Pinterest’s Social Aesthetic

New Vimeo

Description coolhunting

Our favorite video sharing platform reveals a complete redesign

We have always been big supporters of Vimeo and their mission to provide a high quality, creatively focused platform for video sharing. We are super excited to announce that today Vimeo is launching it’s latest iteration with New Vimeo. The new platform entails a complete redesign from top to bottom. The new user interface was built with all new code, has brand-new features and a fantastic new look. The first redesign since 2007, this major overhaul marks Vimeo’s push to grow and reach a larger audience by making it more accessible and adding some great new features.

The basis for New Vimeo revolves are putting the video first. In lieu of the Inbox, when you log in you are now presented with your Feed, a streaming list of videos from all your contact and subscriptions. The feed allows you to watch and interact with those videos in place, including the ability to like, share or comment without having to visit the actual clip page. The feed is super clean and open, it has a very pleasing effect on the eye and incorporates the various buttons and tools in a subtle, intuitive manner.

The language of the site has also changed. Adopting terminology more in line with social networks the site loses subscriptions and instead let’s users “Follow” each other. Anyone you follow will appear in your feed and act in the same manner as subscriptions and contacts did in the previous version. This simplification makes it much easier to manage your network on site and is more digestible for new users coming from other social platforms. The video still remains the focus of the experience, by keeping user interaction simple you can do more without straying from the content.

VIDEO

Content really is king in this new layout. Gone are the tabs upon tabs and long scrolling video lists with options layered one on top of the other. Videos are now presented front and center on clip pages, a drop down bar on the top of the site lets you browse other videos from your feed, more videos from that user or a wide variety of other filtering options. We spoke with Blake Whitman, Vimeo’s VP of Creative Development, who gave a walk through of the new site. The word “granular” came up often and it rings true, Vimeo managed to simplify their layout but the attention to detail and level of consideration that went into the new UI is outstanding.

Over a year in the making New Vimeo has some new add-ons that are sure to gratify their faithful base. One of the most exciting new features is the ability to upload multiple videos simultaneously. To make sure you don’t choke your internet with your line up you can set throttles on your data usage when uploading which, while not earth shattering, is a very useful detail. It’s hard to pinpoint new features considering the metamorphosis everything seems pretty fresh but there is a new search criteria and filter that lets you sort by the license associated with the video. In line with this there is an entire category dedicated to the Creative Commons license in a push to educate users about this form of copyright and make it easier to track down royalty free content.

Overall the Vimeo team did an excellent job moving the site into it’s next phase. A lot of user feedback was incorporated into the redesign making sure it will satisfy the faithful but it has a fresh enough look to draw in a new crowd. The focus on accessibility and keeping content center stage show a great deal of insight from the team and we are excited to see more new features are they role out. Head to the site to pre-register for New Vimeo, where you can migrate an existing account or sign up as a new user.

Fast-Forward Through Music Blogs With Hype Machine

Description wired

Music-blog aggregator Hype Machine has taken the wraps off an innovative way of exploring new music on the web called Fast Forward.

Keeping track of even a small handful of music blogs can be a pain, so the Hype Machine has built considerable success from making the whole experience a lot easier. Fast Forward is the latest experiment in that, letting you quickly skip between songs while still letting you read the blogs where the music has been posted.

Click here to try out Fast Forward. You’ll get a sample of a song, with a large screenshot of the music blog that posted it below. Clicking the screenshot takes you to the page that posted it, so you can read about or download the full version of the track. Arrow keys, spacebar or the big > button can be used to skip to the next sample.

“We’ve been thinking about this idea since [South by Southwest] 2009, and after some further inspiration, thought to push this experience further. Fast Forward is like a spinning radio dial across radio stations curated by music bloggers,” said Anthony Volodkin, who founded the site, in a blog post announcing the experiment.

With more and more music posted to the web every day, it’s more important than ever to have effective filters. But the effectiveness of any particular filter is also quite a personal thing.

B. Luxo Instagram Fashion Editorial

Description coolhunting

Styled iPhone shoots from a leading Brazilian vintage supplier

Here’s one of the more ingenious ways we’ve seen people use Instagram: instant fashion editorial. Paula Reboredo and Gil França, the couple behind Sao Paulo vintage store B. Luxo, have come up with a way to market their goods and get a response immediately, by doing fully styled mini editorial shoots for Instagram.

The couple began by posting images of selected clothing and accessories to their b_luxo account, and the response was so overwhelmingly positive—their current follower count stands at 1,523—that they’ve segued into full-on fashion shoots, all photographed in the shop.

Reboredo and França first style the models (who happen to also be clients), and then França (also a photographer) shoots the images on an iPhone 4. Despite the variety of photo retouching apps in existence, França’s approach is refreshingly simple: he only treats the image on Instagram, using the tilt-shift blur effect and applying a preset filter before uploading. The results give the images a retro sheen that are a natural fit to the clothing and accessories they show off.

B. Luxo’s current editorial consists of 16 looks, and a previous shoot focused on a Halloween theme. The photos are posted with the name of the item and sizes. Comments from followers have reached frenzied heights, with users calling and reserving the pieces as soon as they appear in the feed. Reboredo and França plan to continue doing these fashion shoots into the near future. “It’s quick and efficient,” Reboredo said.

Larger brands are increasingly tuned in to the pictorial social media venue. Topshop hosted in-store, fully-styled Instagram shoots on iPads (the complete gallery lives on their Facebook page). Bergdorf Goodman launched an interactive Instagram shoe map with editorial-inspired shoe pics. B. Luxo, however, is the first we know of dedicating their account exclusively to editorial spreads.

Follow the boutique by their username b_luxo on Instagram to keep up with their latest features.

phibious:

Adidas Japan: Shootter

Description adverblog

Adidas Japan ask you to enter a duel with one of your Twitter followers. Log in, Power up and ‘shootter’ as hard as you can – essentially you are challenging your opponent to try to score a goal against you.
 
Not only is Shootter packed with football twitter excitement, it also has a pretty frantic sound track to boot.

And I think this piece has a remarkable art direction that lies somewhere between Anime, shredded polygons and crayon scribbles. Great to see that despite using the same formats, work can still look so different.