Tag Archives: Design

Have you met the folks at the KontentCreative?

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Because if you haven’t, you should! They are not just yet another branding and design company in Vancouver. These people have a long history in the design industry, doing projects for big lable companies and now they have teamed up and started a new company in a really cool spot in Gastown on Water Street.

We’ve always believed the best way to make friends is to be a friend! The KontentCreative team did just that and upon launching their blog they sent out a list of 5 simple questions to all their contacts and after collecting the feedbacks they made a blog post about every participant. Here is the one about us!

And we are more than happy to return the favour by writing how professional and skilled these people are when it gets to design and branding. Here are some bad iPhone pictures from our last visit to their studio. Perhaps next time we better show up with better cameras ;)

So here is to James Wallace, Jessica Wakeman, Guy Steuart
Christopher Dallin

Vancouver is looking forward to your innovations and success stories!

Website: kontentcreative.com

Blog: kontentcreative.com/blog/

Twitter: @KontentCreative

Gastown, 23-Apr-09

James Wallace (KontentCreative) this man is my hero. He has designed more websites than anybody that I know and he has won serveral design awards.

Gastown, 23-Apr-09

Rastin Mehr (rmd Studio) I am not taking a nap, perhaps Ash (peerglobe) could work on his timing when he takes a picture

Gastown, 23-Apr-09

Ash (Peerglobe Technology) I’ve returned the favor by taking a bad picture from Ash :p

Social Graphing Models used in the Social Networks

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Showboat Swingers

Modern social networking applications use a Social Engine at the heart. Older Social Networking websites such as MySpace.com may not have such a clean cut architecture, however the core of the system sort of behaves more or less as a Social Engine does.

A Social Engine is in charge of managing people profiles, search, privacy, messaging, notification, requests, and most important of all Social Graphing.

Social Graphing is just a fancy technical name for the relationship among the people  described as “Friends” or “Contacts”, in other words it is the “Network” in Social Network. It is the reason that people join such a websites so they can be perpetually in touch with each other and stay informed about each other’s activities.

Currently there are two models of social graph implementations in the existing social networking websites:

  1. The Lead, Follow, Mutual Model used in the more modern systems (Twitter and Digg) due to its more flexible and generic nature.
  2. The Enforced Mutual Friend model which is more stiff and specific. It was used in the earlier social networking websites and some of today’s websites such as Facebook are still stuck with it.

We are about to explain these models, and please keep in mind the best social graphing model is that one that is Most Flexible and Most Generic in the same time.

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How does diversity bring more security?

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Imagine a neighborhood where all the door locks come from the same manufacturer. Once the bad guys learn how to break one lock, they’ll be able to break every lock in that neighborhood. (Hey that looks like most condos in Vancouver!)

Now if half of those locks came from two different manufacturers, that means the thieves have to learn two different ways to break those locks. Now imagine if different door locks were using five, six, or seven different technologies, eventually it would be much more difficult for the thieves to rob the entire neighborhood, even though they could still cause partial damage. Partial damage is always better than having the entire neighborhood exposed to the break-in threats.

The same analogy can be used in other ways, for example houses come in different shapes and forms so thieves have to come up with different plans or use different types of ladders to climb up and break-into those houses. Using different material to build houses possibly introduces further challenges too.

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Engineers vs. Architects

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An Engineer often starts with designing and building a machine or structure, and then plans on finding ways to integrate it with the people’s lives. Architects, on the other hand, start from outlining the user needs and experience, and plan on designing a machine or structure that caters to those needs.

Firenze, Italia - Santa Maria Del Fiore

Great architecture doesn’t always mean great performance. Great engineering and performance don’t always mean user friendly. There has to be a balance of the two, and that’s one way to find out how well an idea has been executed.

When I was a university student, for a Software Engineering project we would often start from designing the database which is considered to be the core DNA of an application software, and then we would add piles of code and the user interface (UI) on top of that. The result was something more or less functional but something that only a computer engineer could appreciate! That approach worked because as students we couldn’t afford losing marks if the software didn’t meet the requirements.

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