think moto‘s subjective mid-year trend report for 2013 The first six months of 2013 are over - time for a brief review of what we've been engaged with so far this year. Usually, at the beginning of the year a couple of big agencies release their trend reports with forecasts for the upcoming year. We do it the other way round: after six month we look back at some projects and try to read off our subjective trends. »

1. LOOKING BAC K
AHEA D
think moto‘s subjective mid-year trend report for 2013
The first six months of 2013 are over - time for a brief review of what we've been engaged
with so far this year. Usually, at the beginning of the year a couple of big agencies release
their trend reports with forecasts for the upcoming year. We do it the other way round:
after six month we look back at some projects and try to read off our subjective trends. »
noted down by marco spies (@marcosz)

2. By now we have several startups in our customer
base and also the product departments of
established companies like to see themselves as
start-ups inside the company. Which means to
them: we want to apply new, up-to-date, human
centered and digitally-impelled paradigms in
product development and branding. It is all about
agile development, fast market response and build-
to-order. About getting fast results and the fear of
missing the connection to new markets.
Unfortunately, bureaucracy all to often gets in the
way between insight and realization, which means
much of the energy of employees is spent in vain.
Unlike the "kick-starters". Fast decisions are a must
for start-ups. Most of them face decision-making
with adolescent enthusiasm. Even if the founders
had been executives at Cisco and Genesys — and
not exactly meet the expectations one has of a
Berlin start-up — they are lean and decisive, like our
client relayr, who finally might be able to make the
internet of things come true.
By the way, some of the start-ups we work with,
might be changing the economic system, with
micro-financing in poor areas of the world for
instance, like MAMBU. [s. trend #4] Others put efforts
in making all things around us talk to each other. [s.
trend #5]
However, e-book distributor Bookwire, our oldest
start-up client, is coming of age and still has a lot of
potential in an industry, that is just starting out. ¶
#1
START-UPS IN BERLIN
Agile is the new new economy

3. #2
FLAT DESIGN
When everything is flat the lighthouse shines the further.
All the start-ups mentioned above have one more
thing in common: they know about the relevance of
UI and UX Design. Our Branded Interaction Design
(BIxD) approach naturally accommodates this. We
don't see the design of user interfaces as an
exercise for the style guide on page 97, but as a
central starting point for the development of an
entire brand strategy.
Further it is about interactions that shape the brand
("branded interactions" as we call it) and connect
those with the existing spirit of time.
Our leading principles are smart, simple and
sustainable. In our opinion less is more, for as long as
it‘s sustainable. For our web products we have
always been favoring a flat, reduced look which we
combine with well defined interactive elements.
Obviously Don Norman's "affordances" are still valid
today. In fact, in a flat world it‘s easier to make
certain aspects stand out. Think of a small hill in a
completely flat world: it would certainly feel like a
mountain. That calls for a correct use of hierarchy
for interface elements though.
Unfortunately flat design grew to a popular
phenomenon quite recently. Just like other trends,
for example the „everything-must-be-visible“-rule,
the path navigation, the sevens-count usability rule
or the duty to be present on Facebook, clients still
demand it, without questioning whether it applies to
the brand, the content, the product or the target
group. And yet there are a several reasons militating
in favor and against flat design, as we mentioned on
our Brand New Thinking blog not so long ago.
[s. Skeuomorphic vs. Flat Design] ¶

4. #3
THE ONLY CONSTANT IS
CHANGE
The publishing industry on the move.
As some of our clients are in the publishing sector
(Rodale Motor Presse, Cornelsen Verlag, Bookwire)
and we published our own books („Branded
Interactions“, „Multi-Channel-Strategie im
stationären Einzelhandel“), the changes in the
publishing industry keep us busy. It remains exciting
to see the publishing sector find it‘s way through the
current abundance of predictions.
That is especially true for the narrative genre. Since
the 90's I‘m engaged in interactive narrative formats
and as it happens there is little news in this field.
Years ago the scenarios of interactive narration
already went through highly diverse disciplines like
film, games or hypertext literature.
The experiments which we see today are just a step
by step approach to the visions of former days,
where one yet boisterously announced the end of
the book.
Basically an appropriate technological platform for
digital literature is still missing today. The kindle is
nice when reading old-style but when it comes to
the interface it‘s a step back in the times of the first
Apple Macintosh and Atari ST. To sum it up: It‘s neat
retro-style but nothing new. ¶

5. #4
SUSTAINABILITY &
TRANSFORMATION
Transition and Constancy.
In the summer of love in 1969 Buckminster Fuller
published his 'Operating Manual for Spaceship
Earth'. It was actually a preface in which he draw the
conclusion that a manual still has to be written. In
the meantime, he says, we‘ll be floating in space only
equipped with our remaining term.
Gradually several companies begin to understand
themselves as an operating unit of this spaceship.
From time to time at least some thinking humans
can be found within these companies and they start
to contribute to this manual. Since operating units
need to follow the system log, only writing a manual
isn't quite enough. We will have to change the log
until it is suitable and Designers can play a role in this
change. The very reason why creatives are needed
to design systems in a more sustainable and flexible
way is that they are looking for unconventional
solutions. Since we don‘t know yet which solutions
will be successful, we have to just give it a go. Which
brings us back to the subject of agility. [s. trend #1]
Sustainability and transformation are two topics,
which are tightly connected and with whom we deal
with more and more. As of now we try to make our
agency more sustainable and socially fair. We rely on
green technology and eco-power since the
beginning and we now laid down on several rules to
go even greener. It is anyway more productive to
take the train instead of the plane.
But what else could we do to go greener? Laura
Dohnmeier, master student at the Hochschule
Hannover asked us exactly this question amongst
others. She documented the results on her website
superdasduhierbist.de. ¶

6. #5
INTERNET OF THINGS
Making things social.
Repeatedly announced as a mega-trend, but still
missing the suitable infrastructure: the internet of
things. There are loads of challenges connected to
the IoT. If you want to avoid mistakes, for example
those of social media, you should think about the
ecological and social consequences soon. In politics
this is called ,technology assessment‘.
A bit more political awareness in design and
technology industry wouldn‘t harm. Especially since
Nest etc. are only the first step: eventually
everything and everybody can be measured and
basically be wired up. Virtually any device will be
equipped with sensors which can be accessed from
all around the world.
In case you are wearing a Nike Fuelband, Up, Fitbit or
iHealth device around your wrist, you already know
that this also applies to human beings. As usual this
coin has two sides and those who are working on
these solutions are already in the midst of it.
This makes it all the more important to conduct a
debate about what is good and bad — for the
purpose of the sustainable transformation.
[s. trend #4] ¶

7. AND WHAT ABOUT MOBILE?
Hmm… whilst many trend reports still declare the all-time trend ,mobile‘ as a trending topic
in 2013, let me tell you out of our experience: mobile is just there. At the same time, the
days are gone when apps came from Apple. Responsive is standard. Mobile first of course.
Do you know a single person without tablet or smartphone? That's what I'm saying!
Mobile is the new web and that is what we work on every day after all.

8. RELATED LINKS
www.brandedinteractions.com
www.brandnewthinking.de
www.jnd.org/dn.mss/affordances_and.html
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller
www.agilemanifesto.org
www.superdasduhierbist.de/index.php
www.digitalinnovationtoday.com/speed-summary-gigaom-report-the-internet-of-things-a-market-landscape
www.brandnewthinking.de/2013/07/skeuomorphic-vs-flat-design
www.relayr.de
www.bookwire.de
www.mambu.de

9. THANK YOU!
If you liked this,read our blog or follow us:
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@thinkmoto on twitter
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