(Vía Blogadilla)

If you understand Spanish you’ll enjoy these promotional videos for the event. They are made by the guys at Riot Cinema. They rock too!

Spot 1

Spot 2

Awesome!

OMG, this is so exciting!

He’s holding a copy of The Illuminatus Trilogy, a weird hybrid of sci-fi, conspiracy theories and parody. He assures us it has nothing to do with Tom Hanks (absolutely not).

He’s a funny and imaginative person, and sometimes he resembles a late-night stand-up comedian with a red brick wall and a mic as backdrop. We had a good laugh at his prediction concerning the Microsoft’s Surface: its future awaits on the streets, with a goat dancing on it while playing the multitouch piano.

Check out his photoblog, we are all big fans of his photos.

Four beautiful timepieces (just three on the picture) have arrived at the office, each for one of the cosmonauts. They all are the same: the classic SEIKO 6139-7100 Helmet (a.k.a. Darth Vader) a collectors item (Spanish) and a very reliable wristwatch.

These watches were released to the market around 1972 and after more than thirty years they work just nice. Here is a good picture where you can see its beauty. And errr… yes, they also have the “vostok palette”:

Go ahead, ask us for the time!

Vostok’s new phone number: +34 91 1823291

Yes, we left the Old Hairdressers’ behind. It’s sad but that’s life.

We proudly introduce you thecosmonaut.org and its Spanish counterpart elcosmonauta.es: the website for the movie The Cosmonaut which we mentioned some time ago.

Check it out! It has a cool store where you can buy merchandise and become a producer of the movie. The Cosmonaut is special for several reasons:

• The plot is awesome
• The movie is crowdfunded (anybody can be a producer)
• Everything will be released under Creative Commons license, free of cost
• The list of people who support the idea is amazing (in quantity and quality)

We, Vostok, designed and developed the website (in three weeks!!) falling in love with the project and becoming producers too, so expect a little friendly spam every now and then ;)

Sam is not the only computer geek into unicycles: world renowned information theorist Claude Shannon (The guy who puts the S in Shannon & Weaver) was well known for riding his unicycle through the halls of Bell Labs, and was a founding member of the Unicycle Society of America.

Despite wise statistical objections and our tiny sample size (n=2), the vostok team is wishfully betting on a strong link between unicycles and computer science skills.

Tuenti is one of the three most used websites in Spain together with Google and perhaps some online newspaper. Astronomic numbers on usage time, milions of active users and an indecent number of pictures uploaded everyday. It’s the drug our youngsters consume every day in Spain.

The project has not concluded yet and some changes are still to come. Usability testing, user feedback and tons of data help the team make the final adjustments before they release the new version to all users.

The new design includes a few new functionalities, improves legibility and makes easier to do the most common tasks (messaging, uploading pics, creating events…). Most of these changes are hard to see at a glance, they are subtle. They need to be used and *felt*. You know, it’s not just about how it looks but about how it behaves.

A pastry filled with white cream and covered with soft, sweet, pink chocolate. You can’t find something like that anywhere else in nature. In fact, Panteras Rosas make worth 400 years of advancements in chemistry. Pink ecstasy!

For those who are not familiar with it, the pastry is obviously based on the Pink Panther cartoon and was introduced in Spain 40 years ago (the pastry, not the character). It is indeed the oldest licensed food product in the shelves of Spanish stores and supermarkets.

When: Thursday April 23th, 19:30h.
Where: Medialab-Prado. Plaza de las Letras, C/ Alameda, 15 · Madrid (map)

As you may know, Vostok is pretty involved in this initiative which we mentione a few posts earlier. We hope you find it as exciting as we do.

• Sam and Stu shared their impressions on programming for the iPhone: it’s hard, unfamiliar, and sometimes you hit against walls that seem impossible to overcome, but eventually you find your way around. It’s an interesting learning experience.
• Train ticket web interfaces suck here and in the UK too. We’re wondering if it is a world wide phenomenon. Solution: hire good designers, or develop an open API.
• Stu posed an interesting dilemma: if you had to choose between saying no to features and saying no to clients, which one would you choose?
• Another thought provoking question by Stu: if design makes things simple, will we come to an age where things just can’t be made any simpler?.

Vostok is also eternally indebted with Stu for introducing our own Sam Lown into the Ruby on Rails world a couple of years ago. The rest of the team is mostly back-end ignorant agnostic, but we sure are glad Sam can bang out impressive stuff in record time.

We, Vostok, will be in charge of designing and producing the internet presence for a movie titled The Cosmonaut. It is special for many reasons, being the topic the most obvious one.Also, the movie will be crowdfunded (everybody will be able to become producer for a small amount of money) and released under Creative Commons license. That itself makes it very unique and special, but that’s not it. It will be filmed in Russian and some of the locations will be there as well. But there is more:

The movie is supported by (among others):

• Roskosmos (the Russian Space Agency)
• Richard Stallman
• Cosmonauts Sergey Volkov and Boris Volynov
• the Russian Embassy in Spain
• Aeronautics and Astronautics Spanish Museum
• Luis Ruiz de Gopegui (former Director for NASA programs in Spain)
• etc.

The movie is a project by Riot Cinema, to be directed by Nicolás Alcalá, who runs a blog in Spanish with all the progress they are making.

A great day for announcing our collaboration in such a beautiful project. We are extremely excited about it.

• Reviewing and improving the usability of cool software application
• Designing a website for a BIG client which will be seen around the world
• Improving some crucial pages for a real state big player in Spain
• Redesigning a retail store with one of the coolest subscription services around

I am satisfied for the work done but it’s been intense and exhausting. We deserve a few days of rest. Cosmonauts will be released of their duties and will travel around a little bit (Madrid, Coruña, Granada…). I will leave the spaceship and get into one of these pods at hotel Aire de Bárdenas:

Enjoy the holidays!

Worth of notice: the discrete dirt splotches in the banana themed package give it a much more natural look.

Real world production constraints would make it pretty much impossible to mass-produce these items. But it is great example of putting the brand in the background, and let the essence of the product speak for itself.

But don’t let the geekiness deceive you: when not whiplashing servers, daemons, and minions; JJ navigates death-defying rallies in a 1982 Porsche 911 SC Targa. He also has an incisive sense of humor, saying that we all have faults when he found out I’m vegetarian. We also suspect he eats rocks and shits gunpowder, but this is not confirmed (yet).

Being such a badass and all, we decided to organize together next year’s Yuri’s Night, an annual worldwide party celebrating Yuri Gagarin’s ascent into space. Music, rockets and gunpowder, a winning combination.

Windows Marketplace for Mobile (Microsoft)

Approach B

App Store (Apple)

Mr. Calavera told us about his recent trip to the US, where he spoke at Google’s Test Automation Conference 08 in Seattle (you can find Calavera’s presentation here), and then the ApacheCon in New Orleans, where he spoke about Abdera in the Fast Feather track.

Tomorrow Mr. Calavera is invading Edinburgh with Vostok’s own Sam Lown and the rest of Madrid’s RoR Gang. Make us proud at the Scotland on Rails Conference guys!

A lot of designers want to increase the line height or padding in order to make the interface “breathe.” We deliberately don’t do that. We want to squeeze in as much information as possible above the fold. We recognize that information density is part of what makes the experience great and efficient. Our goal is to get users in and out really quickly. All our design decisions are based on that strategy.

Irene Au, User Interface Director at Google

Approach B

Yes, it’s true that a team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can’t operate in an environment like that. I’ve grown tired of debating such minuscule design decisions.

Douglas Bowman, Former Head of Visual Design at Google

Which one would you take?

(thanks, Missha)

Maki is—without a doubt—the person who carries the coolest gadgets around, casually pulling out an iRex iLiad (an Amazon Kindle-like device) and an ultra-portable Dell projector.

We enjoyed chatting about infodesign and other stuff, some highlights to linkable content:

• Hans Rosling’s spectacular presentation at TED, whoever says statistics are boring deserves a punch in the face.
• Paul Mijksenaar’s great work at Schiphol, Amsterdam; and his short but tasty book, “An Introduction to Information Design”.
• What the heck happened to Second Life? And why people still keep trying to replicate reality in 3D environments? It has all the cons and none of the benefits. At least WoW allows you to run around slashing innocent creatures.
• The difference between the “showing all the data” approach by Edward Tufte, and R.S. Wurman’s “selecting a presenting only what is important to the reader”.
• Myth debunked: Nasa spent millions developing a pen that would work in space
• We also debunked the mentos myth, however, after reading the article, I withdraw my offer to atempt it. Hey, stop calling me chicken!

Thanks for visiting our headquarters Maki!

BTW, we just checked and there seems to be just this little reference to this on the internets.

Murray Moss then called bullshit in a rabid response at Design Observer:

This is not a celebratory moment for design. Design-related businesses, including my own, are suffering, and will most likely continue to face very difficult times in the coming year, at the very least. That said, I deeply resent the tone of comeuppance in Mr. Cannell’s article, his condescending, parochial-school-matronly, Calvinistic reproach of the design that flourished during what he refers to as the “economic boom.”

Which seems all nice and dandy, until you realize Mr. Moss is peddling this kind of nonesense at his “design related business”:

Excuse the quality of the photo, but it seems the profit margin on this $13,000 USD chair by Campana Brothers can’t buy a decent photographer. And taking a look at the rest of their catalog, one can’t help but wonder how they got started in the first place.

I wouldn’t go as far as saying that good design thrives during an economic downturn, but at least it gets rid of the chaff. Good luck Mr. Moss.

Today was Alberto ‘denegro‘ Romero’s turn. He’s an interaction designer at dnx, one of unvlog.com’s founders, and a huge Sopranos‘ fan. Lunch seemed almost thematic: we ended up at our favorite Sicilian restaurant sipping mirto (cranberry liquor) and Alberto took home some great cannoli to enjoy while watching the fourth season tonight (departing on a Italian Vespa bike, as if it was not enough).

Past guests to Vostok’s spaceship:

• Jacobo ‘The Robot’ García
• Marcela Machuca
• Agustín Jiménez

He is going to make it with two arduino boards and I presume it all will be opensource. That’s why he’s asking for donations (besides explaining the project) to raise the €145 he needs to do so. Not a big deal.

I wonder how many different things you can do if you use the capabilities of an arduino board to do such measurements: all that information in digital format asking to be designed and displayed in many ways.

Good luck, Alex!

During the past few months we’ve had the privilege of working with great clients, both start-ups and multi-nationals. It has been a great pleasure collaborating with partners and friends who understand the virtues of honest, simple, and well-thought design. Vostok’s rockets are still going full-thrust, we will keep you updated on recently completed projects.

This blog is also running under the new domain, but thanks to some ancient Apache magic conjuration you won’t even notice. We’re also giving away some limited-edition Planetaki T-Shirts, just pay the shipping and we will send it via a reliable courier. To get yours just visit our new website.

This is the old “Remind me” one, an infographics bacchanal created by Ludovic Houplan & Hervé de Crécy:

The social bookmarking service Ma.gnolia reports that all of its user data was irretrievably lost in the Jan. 30 database crash that knocked the service offline. That means that users who were unable to recover their bookmarks through publicly available tools (including other social media sites and the Google cache) have lost all their data.

This makes me think about bad luck, I mean REAL bad luck. There is another paragraph that left me thinking:

It turns out that Ma.gnolia was pretty much a one-man operation, running on two Mac OS X servers and four Mac minis. A clear lesson for users is not to assume that online services have lots of staff, lots of servers and professional backups, and to keep your own copies of your data, especially on free services.

I think it’s great that such a small team and infrastructure could manage a service like Magnolia. What don’t get is the lack of backups. Any hosting service would give you that for just a few bucks a month. I hope everything is back to normal soon. They deserve it.

Here’s the picture of Renfe’s stand at FITUR, stolen from Realidad Aparte’s website:

For those unfamiliar, Renfe is the Spanish railway company, well known on the internets for having the crappiest, never-working site ever seen. It doesn’t work on mac, it doesn’t work on Firefox and sometimes it just doesn’t work on anything. It’s been like that for months (perhaps years) and nothing seems to happen. Shame on them, shame on our politicians.

Nagaraya barbecue cracker nuts, or as Mark calls them, Japanese peanuts. They seem to be regular peanuts covered with a crisp layer of wadus that’s both sweet and spicy. As they say:

Heat up the fun with hot & spicy flavor and have a ssssizzling great time! It’s like having fireworks with your snack or party.

They are imported from Philippines (globalization rules) and they have 0% tansfat and cholesterol. Science at its best!

So we were amused to find out that Planetaki’s logo is also a Formula One flag. The ever revealing Wikipedia article says:

Ha! Outta the race Bloglines!

Photo by eryoni

A whoppin’ 25% of our team are huge zombie fans (which accounts for —ahem— only me). However, between the four of us we cover a good area of the Periodic Table of Awesomeness. The only thing missing there is Madrid!

(via a tweet from Seisdeagosto)

Adding stuff is a temptation in which many fall. We’ve seen it in a lot of projects. The owner thinks that the only possible evolution is adding functionality. We think that sometimes is just the opposite: make it better by removing instead of adding. The key is to know which branches to cut, just like a good gardener does, so the tree grows stronger and healthier.

Twitter could allow users to upload pictues, sounds… it could have a rich text editor so people can put smileys, html and italics… But it doesn’t have all that. It still is 140 character messages ordered chronologically in one column. Nothing else.

Over the last couple of months Vostok has had the pleasure of teaming up with BeBanjo, a start-up composed of an Elite Team of A-Players. We are very flattered to be mentioned as collaborators at their brand-new website, as we share many traits: passion for simplicity, staying lean and mean, and being obssesive about what really matters. Working with them has been a thrill, as their agile development turns our interaction design deliverables into The Real Thing in a matter of days.

(seen near the Vostok office)

We still need to do a lot of work on many details, especially those related to design so we can keep the same user experience we already have on the website. It’s not done yet but… It works!

You can’t miss Frank Gehry by The Simpsons either!

Everything is here.

BTW, the big-sized poster is at the Planetaki Blog, in case you want to find your website in the image.

María, a Journalist by formation (jack-of-all-trades in practice) brings serious communication and organization skills to the table, plus some design fire power for the ultra-cool projects lining up at Vostok for 2009. María lived two years in Turin, and speaks fluent Italian. She also claims to make a mean tiramisu. This, however, has not been personally verified by the rest of the team (hint hint).

Despite looking and acting vampirishly dark, María is the sunshine of the office. She has geeky sense of humor, and will laugh at almost any joke you make, no matter how dorky and stupid. Or probably she is just being condescending with us. In any case, we are extremely pleased to have a great talent and personality at the office.