Along with a whole host of new tidbits about upcoming software at their WWDC, Apple also relaunched their website. Not only have they updated their rather tired looking global navigation, there is a huge range of effective Ajax-style elements that (mostly) add to the usability of their site. Their (possibly Google-powered - if you check their code) search is a particularly nice example which offers popular shortcuts even before you’ve pressed return. The amount of work and attention-to-detail that has gone into this is very impressive.

It’s great seeing such debate about the 2012 logo out there on the web. All the usual arguments are being trotted out, but one of the best pro-arguments can be found at Coudal. Worth a read.

In case you’ve somehow missed the furore - the new Olympics 2012 logo has been revealed. It was devised with help from Wolff Olins (a company some of us have worked with in the past), and they are in the midst of a huge wave of controversy.

We are split as to how we feel about the logo. Some of us dislike it, seeing it as clumsy and patronising in its attempt at appealing to the ‘MySpace’ generation. There was an extreme example of cognitive dissonance in the sight of Seb Coe announcing the logo in a suit and tie. It is like a logo for a nu rave band, the scene of the moment, and it may well feel dated within 6 months.

That said, it is rare for such a high profile logo to be so bold and look so (no other word for it) bonkers - so much so, it would be great if we all ended up loving it. The thinking behind it is solid, and it would have been dull for the logo to have been a polite tasteful design that as Coe put it, would have comfortably sat on corporate polo shirts. A logo is not the brand, so it will be interesting to see how it develops over the years.

Update: Worthwhile further discussion about the logo can be found at Speak Up.

The new look Faculty of 1000 Medicine marketing site we designed was launched last week. This saw the completion of the first phase of the F1000 website rebrand and redesign project we are working on. F1000 Medicine is an innovative database application that evaluates influential medical papers using a 2500-strong ‘faculty’ of the world’s top international researchers and clinicians. We are now working on the next phase of the project which involves a redesign of the look and functionality of the application itself.

Jeff Jarvis in The Guardian discusses the papers recent homepage redesign and where news websites might go next (registration required).

Rob Gifford’s book “China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power” has been released in the States and to coincide our website has been launched.

Rob Gifford is a journalist who has worked for NPR (National Public Radio) and the BBC and has spent much of the last 20 years studying and reporting on China. He is now NPR’s London bureau chief. China Road is the story of a roadtrip he conducted with the photographer Patrick Fraser on Route 312, the Chinese equivalent of Route 66, through the heart of the country, the Gobi Desert and onto the Silk Road.

A discussion as to why web appilcations should not try too hard to look like a desktop application by Bill Higgins (via Signal vs. Noise).

Nothing to do with design, usability, or accessibility, but we love this (found via Panopticist). That said, we do love Vimeo, the YouTube competitor for the clean and simple video players.

Jakob Nielsen, Matt Mullenweg (Wordpress), Lynda Weinman and others discuss what is required to ‘create for the web’.

Nothing Earth-shatteringly new, but it always says something about an idea when the BBC deigns it is interesting enough to cover. Jakob Nielsen talks about the dangers of “Web 2.0” sites ignoring good practice, in the rush to ‘innovate’.

Apologies for using the term “2.0”, but as the web becomes ever more interactive and application-like, people are thinking about how to keep the web usable and accessible to all. Websites such as Facebook, Flickr and the whole Web 2.0 crowd are coming up with interesting ways for users to interact with information, which is great, but the danger is that each site will create it’s own method to similar actions. Luke Wroblewski discusses this: “This surge of new Web experiences that give users more control is probably the biggest change impacting usability online.”

The Guardian, which is by far the most read British newspaper on the web, has redesigned its homepage and a few peripheral pages - and it looks great, finally giving space to more news, photography and revealing far more of the rest of the site than before. I like that they have kept the top-level navigation essentially the same as before, as it always was quite an ‘individual’ design and it makes regular users feel at home. It has a few potential negative points though. It is a very wide (940px) layout which will upset the people who believe in elastic or liquid widths. It also jars when you click away from this page and go to an old-style content page and is even inconsistent when you click into the recently designed ‘blog’ areas, such as Comment is Free, as these are left-aligned, while the new homepage is centred. They have also made the interesting choice of keeping the old-style Guardian Unlimited logo, and not aligning it with the new logo featured in the print-version. That said, I expect many of these issues to be temporary while they update - it is often better to evolve website design rather than make huge radical departures from the past, especially with such a popular and well-loved site.

Update: More can be read about the thinking behind the redesign in their News Blog. Interestingly, I was looking for comment about the redesign everywhere on their site, and could not find it, even after an internal seach. I then used Google, and it found the article immediately.

Flickr hosts a history of Swiss graphic design via a fantastic collection of posters from 1911 through to 2006.

One of my ongoing frustrations over the last few years is how difficult the Transport for London website is. Trying to comprehend the complex structure just to find out whether the Hammersmith and City Line is working at the weekend was always a chore - even though I had fought my way through it many many times before. So finally, in the last few days, Transport for London has updated their site with a brand new structure and visual design. I’m not too excited about the ’Web 2.0’-style visuals, but it is very easy to understand, and I can now find out if the tube is going to be useful at the weekend in moments.

Swiss Legacy is a blog that concentrates on the Swiss design and arts. I am half-Swiss myself, so I have always been intrigued by the fine history of Swiss graphic arts.