Ada Blackjack

I'm happy to share some of my latest branding projects I started about 6 months ago in collaboration with Verena Michelitsch.

We had the opportunity to re-design the whole brand identity for Ada Blackjack ranging from the logo to typography, packaging, website & more.

Ada Blackjack are handcrafted bags, made in Barcelona by Ivonne Schippers. The brand is inspired by Ada Blackjack, an Inuit woman who was the heroic and sole survivor of a two year expedition on the uninhabited Wrangel Island in northern Siberia. 

Ada Blackjack stands for resilience, endurance and bravery.
You can find the full project here or view the case study on Behance

Thank you for reading.

More images can be found on my website here

MinimalMonkey

I'm happy to finally share with you something sweet I collaborated on with a friend of mine a couple of weeks ago. Stephen Burgess & his personal blog. I usually don't publish any work on my blog, but in this case it's a more personal project with Stephen I really enjoyed working on.

If you haven't seen it yet, you can visit MinimalMonkey.com to see the great work he did on his own minimalistic blog. (try out all the little interactions & hidden mouseovers) To celebrate his launch I did a few posters/artworks (see below) based on his new Identity. It's a simple, bold & fun identity at the same time.

Thanks for reading
Tobias

Critique needs Context

Something I wanted to talk about over a long long time already, Feedback & Critique.
The main point of this subject are (web)designers in general, especially focused on online plattforms where we have the ability to give & receive feedback/critique on our work such as Dribbble, Behance or the most recent one Hunie.

Those sites are not primary for getting constructive feedback or critique, even if some of them claim that this is what they're for. I've seen so much people complaining about that the critique they receive is either not constructive enough or just completely off. Don't set yourself wrong expectations.

Critique needs context, online as well as offline. Just that online it's even harder to transport context so your peers can understand & give you constructive feedback.

Especially in the fields of Design, Art & UX the feedback & critique you receive online is usually out of context and only helpful if it's just about certain techniques used.

When a friend shows me a design & asks for feedback I usually ask a lot of questions to get more context about the design decisions behind in order to give constructive & helpful feedback. Otherwise I can only say "Oh yeah, I like/dislike it" or "Oh, this pixel is isn't aligned man" because I have absolutely no context and understanding of the briefing behind. My feedback is purely based on personal taste & my experience, and this is not a guarantee for being constructive.

It always depends on what kind of feedback/critique you want to receive. In some cases I even appreciate feedback that is completely out of context. But most projects have such a detailed briefing/background that you can't expect anything from just showing a work in progress screenshot, especially when talking about digital projects.

However, if you publish something online or offline, prepare yourself that people will criticize your work without even being asked. It's your decision to provide them with as much context as possible to get more constructive feedback out of it, or you just ignore it when it's just completely off.

You will always receive critique as soon as you put something out there and the great thing is that YOU have the power & context to decide what's helpful and what's bullshit. There is this book called "Ignore Everybody by Hugh MacLeod which basically brings it to the point: Ignore Everybody's bullshit and don't let other people bring you down, but at the same time don't make the mistake and run around with eye's closed. It's about a healthy balance, like always.

Context is always powerful, in lots of situations in life.

Re: Re: Sponsive Design — Part I

Responsive Web Design (RWD) discussions are cropping up all over the place right now and it seems like a pretty hot topic for Developers & Designers alike. However, most discussions focus on tools & techniques — and don't address the bigger picture. In this blogpost I'm going to write about RWD from a Design & User Experience perspective and will be keeping it very high level.

I will focus on large, content heavy, commercial projects, since small personal blogs or portfolios aren't so much of a big deal in this discussion and they don't serve as "best practice" examples, as is often misunderstood.

Treat it right

Responsive Web Design is a good thing, it's evolving, but it is still in its infancy. Our industry tends to hype up certain tools & techniques which is simultaneously both good and bad. It's good because it raises awareness and helps drive and define new standards. It's bad because we're getting hung up on these tools & techniques, forgetting WHY we are actually doing this, which brings me to my next point:

Be a designer

Be a designer who thinks first. Be a designer who creates real solutions for real people. Don't be a web stylist or developer who puts trends, tools & techniques over people and their needs. We need to stop thinking about pixels, grids & media queries as solutions to solve the bigger problem. We have way too many designers & developers right now who are living in a bubble — And I totally understand why — It's warm & cozy in here and we can easily get the recognition we want by showing off some fancy browser scaling shit (no offence). A designer should ask the question WHY in the first place, and not only once. There's a reason why we're doing RWD and more recently this reason has become shrouded by the content that we have arrived at a fully baked solution.

When a client asks for RWD, he usually has no idea what he's actually talking about. And this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Essentially he simply wants his service to work across a wide range of devices/viewports. That's it. It is our job to figure out how to approach the problem the right way and educate them in the process.
It's the same conversation we were having a few years ago when clients jumped on the "I need a iPhone app" bandwagon. It's our responsibility to educate them and tell them what they really need. We still have those conversations around RWD, Native Apps, WebGL, HTML5 etc. Let's be the ones who know our shit instead of just spreading buzzwords and hiding behind photoshop or a code editor.

Know your audience & goals

Whenever we talk about making an online experience accessible across a wide range of devices, we should dig a little deeper to find out who our target audience actually is. Building a responsive website just for the sake of building a responsive website is completely unnecessary. It will take a lot of time, cost a lot of money and will (if not planned correctly) negatively affect the relationship you have with your client due to false expectations.

A good mobile experience requires a design that has been specifically designed for mobile usage. The same is true of desktop experiences. Users on smartphones are using a website differently than they would on their desktop computers. They're even using it differently on their tablets. Knowing exactly what they are looking for on all these different devices is what we should find out first and then design around it. And I'm not talking about visual design. I'm talking about the content, the features we provide and how they can adapt and change depending on the context.

To the point

1. Content heavy and feature rich websites need more attention than just a responsive solution can offer. User needs and behaviours change depending on the device, so the content should always come first. Repositioning content & layout just doesn't cut it.

I would like to quote my friend JP Gary here who has another good point:

"...considering that the whole movement behind RWD was a response for sites to work on mobile devices (smaller screens), it does not really take into account mobile device limits, and you mention space/resolution, but download speed, and loading all the same junk as the main site is a huge disadvantage to a large complex site. "

"...most RWDs do cut away at the nav or image resolutions… but you are still loading the same amount of scripts and style sheets (if not a 'mobile.css' EXTRA style sheet). Sometimes RWD can lead to a worse even less optimized mobile experience then if there were just two separate builds."

So basically in most cases users get a much more rich experience from a well designed mobile website than a full downscaled site or responsive solution. (and of course we know that this isn't alway a decision we can make because of budget, time etc.)

3. In some cases, cutting content & features for the mobile experience may work, but users usually still want to be able to access the full site, and thus, there should always be an option to access it on a mobile device.

4. A lot of examples of RWD actually impact the user experience, providing an inconsistent desktop experience. When we scale the browser, the layout changes, content changes and the hierarchy isn't the same anymore. This is more confusing than helpful. Let's continue to experiment and push the boundaries, but we need to think a little more when a client next screams "...and it needs to be responsive". Everything we do should be well designed and thought through. Right now RWD feels more like a bandaid trying to kill two birds with one stone.

Conclusion

Let's keep on experimenting and pushing, but we need to think a little bit more next time when a client screams "...and it needs to be responsive". Who ever said "everything you do should be responsive" isn't exactly right. But everything we do should be well designed and thought through of course. Right now RWD feels more like a bandaid trying to kill two birds with one stone.

We largely neglect the initial user research — We fall into our old comfortable habits of starting with UX (however you want to define the UX part in your company/structure) without actually consulting the user or doing any research. This is the first mistake IMO and impacts the success of the project moving forward — This is at the epicentre of successful UX, not wireframes, or grey boxes with a slightly different navigation etc.

Since this topic is endless, I would like to write more about it in a second blogpost where I will focus more on actual examples. I had a hard time to include it in this blogpost since I just wanted to make you/us think a bit more about this topic instead of trying to cover every single potential project situation.

And to quote JP Gary once again:

"This is one of those discussions where I think everyone has an opinion. And that is the problem, or good thing, RWD is as much of an opinion as any other design choice."

Thank you so much to my friends Matthew Wagerfield (Senior Developer @Fi ) for adding some more fancy words to this blogpost as well as JP Gary (Tech Design Director @ThomsonReuters) for enhancing my post with your personal opinion & feedback from a more large scale tech perspective.

I would like to keep this conversation going on twitter and hope to see you again in my second Part of this blogpost.

Thank you
Tobias

Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working.

This article is inspired as well as a respond to "Inspiration is procrastination’s cousin" by  Steven Corona. It's about why Inspiration is a lie, kind of.

Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working.
Pablo Picasso

We're always waiting for inspiration as Steven said. We're waiting to get inspired to paint this perfect piece of art, to build the next big thing or come up with the next big advertising idea - Whatever it is, we're always waiting for inspiration, but we shouldn't

Inspiration is like love (I know, now it's getting romantic) - But try to read Steven's blogpost and replace the word INSPIRATION to LOVE - The whole article would still make (almost) perfect sense. Seeking for the perfect love is like seeking for the perfect inspiration. The harder you try, the longer it will take - It's like magic, it's luck.

Now you might say luck is not fair, some have more and some have less. Well, luck is more like an attitude. You might say you can't control your own inspiration or luck, but you can definitely enhance chances and put yourself in positions where inspiration & luck strikes you more often.

Steven said to just start working, there is no inspiration, or it will  just hit you while working. It's similar to what I wrote a few months ago about being "self taught" - It's a process, things just hit you while you're moving forward, but things can't hit you while standing still.

When talking about seeking inspiration we first need to stop seeking inspiration. This always involves a lot of risks since we're often work under pressure and we don't have the time to stop thinking about something we actually need to think about — Inspiration will usually strike when you're not forcing it to strike.

Let's just pretend Inspiration exists as a random pattern like in the example I illustrated below. When forcing to find inspiration (see 1.) my path is very linear/narrow and chances are pretty low to hit my inspiration spots, it might not take forever, but definitely a long time.

When I don't try to force inspiration my path is very random (see 2), I go for a walk, I go to the movies, I read a book, I play tennis, I have a whiskey... what ever it is. What happens is basically that I put myself in situations where I'm more likely to get hit by inspiration without even looking for it. Same happens when you just start working even if you don't even know with what exactly or what the goal is. (as Steven said)

I learned this a lot when participating in events like the Cannes YoungLions contest. You get a briefing and you have 24 hours to solve it. Usually you sit down and start thinking, you're waiting for the lightning bolt that will eventually hit you. After 24h of waiting nothing happened.

Imagine you get the briefing, and then you go for a walk, play tennis or do something completely else for 5-10hours - Or you just start working, moving shit around, but don't think about "the big idea" or inspiration.

The risk is, while working under a lot of pressure (24h), to calm yourself and just do something completely different with a solid trust in your instincts. It sounds more reasonable for us to sit down, try to force inspiration and get completely stressed out.

I mean, who has the balls to go for a walk when you know you have 1hour to solve something? Only the ones who know that they will get inspired after 30mins anyway and then they have 30min of productive working to get things done. Fortunately people who do this don't even think about getting inspired, but that's why they get it.

The perfect love will hit you in the least expected moment when you don't think about it at all. Same with inspiration or luck. The ones who try really hard will keep trying while the ones who don't try to force it will earn the fruits. It's a simple attitude.

PS: I'm also writing this blogpost mostly for my self, to remind me to take more risks and stop waiting for inspiration, stop waiting for the perfect moment or stop waiting for anything in general. Waiting sucks.

Thank you
Tobias

.Mail App Logbook

“The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience.” 

And we keep fighting the good fight, like warriors against Time and our own Impatience. Even though we know that it takes Time & Patience to achieve something great.

It's now exactly 5 months since we officially started building .Mail app. It's still impressive how much feedback & support we get, after 5 months I'm still getting a lot of emails every day - And we thank you for that!

We've been quiet & busy lately. We're working really hard to make this happen and in this blogpost I would like to give you a quick update to let you know that we're still alive and we're still working on .Mail.

Why is this taking so long?

Well, there are a couple of reasons for that (I keep it very top level) and the main reason is basically that creating an E-Mail client for MacOSX is harder than expected. It's a big challenge building an E-Mail client from the ground up. We knew this before, but we're passioned enough to just jump in and try it.

.Mail app started as a side project and still is one. There's currently basically a team of two people (Developer & Me) with some friends helping out here and there. There is no investment at all which makes it even harder to find good people who are not primary interested in the business side of things but rather doing something.

We have something, yes. But an E-Mail client is different than most other apps. Expectations are extremely high, not only yours but also our expectations on .Mail app.
Our main goal is basically re-creating something that other companies already did over a couple of years while learning and improving their product. (and I mean this primary from a technical standpoint)

Besides DotMail specific functionalities we need to deliver an E-Mail client that works at least just as good as Apple Mail app, Sparrow, Thunderbird or other clients (performance wise), otherwise it would be a step backwards. We just can't deliver something that isn't running at least at the same performance as the examples I mentioned above.

Almost everyone on this world is has Email, is used to it and has expectations higher than for any other app or service, which makes it extremely challenging.

Thank you so much for all your support & patience so far, we really appreciate it and we promise that we keep moving forward and as soon as we know any release date we will let you know.

If you want to offer your help, we would love to hear from you!
We're still looking for developers who're passioned about E-Mail  and have experience with building MacOSX apps and even some background with E-Mail protocols.

To stay updated follow me on twitter @schneidertobias or write me an email.

Thank you
Tobias & Robert

An Austrians guide to New York City

Inspired by my friend & ex-colleague Marcel's post on his Blog I wanted to do the same but more from an "Austrian/German" point of view - And obviously there's some irony involved as well.

I love being in this city and since I first visited New York with my girlfriend I learned so much and I noticed a lot of small things that are really different compared to Austria or Germany. Let's go!

1. Survive on the sidewalk

If you dont want to bump into other people all the time you simply apply the following rules. a.) Walk 2 times faster than you normally do and always walk on the right side. b.) Hold a "Latte to go" in your left and  your iPhone in your right hand. You can pretend to be on a call or just check your Tweets, you don't need to look at the street in front of you because people will automatically take care of you. It's like a magic trick. As soon as you have both hands free and you not look like in a hurry, chances are pretty high that you bump into people.
c.) Never ever stop walking - It's like a highway basically.

2. Smile at people on the street

Don't do that! You can do that everywhere but not on the streets or in the metro/trains. I did this in my first month because I was really curious about all the different people, but it's a really bad idea because it's impossible to get to your destination/goal on time. Strange guys will follow you, flyer distributors will love you and "BUY GOLD NOW" people are everywhere. Just apply the same rules as in 1. and you will be automatically protected. As a little side note: No one cares anyway on the streets, you can walk around naked and no one will notice.

3. Doors are strange

As Marcel in his blogpost already mentioned, doors are weird and you have to get used to them because they always open/close in a different direction as compared to Austria. Also locking or unlocking doors with your key is the other way around. In Austria you usually turn the key to the RIGHT in order to lock a door - In NY it's the other way around. I still have to get used to that but the logic behind this just makes no sense.

4. Fight for the train

The people in New York are so nice and polite all the time but when it comes to getting on a train (especially in the morning, and from Brooklyn to Manhattan) it's a totally different world. It's not that people are rude, they're just acting like professional machines without any emotions. And don't think the lady in her mid 80's right next to you makes a difference. I learned this the hard way after I wasn't able to get on 5 trains in a row and running late too often. But after you learned this you are almost enjoying it fighting for your place on a train.

5. Magnolia Bakery

Is not cool and not even worth trying. Sex and the City is soooo wrong!
(I never watched Sex and the City of course, just saying!!!)

6. Tip right

When you pay for drinks or food in Austria/Germany a "Tip" is always voluntary and usually not that much. (depends where you go and how much you liked it) The reason for that is that the "Tip" is basically included in Austria, like taxes. In New York it's not like that. So basically you should always pay a tip between 15-20% or more when you go out for dinner, drinks or even taking a ride with a cab. It's something I didn't expect  and I was happy that someone told me before the waitress killed me.

7. McDonalds

Please don't go there. Our McDonalds in Austria is like the healthiest food ever compared to the McDonalds in New York/USA. I went there 3 times and always felt really sick after it. Of course I usually don't go to McDonalds often, but in Austria it's definitely okay to go there and you don't feel like shit after it - The standards are different.

8. Buy water

Compared to New York we have the best tap/drinking water ever in Austria and you don't really need to buy normal water. I'm actually not sure if you can drink the tab water in New York, but even just smelling it I can't think of it. (they serve tap water in restaurants, I just can't drink it especially because I'm used to a really good water quality from Austria). You will definitely notice a difference if you're from central Europe. So make sure to always buy some water, even if it makes no sense because Coke is much cheaper than normal water.

9. Heating in apartments

To keep this short: I don't get it, the heating in most apartments in New York is just strange. You can't really control it and you will find yourself waking up in the middle of the night sweating like crazy (in Winter) because the heating goes full power. So it's either super hot or freezing cold in your apartment because it seems like most walls are made out of paper and apartments don't keep the energy for a long time. So don't worry, it's something you can't really control.

10. Hi, how are you?

When you go somewhere and people say "Hi, how are you?" instead of just "Hi" (like we do in Austria) they actually don't care. This is still something strange for me and you really have to get used to it. "Hi, How are you" is basically just "Hi" and you don't really need to answer it. And if you do, just say "I'm fine thanks, how are you?" - Then the other person will respond with the same and you can FINALLY start your conversation. Of course we have "how are you?" in Austria as well, but usually you will only ask this question to good friends and usually only if you care. In NY/US this is just part of saying "Hi". I'm just saying this here because I want you to prepare and don't have a lot of awkward moments like I had - haha.

To sum up: New York is just amazing! The list above are just the things I noticed pretty quickly compared to Austria or Germany which I found pretty funny (:

If you experienced something similar I would love to hear what you think on twitter. You can follow or tweet me here.

“To design something really well you have to get it. You have to really grok what it’s all about. It takes a passionate commitment to thoroughly understand something – chew it up, not just quickly swallow it. Most people don’t take the time to do that. Creativity is just connecting things.

When you ask a creative person how they did something, they may feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after awhile. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or have thought more about their experiences than other people have. Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. They don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions, without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better designs we will have.”

— Steve Jobs

Being self-taught

The last couple of weeks I got a lot of emails from people asking me the same questions. "How do you become self-taught? Any advice? Any books you can recommend?" etc. Let me answer all those questions in this blog post.

First of all: I think "being self-taught" is sometimes a bit overrated, especially nowadays. Being self-taught isn't the opposite of going to university. I've actually never studied anything, but I think  most of the students are self-taught as well, even if they learned something the "official" way.

You never say "ok, I'm going to be self-taught now" instead of studying something, going to school or whatever. Basically everything starts with curiosity. If you're curious about something and you're willing to learn more about it, everything happens by itself.

An example

I always was curious how computers, my TV or even a microwave worked when I was a kid. And the first thing I did was taking an old TV or computer, take everything apart down to the last detail until I had a lot of screws and little electronic parts on my table. And then I started to put everything together again and see if the devices were still working. Most of the time they didn't , that's why I repeated everything again and again. The nice thing about this is that you learn a lot while doing it, it's the process that teaches you how it works. You'll also generate your own little "problems" in order to solve them. After some time you've learned which electronic part does what and that's where the magic comes in. Because now after you understand the basics, you try to manipulate it in order to create something new.

It's like this example you've probably already read about. It's only about connecting the dots. But in order to connect the dots, you first need to collect them. I got my first dots when I took old pieces of hardware apart — then I connected them.

Everything starts with curiosity and YOUR first step. Just listen to your instincts. My instinct told me that I should take the devices apart, look how they work, and then put it back together — No one told me that. When you force yourself to this kind of process, everything else happens on your way.

That's why I started as a computer scientist first because I was curious about it, then moved into trying to be a software engineer (Man, I was bad) because I wanted to learn how to program my own piece of hardware. And then I started being a designer because I was always spent more time in designing my software and make it more useful... and so on.

To be honest, I can't recommend any books because there is just no thing as "I want to be self-taught" - That's the least thing you say when you're actually self-taught. It's not a decision you make upfront, it's just describing the process once you're already into it. Most people I know who studied something are also self-taught, that's how I see it.

What i learned

1. It's about the process. Just do it and start with the first thing that comes to your mind. There is absolutely nothing you can do wrong.

2. Don't listen to other people who're telling you what's right and what's wrong. Those people will always try to keep you small and hold you back. Don't listen to them. People always told me that I'm naive  — and yeah, maybe I was. But I always was optimistic and I knew that I'm doing the right thing. 

3. Surround yourself with people who motivate you and always making you feel good about what you're doing. These personalities are rare - so if you found them, keep them.

4. Help other people. Even if you're at the very beginning of something, use your knowledge to help others. Why? Try it, magical things will happen, I promise.

5. Always surround yourself with people who're "better" than you. That's what Donny Osmond said and I think it's partly true. But try to replace "better" with "crazier" or "different".

6. Break the rules. That's actually one of the most important things at being self-taught. Be a rebel, break the rules and don't be afraid of anything. What if you fail? Get up, try again. If you don't like it? Don't do it, do something else. It's that simple.

7. Stop complaining. I know, that's fcking hard and I'm not really good with this either. But complaining is always the easy route and nothing actually happen when you do it, except you're surrounding yourself with a lot of negative energy.

So yes, that's it — Hope you enjoyed it and thank you for reading!
If you have any questions I would love to get an email from you tobias at van schneider.com or just send me a tweet.

Cheers from Stockholm
— Tobias
(Header picture by my friend Stefan Leitner)

.Mail - Progress

Hello friends of .Mail

A bit more than three weeks ago the .Mail concept went online and the feedback was just impressive - More than 22.000 people signed up in only 14 days without any real promotion for the app itself. I got a lot of emails and tweets with even more questions about the possible launch of .Mail app and I will try to answer most of them in this first .Mail update.

What's the current status?

We can't give you that much information right now, but:
- We already sent and received the first email with .Mail app.
- Centralized attachments view mostly completed.
- Actionsteps are already implemented and working pretty good.
- Working on performance, notifications & transitions now, still a lot to do.

When will .Mail launch?

Well, you must know that we started about two weeks ago, that means there isn't a possible launch date yet, but if you follow dotmailapp on twitter you always stay updated and be one of the first who knows about it. We're working really hard  and  can't wait to share it with you.

What about investment?

We're not looking for any VC/Investment whatsoever company. This might slow some things a bit down you probably think, but we just don't want to work like that. But we really appreciate your interest, you're amazing.

Is there a beta or something?

We're planning in having a beta phase yes, if you already signed up here you will be one of the first who knows about it. We will select beta testers only from our emai list, so make sure to sign up if you want to participate.

Is .Mail app free and if not what's the price?

.Mail wont be free but we can ensure you that it won't cost more than a good hamburger with bacon, fries and a good beer.

What about other platforms?

We're focusing on the MacOS version first. iOS will be probably next. We know that the windows market is in an urgent need to a nice mail client, but we would love to get the MacOSX app first right and then move on to other plattforms.

We thank you VERY VERY much for all your amazing support so far, we will keep you posted on twitter or via this blog.

Best
Your .Mail team

My tools & my process

Recently I'm getting a lot of emails from people asking me what my process looks like and which tools/apps I use for most of my projects. Since I'm a self-taught guy I developed my own work flow which works best for me and I'm happy to share it with you.

I try to keep it short and focus on the little tools/apps I use. (obviously most of us are using Adobe products, so I won't talk about them) And please note: I'm a Mac guy - no windows apps here.

Brainstorming

Let's skip the whole briefing and re-briefing stuff and dive right into the brainstorming.
Usually I start with a mind map for each project using Mindmeister. Mindmaps are awesome because they contain almost every data you need in one big document - and the most important thing: You can collaborate with others & share them easily. Then I move on with sketching (wireframes, random ideas etc.) in my DotGrid notebooks from CreativeOutfitter. I love sketching because it's quick, easy and forces you to leave your computer for a second. (and I'm lost without a grid, that's why DotGrid notebooks).

Wireframes

There's no exception - I work with wireframes every time when it comes to something digital like websites, apps, mobile stuff etc. I'm sure there are a lot of great apps out there like Balsamiq or Omnigraffle. But to be honest, I'm using Illustrator in combination with Keynote for this. 

The reason why I'm using Illustrator is just because it fits my workflow perfectly. After some time you have your own collection of interface elements and you can simply drag your wireframes together. And if you need a custom element, you can just draw it or use one of the InterfaceKits you can find on the web.

As soon as I finished the basic wireframes in illustrator I jump to Keynote to make the final client presentation PDF with some additional notes and simply copy/paste the wireframes from Illustrator via the clipboard into Keynote.

Prototypes

Okay, I'm guilty - I don't do prototypes by myself, especially for websites I always work with other developers to build prototypes if needed. But in case of mobile apps I use PrototypesApp to build really simple click dummies for client presentations. This tool is amazing and so easy to use. I improvise a lot with Coda, PrototypesApp and making example GIF's with Photoshop... I'm just not a developer.

Tools & apps I love

Wacom Tablet - First of all, my wacom tablet. Without it I'm lost because I'm not able to use a normal mouse anymore and a trackpad makes me aggressive. I really need it.

CloudApp - Makes a screenshot and uploads it automatically to the cloud + puts a short URL in your clipboard for instant sharing. This app is awesome, you should try it.

Skitch -  is awesome, but only in combination with CloudApp. It's perfect for making screenshots put some notes on them and then share it with CloudApp. (I don't like the sharing component of Skitch, that's why I'm using CloudApp)

Basecamp - Looking for the best projectmanagement tool for your team, freelancers and your client? Basecamp is my choice. I manage everything in Basecamp from communication, ToDo's, milestones, files to time tracking.

Toggl - Timetracking is important because here's the money, and the money pays your bills. I use toggl because it's simple, easy and it works perfectly with Basecamp. You can see every single client, project or even a single To-Do from Basecamp in Toggl. Time tracking made easy.

Hootsuite - I don't have an RSS Reader anymore. Hootsuite/Twitter is my main source of news and inspiration. Following the right people, managing lists and working with filters in Hootsuite makes it easy to stay up to date - Every time, and on every device.

Tumblr - Tumblr is my kind of moodboard "collecting things I like" tool. Especially in combination with  Chrome plugin called "Post to Tumblr". Righ-Click on something you like > PostToTumblr > done.

Transmit - Best FTP app on earth. Nothing more to add.

And of course I use ueberawesome Dropbox, listening to music with Spotify, share images of my lunch with instagram and still trying to ignore Pinterest.

What are your favorite tools?
Thank you for reading.
—Tobias

.Mail - the first summary

Thank you for your feedback!

When I was publishing the .Mail concept on my site (7.7.2012) just a bit over a week ago I wasn't expecting that much feedback. It's amazing because just 2 days later the concept got featured on TheIndustry, hackernews, osnews, WebDesignerDepot & Fast Company and thousands of people shared it via Twitter, Facebook etc. (shitstorms included)

I got more than 500 emails during the first 3 days and overwhelming feedback from around the world. The discussion about .Mail was amazing and it looks like people have some serious interest in my thoughts on E-Mail. And I'm still catching up on all mails. (what an ironie)

But what's next?

This project started as a side project for myself and it's still work in progress. There are a lot of ideas which I didn't publish yet. And of course I will hold back on publishing them until I teamed up with some developers to start realizing this mail concept. But I promise that I'll keep developing the ideas and keep you posted via twitter. Currently I'm developing a prototype and then move into development. A MacOSX app is going to be the first release.

The reason why I already have published some ideas is that I would love to see some of the functionalities and ideas behind my thoughts in mail clients like Sparrow, Gmail, Yahoo etc. Especially the idea of actionsteps and centralized attachments is something that every email client should support in order to make working with emails more productive and fun again. (but that's just my opinion)

Of course I still looking forward to getting your feedback and thoughts so please don't hesitate to drop me a line at tobias (at) vanschneider .com - Thank you SO MUCH for all your fantastic support, it really motivates me.

PS: Don't forget to read my interview with FastCompany with a bit more information about my thoughts behind.

Thank you!
—Tobias

Interview with Fast Company

You might have already seen that I did a little Interview with FastCompany's design arm "FastCoDesign" about my thoughts on the .Mail client which I published a week ago.
I'm also going to make a little write-up in the next couple of days. I got a lot of feedback and I would love to give you some information about the next steps.

1. What was the inspiration for your project?

I went through my inbox like every morning, trying to sort the important messages and filter out the clutter. It’s a kind of “reactive working”, because modern work is often based on incoming emails that demand action on our part. It’s not good for us, but it’s how we work now.

I struggled with this long enough and built ridiculous Rube Goldberg-like workarounds with the available tools like flags and labels. Trying out several mail clients didn’t really help either, so I got really frustrated. Instead of throwing a hissy fit I tried to be constructive and thought about a method to change the old email world order for me and figure out how to best display emails in the way we use them now. My personal needs were the inspiration.

2. How are Actionsteps better than, say, Priority Inbox? Could you/would it make sense to add more "actions" onto this interface beyond importance?

I wouldn’t say that they’re better, but apart from the naming (which helps a lot) they’re forcing you to DO something, to ACT on something. They also give you a great tool which you can adapt to your own workflow. Talking about Priority: seriously, most people are always sending me HIGH PRIORITY mails. Everything is important, always.

“ASAP is the new “How are you?””

Usually I use the flag functionality to mark something as important, as read later or whatever.
Some people use their favorites, some people use labels. Just one thing, for different purposes.

Actionsteps are similar. But they’re simpler because they just complement your existing GTD workflow. You just get three stages of importance, which you can personalize. They’re color coded, so it’s like a visual path of what needs to be done. They’re sorted by importance first, and then by date, which is important too. But priority always overrules the date.

I thought the solution would have to be easily adaptable. With a little room for your own personal way of handling work.

3. Why do you think so little is changing in email?

Because most people think it’s boring? Has anyone ever said Email is cool?

To be honest though, I’m not sure. Probably because it’s such a huge challenge. It’s still the core of our digital communication and expectations are gigantic because needs differ for every individual. That’s what makes it hard and enables a status quo. Even if I’m not a developer, I’m well aware that the backend (protocols, performance, storage etc.) is a big deal and the UX depends on it. Building a scalable mail client from scratch is a bit like taking a broken-down boat out into the stormy sea. There are way too few people who’d sail on it. Thumbs up to everyone who’s on board.

4. Any plans to bring this app to market?

I wish I could call this an app. It’s still mostly a concept and far from finished. Some thoughts written down and paired with some design prototypes to explain how it could work. My main goal is to keep the conversation about email alive and give something back to the community.

Since there is still a lot of work to do, there are no plans yet for building an app from scratch. But of course I’m already thinking about turning some of those ideas into reality. Hopefully with the help of some existing mail clients.

I'm joining Fi Stockholm

I worked at my own company for a long time now, and I had such a great time with my colleagues at les Avignons. But sometimes we have to change our path for some reasons, and I think that's good as long as you're growing. I did, and I'm pleased to announce that I'm joining the talented folks at Fantasy Interactive in their Stockholm office with the beginning of August.

I'm really excited about this, and I'm really looking forward to it. Of course this will not affect my activity on Twitter, Dribbble or on this brand new blog.