logo design, focus your attention on these five points:

1. Keep it Straightforward

Keep it simple and straightforward while incorporating something unexpected or unique. In doing so, you’ll create an image that is recognizable, versatile, and, most importantly, memorable. You’ll find 80 great examples of design simplicity at Hongkiat.

2. Make it Unforgettable

As mentioned above in the principles of simplicity, it’s crucial for your logo to be memorable, and simplicity helps this. So to create that unforgettable logo, select an easy-to-read font, limiting yourself to your company name and a short tagline (again, keeping it simple). Then select an image that represents your core offering, paying particular attention to the images often associated with your line of business, and strive to use that imagery that is unique. At Coroflot, you’ll find an endless selection of examples that do exactly that.

3. Make it Timeless

If you’re like most business owners, you’ve got a plan for the future—and that plan involves growth. So when designing a logo, figure out where you plan to be in 5, 10 or even 20 years. This insight can guide you in the elements you select and keep you from designing something that relies on trends (which aren’t timeless). If you’re designing a logo for short-term use, trendier elements can be highly effective. But if you need your logo to work for years to come, it’s best to stick with colors, fonts and artwork that you know will still be relevant over a longer period of time. The Web design blog at 1^st Web Designer provides a wealth of inspiration, featuring great timeless logos.

4. Make Sure its Adaptable

From your business card to your website, your logo should look good at any size. One of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to ensure your logo will look good big or small, is to create it using a logo maker like the web-based platform provided by Free Logo Services (or some type vector creation tool). Providing your finished logo in the vector file format, you can easily bring your logo onto any surface without having to worry about pixilation or any similar losses of quality.

5. Make it Relatable

Are you creating the right logo for the right customer? Your core product or service offering should define the key images and text that go into your logo, as well as the style. For example, if you sell real estate by the beach, bright colors and the image of a palm tree would be a place to start. In the same way, a commercial real estate firm would include tall buildings, darker colors and other more formal elements. As an example, consider some of the brand-specific themes you’ll find at fearlessflyer.

What are some services or places you find great inspiration for your logo design? What are some of the key ideas you focus on when developing them?

Marketing and Design: A Love Hate Relationship

The best advertising is a clean, simple idea that is beautifully executed. But what the best ads will not tend to reflect are the back-room battles that go into making your average ad or campaign. At the heart of the turmoil is arguably the frisson that tends to exist between marketers and designers. While marketers have tangible, measurable objectives, designers often have ‘visions’. This disparity between ways of working, thinking and existing will inevitably lead to tension. A happy medium of compromise can usually be reached to achieve the final product – but usually not without the odd diva tantrum, showdown or (at the very least) passive aggressive email. We look at this classic love/hate relationship in more detail. Examining where the tension comes from and what can be done to diffuse it…

The role of the marketer

Marketing is all about working within specific constraints, which can be financial, time-related and resource-dependant. Marketers also tend to limit the scope of their briefs so that specific demographics are targeted without too much ‘wastage’. The science of marketing tends to be grounded in research and works towards a measurable goal, which is usually economic. Essentially it’s a rigorously structured framework geared towards delivering results via a positive customer experience.

The role of the designer

The job of creating that customer experience falls to the designer. They are limited by the same constraints as the marketer. However, comparatively they will be less tuned in to the tangible results of a campaign and more interested in aesthetics. The best designers will include themselves in consumer research; in their pursuit of the aesthetic they should always keep their focus on meeting the needs and expectations of their audience.

Within an agency…

In an agency context the marketer will tend to be the direct point of contact for a client. As such, should a client demand changes to design work (after all, the customer is always right), it will be the marketer who passes these change requests along to the designer. The phrase ‘shooting the messenger’ can be painfully relevant in situations like this. Changes are sometimes not well-received by designers, but on the flip side change requests can be poorly communicated by marketers. Welcome to the perfect storm.

Lost in translation

Amends are usually the kindling that can result in blazing rows between marketers and designers, especially if they are not well-communicated. Marketers can often make the assumption that designers are blinkered by creativity and lack of practicality. While designers can resist amends on the grounds that the amends in question compromise the quality of the work they have produced. Flexibility and justification are required by both parties, as well as debate. As a word of warning though, teams should try to structure discussions about amends in a way that ensures they don’t stray into unproductive stalemates. Having a neutral arbitrator can be a sensible idea.

The back and forth

It’s wrong to suggest that the working process between marketers and designers has to flow from the former to the latter in a linear fashion. Less linear, hierarchical structures can often lead to the best results. Indeed, design can often inspire marketing rather than simply take direction from them and a designer’s freer way of thinking can unearth alternative ways of meeting a target. Rather than thinking of design and marketing as yin and yang, it’s more constructive to consider that both are focused – or should be focused – on understanding the user consumer they are targeting.

Celebrate differences

As well as recognising that design and marketing inevitably share a common goal, a positive way to look at their working relationship is to celebrate their differences. Some experts argue that if you want to keep design fresh, unrestrained and creative you should unshackle it and isolate it from the rigors of the marketing bods. It’s good to ensure designers are clued-up when it comes to market research but going too far down this path with undermine the specific skills of both specialties.

Five ideas for improving the way designers and marketers work together:

1. There is an enormous amount of value to be mined from both disciplines bringing their points of view and expertise to the table at the start of a project.
2. Ensure all feedback and amends are well-documented and not passed along in a way that is casual or open to misunderstanding. It may feel over the top, but should arguments arise it’s good to be able to look back at the dialogue that’s led to them.
3. Streamline feedback to ensure the process is as pain-free and efficient as possible.
4. Justify all feedback with tangible learnings, examples and precedents where possible.
5. Enable both parties to play to their strengths and celebrate different points of view as integral to the finished results.

12 Paradoxes of Graphic Design

These 12 graphic design paradoxes were designed and written by Tobias Bergdahl and it's great advice for young graphic designers out there. Each piece has it's own paradox followed by an important message. Check it out!

For more from Tobias Bergdahl visit www.tobiasbergdahl.com

Which Paradox did you like the most?

21 Gorgeous Mobile Navigation Designs

In this day and age, technology governs almost every aspect of professional, social, and everyday life. It’s everywhere we go, and for the most part it helps keep us connected to whatever we consider important. We spend more time communicating via backlit screens than we do face to face, and whether it’s healthy or not, we are tied to our gadgets, primarily our mobile phones.
From iPhones, and Samsungs to Androids and the Windows Phone, most us are carrying a smartphone everywhere. Despite the inherent convenience of smartphones, your phone’s utility is only as good as the interfaces of the apps themselves. While design isn’t always everything, a functional yet beautifully designed navigational menu is the keystone of a smooth, intuitive app experience that gets you the content and information that you need exactly when and where you need it.
Below are 21 of these masterfully-​​designed mobile interfaces.
Trekd

Marko

Rovane

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