Now that the Cowboys have moved into their new billion dollar stadium, what will be done with the old one?  Kraft is planning to tie in their new cheddar explosion product with the demolition of Texas Stadium.

Kraft is running a contest on their website through February 5th in which children ages 9 to 12 can enter to be Grand Marshall of the demo.

Filed under the category of ridiculous is Taco Bell’s new Drive Thru Diet campaign.  Trying to capture some of Subway’s mojo, the Mexican fast food chain is using Christine Dougherty’s story of losing 54 pounds eating from their Fresco menu.

Only time will tell if this new campaign, which has created quite the stir, will catch on with the health-conscious, convenience-driven population.  In my opinion it might be more plausible to give this idea some basis in reality if Taco Bell hadn’t been pushing large portion sized 4th meals filled with bacon for as long as I can remember.

With the 2009-10 season more than a quarter done already, I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at each team’s website and determine a winner based layout, design, content, menu, etc.  Here is a hint.  The winner was also the winner last year and by that I mean NBA champions.

I found the Lakers to be the best of the best when it came to design elements, layout/presentation and overall reinforcing the brand of the team throughout the website.  The only thing I didn’t like as much as other team sites was their menu.  With every NBA team rotating ads on their respective sites, I found the Lakers to be the least intrusive.  Although I noticed the ads, I never felt like it was distracting when pouring through their content.  Other teams could definitely learn a thing here from the champs.

A few other things they do very well is make it easy for season ticket holders and ticket exchange users to find the login for these services.

In looking at each site, there are certainly a few worth of notable mention.  The Milwaukee Bucks and Houston Rockets which share a similar overall design with a handful of other teams did an excellent job with presentation and layout.  Their multi-column menu system is the best that I found.  Each of these teams presents their content in a very clean manner.  Again ads do not stand out.

There are two sites that could use a little work.  The Miami Heat and Portland Trailblazers seemed to lack creating a level of excitment on their team websites.  Team branding and design creativity along with too much white fonts on black backgrounds hampered their sites.

Aside from overall ratings, there were a few other notables.  9 teams (Nets, Raptors, Pistons, Heat, Wizards, Mavs, Rockets, Warriors, and Kings) utilized splash pages to promote ticket packages or events.  Some did this more effectively than others.  The Rockets also did a good job of promoting their multi-lingual sites.

Sick and tired of all the email you get on a daily basis?  If you are like me, then most of it ends up in the trash or spam folder, but last week I decided to spend a few minutes and open a couple.  What I found was not a reason to run out to the store and buy a new pair of running shoes, although I do need some, but very well designed emails that could provide that spark of design inspiration the next time you are in a rut.

The one that stood out the most was one from Dick’s Sporting Goods.  Although it was extremely graphic intensive including a winter inspired background it provided a number of nice design elements.   The “Trouble viewing this email” link is at the top which makes it easier for a user to transition between the email version and website version quickly.  The header which includes the logo, social icons and menu closely mimic what you will find on their actual site so again it makes the transition easy between email and website.  Their primary Call to Action’s are well designed with excellent holiday touches along side the product photos.  The only thing I would have done differently would be to move the Free Shipping offer up.  Since the email is rather long it may be missed by the reader.

So the next time you get bombarded with a number of emails soliciting your hard earned dollars, take a moment to open them as you may find some great design inspiration.

The community of developers for the iPhone have produced some amazing and not so amazing apps over the last few years.  A new app that I have recently downloaded has certainly stood out in terms of user interface design and ease of use.   It is called GoMeals from Sanofi-Aventis.

GoMeals is an app which makes it easy to find nutritional information and restaurants as well as keeping tabs on what you are eating from day to day and meal to meal.  For those with health conditions, knowing your daily intake of fats and calories is vital.  But onto the app.

The app’s navigation is really broken into just a few major areas being Today’s Plate, Foods, Log and Restaurants.  The Today tabs is a beautiful representation of what you have eaten today broken out by items, fat, carbs, protein, sodium, etc.   The Foods tab allows you to easily search for a food to add to your Today’s plate by Restaurant,  Grocery, Homemade, etc.  The log is a simple reporting option so you can view what you have eaten over the past 7 to 30 days.

The really great part of this app is the Restaurants tab.  You can search by type of food you wish to eat and then it will show you a list of restaurants in your area with their full menu including nutritional information.

With New Year’s fast approaching and next yearly wave of dieters starting up, this may just be the app to get you going.

The fine folks over at Smashing Magazine have recently released a new printed book about the best practices in modern Web design and development.  This book however is not simply for coders at it also covers topics such as user interface design and how layouts can have an impact on your marketing activities in terms of conversion rates.   Other chapters in the book cover important topics such as search engine optimization and branding.

Smashing Magazine has been around since 2006 delivering extremely useful news and information to designers, developers and marketing professionals.  In particular it has always been a great source when needing inspiration for us here at Textbox.  With the holiday’s fast approaching, I recommend picking one up if you have a creative person in your life.

It is a great day when a designer looking for UI inspiration finds it with an application that is such an extremely valuable tool as well.  Mint.com is a free online software budgeting system which allows you to download your various account balances and transactions giving you insight into your finances.

Aside from the obvious benefit of gaining control of your finances, studying the user interface of this application shows you how it should be done.  The layout of accounts, charts and graphs, and navigation are both clean and efficient.

The search and results functionality makes it easy to locate and select your accounts.  Whether you are looking for a great free budgeting solution or need an example of great interface design, visit mint.com for more information.

Picture yourself in the middle of a great pitch your team scrambled to put together at the last minute.  You finish and the client looks at you with somewhat of a blank stare.  Instead of becoming confrontational and pushing the idea onto the client, you can follow these easy steps in order to get them to buy into the idea.

Explaining the current trends in their market is vital.  If a client comes to you for a website redesign, it is important to show them the evolution of design over the past 5 years and new standards that are currently in place.

Remember who the end user is.  Although the client has final say in what is produced, they may not be the actual end user.  Make sure to remind them from time to time, who the target audience is and explain how your campaign or design fits that market.

Ask questions.  If your idea is not adopted by the client, simply ask why.  Many times a client will get stuck on a simple concept or piece of functionality and once it is further explained, the light bulb turns on.

If you have been paying attention during NFL games each Sunday afternoon, you have probably seen the new Tailgate Approved campaign from Bud Light.  In heavily pursing the tailgate market, they have introduced fan cans which are available in the colors of your favorite team.  In looking at the voting currently taking place online, it appears the purple and yellow cans are the most popular, Go Vikings!

The Tailgate Approved ads showcase a spoof infomercial selling such items as the Grooler.  The companion website, www.tailgateapproved.com, features a very well done rich interface of games and content.  No matter your drink of choice, job well done on a memorable and quirky cross-medium campaign.