News from Boston Web design firm, Hot Knife Design, Inc.

Hot Knife Creative Director Jonathan Follett worked with Northeast-Metro West Insurance Agency to create a simple, yet comprehensive design that invites trust in the insurance agency. Jon collaborated with Development Partner Seth Aaronson to overhaul Northeast's Web site. The site they developed provides both new visitors and current clients with useful information and tools across a range of insurance needs. 

Northeast-Metro West Insurance Agency is a Massachusetts-based company that represents 25 insurance carriers. The company had gone through a period of expansion and was looking to rebrand  NEInsure.com to present a cohesive online presence.

Hot Knife is a proud sponsor of the Seventh Annual Mini UPA Conference at Bentley College in Waltham, MA on May 28, 2008. Held by the Usability Professionals Association's Boston Chapter (UPA Boston), the conference is expected to attract over 300 industry professionals and offer over 30 presentation sessions. The conference aims to explore the most current concerns in creating user-centered experiences across a range of fields, from web sites and mobile devices to healthcare and software. It also offers attendees the chance to network with other usability professionals from New England and around the world.

Thanks to the Horizon Interactive Awards for showcasing our work on The Nureyev Legacy Collection.

The 2008 Horizon Interactive Awards Competition received over 1000 entries from around the world. The record number of entries were reviewed by HIA judges—an international panel of industry experts—for the "best blend of creativity and functionality." Hot Knife's submission, The Nureyev Legacy Collection Web Site, received a Bronze award. The Web site was created to support the release of Life Behind the Metaphor, a book of rare Rudolph Nureyev photographs.

The Horizon Interactive Awards prides itself on "honor(ing) the most talented developers of interactive media" and providing participants with "a level playing field . . . regardless of company size. Often, smaller firms . . . produce outstanding work that never receives the recognition it deserves."

Oil and gas investment research company McDep, LLC has selected Hot Knife Design to refresh its corporate identity for both print and digital use.

McDep, LLC provides independent stock analysis for major investment banks and individual clients. McDep principal Kurt Wulff has been featured in Barron's, and Oil and Gas Investor, and has appeared as a guest on Bloomberg, Nightly Business Report, CNBC, CNN, and Wall Street Week.

Hot Knife Design is pleased to be selected to provide creative services to McDep, LLC, and we welcome them as the newest member of our growing client family. 

Award-winning New York set design company, Silver Scenic has selected Hot Knife to refresh their Web presence and corporate identity.

Silver Scenic has produced beautiful, ground-breaking sets for a wide range of cable and broadcast television clients including the Food Network, Premio Lo Nuestro (The Latin Music Awards), and Latin talk show powerhouse, the Cristina Show.

We're enthusiastic about working with such a creative client and are looking forward to bringing Silver Scenic's new portfolio online.  

Jonathan Follett's article "Where Are You Now? Design for the Location Revolution", a piece on location-aware Web products and services which originally appeared in UXmatters, was translated into Spanish and published at Capire.info, a Chilean user experience strategy Web site as "¿Dónde estás ahora? Diseñando para la revolución de la ubicación". We're excited about this opportunity to speak to a broader audience. Although, we'll need to brush up on our Spanish to fully appreciate it. Thanks to the team at Capire.info for their hard work in the translation process.

Congratulations to Matt Holm, our Consulting Creative Director on his recent election to the Vice Chair position of the Computer Human Interaction Forum of Oregon (CHIFOO). As part of the CHIFOO leadership team, he will be responsible for helping to organize the group's 2008 Program Series.

Last year's series "Mind the Business: Promoting the Value of Your Work" featured speakers like Luke Wroblewski, Senior Principal of Product Ideation & Design at Yahoo! Inc., on "The Shifting Role of Design".

Matt is looking forward to contributing to the success of CHIFOO as a forum for education, networking, and interaction for the design and development community in the Portland, Oregon area.    

Hot Knife Design is a sponsor of World Usability Day 2006, supporting the efforts of the Usability Professionals' Association Boston Chapter. That means we designed some signs, among other things. (Is that a paradox? If you de-sign a sign, is it no longer a sign?)

On November 14, 2006, UPA Boston is hosting activities at the Museum of Science, Boston, to draw attention to the importance of usability design in everyday life (and maybe have some fun, too).

What is World Usability Day? From the UPA Boston site:

...an international event for everyone who's struggled to use a product, bought a device or toy based on its looks alone, or tried to walk in the "out" door.

Moreover, it is also a unique opportunity for practitioners to capture real data from visitors to be used in conjunction with data captured during the first World Usability Day to support the development of safer and more effective products.

Hot Knife Design recently won American Graphic Design Awards in two categories: one for the Babymouse promotional items we designed and one for the redesigned second edition of our book, Gray Highway: An American UFO Journey.

Jon says:

"Wow. That about sums up my exhilarating experience at the BarCamp geek gathering at Monster Worldwide. It was a great feeling to exchange ideas with a group of passionate techies. I think, at one point, there were ten people at my session on "Why the High Tech Industry Needs to Change Its Language", which was well received. A few folks even clapped. Here's a good photo of me in action, taken by Bryan Person. He has some other quality pictures on flickr that really sum up the camaraderie of the day. Thanks Bryan. Thanks also to Chris Brogan of Grasshopper Factory, for a great session on content networks, Kaj Kandler of Conficio for his thoughts on usability and help documentation, and Jeff Winkler for introducing me to some strangely beautiful artwork made by tossing a digital camera in the air. All in all, a wonderful day, even though it was pouring buckets outside. My congratulations to all the unconference organizers. You can count on Hot Knife Design to help spread the word for BarCamp Boston 2007."

Jon also made the the BarCamp Notable Quotes list with this gem:

"You have to underspeak the customer's language."

Classic. Turning a verbal misstep into a buzzword we can use for years to come.