January 2004: The Future.
The MANOVERBOARD Telegraph, No. 10.
Welcome to the (end of) January 2004 Telegraph, the home of MANOVERBOARD news and views. The Telegraph is a monthly newsletter from MANOVERBOARD, a Web and print design company located in Brooklyn, New York. MANOVERBOARD creates and develops clean, clear, and compelling websites and visual resources for small and large organizations. This month we introduce a new client website, look at a few benefits of online marketing, and visit an author's future.
Recent Project: Monika Lozinska Lee Photography Website
We're awfully pleased to showcase a website we launched two weeks ago, Monika Lozinska Lee | Photography. Lozinska Lee, located in Chicago, came to MANOVERBOARD with a need for a strong, original, yet subtle design that would showcase her photography, garner new clients, and establish her identity online. The website is fully XHTML compliant and, even though it features rather large images, downloads very quickly with slower Internet connections. Wishing continued success to Monika and her business.
Online vs. Offline
Back in the days of the "interactive agency" (which coincided with the dot-com era), the rush to create and publish a website was fierce. It's easy to recall. There were few organizations that could stomach not being online. A few, generally more conservative, companies stayed in what was unfortunately coined the "offline" world, using print to communicate their products or services. Those companies' websites were often one-page affairs or moving pictures that could not be easily modified.
With the rise of inexpensive ways to manage large amounts of content and to sell products, it's clear that many organizations can no longer afford to compete with printed materials alone, despite their inherently gorgeous qualities. These days websites can easily allow a company to show, replace, and manage products or services easily at a fraction of the cost of publishing a book, catalog, or sales sheet. While MANOVERBOARD truly hopes that the "offline" world does not go away any time soon, it appears that online marketing and sales have made many people's lives much easier and their businesses far more cost effective.
About The Telegraph
The Telegraph brings you up to date on the goings-on at MANOVERBOARD. Each month, we present ideas and tips, articles and books, as well as recently completed projects. The Telegraph welcomes suggestions and submissions for inclusion in the newsletter.
Recommended Book: Tomorrow Now by Bruce Sterling
Bruce Sterling, science fiction writer and author of The Hacker Crackdown, which came out a short eleven years ago, has written a fascinating report from his chair near the future called Tomorrow Now. In it, Sterling describes his at times posturing belief that the future of Western culture is blandly sensible, full of Internet-related objects from refrigerators to gas tanks, and biotech-focused. Much like Ray Kurzweil's The Age of Spiritual Machines, Tomorrow Now is highly accessible, funny, and as far-reaching as one could expect of an armchair futurist in 2004.