It’s a universal truth that digital technology and the internet have inhabited major portions of our lives and economic systems. From keeping in touch to paying bills and even improving the world around us, technology is at the core of nearly everything we…
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1. Disarming Design From Palestine In conflict-ridden Palestine, the rich history of craftsmanship and design is sometimes overlooked. Newly minted cooperative Disarming Design From Palestine showcases the region’s unique wares and design talent, including olive wood…
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1. Sochi, Frame by Frame. Whether it’s figure skating or downhill skiing, at times it’s difficult to tell just what’s going on on a physical level. To help demonstrate the intricate body movements of each athlete, …
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Revo è una radio con la possibilità di connettersi online a oltre 16.000 stazioni compresi i canali di Spotify. Teoricamente potrebbe suonare qualsiasi cosa tu voglia ascoltare. Il design retrò poi è la molla che spinge all’acquisto compulsivo.
Although its main focus has been on contemporary art and design in the last decade, Phillips has never held an auction dedicated to digital art—until now. The historic international auction house partnered with recordOutboundLink(this,…
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After a second year of successful media partnership, Cool Hunting is excited to share the finalists for 2013’s Lovie Awards. As the European sister to the US-based Webby…
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After last year’s successful partnership, Cool Hunting is happy to return as media partners once again with Europe’s Lovie Awards. A sister to the US’ Webby Awards, The…
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Services like Instapaper, Pocket and Readability are great for saving articles for later reading. But sometimes I want to read something right when I find it and, better yet, with a clutter-free layout like those services provide. This is when an in-browser reader like Apple’s Safari Reader, Instapaper’s Text Bookmarklet and Evernote’s Clearly come in handy.
Each has its own pros and cons, but which is the best? Everyone has their preferences, but I took a look at three options and picked my favorite. Here’s what I found while comparing Safari Reader, Instapaper Text, and Clearly:
Apple introduced Safari Reader with Safari 5. Like the others, it offers a distraction-free reading experience by presenting an article without ads, sidebar images, headers or footers. Instead, you get a center-aligned, black-on-white version of the article with any inline images intact. Plus, multi-page articles are displayed in one flow. That’s it.
It works by first detecting an article or post on a web page. Once it has, a grey “Reader” button appears in the URL field in place of the RSS button. Click it to view your article in the Reader interface (Command-Shift-R works, too).
The article appears on a white background in the center of Safari’s window. Also, the Reader button turns purple while the Reader view is active. Finally, a scrollbar on the right allows you to navigate the article.
There are several tools available while Reader is active. Move your cursor toward the bottom of Safari’s window and the toolbar appears. From left to right, you’ll find “-” and “+” re-sizing buttons, as well as options to email or print the article. Lastly, a big “X” closes the Reader UI and restores the original website (clicking outside of Reader does the same).
Pros
The best thing about Reader is that it works as advertised. The black text looks great and is highly legible. It loads quickly and lets you adjust the text size, print and share via email. Plus, it’s only available after a web page has fully loaded, so advertisers aren’t cheated out of impressions.
While Safari’s Reader for the Mac isn’t my favorite (more on that in a minute), it absolutely shines on mobile Safari. Especially on the iPhone. Typically I dislike long periods of reading on the iPhone because the screen and text is so small, but Reader fixes that. It commandeers the screen completely (unlike on the iPad, which still shows the toolbar and any open tabs), with big, legible text on a lightly textured background that just feels nice. An unobtrusive share button offers several options, like tweet, print, add to reading list and more.
Cons
My main gripe is that Reader doesn’t fill the browser window. Instead, the original web page is seen behind the Reader presentation. Even though it’s grayed out, I’m still aware of it, which defeats the “distraction-free” aspect. In fact, it’s a deal-breaker. Sorry, Apple.
Customization is also limited, though you can alter its look with a little work. It’s nice to re-size the type, but compared to others, it doesn’t do much. Finally, it’s restricted to Safari.
Reader is nice on the Mac, super on the iPad, and, hands-down, fan-flipping-tastic on the iPhone.
Instapaper offers a bookmarkelt that lets you read an article in the service’s text view without saving it to your collection of stories. It offers black text on white like with Apple’s Safari Reader, but with more options for customization.
By default, the Instapaper Text Bookmarklet centers your text on a field of white. The customization tools are hidden until you click the font icon at the top left. Options include re-sizing the type, and I clicked the button 22 times and was obliged each time.
You can also single- or double-space the text and adjust the column width. Again, it seems happy to stretch the text as wide as I like, easily filling my 24″ display. Finally, there are four fonts to choose from: Geneva, Times, Helvetica and Veranda. There’s no button to send to Instapaper, however. For that you’ll need a different bookmarkelt.
Pros
Right off the bat I’m happy because it fills the browser window. Instapaper Text also offers more customization options than Apple. It also loads quickly, and is quite legible. Since it’s a bookmarklet, it’ll work in any browser and, like Safari’s reader, it displays multi-page articles on a single page.
Cons
Can’t think of a one.
I found this one recently and have been test driving it. Like the others, Clearly (formerly Readable) presents your target article without ads, a sidebar, header or footer. It’s an extension, not a bookmarkelt, and is available for Firefox and Google Chrome. Once it’s up and running, a click sends the article to your Evernote account. But, the single click action isn’t what I love most about it.
Pros
If looks are everything, Clearly is a bombshell. The whole point of these things is to display an article so that it looks great and is pleasant to read. Clearly succeeds better than the rest.
A click on the themes button on the right sidebar reveals multiple thematic options. By default there are three themes to choose from: Newsprint, Notable and Night Owl (pictured above). A fourth option lets you create a custom theme, with control over almost every aspect of how Clearly presents your pages. Finally, there’s a button to print the article and another to send it to Instapaper.
Cons
It’s not available on Apple’s Safari browser.
Evernote’s Clearly is my new favorite way to read articles without distraction in my browser. Yes, Instapaper is backed by a tremendous service that I love, but so is Clearly. Like I said, this is a beauty contest more than anything else and the team at Evernote has done a stellar job with Clearly. I’ll still send articles I wish to save to Instapaper, but will enjoy stories I want to read as I find them with Clearly.
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Celebrating the Internet’s most valuable European players
Now in their second year, Europe’s Lovie Awards are quickly gaining momentum with a jam-packed program based around meaningful recognition of achievement in the interactive fields. In an awards-heavy industry, The Lovies—sister to the US’ Webby Awards—stand out for carefully selecting work that is as relevant now as it will be in the future. This distinction is clear even in the naming, which borrows from Ada Lovelace, the world’s first programmer who insightfully saw the computer as a tool with way more potential than simply calculating sums.
“The Lovie Awards are a pure kind of awards,” explains founder Nik Roope. He, along with a permanent panel of judges from the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences will pick winners from over 80 categories, ensuring a more standardized selection process for the annual competition. “I think awards are really important,” Roope says, adding that they created The Lovies “to try to help establish what things should be the standard, and what we should celebrate.”
In the lightning-fast field of technology, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the increasing surplus of applications. Like the Gold Rush or the Industrial Revolution, this surge of digital arts and sciences is “full of brilliant inventors etc., but it’s also full of bullshit,” Roope remarks. In the same way he and his agency Poke London help clients navigate through the ever-changing digital landscape, the expert judges behind The Lovies reel it all in and decipher what will become embedded in our culture, creating “anchors” for the world to use as meaningful benchmarks for creative thinking in the digital realm.
As media partner, Cool Hunting is excited to see what The Lovies will put forward this year. There are still a few days left to submit an entry, which is “open to all European organizations and individuals involved in designing, building, managing, maintaining, marketing or promoting Websites, Interactive Advertising & Media, Online Film & Video, and Mobile & App content for European business, consumer or general audiences.” Also keep an eye out for the awards themselves, taking place this November during Internet Week Europe.
An Australian couple’s innovative approach to homeware retailing
For many, choosing how to outfit their home has become as important as how they choose to dress. With people like Tom Selby showcasing interesting creatives’ homes and work spaces, and thousands of Pinterest boards dedicated to home décor it’s become the expression of personal style through interiors has reached a fever pitch. Helping Melbournians do this is The SuperCool, a pop-up shop and online store created by Kate Vandermeer and David Nunez (Noonie). Enticed by the quirky goods on offer, we caught up with Kate to discuss retailing, retro styling and the reasons why pop-up shops are here to stay.
We both wanted to work together doing something creative and we love stuff for the home/studio spaces. In my own trend research as part of iSpyStyle I’d noticed that pop-up shops were more than just a fad and did some research regarding vintage peddlers. I found the idea of taking your wares to the people was a really relevant retailing style in the current retail revolution we’re having. So we workshopped that idea and then on our honeymoon met with heaps of artists, designers and vintage collectors.
It all began late last year, as a bit of an experiment to see how it would go. After just the first two locations Melbourne Central and Pope Joan we realized we had tapped into something unique. The response from customers and media was pretty overwhelming and we thought that we should go guns a blazing into 2012 with TheSuperCool!
There’s no real strategy; it’s very organic. We look for unusual spaces that have good foot traffic. We like to collaborate with other industries (Pope Joan and St Ali in terms of food, and Great Dane in terms of high-end Scandinavian-style furniture) and we like to move around different neighborhoods.
Literally all over the world. We’ve had product from Norway, Sweden, Germany, France, UK, Spain, USA, Hong Kong, Argentina, Brazil and, of course, Australia. We like to have a healthy mix of both local and international design and we support a lot of small independent designers and makers and work with a variety of vintage collectors. We’ve also started making some product ourselves and hope to do more of this down the track.
So far, I’m the only one full-time in the business, plus I’ve still got a handful of clients from iSpyStyle that I take on project work with and try to fit around TheSuperCool. Like any new business, you put in far more hours than you see profits but we’re starting to see the rewards from this and its definitely given us hope that it will be a full-time gig for both of us soon. Noonie still works full time in the corporate sector alongside working on TheSuperCool at nights and weekends.
I would say 90% of the time I’m pretty lucky—we have really similar taste and views on business. I’m a bit more cautious and he’s more of a risk-taker. So we balance out each other well. He’s awesome at logistics, systems, operations and is a wickedly good researcher and buyer. I handle the branding, social media, online store and admin side, as well as the visual merchandising. We both do the retail side of things and we both enjoy connecting with the customers and chatting about what they’ll do with our stuff.
That other 10% is tough. When we’re exhausted from working 45 days straight and we have to bump in/out of a shop—it’s physically full on and that can test your patience, but we’ve managed to make it work thus far and we can see a light at the end of the tunnel.
We like to think that we offer an interesting curation of unique objects. We put time and effort into the displays of our products online as well as in store. We offer great affordability for people and that they don’t get ripped off. We’ve also tried to make the online store descriptions an echo of how we are in store when chatting with customers. We offer DIY tips, we try to be witty and not take ourselves too seriously and make it fun! The online store still has a long way to go though and we’ve got some big plans for the future.
We’re pretty excited to announce that we have just taken on a six-month lease for a semi-permanent shop at SO:ME Space at the South Melbourne Markets. We did a pop-up there for six weeks earlier this year and it was so well received, so when one of the shops came up for lease we jumped on it.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
