Hasta La Ideas

Announcing the newly redesigned Core77 Design Directory—Where Business Finds Design

In 2003 Core77 partnered with Businessweek and launched DesignDirectory.com—a searchable directory listing professional design services firms across a wide array of fields. The Design Directory quickly became host to thousands of listings for firms who want the best of both worlds: effective branding and positioning in the design world, and unprecedented exposure to the business world, and a destination for those needing design services and inspiration. Building on Design Directory’s initial success, we spent the early part of this year completely redesigning and rebuilding the website and features, and are proud to announce the new & improved Core77 Design Directory v2!

New features include:

• Improved Search & Results—the new search bar focuses on broad but highly relevant search criteria to get firms in front of visitors faster, then easily filters or switch settings. Results are larger and image-based to showcase work.
• Better Browsing—new projects and logos of our Premium members are featured on the homepage, plus clickable popular specialties and locations.
• Projects Showcase Firms’ Work—with larger images, more details, and supporting documents like case studies and white papers, projects are a one-stop destination about a firm’s work.
• Custom URLs, Better SEO & Analytics—easily find firms via their customize URLs, and Premium listings can integrate their Google Analytics accounts for increased tracking.
• Monthly Billing—no more annual contracts, upgrade and downgrade at any time.

All of this on top of the existing:

• Great Exposure for Firms—visits are up nearly 20% over last year, and we’ll be expanding Design Directory’s presence Core77.com by featuring our firms’ projects. Additionally our strategic partnership with Bloomberg Businessweek drives traffic to the site.
• Searchable Profiles—featuring projects and easy-to-find company contact info, plus highly optimized for both Design Directory and Internet search engines. They even include Twitter feeds!
• Multiple Plans—to fit a firm’s needs. At $85/mo Premium listings fall higher in the search results and are featured prominently on the Design Directory & Core77 homepages. Basic listings are free. And for firms that want even more exposure, we have a PremiumPlus add-on package.
• Apply to Join—to ensure the quality of the listings so visitors find accurate, up-to-date information about firms, the Design Directory uses an application method for membership.

We’re very excited with the new Design Directory look and features! Find a firm, list your firm, and send us your feedback—we can’t wait to find out what you think!

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UI/UX Designer
IDEO
Palo Alto, California

IDEO is seeking a UI / UX designer with a deep passion for social networks, open innovation and experimentation – and great visual design skills. Your home base will be in IDEO’s Knowledge Sharing (KS) group, where you’ll help design and extend IDEO’s social platforms, from OpenIDEO (our crowdsourced innovation platform for social impact), to The Tube (our award-winning intranet system, now in commercial development).

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The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.

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Competition: we’ve teamed up with Max Fraser, author of the London Design Guide, to give away five signed copies of the brand-new 2012-2013 edition.

The 208 page paperback features 140 design retailers, galleries and museums across London plus a further 100 bars, restaurants and cafes, all categorised according to neighbourhood and accompanied by detailed maps.

The guide also includes walking tours by local design figures including Sheridan Coakley, Tom Dixon and Kit Kemp, plus short essays by Naomi Cleaver, Hugh Pearman, Libby Sellers and more.

This is the second edition of the London Design Guide (see last year’s edition here) published by Spotlight Press, which also publishes our own Dezeen Book of Ideas.

To enter this competition email your name, age, gender, occupation, and delivery address and telephone number to competitions@dezeen.com with “London Design Guide” in the subject line. We won’t pass your information on to anyone else; we just want to know a little about our readers.

Read our privacy policy here.

Competition closes 4 October 2011. Five winners will be selected at random and notified by email. Winners’ names will be published in a future edition of our Dezeenmail newsletter and at the bottom of this page. Dezeen competitions are international and entries are accepted from readers in any country.

Subscribe to our newsletter, get our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter for details of future competitions.

Here are some more details from Spotlight Press:

London Design Guide 2012-2013 edition
Edited by Max Fraser

Following the success of the first edition, London’s only comprehensive design guide returns with a totally updated and rewritten second edition.

London Design Guide 2012-2013 gives a fresh insight into the city’s contemporary and vintage retailers, as well as design galleries, museums and bookshops. All 140 new and established hotspots are compiled and reviewed by design commentator Max Fraser.

Shops are categorised by neighbourhood and accompanied by detailed maps – plus walking tours written by local tastemakers including Sheridan Coakley, Tom Dixon and Kit Kemp – to help navigate the best that the city has to offer. You’ll find restaurant, bar and café recommendations, selected as much for their design credentials as for the quality of food and service. And we’ve commissioned 10 short essays by local experts including Naomi Cleaver, Hugh Pearman and Libby Sellers, each discussing an aspect of the industry, be it producing, selling, communicating, collecting, even discarding design.

The 2012-2013 edition also introduces 4×4, a new 16-page supplement featuring the top furniture, lighting and accessories designs in store. The survey does your homework for you, evaluating the designs based on quality and longevity.

The 208-page LONDON DESIGN GUIDE is a snapshot of the design scene today, a celebration of creativity and a practical tool for Londoners and tourists alike. There’s no better incentive for exploring the wealth of design in the capital.

About the Editor

Max Fraser is a design commentator, author and publisher whose work broadens the conversation around contemporary design. He has authored several design books, including Deign UK and Designers on Design (co-written by Sir Terence Conran). Fraser is the founder of Spotlight Press, an independent imprint that publishes London Design Guide and Dezeen Book of Ideas, both out this year.
specification:

Retail price: £12
Publication date: 15 September 2011
Publisher: Spotlight Press
Pagination: 208 pp
Format: 208 x 135mm portrait
Binding: paperback, thread-sewn
Availability: worldwide
ISBN: 978-0-9563098-1-5

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Opening this week’s post of nice work is a film by Dare ad agency, to promote Harry Hill’s nut brand…

The film invites Hill fans to email photos of themselves to Harry, who will then pick a select few that he will turn into portraits. And his canvas will be…his own brand of Fairtrade nuts, of course. Yes, it’s all a bit bonkers but the film is cute. You can view the resulting portraits via the Sainsburys Facebook page, facebook.com/sainsburys from September 7. Agency: Dare; Creatives: Dipesh Mistry, Rob Graves-Morris; Director: Jake Hopewell; Prod co: Blinkink.

Next up are two amusing new spots from a campaign for Mikado biscuits by BETC Euro RSCG in Paris, which demonstrate that you should always pay attention when consuming this elegantly shaped snack. GCD: Stéphane Xiberras; CD: Marie-Laure Billette; Creatives: Agnes Cavard, Gregory Ferembach, Valerie Chidlovsky; Prod co: Quad/Wizz.

180LA has created this stylish new spot for the Sony Cybershot camera. Directed by Christopher Riggert, it was shot in Bangkok. ECD: William Gelner; CD: Gavin Lester; Creatives: Zac Ryder, Adam Groves; Prod co: Biscuit Filmworks. Editorial company: Arcade Edit.

These two films for Mini are from a new campaign from BSUR in Amsterdam. The films aim to show the crazy adventures you can have in the car, and form part of a wider social media campaign where participants can enter a competition to be a co-pilot in five future Mini missions. More info is at facebook.com/mini. ECD: Jason Schragger; CDs: Paulo Martins, Karl Dunn; Creatives: Gian Carlo Lanfranco, Rolando Cordova, David Govier, Thomas Jullien, Simon Johnson; Director: Kevin Thomas; Prod co: Thomas Thomas Films.

The Viral Factory has created this new film for the launch of the new Westfield Stratford shopping centre in London. Directed by Jake Lunt, it features a dance routine that takes viewers through 100 years of fashion.

Another fashion/dancing film now, this time shot by Steven Meisel for Lanvin’s Fall/Winter 2011 campaign. Starring a number of models, including Karen Elson and Raquel Zimmermann, performing awkward dance routines, it proves that fashion films don’t always have to take themselves seriously. What a relief.

Onto music videos now, starting with this spoof of the classic US TV series Saved By The Bell, with added gore, for track New Romance by Miles Fisher (who also stars in the vid). Director: Dave Green.

This painterly promo is by director Nader Husseini from animation studio Radium/Reel FX, and is for new single Take Your Medicine from Transfer.

We finish with this simple yet hypnotic promo, that seems to be inspired by Rorschach’s inkblot tests. Created by Utile Creative and Jazz Goddard, the promo is for new track Gabriel by Joe Goddard.

CR in Print

Thanks for reading the CR website, but if you are not also getting the printed magazine, we think you’re missing out. This month’s issue has a superb feature on the Sainsbury’s Own Label packaging of the 60s and 70s, a profile of new Japanese creative supergroup Party and our pick of this year’s top graduates. Read all about it here.

If you would like to buy this issue and are based in the UK, you can search for your nearest stockist here. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 292 3703 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.