BrainFuel

Okay, so the other night I visited a Seattle’s Best that was inside a Borders Bookstore here in Phoenix. I ordered a small mocha and thought about their recent rebranding.

Over at Brand New, 46% in a poll agree that the new logo is a “dumb move.” Which is interesting to me, considering how much I liked it when I saw it in-person the other night. I suppose it’s the old-world charm of their old logo that people miss the most. The new branding however probably frees up their design team to explore a lot of new directions they could not have gone before.

I must say though, that their new web site is rather cool looking. The colors they chose are new and modern, and have a pastel quality. I like the interactive components, and their “coffee level” concept. That’s new, and I haven’t seen that before.

The funny thing is they’re owned by Starbucks, which also recently redid their logo.

I’d say the one thing I don’t really care for, is the rounded font they chose for their logo. And why did they rotate their logo on their web site? It’s a good logo that didn’t need to be rotated.

Other problems I see, are the curious lack of a clean URL structure for sub pages (no URLs at all, actually on most), and a frankly mysterious structure to the sub pages, apparently all designed but with little text.

According to Seattle’s Best, this is their first rebranding in 40 years.

A Modern Eden is a cool little design firm with a few iPhone applications… based around cute drawings of animals. Very nice layout, clean and bright colors and simple language.

Whoever designed the web site for the Desert Botanical Gardens did a very nice job. It’s nearby the Tornado office, as well, and I’m thinking it would make a sweet excursion some time soon for the team.

Budweiser has an interesting visual layout for their ‘age-check’ screen. I’ve never seen anything like this before, so wanted to share it.

The web team for Southwest.com deserves praise. Look how beautiful and usable their web site is! It’s amazing. Especially when you begin to compare it to the American Airlines web site (or most of the other airlines, for that matter).

“We have a ‘strategic’ plan. It’s called doing things.” — Herb Kelleher, founder Southwest Airlines

Maybe that’s their secret. They do things.

But in all honesty, their web site keeps getting better. Three years ago they started down this path towards having a nice site, and they’ve been refining ever since.

I don’t ever eat McDonalds, but tonight I ran across their web site and have to say it’s really nice. I love the navigation bar, and the intuitive roll out menus. That, and the amazing photography almost make it look healthy. Hah, not even close.

The Hawaii Convention & Visitors Bureau has produced an amazing travel guide for Hawaii called GoHawaii.com. I’m considering a trip there this fall, and this site has been very helpful for learning about the state. Where to go, and what to see. Kudos to them for the nice site.

Wolfram Alpha is unlike any other search engine. Because of this, searches you would normally do on another standard search engine don’t always work. They’ve got a really nice example that suggests how to search, and gives you a way to see how it works. Nice job!