iA Labs is a spin off formed to support the development of products like iA Writer and to experiment with new technology and information concepts. iA Labs is seated in Zurich, Switzerland. The experience gained by building our own products is what gives iA the edge over its competitors. Few other agencies invest as much [...] Read more – ‘Research and Products: iA Labs’.
I had no big plans when I subrented my little backroom in Nishi-Azabu, Tokyo in October 2005. My plan was to create a design office that would allow me to survive in Tokyo. Six years later, I can proudly announce that we just opened our 3rd office. iA now has offices in Tokyo, Berlin and Zurich. Read more – ‘Now Coding: iA Berlin’.
A better tool doesn’t make a better craftsman, but a good tool makes working a pleasure. iA Writer for Mac is a digital writing tool that makes sure that all your thoughts go into the text instead of the program. Read more – ‘iA Writer for Mac’.
Here are the frequently asked questions about Writer. First things first—a walkthrough/tutorial for iA Writer for iPad. Best viewed on iPad in portrait mode in a 1:1 ratio… Music: Autogenics I, by The Books Director: Pedro Cascao 1. Writer for iPad: What is it? 2. Reactions 3. Augusten Burroughs on Writer 4. Stephen Fry on [...] Read more – ‘Writer for iPad: FAQ’.
Today our first news project for iPad went online and we are proud like kids. Technically, it’s “just” an HTML5 optimization, but it has been a demanding design process to get to the point of simplicity where it’s at right now. Unlike most news launches on iPad the response from its readers so far has [...] Read more – ‘News on iPad, the Obvious Way’.
“Stephen Fry, what are your four iPad apps you can’t live without?” Guess what: IMDB, Instapaper, Soundhound and Writer. Fry: “Astonishingly simple. Everything goes away except for the writing experience.” 1. Writer for iPad: What is it? 2. Reactions and FAQ 3. Augusten Burroughs on Writer 4. Stephen Fry on Writer 5. Enthusiasm: Twitter on [...] Read more – ‘Stephen Fry on Writer’.
I wasn’t expecting this. In three weeks, we’ve sold over 13,000 apps and every day we seem to climb up another rung in the app store. While selling apps makes the product feel real and secures future development, the biggest personal satisfaction comes from the feedback our app gets from professional writers. 1. Writer for [...] Read more – ‘The Pleasure of the Text’.
For my 40th birthday we did a quick campaign dropping the price of our Writer for iPad from $4.99 to $0.99. Our expectation was to sell maybe two or three times more apps. The impact of the price drop was shocking. 1. Writer for iPad: What is it? 2. Reactions 3. Augusten Burroughs on Writer [...] Read more – ‘Writer for iPad: Sales and Reactions’.
“Writer has out-innovated Apple. Writer is actively designed to help you write”—Fast Company First things first—a walkthrough/tutorial for iA Writer for iPad. Best viewed on iPad in portrait mode in a 1:1 ratio: Stephen Fry “Astonishingly simple. Everything goes away except for the writing experience” A. Burroughs “Most useful and remarkably clever—invisibly so—device for writing.” [...] Read more – ‘Writer for iPad’.
Our latest Web Trend Map tells the story of Twitter and its 140 most influential Twitter users. It took quite some time until we had it in the shape we envisioned, and we didn’t expect it to be as popular as Web Trend Map 4. We were wrong: The Guardian, Mashable, Swissmiss, Zeldman, Flowing Data, [...] Read more – ‘Cosmic 140—Art for Geeks’.
From December 2006 to February 2007 we were in touch with the product manager of facebook. The prospective: Redesigning facebook. Eventually. Since the contract was never signed, we kept our designs in the drawer. Until now… As you might have noticed already, the following two screens are not the exact designs from 2006. The web [...] Read more – ‘iA’s 2006 Facebook Designs, Redesigned’.
It’s one year since our last Web Trend Map. A lot has happened, but there are not enough changes in the landscape of domains in the last 12 months to create another domain based Web Trend Map. The big changes happened one level higher, on the social layer, that is: On Twitter and facebook. You [...] Read more – ‘Meet C140, Our Next Trend Map’.
Here are a few design explorations on the possible look and feel for Internazionale. They are based on the beautiful work that Mark Porter, creative director of the Guardian editorial did for the print edition. We’d like to post them without comment as we’re curious to hear what you think. Feel free to blog about [...] Read more – ‘Internazionale: Look and Feel’.
After covering a high percentage of newspaper sites in Switzerland and redoing DIE ZEIT, iA moved to the other very challenging side of the online news spectrum: With krone.at we updated one of the big players in the red top press industry. As of now, krone.at counts 124 Million page impressions, 7,9 Million visits and [...] Read more – ‘From Black to White: iA redesigns Krone.at’.
In January 2009 we were invited to take part in a paid pitch for the print redesign for the Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger. All in all five agencies took part in the pitch. We were the only UX oriented agency. The story of a beautiful failure. We put all eggs in one basket and worked for [...] Read more – ‘Links in Print: Story of a Beautiful Failure’.
iA has redesigned ZEIT ONLINE, the Internet edition of the weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT. DIE ZEIT (German pronunciation: [diː tsait], literally The Times,) is a German nationwide weekly newspaper that is highly respected for its quality journalism. With a circulation of 488,036 and an estimated readership of slightly above 2 million, it is the most [...] Read more – ‘Zeit Online, Freshly Squeezed’.
It hangs in the head quarters of Google, Microsoft, facebook, WordPress and Yahoo! Japan. Even the CERN in Geneva now has its own copy… The has been featured all across the web from TechCrunch to BoingBoing, and Gawker. Now the latest version of our popular Web Trend Map is up for grabs.—The Web Trend Map [...] Read more – ‘Web Trend Map 4’.
We have completely run out of WTM3 posters. However, if you’re still interested in getting your hands on a Web Trend Map, Version 5 is out. It was featured by The Guardian, WIRED, Le Monde, Corriere, kottke, Boingboing, Techcrunch, Mashable, Valleywag and literally thousands of blogs. We are happy to announce that the coolest gift [...] Read more – ‘Web Trend Map 3’.
Those familiar with the new Swiss train station maps may recognize one source of inspiration. After meeting with our good friend Adrian Schaffner from evoq over the holidays, we studied his impressive work with mapping the Swiss train stations and adopted a few of the concepts ourselves. Instead of cluttering the main stations with additional [...] Read more – ‘Web Trend Map 3: New Layers’.
As you can tell, we’ve redesigned the Web Trend Map from scratch. It’s now presented as an isometric landscape. It employs the Kanto area as its metaphor with two additional layers: one showing the brand evaluation of the main sites, and another their interface. We’ve invested another two hard weeks of work into this, so [...] Read more – ‘Web Trend Map 3: What’s New?’.
If the following predictions are as accurate as last year’s, we should make this a paid service. This year we have seven predictions. The short version: Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and eBay open-up, change the economics of online property, Microsoft starts panicking and everbody fights against everybody in one big battle. Last year we witnessed a [...] Read more – ‘Predictions for 2008’.
