Over the past decade, we have seen digital and online shopping enter our lives and become a widely accepted norm. We have seen shopping go mobile and social. We have seen creative technology implementations in retail stores. And, with this growing use and acceptance, retailers have continued to push barriers with creativity, technology integrations and platforms. The digital shopping experience continues to expand throughout our lives. Here are a few trends we are watching.

The Year of the Tablet

At least 12 percent of Internet users own a tablet today, and that number is expected to increase to 33 percent by 2015. Furthermore, tablets account for nearly half of all mobile traffic for a typical retail site. The number and quality of shopping apps offered on tablets exceeds any other outlet. Google’s Catalogs app, for example, provides a rich, interactive shopping experience by aggregating the catalogs of major brands into one app, where you can explore product views, videos, details, pricing, and more. The app also offers a social component similar to Polyvore, where you can create collages of your favorite products to share with friends.

Retailers are slowly beginning to jump on the bandwagon. This fall, both Macy’s and Bloomingdales experimented with the technology in-store by providing tablets to their sales team to help customers with make-up and fine jewelry selections, show product details, and offer competitive pricing. The same two stores have also begun providing tablets to furniture delivery associates. Hyundai paired the sale of their 2011 Equus with a tablet fully loaded as a user’s manual that could also be used to schedule service appointments.

More portable than a standard laptop, and with larger screens and better visuals than a smartphone, tablets are the perfect medium for digital shopping. Brands that neglect to acknowledge the trend will surely miss out on a growing trend.

Virtual Stores

Last summer a South Korean supermarket, Tesco, created a virtual grocery store in a subway station by using product images and QR codes. The idea was brilliant, and now it seems to have spread to the US.

For this past holiday season, Sears and Kmart launched what they call mobile “shopping walls.” The walls feature a selection of the brand’s most popular toys (QR codes and all) and can be found at airports, malls, and bus stations across the nation. Ebay likewise paired with Toys for Tots, but went in a more interactive direction. Their “Give-A-Toy Store” in NYC and San Francisco replaced window displays with a digital wall that came to life as people scanned the QR codes. Not only was it adorable, but the proceeds benefited Toys for Tots.

Virtual stores and shopping walls such as these are a great way to make shopping even easier for the customer. Marrying the immediacy of a live store with the convenience of an online check-out (no lines, no security tags!), they surely take the best from both worlds.

A New Way to Pay

First we bartered with goats and wheat, then we created tangible currency, and now, we have Square. Square is… well, it’s a square. To be more precise it’s a square credit card reader about the size of a quarter that you can stick into the headphone jack of any iPhone/iPad/Android with a design so simple it looks like it was produced by Apple. You plug it in, swipe your card, and it directly deposits the decided amount into your bank account.

Square offers users a single rate of 2.75% per swipe for all major credit cards, which simplifies the complicated credit card deals many businesses have today.

A few months ago PayPal released a preview of what the future of money could look like if mobile retail keeps moving the way it does. The project proposes countless services: geo-targeted mobile advertising, bar-code scanning, local and real-time inventory searches, mobile and point-of-sale payments, a virtual wallet, and more. It proves to be pretty ambitious… will PayPal users really have the option of ordering coffee from their car dashboard? Only time will tell. The hype video is an exciting vision for how we could shop in the future.

While Square benefits mostly small businesses, Facebook is focused on the individual. Their partnership with PayPal culminates in a new app, transparently named “Send Money,” that allows you to send money to your Facebook friends. You have the option to include a virtual greeting card customized “for that personal touch.” As of now these cards are for special occasions, holidays, and the like (your typical Hallmark categories) but the format lends itself to possibility. Perhaps brands can get in on the partnership to design their own cards that encourage consumers to “send a snowboard to your friend!” or “give the gift of cashmere gloves this Valentine’s Day,” while assigning a respective amount so said friend can purchase the product. And while this is one product that PayPal has launched to make our lives a little easier, the company has even more in the works.

How do you feel about all of the digital changes being made in the retail world?

Industry News: The Hunger Games has embraced social media full on, tactfully implementing some amazing integrations on Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Personal favorite, Capitol Couture.

Google It: An insanely well designed evolution of Google, be sure to click around and find the top memes, site launches, and searches.

140 Characters: Yesterday Twitter announced its plans to selectively censor tweets based on location, with country-by-country blocking. It was not well received . . . 

Created by Online PhD

Comic Sam: An interesting illustrated State of the Union.

Viral Video Gold: A dancing Zebra movie with a twist ending?

Brought to you by M.Night Shyamalan. 

This year, we’ve again partnered with global cider brand Magners Irish Cider to produce an amazing five-night festival with over 20 events at five different venues in and around Boston. Last night’s kick-off events included Comedy is King at the Oberon in Harvard Square, and two showings of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare at Nick’s Comedy Stop in the Theater District.

At Oberon, the laughter was nonstop with a killer lineup hosted by Lamont Price – one of Comedy Central’s Comedians to Watch and winner of Rooftop Comedy’s Silver Nail Award. The show also featured the hilarious Graig Murphy, Harrison Stebbins and Dan Boulger. What a great way to get things started! Here’s a clip from Lamont’s kick-off set.

Tonight, we hit the town hard with Upright Citizens Brigade at the Wilbur, Life Before Sext at Improv Asylum, Mottley’s Choice Awards at Mottley’s and the kick off to the 2012 stand-off contest at Nick’s.

Find out more at MagnersComedyUSA.com. See you there!

Typography

Fontmap
Fontmap.co.uk is the work of London’s Richard Small. His growing collection of typographic maps includes London, Manhattan, Paris, Japan, Ireland and Italy. The country maps use natural shades of green, while the city maps are made up of shades of grey. Bold, condensed type takes on the shape of each state/country or territory. While there are other typographic maps out there, Fontmap’s well executed prints are a favorite.

Web / Interactive

BostonGlobe.com

The recently revamped BostonGlobe.com is a fine example of responsive design, made possible by our neighbors Filament Group and Upstatement, handling the front-end and visual design respectively. A single code base lets the user optimally experience the news site, on any device or platform. Other features include saved stories and letting you read later with just one click (or touch). As it should, it looks and reads like a newspaper, while pushing the envelope of technology .

Branding / Identity

Urban Wine Works

Foundry Collective created some effective and appropriate visuals for this up-and-coming Oklahoma City winery. Using just two colors and some nice typography, Urban Wine Works has some vintage aspects, along with a factory like, urban direction. The back of the label suggests food pairings to go with the wine you are enjoying, fitting nicely into the overall design of the bottle.

North, Fattoria Italiana

This new Italian eatery in Phoenix has some nice looking visuals, from the logo to the hand painted mural on the building. TunnelBravo used a soft color palette, custom type and illustrations to round out the visual identity for North. The black and white imagery and red type create a great contrast, with an overall feel that is digestible, and hints at Italian tradition.

Rebrand

Kathmandu

Australian outdoor supplier, Kathmandu (named for the capital city of Nepal) recently got a visual upgrade to their brand. The new look keeps in line with the mountain theme in the strong, bold mark. Carried out through all applications, products, tags, and in store visuals, the brand maintains an outdoor, organic feel while employing a fresh, modern look.

Business Cards

Tok&Stok 

We’ve all collected our fair share of business cards at events, meetings etc., but how many do we actually keep? Tok&Stok manufactures self-assembly furniture in South America. Their cards are so clever, they’d be tough to just throw away, or forget for that matter. These initially look like you standard cards, but they can be punched out into 4 pieces, and assembled into a chair. A nice touch that relates to who the company is, and an end product that sits on your desk, with name and contact info staring right at you.

Posters

There are some really talented artists out there that are keeping print alive and exciting. As long as there are gigs, there will be gig posters. Here are a couple that stand out.

DKNG: Phish, Hollywood Bowl

DKNG starts with a really awesome concept for this piece, as the Hollywood Bowl is transformed into a spaceship, landing amidst the hills and palm trees. The textures in the sky are very effective, and along with the colors give the poster a nice, warm, night time in California vibe.

Kevin Tong: The Black Keys

Kevin Tong’s Black Keys poster features some great use of custom type, that is built into the buildings. A minimal use of yellow and bright blue color in the cityscape gives the otherwise dark scene some nice energy and balance. The majority of the poster is made up of horizontal and vertical lines, allowing the sleek curves in the type, and the two figures with the car to really stand out.

Record Covers

Bon Iver

A mixed media/installation piece by artist Gregory Euclide is featured on the latest release from Bon Iver.  ”Melting ice and snow from the Midwestern winter, mixed it with pigment, dirt, and organic matter” were used to create truly unique piece. Euclide’s organic and intricate style creates a sense of depth, and perfectly parallels the music of Bon Ivers’ self titled record. Both the artwork and the music are made up of many layers, where you can always find something new.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vTN015Sygek

Mastodon “The Hunter”

Coincidentally, another mixed media, scuplture piece adorns the cover of Mastodon’s “The Hunter”.  Wood carver, AJ Fosik hand-crafted a folk inspired animal sculpture for “The Hunter”. The end result is a horned creature, on a dark red backdrop creating a powerful and dramatic record cover: and of course a great companion to Mastodon’s music.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwgqenxNUfs&feature=player_embedded#!

Product / Packaging

Dr No Effects Pedals

Boom Artwork out of The Netherlands used illustration, and custom lettering in the design of these guitar effects pedals. Each of the 6 pedals has a custom type treatment and design, reflective of the sound and style derived from each stompbox.  A great execution with bright colors and a vintage feel. Even the labeling of the settings  ”in/out, volume, tone” is built nicely into the illustrations.

It will be exciting to see what is in store for 2012. What new ideas and methods will help brands connect to their audience? What new technology and innovation will be used in product design and on the web? We should have some answers soon, and will curate them here. Until then, what design work stood out to you in 2011?

Industry News: SOAP has had quite the week. Everything peaked Jan 18th, with major sites like Wikipedia, Google, and Facebook stepping up to challenge it, and crashed today with Lamar Smith pulling the bill.

Facebook Update: The Facebook rollout has been a slow process, with many of the new open graph features still pending in the beta phases. One of the more interesting changes that has happened is the inclusion of actions. It is still in the beta stages, but Facebook is allowing people to test it out with simple, non-abusive terms. Enojy!

Apptastic: Are you in need of a Sweet Tweet? Uniform’s research and innovation platform ULAB is delving into the world of physical apps, starting with Twitter. Every time a new person follows them a clock releases a treat, and the new follower is then sent a video of what happens. Personally, I would have liked the sweet treat.

Gif Gold: The Oatmeal wins best .gif, a hilariously informative way to explain what would happen if SOPA passed.

Meme Of The Week: Eels always seem to have that awkward look like they are waiting for you to get their joke, and out of that observation the awesome Bad Joke Eel meme was born. Thanks, Reddit.

Music & Entertainment: Virgin Mobile’s Echo Temple

This highly interactive sound installation was featured at Virgin Mobile’s FreeFest, an all-day music festival held in Maryland and attended by 50,000+ consumers. The installation allowed attendees to play virtual music by moving their bodies and fans coded with special symbols in front of speaker towers containing motion-tracking cameras. These speaker towers encircled a central tower that transformed the symbols, body movements, and camera activity into music. Talk about a memorable experience! The video speaks for itself:

3D Mapping: Jordan Melo M8 3D Water Projection

Jordan went all out with the launch of the new Melo M8 shoes. The brand threw a bash to welcome Carmelo Anthony and the shoe to New York City, complete with live music, games, and a 3D water projection. The 3D projection featured Anthony jumping out of a helicopter and playing hoops on the water. Cool!

Cause Marketing: 700 Lives Melting Ice Sculptures

The city of Madrid was turned into one giant PSA for this beautiful experiential campaign. 700 people per year die from skin cancer in Spain alone, and this execution was created to show people the dangers of the sun. Ice sculptures of people enjoying everyday activities were placed all over the streets of Madrid, and each sculpture that melted represented a life being lost to melanoma. This strong message cannot easily be ignored:

Augmented Reality: Lynx Angels Fall From The Sky

Lynx, the Axe Body Spray of the UK, launched an experiential Augmented Reality campaign in London’s Victoria Station to complement the Lynx Excite Fallen Angel Facebook challenge. As consumers walk onto Lynx markers, the Excite Angels literally fall from the sky and interact with whoever is standing on the marker in real time, thanks to the digital video billboard. The YouTube video has garnered nearly one million views:

Bringing The Senses To Life: Sephora Sensorium – Lucid Dreams

Beauty retailer Sephora and French fragrance manufacturer Firmenich collaborated to create The Sensorium: Lucid Dreams from the Sensory World, a multimedia experience designed to ignite the senses. The Sensorium, a pop-up museum housed inside a 3,700 square foot warehouse in New York’s Meatpacking District, featured interactive and immersive installations First Scent and Lucid Dreams. These installations combined sight, smell, and sound to transport consumers into the world of the perfumer’s imagination.

What other experiential activations have caught your eye lately?

Industry News: Google caused a ruckus over their new “Search, plus your world,” which enables you to search across your private or shared info. They insit search will get better the more integrated it is with a users life, we shall see.

App Tastic: Instagram, Tiffany & Co., and The Satorialist are quite the threesome, documenting real couples in love in NYC and London. The collectively launched True Love in Pictures catalogues moments of romance  a la the Satorialist with a branded Tiffany blue filter.

Viral Video: It all started with S**t girls say, then it spiraled out of control into various people saying various S**t to other people  . . . and sometimes cats. Here’s our favorite:

“Potential”Meme of the week: While shoulder surfing hasn’t officially hit meme status, we predict it will at any moment.

“Social and technology will continue to blend together even more in the coming year. The public and business world will be faced with a growing question over privacy. Technology will push at this line, pushing comfort levels for some and growing excitement for others. The privacy line will move even further toward openness. Technology like Facebook’s Facial Recognition and more advanced location-based technologies will be further integrated, and use of these technologies will become more advanced. Brands and businesses will be forced to make decisions about how far they are willing to go to extend their presence, reach more people, and grow.” – Terry Lozoff, President/CEO

“Brick and mortar will become more of a showroom and less of a place to buy from. Since you can buy anything online right now for a lower price (and very often free shipping), the experience will be more about seeing and testing new products in person. Picture 30,000 square foot facilities becoming 3,000 sq foot boutiques while offering the same product selection. A cleaner, smaller and more intuitive shopping environment.” – Luke Garro, Partner/CIO 

“Consumers will become even more comfortable with mobile eCommerce which, in turn, will lead to increased eCommerce sales. Purchases made on mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets, will significantly jump in 2012. Mobile eCommerce is a trend that I believe will steadily grow throughout 2012 and will show its power during this year’s holiday shopping season.” – Shannon Murphy, National Account Manager

“Responsive Design within mobile and tablets will continue to grow, and designers will need to adapt and create cross platform sites, products, and apps that reflect the change.” – Scott Nicholson, Designer

“As we head into 2012, the lines between experiential and digital marketing campaigns will continue to blur. A large percentage of the focus will shift from the live experience itself to the content capture and virality of the campaign. Meaningful content will enable brands to engage consumers long after the event has ended, further reinforcing the connection between consumer and brand.” – Holly Owen, Marketing/Promotions Manager

“Brands will place more value on engaging with their consumers as co-creators and idea generators. Social Media has given brands a channel to interact in real time. In return, consumers have the ability to influence the way they are being marketed to and even the very products they are buying. Smart brands will realize that communication through social networks is a two-way street and there is much to be gained by collaborating with their consumers.” – Beth Tucker, Digital Account Manager

“This past holiday season was a time to experiment for retailers. Sears and Kmart used QR codes on their OOH print ads so consumers could shop on the go. eBay likewise installed digitally animated shopping walls in store windows. I think it’s likely we see more digital integration within the shopping experience as more and more people get comfortable scanning QR codes and integrating smartphones with their daily lives.” – Lindsay DeVellis, Account Coordinator

“Facebook will present new opportunities for social applications. In particular, social news will become a more integrated part of our Facebook experience. The Washington Post Social Reader was one of the first social news aggregators to roll out on facebook in 2011, and we should see more competitors, more options and more advances made in this space in the coming year. In addition, to the advancements in social news made on Facebook, we will also see more advancements in social news made on news websites. The Huffington Post and Yahoo News made some major leaps in integrated social news functionality in the latter part of this year, and we should see more widespread adoption as well as further advancements in this trend in the coming year.” – Terry Lozoff, President/CEO

Streaming technology (i.e. roku box) will further customize their streaming experiences, to create a more a la carte style offering. Bigger networks will package their ‘roku’ streaming channel in different ways to give customers options, such as the ability to purchase individual shows, whole seasons or the entire channel. – Luke Garro, Partner/CIO 

“The growth of more sophisticated social media analytics will continue to roll-out in 2012. Google has already revamped their back end, and we are sure to see more advanced tools that not only help agencies provide more insight but also prove social media’s worth in a more tangible way.” – Jess Frank, Digital Media Strategist 

What are your predictions for the state of experiential, digital and design for 2012?

The Homegrown Food Challenge is a pledge to eat only food that is grown, harvested and preserved from one’s garden for the month of October. We started this annual initiative in 2010 and have watched it gain momentum since the start.

Take a read below, pages 17-24.

Copies of this issue are available for pre-order up until January 10th, so act fast.

Chickpea is a quarterly magazine featuring content from around the vegan community, including writing, discussion, recipes, photography, artwork and stories. You can read their issues for free online or you can purchase high-quality, sustainably printed copies. Bonus: there is ZERO advertising in any of their issues!