The Vostok blog

Stripped of interface, BlackVostok is a WordPress theme we designed where content is king. The image is the message, the text is solely context. People have been using it to tell their stories, show off their work. Now they can also do so in Japanese.

BlackVostok WordPress theme in Japanese

Both the website and the theme have been translated by Daniel Gutiérrez Alías and his team at Shaking Asia. Thank you sir.

The possibilities of the iPad are infinite. And there are two or three apps out there that are molding its future. One of them is Writer by iA.  It’s clean, simple and downright useful.

It’s meant for you to focus on what’s important: your writing. No distractions.

This dreamy video tutorial sets the mood to help you see it in action:

Other convenient functions on Writer: easy read, sync with dropbox, email content.

We believe the best way to express our views on design is to let our clients speak for themselves:

We’d like to thank our clients and Riot Cinema for this video.

More about Japan, this time how pictograms can save your life (or save you from headache) when you are hungover and have no idea what medicine to buy:

(this one goes right to our information design category)

Here's the translated text:

Do you agree with Austria’s reunification with the German Reich promulgated on March the 13th of 1938, and do you vote for the Party of our Leader Adolf Hitler? (yes/no)

Via oscar (an anonymous commentator in our blog) we find an incredible section in MONOmoda,that puts together a great list of design related films. All in all, a great research tool. Although we already knew most of the films’ highlighted (cause many of you directed us to them a few months ago), it’ll be a really helpful post to help us curate our own design cinemathéque. The best way to welcome 2011

I’ve started to use dribbble with some of our most recent designs. Not much for now but enough to get an overview of the kind of stuff we are doing now.

For those who don’t know it yet, dribbble is one of my top 5 favorite things of 2010, along with fffffound, Salsa Valentina, the Tokyo real-sized Gundam and a yet-empty spot.

From Griffith to David Fincher, this beautiful post on how film titles have evolved throughout cinema’s history is a pertinent reminder of the importance of images, typography and narrative to create specific atmospheres.

[In] film titles we see the bond between the art of filmmaking and graphic design — and perhaps visual culture as a whole. They have always served a greater purpose than themselves: to move the overarching story forward.

I deeply believe that honesty and beauty are two of the most important values in design. We put as much as we could in the redesign of the Search Results page of Minube for flights and hotels and the result has been good. Here it is:

Our assumptions

We (both minube and us) put extreme attention to what information mattered the most and made it stand above the secondary data. These were our main assumptions:

• Price matters most than company.
• Price (usually) matters most than hours.
• There is the cheapest and then the rest.
• Airlines are better recognized by their logos/colors than by their names.
• Some things don’t need to be a in a filter: price ranges, airline, websites searched, etc.
• Those with flexible dates need a different way to look at it.
• It’s easier to redo the search than to refine through ajax.
• Flight and flight back are consecutive, so let’s show them consecutive.
• It’s likely that your choice will be among the first 10 results (although you may want to see more).
• White space helps people identify choices, it makes everything clearer.
• Boxes help you separate between different types of content.
• It’s better to show just the essential data.

Old and new versions side to side

Minube is always quesioning how they do things and how these things can be improved. I like to say that at Vostok we are not good at innovating but at improving. The old version was good. But good as it was it could be, and should be improved. Here you have both versions side to side:

Facts prove it

We know the new one is more beautiful and more honest. Facts prove it. Raúl (Minube’s CEO) told me about the A/B Test results and the main indicators doubled in the new one. You should check Raúl’s post in Spanish about it.

We both believe

It’s a great thing we have clients who share our believes. Working with minube is always of great pleasure. We have a relationship based on trust and shared values. They also think that beauty and honesty are two of most important principles of good design.

You know how long it takes to do simple? About ten times longer than fast and dirty.

Paul Giambarba

(via Minimal)