The home renovation industry in 2024 is focusing on innovative and sustainable materials.

Jennifer Barden is an expert in her field as the founder of Jen-X Website Design and Strategy

Bottle Rocket Media Partners with Digital Media Company, Basis Technologies, To Launch New Marketing Campaign at Ad Week NYC

Orbano, Inc., a wholesale distributor of signage materials, supplies and equipment, debuts on September 16, 2024. The company's online shopping platform is set to offer a wide range of premium products coupled with an intuitive customer experience.

Maria Ilinca Browne is a noteworthy entrepreneur who has excelled in creating creative solutions and experiences

Amptive creates the best website for your jewelry industry business through effective organization and a digital marketing plan.

Experience the incredible craftsmanship of beautiful custom designed jewelry by the in-house teams in their Milford and Brighton jewelry stores.

Unlock the Secrets to Exponential Revenue Growth: Learn from Industry Leaders and Transform Your Business at The 2024 G.R.O.W.T.H Business Conference!"

P&T Interiors, the high-end interior design firm lead by Pol Theis, is featured in Nicole England's latest book Resident Dog Vol.II, a great coffee table book that showcases amazing architecture and the lucky pups that get to be the "Resident Dog".

Pol Theis, the notable eclectic interior designer, is featured in Nicole England's latest book Resident Dog 2, a great new coffee table book that presents amazing homes and the dogs who live there.

Rochford intends to unseat Kathy Castor

The United States of KAILASA (KAILASA) announces a historic milestone: the unveiling of multiple of its sovereign locations on Guru Purnima.

Donald J. Trump has never met the basic qualifications to be a sworn police officer, much less President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.

Better Homes and Gardens® Real Estate has announced the launch of a new brand campaign and tagline, emphasizing their 99% client satisfaction rating and deep understanding of homes. This campaign further connects the trusted reputation and quality synonymous with the iconic Better Homes & Gardens media brand, which engages more than 42 million print and…

The post Better Homes and Gardens® Real Estate Launches “We Know” Campaign appeared first on RISMedia.

ASOS has signed a three-year deal with Microsoft to boost efficiency and innovation through AI. The partnership includes tools like Microsoft Copilot, Power Automate, and Azure, enabling ASOS to automate processes and enhance customer experiences. This allows employees to focus on creativity while AI handles routine tasks, driving data-driven decisions.

Skin dehydration is one of the major reasons why your skin looks dull and lacks that fresh and glowing look. This is a common mistake to not understand what your skin actually needs. For any instant pick up, make sure you slather on a good hydrating serum. Moving on, there a few signs that show your skin is dehydrated. Some are pretty obvious and some are not so obvious or you might fail to notice in the rush of your work. So, let me list them for you.

Anne-Laure Fayard, associate professor at NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering, was studying the effects of workplace design on employees long before the Covid-19 crisis. Now, she says, the trend of flexible schedules and hybrid offices - where some people come in, others work from home, and many do both - is here to stay. This means that businesses need to reimagine offices as places built less for individual knowledge work than for learning, collaboration, and culture-building. Fayard is the coauthor of the HBR article "Designing the Hybrid Office."

Debbie Cohen and Kate Roeske-Zummer, cofounders of HumanityWorks, are sounding an alarm bell for employee retention. Record numbers of people are quitting their jobs due to burnout and better opportunities. Those resignations leave their former colleagues burdened with even more work and a sense of despair. Cohen and Roeske-Zummer argue that employers should re-recruit their existing employees and even think of them as customers. And the two consultants outline steps managers can take to openly appreciate those employees and keep a positive culture. Cohen and Roeske-Zummer wrote the HBR.org article "With So Many People Quitting, Don’t Overlook Those Who Stay.”

Buffini & Company is launching a new training program for real estate professionals to win business as they face the new rules of real estate. The company stated the new Certified Full-Service Professional (CFSP) designation training program is aimed at helping real estate professionals attract and keep customers, communicate their unique selling proposition and stand…

The post Buffini & Company Launches New Designation Training Program appeared first on RISMedia.

Burberry has introduced its first virtual scarf try-on experience in its ‘Wrapped in Burberry’ holiday campaign. Partnering with AR provider WANNA, the immersive experience lets customers view iconic Burberry scarves in real-time, with over 50 styles and two classic options. Available online and in select stores, customers can share images and directly access product pages for purchases.

Tariff policy under the new government will indeed be a challenge and will trigger new inflationary cycles if campaign proposals are fully enacted, making apparel expensive for Americans, trade body AAFA recently said. AAFA will continue to push Congress and the Administration to renew expired and expiring programmes like the AGOA, the GSP and the Haiti HELP/HOPE preference programme.

To me, the gaming market is a lot like the EDC market: It's fascinating to see what developmental lengths people will go to, to push the UX of some object with highly specific functions. A case in point is this Elitech Protean Space Quick Control Swap Gaming System.

The idea behind it, is that gamers have multiple task-dependent UI's on their desks: A keyboard for typing, a joystick and throttle for playing flight simulators, a steering wheel and a shifter for driving games. For gaming accuracy these need to be mounted, and juggling the mounts is apparently a hassle. So what this design does is, provide a modular platform on which to securely attach different controllers.

The heart of the system is this keyboard base, with two wings.

The keyboard base slides rearwards, revealing aluminum channels.

The wing pieces can be slid towards each other along these channels, adjusted to your preferred width.

The "X" in the top of the wings is stainless steel. This allows you to attach magnetic controllers.

Furthermore, there are clamping attachments that allow you to attach a steering wheel and shifter.

Thus the gamer can quickly achieve the set-up that they want:

This isn't yet in production; the developer is planning a crowdfunding campaign.

Dorel Juvenile is the world's leading juvenile products company. When they wanted to develop a new infant car seat, they turned to Pennsylvania-based ID firm DesignThink.

DesignThink as the Innovation Incubator for the Ultra Lightweight Maxi Cosi Coral XP

A Cold January Day in 2017

The team at DesignThink was asked to visit Dorel Juvenile Group USA to review a "Special Project". The development team at Dorel JG wasted no time introducing us to their latest infant car seat (ICS) project. They were experimenting with the idea of developing a seat that would reduce the struggles parents faced when trying to transition their baby from the car and carry their baby in the removable seat portion of the ICS. The team at DesignThink has designed several car seats over the years and we instantly recognized the unique opportunity, as well as the challenge that this project offered, and were eager and excited to get started.

Our Role as the Innovation Incubator

We partnered with Dorel to act as the innovation incubator to lead the project team through the fuzzy front-end and define the product's overall features and characteristics of use. Upon successful concept definition, the project would be positioned under the Maxi Cosi brand and ultimately transferred to the Maxi Cosi team in Europe and a European design group to carry the innovation to production.

The Problem at Hand

By removing the seat from the base that is installed in the car, parents can take the baby with them while running errands or visiting people and places. However, a problem associated with this system is that some removable seats can weigh up to 16 lbs. and the baby can weigh up to 35 lbs. for a combined arm-crushing weight of 50+lbs.!!

We established two primary goals: 1) reduce the overall weight of the seat to lighten the load, while maintaining structural integrity as to achieve a top crash test rating, and 2) develop new methods that enable parents to more easily lift the seat when moving in and out of the vehicle and when transporting the child in the seat.

Our Approach (Decades of Experience and User Understanding Put to Test)

DesignThink is one of the leading firms in car seat development having brought several seats to the market and has a long history of creating break-through innovation, but this project pushed our team in new ways. The structure for the project utilized DesignThink's simplified "DEEP" process;

Define that for which we will solve

Express possible solutions as quick thumbnail stories

Explain the "what – why – wow" related to user needs

Prototype to demonstrate the merits of the idea

How the Project Unfolded

A series of innovation workshops were hosted at our studio to enable the team to think and problem solve with product at hand. The objective was to think in the "ideal" (do not worry about cost and construction initially) and to "fail fast" (explore, evaluate, and evolve). The following provided the high-level framework for how the team identified and pursued their ideas.

Established Design Targets

Led by our usability team, along with team members from Dorel, we hosted a several day innovation workshop at our studio. We began with a collaborative defining of the design targets based on use, expectations, pain points, and opportunities, which we affinitized and moved directly into physical prototyping to address and evaluate how well the concepts improved the user experience during day-to-day interactions.

DEEP: Innovation Workshops to prototype your idea. You are encouraged to be chaotic and messy! Fail fast! Dorel made sure plenty of product was on hand to fuel the innovation.

Inutitive Carry

Enhanced Confidence

Improved Transitions

Development of Design Targets

Role-Play is the Best Way

To truly understand and empathize with users, we role-played, exploring typical use-case scenarios to inform our ideation. Placing ourselves in the same situations helps us quickly evaluate and improve our concepts.

Handle-Carry:

Evolution for improved ease when attaching the seat to the base and removing the child from the vehicle

Cradle-Carry:

Exploration to improve how parents can bond with the baby in a more natural holding position

Cross-Body Strap:

Exploration to provide alternate ways to carry the baby while reducing the effects of weight and fatigue on the parent

Iterative User Evaluation Cycle

Our early thoughts and ideas were evaluated by the team and with parents in our research lab. These ideas were then refined to strengthen the evolving direction. The learnings obtained through this method enabled the team to focus on the most meaningful directions and build their value. Listening, understanding, and empathizing allowed our team to develop new ideas in this category that were previously unexplored.

DesignThink presents the refined design direction.

A series of prototypes and user evaluations enabled us to reach a stage of concept definition for an ultra lightweight car seat that provides parents with improved ways to carry, hold, and secure their baby.

Our Results

User-Centered Insights lead to Market Defining Solutions

Having developed many juvenile products such as car seats, strollers, and highchairs, DesignThink understands the day-to-day challenges parents face, both physically and emotionally. We embarked on this project with Dorel to define a new car seat with features that take into account those challenges and offer relevant and meaningful solutions. Exploring innovation that is rooted in user insights enabled our team to quickly define those solutions and overcome technical hurdles to deliver new experiences to address real problems faced by parents when using an ICS.

Defining the Direction

As mentioned, DesignThink was hired as the innovation incubator in the fuzzy front-end to develop and define a new architecture for this seat. Our work was documented and handed off to the Maxi-Cosi team in Europe. The output of our innovation incubation became the driving framework used by the teams in Europe to create a truly meaningful and relevant solution for parents in this category.

The DesignThink team is very proud to have been selected by Dorel to play such an important "behind the scenes" role in setting the direction for, and contributing to the success of, the Maxi Cosi Coral XP.

It takes a Village to Design a Car Seat

Snapshot of the iterative concept development that led to the final product

You can see more of DesignThink's work here.

I have no idea who the target market for these is. Chinese tool manufacturer Arrowmax sells these Black Golden Honeycomb tools: Drivers, Allen wrenches and reamers.

They're sold individually or in sets.

On the company's website, there are literally no product descriptions for any of the tools—no explanation of the handle design, nor even what any of the tools are made out of. The only thing I was able to learn about the tools, was in the company's thin bio: Apparently these were featured, somewhere in the background, in the Marvel movie "Ant Man & the Wasp." Of course they were.

Perhaps you’ve noticed how cottagecore has recently become one of the most popular interior design styles. Cottagecore is a design aesthetic that idealizes rural life. It includes homes decorated in earthy colors, nostalgic patterns, and wood tones, it’s a style that’s a nod to the English countryside. Cottagecore is also a lifestyle focused on simple…

The latest vital signs featuring the affects of exposure to electronic cigarette advertisements on middle and high school students in the United States during 2014.

The latest vital signs report detailing the affects of exposure to electronic cigarette advertisements on middle and high school students in the United States during 2014.

This release explains the latest campaign for TIPS from Former Smokers in it's 5th year.

More than 1.8 million smokers attempted to quit smoking and an estimated 104,000 Americans quit smoking for good because of the nine-week-long 2014 Tips From Former Smokers ( Tips ) campaign.

Data regarding the disparities with tobacco-related cancer incidences and death from 2004 until 2013.

Google's new Learn About tool offers an interactive approach to learning about topics, including heady questions like whether money buys happiness.

This innovative offering sets a new standard for secure digital storing, document preservation, and evidence archiving and management

This integration centers on the strategic marketing opportunities associated with email signatures, enabling marketers to deliver personalized, data-driven communication that improves contact relationships and engagement

Beginning January 2023 or August 2023   Game Art Department   Environment Artist/Modeler   Full-Time Faculty Appointment with Benefits    The Game Art (GA) Department is a nationally respected program with a highly collaborative teaching environment that merges the aesthetic of feature film with today’s most current interactive gaming hardware and software. Game students design, create and analyze the visual components of games.   Facilities: Ringling College’s GA Department has facilities designed to replicate a professional studio environment, and boasts the highest-end, state-of-the-art computers, graphics cards, and is complete with ergonomic furniture. Full-time Institutional Technology staff support the Department.   The Position: The Game Art Department is seeking an environment artist with Maya and Unreal Engine 4/5 (UE5) experience to join a dedicated faculty teaching Game Art. The primary responsibility of this position will focus on providing quality instruction, and teaching students to create the visual assets that make computer games.   Included among the duties and responsibilities, this position requires experience in world-building, modeling, texturing, and lighting in a 3D application as well as in Unreal Engine 4/5 (UE4/5). The successful candidate will be responsible for teaching three courses or nine credits per semester using high-end resources. Assignments include teaching introductory through advanced courses in creating level and environment art assets, and game engine integration of those assets. Ongoing commitment to creative work/scholarship in the profession is expected. Active participation with faculty, department, and college service is required.   This is a full-time appointment with benefits. The salary will be commensurate with the candidate’s qualifications and experience. The anticipated start date is January 2023 or August 2023. The College has a supportive, collegial faculty, a curriculum that strongly values excellence, and a robust support system dedicated to using the most current technology.   (Minimum Qualifications) Include evidence of: A Master’s degree in Animation, Illustration, or a related field, OR a 4-year professional degree in art or design and equivalent professional experience, training and expertise with an appropriate record of achievement in the field. Ability to teach introductory through advanced classes in creating levels, environment art assets, 3D modeling, lighting, and texturing. Experience with Autodesk Maya. Experience with Unreal Engine 4/5 (UE4/5). Strong interpersonal and collaborative skills.   (Preferred Qualifications) Include evidence of: A terminal degree in an appropriate discipline. Advanced experience with level design. Experience with Zbrush. Experience with Substance Designer and Substance Painter. Expertise with Unreal Engine 4/5 (UE4/5) or a comparable game engine. Ability to create visually-sophisticated environments in UE4/5 Experience with game design.   (Special Instructions to Applicants) Required materials include cover letter incorporating experiences that address the position requirements, resume or CV, employment history, contact information of three references (names, titles, email and telephone numbers), examples of personal work and an unofficial transcript copy of the most relevant degree. Official transcripts will be required upon hire. Student work examples may also be submitted, if available.  Candidates may be asked to submit additional materials if needed. Review of applications will begin immediately and continue until the position is filled.   For portfolio, you have the option to upload electronic documents/images, up to 5 MB, or a URL.   General questions regarding the job application process may be emailed to aamail@ringling.edu.   Apply on-line https://ringling.simplehire.com Ringling College of Art and Design is an Equal Opportunity Employer

The Media School at Indiana University Bloomington invites applications for a Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, or Professor of Practice position in game design (appointment dependent on professional experience and impact in the field). We seek candidates with senior experience in the game industry as well as a deep understanding of game design and/or systemic design. The ideal applicant will have some teaching experience and technical skill in some portion of the production pipeline. Applicants with little or no classroom experience are still encouraged to apply and should discuss their interest and preparedness to teach students at the college level. A bachelor’s degree is required and an advanced degree preferred, though significant professional experience will be considered in lieu of an advanced academic degree. The candidate may teach courses on the game industry, advanced design classes, special topics courses based on their expertise, and support students through their sequence of capstone courses. Duties will include teaching and service to the game design program with the potential for leadership within the program, including directorship of the degree.    Applications should include a cover letter, curriculum vitae, teaching statement, diversity statement outlining contributions and commitment to equity and inclusion, and a list of academic or professional references. Applications will be reviewed immediately, and the position will remain open until filled. Applications received by October 28, 2022, will be given full consideration. Interested candidates should submit application materials online at https://indiana.peopleadmin.com/postings/13810. The expected start date is August 1, 2023.    Indiana University is an equal employment and affirmative action employer and a provider of ADA services. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment based on individual qualifications. Indiana University prohibits discrimination based on age, ethnicity, color, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, national origin, disability status or protected veteran status. Diversity and inclusion are central to The Media School’s mission.    Indiana University is located in Bloomington, Indiana, a vibrant city full of cultural life, diversity, and opportunity, with a population of some 85,000 people from all over the world. It is not uncommon to bump into world-renowned poets, professors, musicians, and researchers at one of the city’s notable local restaurants, cafes, or breweries. IU Bloomington is home to a lively arts community, with independent local theaters, university orchestras, and one of the best university cinemas in the country.     Questions regarding this position or the application process should be directed to the chair of the search committee, Will Emigh, Interim Director of the Game Design Program, at wemigh@indiana.edu. See more about The Media School at https://mediaschool.indiana.edu/index.html.  

The Game Design department of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts seeks to fill a full-time faculty position starting in the 2023-2024 academic year.   Join the NYU Game Center—a passionate community of game creators, researchers, and educators who are committed to building the world’s greatest game design program, to teaching the next generation of game innovators, and to furthering games as a meaningful cultural form via game design as creative practice.   We are seeking applicants for an Assistant Arts Professor (non-tenure, continuing contract) position to start in September 2023 and serve as part of our faculty on an ongoing basis. Applicants must have professional experience in one or more of the following domains: game design, game development, and creative direction. Ideal candidates should have creatively led and released multiple game projects, whether in large-scale commercial games (AAA), indie games, and/or artistic projects centered on play. Hands-on familiarity with game engines such as Unity, GameMaker, and Unreal is preferred.   As part of Tisch School of the Arts, Game Center faculty are expected to combine teaching with an active, ongoing professional practice and/or research in the world of games. We are looking for candidates who are active participants in the field, doing original and innovative work as independent developers in solo/consulting practice or as part of larger teams. Ideal candidates would have experience speaking or writing about their own and/or other game creators’ work from a critical perspective and should be able to draw on their professional experience to create a compelling and effective learning environment. Previous teaching experience is not a requirement, but it is a strong plus. The NYU Game Center is a highly collaborative environment where decisions about the operations of the department are made collectively whenever possible; leadership and consensus-building skills are also highly valued.   We are actively seeking applicants that have a commitment to equity-forward teaching practices and who recognize and embrace the values of inclusivity and diversity, both in the classroom and in game development.   Whether you are an industry veteran with triple-A experience who wants a chance to share your knowledge of the complex craft of game development or an independent developer exploring the experimental edge of game aesthetics, we want to talk to you about joining the NYU Game Center. . Duties: Duties include teaching five courses a year, student advising, and participation in departmental and school-wide committees. On-going professional work while teaching is expected. Includes an excellent benefits package.   Applicants must provide a cover letter, full C.V., and three letters of recommendation with contact information for each recommender. All these materials must be submitted by November 1, 2022.   For more information, please visit: https://tisch.nyu.edu/faculty/faculty-positions.      Finalists will be asked to submit a portfolio of creative work, to provide selected course syllabi and teaching evaluations if applicable, and to give a short lecture on a topic of their choice to NYU Game Center students and faculty.   NYU is an Equal Opportunity Employer and is committed to a policy of equal treatment and opportunity in every aspect of its recruitment and hiring process without regard to age, alienage, caregiver status, childbirth, citizenship status, color, creed, disability, domestic violence victim status, ethnicity, familial status, gender and/or gender identity or expression, marital status, military status, national origin, parental status, partnership status, predisposing genetic characteristics, pregnancy, race, religion, reproductive health decision making, sex, sexual orientation, unemployment status, veteran status, or any other legally protected basis. Women, racial and ethnic minorities, persons of minority sexual orientation or gender identity, individuals with disabilities, and veterans are encouraged to apply for vacant positions at all levels.

There are actually two questions here: 1. Should pollsters share all the information on their design, data collection, and analyses? 2. If yes on question 1 above, should this information be made public ahead of time, before the survey is … Continue reading →

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After years of watching clients struggle with clunky, one-size-fits-all designs, we’ve learned that a great website needs to fit perfectly into any screen it meets, no matter how great the design is. Many see responsive design as a technical maze, but in this post, we’ll try to guide you through some of the challenges (and […]

The post Responsive Design: What Is It & Why Is It Important? appeared first on Elegant Themes Blog.

Delaware Gov. John Carney signed a bill allowing the insurance commissioner to adopt criteria for employers to qualify for a workplace safety program that aims to provide lower workers’ compensation…

Electronic signatures would be allowed for all California workers’ compensation documents, under a recently amended bill. Assemblymember Diane Dixon, R-Newport Beach, last week amended AB 2337 to strike a provision that…

California lawmakers closed out the 2024 legislative session by passing a bill that would allow electronic signatures on all work comp documents, and a bill requiring that doctors who do utilization review on claims…

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill allowing electronic signatures in the state’s workers’ compensation system. Newsom on Sunday signed AB 2337, by Assemblymember Diane Dixon, R-Newport Beach. As introduced, the…

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill delaying by two years the implementation of a universal workers’ compensation coverage requirement for all contractors. The bill Newsom signed Sunday also includes a…

California Gov. Gavin Newsom enacted legislation allowing carriers to continue using prepaid debit cards for payment of temporary and permanent disability benefits. At the same time, the governor vetoed a bill…

A Texas appellate court ruled that a nonsignatory to an agreement could not compel arbitration of a family’s wrongful death claims despite its purported adoption of an occupational injury benefit…

This course is essential for any professional in workers’ compensation who creates, reviews or processes PR-4 Reports or QME/AME Reports. In this informative webinar, the attendee will learn how to…

A divided Michigan Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of a tort claim saying the injured worker agreed to a shorter statute of limitations in a contract he signed as…

Today I have a really exciting update, sharing exactly what I've been working on for the past year. At my other website Design Cuts, we've just launched the most curated, high quality marketplace anywhere for designers just like you!

Did Apple just disrupt Healthcare?  More specifically, Health Tech? I would say Healthcare is one of those industries ripe for innovation disruption.  It is a mature industry lead by large slow-moving organisations, that have been around forever.  They have built their equivalent of the Great...

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