The Little Squares

Diane Von Furstenberg photographed for Italian Vogue by the...

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 13:30:02 -0500

Diane Von Furstenberg photographed for Italian Vogue by the Little Squares.

iGuzzini Illuminazione headquarters out side of Barcelona on...

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 12:52:00 -0500

iGuzzini Illuminazione headquarters out side of Barcelona on Domusweb.

More coming attractions! The fabulous Yanna Avis photographed by...

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 12:43:26 -0500

More coming attractions! The fabulous Yanna Avis photographed by The Little Squares.

Mary Kate high above New York City.

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:20:44 -0500

Mary Kate high above New York City.

Neil Young singing on the streets of Glasgow in 1976 on Dangerous Minds.

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:55:36 -0500

Neil Young singing on the streets of Glasgow in 1976 on Dangerous Minds.

Johannes Itten.

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:11:51 -0500

Johannes Itten.

Grace Kelly with Oleg Cassini.

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:08:45 -0500

Grace Kelly with Oleg Cassini.

Watch American Apparel’s Industrial Landscapes.

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:06:54 -0500

Watch American Apparel’s Industrial Landscapes.

Mix up Julia Reed’s favorite Mardi Gras cocktail on...

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:15:00 -0500

Mix up Julia Reed’s favorite Mardi Gras cocktail on Fetch, the Ramos Gin Fizz.

GO WITH THE FLOW: HOW TO STRATEGIZE FOR A NEW SYSTEM IN MOTION. People often ask me, why have you...

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:29:00 -0500

GO WITH THE FLOW: HOW TO STRATEGIZE FOR A NEW SYSTEM IN MOTION.

People often ask me, why have you called your company The Little Squares? Are you thinking about pixels? Polaroids? Contact sheets? Film stills? Or are you guys just impossibly and terribly uncool? Well, although the answer to all of those questions is a definite yes, none are the actual reason. The Little Squares, as a title, is not a statement of purpose, but rather, a descriptive prediction. We see what is on the event horizon a bit before others do and use that information to comment, to participate and also to strategize.

The most important piece of the puzzle that most brands, companies and publishers seem to ignore is the concept of information flow. Its such a grand concept, analogous to the physical world, its like trying to talk about the concept of time and having to figure out how it is supposed to relate to our everyday experiences. Everyone is effected, whether you have an ecommerce site and you want to acquire customers or users, or you are launching the next big online content site and want to simply engage an audience and keep having them come back for more.

So, step one is, to simply see the entire world as one big system, in a continuum, never static, constantly in motion. The phrase “world wide web” should now include not only the internet, but also television, print and theatrics as well, as they are all windows into worlds. When we choose to click on, tune in, turn the page or in other words, participate, we are actually hitting the “pause” button. We are saying, wait, stop for a minute, or an hour or a few seconds, depending on the medium. This may seem obvious when you talk about Twitter or your Google+ stream, as you can literally see it moving every time someone adds their two cents into the stream. Even with television, one show ends and the next one begins and it never stops moving. Now think about radio; the point being that, if a song plays and you are not listening, that’s right, you missed it. It’s moving.

Step two, with this in mind, is to realize the most important evolution of our new connected world is that while it is constantly in motion, we, as participants, must be nimble and reactive. Long-term strategy doesn’t necessarily apply in this system. Any plan can be disrupted at any time, “pre-empted” one might say, and those who are skilled and creative and have access to available material will be ready to participate and in a way that is relevant both to the conversation and to the big message one is trying to convey.

To place content into the continuum, one must see it as just a message in a bottle being thrown out to sea, with only the hope it will eventually reach another shore. You are adding to an infinite system in motion. Yet this continual flow itself has power, an energy to harness, and a wave to ride on. So your message in a bottle, once thrown into the stystem, does get carried off and will appear on someone else’s shore. Once you check your Twitter feed, your Google+ stream, your Chill feed, Tumblr or Pinterest followings or any other community based social graph system, that message in a bottle has the potential to appear in front of a potential audience member, depending on the frequency with which you add to the system and how captivating that piece of content is. This potential reactive marketing seems risky, yet isn’t it a much greater risk to put your flag in the ground, on a static storefront, or website banner ad, and rely solely on the hope that a potential customer or audience member will be the one to actively seek it out? Will happen to pass by?

With this continual information flow in mind, it seems that outside of major e-commerce sites, the individual website itself will become less relevant, acting merely as an archive feeder into these other interest graph or social graph based systems. This has already happened. The systems themselves are becoming more and more sophisticated and connected everyday as they link to each other. Sign up through Twitter! Sign up through Facebook! So why make individual potential customers or audience members have to come to you? This is why content already has two values; first based on how good it is (does it tell a brand story? Does it engage? Is it compelling?) Second, based on how strong is its ability to find you. Content has to work to find its audience and now it can. And thanks to the new importance of timelines, “records of streams,” we can travel backwards and forwards, as we should.

So, what does this mean? It means design for mobile and forget everything else. If the design is good it should work seamlessly across every other platform. And why are we called The Little Squares? Again, it is a prediction; that things like to naturally organize themselves that way. Content streams flowing would naturally tend to want to become little squares. Look at your phone, look at your screen. They are everywhere. As a design choice it’s completely unquestionably intuitive. As the web becomes too full of stuff moving at an ever speedier frequency, let be there order and let it be elegant. Let there be squares.

written by Debra Scherer

Watch Comet, by George Shelbourn.

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 11:35:42 -0500

Watch Comet, by George Shelbourn.

Here’s to the unsung studio musicians. Ken Emerson reviews...

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 10:03:14 -0500

Here’s to the unsung studio musicians. Ken Emerson reviews The Wrecking Crew by Kent Hartman.

STRANGE BREW.

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 14:06:36 -0500

STRANGE BREW.

THE ALWAYS FASCINATING PLAYBOYS. WHEN JAZZ WAS REALLY JAZZ. This Album cover always fascinated...

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 16:08:14 -0500

THE ALWAYS FASCINATING PLAYBOYS. WHEN JAZZ WAS REALLY JAZZ.

This Album cover always fascinated me, as it takes a truly fifties mentality to portray something covered up, hidden and really dirty. The Playboys were Chet Baker, Art Pepper, Phil Urso, Carl Perkins, Curtis Counce and Lawrence Marable. True collaboration was what jazz was all about, or as the album liner notes suggest, “by its very nature a typical twentieth century phenomenon…The collective spirit and teamwork which is so typical of a good jazz rhythm section, the complete collaboration between human beings who can still retain their identity, is one of the happiest examples of thought and theory which have been with us the last hundred years.”

Twentieth Century begone! Now we have a lot more than “….radio, the phonograph and faster means of communication.” In our remix creative world, jazz thinking covers all spheres.

Congratulations to Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen on a very nice...

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:00:59 -0500

Congratulations to Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen on a very nice presentation of their new collection of The Row at The Carlyle Hotel this week. MKO photographed for Italian Vogue by The Little Squares.

Remembering systems as they apply to design through the Ulm...

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 15:56:00 -0500

Remembering systems as they apply to design through the Ulm School by Ethel Baraona Pohl on Domusweb.

STAR WARS IS FOREVER.

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 15:48:16 -0500

STAR WARS IS FOREVER.

WATCH OUR ODE TO BOB DYLAN STARRING TRISH GOFF AND FEATURING THE STYLE OF YOHJI YAMAMOTO.

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:26:31 -0500

WATCH OUR ODE TO BOB DYLAN STARRING TRISH GOFF AND FEATURING THE STYLE OF YOHJI YAMAMOTO.

READ ABOUT THE TOWER OF BOOKS ON HUH MAGAZINE.

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:20:16 -0500

READ ABOUT THE TOWER OF BOOKS ON HUH MAGAZINE.

Skywalker Ranch. Photographed by the Little Squares.

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:13:37 -0500

Skywalker Ranch. Photographed by the Little Squares.