If you’re building something, it’s critical to thrash early. The biggest and loudest changes should be vocalized early on.

Everyone gets heard, opinions are out in the open and the design gets refined from there.

If it’s done right, there is little to no thrashing at the end and the project ships on time and on budget.

Here are two resources that will help if your project involves any kind of prototyping or wireframing.

Balsamiq
is a really neat online tool for creating and sharing mock ups.

If you’re more of a hardcopy person (I sometimes use both), Geek Chix has a super handy list of sketch templates you can print for wireframing.

Thrash early.

Ship on time.

Godspeed.

One of the best websites in the world just got even better.

TED.com recently rolled out a “Best of the Web” section, designed to be a “one-stop portal to the very best talks on the Internet”.

You can view some of the early selections at the TED Talks page here. In the ‘Show by Event’ selector on the left, scroll down to the bottom to “Best of the Web”.

Martin Luther King Jr.: I Have a Dream
Steve Jobs: How to Live Before You Die
Michael Sandel: What is the Right Thing to Do?
Robert Sapolsky: The Uniqueness of Humans
and the famous “last lecture” of Randy Pausch.

Wisely, TED is crowdsourcing new content for the page from their intelligent and connected tribe. If you find video worthy of TED’s new page, email contact@ted.com with “Best of the Web suggestion” in the subject line, and a link to where the talk can be seen.

Interruption marketing rarely works. Permission marketing is always better.

I honestly believe that most people can’t remember a single billboard they saw in the last week.

Can you?

What if you saw these billboards? Whether you want to buy the product or not, would you at least point it out to anyone else in your vehicle? Would you tell your friends?

[I think some are probably Photoshopped but most are real.]

Full list of all 50 on Johnson Koh’s blog here.

(email and RSS subscribers – feel free to skip this post)

Like a five-month old outgrowing his Garanimals overalls, after over 140 posts, DailySense has outgrown the Max is NOW! WordPress theme that it’s been running on.

After inspiration from Chris Brogan and a pep talk from my friend Matt, I’ll be migrating Daily Sense to a popular WP theme called Thesis. There are many reasons for the change, including better SEO, improved flexibility and a better experience for you, my valued readers.

I want to thank Max over at Max is NOW for his generous sharing of the existing theme.

One of the huge benefits of Thesis is its flexibility. When I roll out the new design, I’ll be asking you for feedback. Tell me what you like and what you don’t and I’ll try to make sure Daily Sense gives you the experience you want.

Until then, let’s all pour out a little liquor for the colorful checkerboard. You will be missed.

When designing your next logo or brochure or website or packaging or storefront or book cover, or deciding what to wear, ask yourself one simple question.

What do I want to remind people of?

The whole point of (most) design is to remind people of something, even if only subconsciously.

The screenshot of the website above reminds me of Basecamp or many high quality “Web 2.0″ sites that I’ve been on before. That’s exactly the point and it’s perfect. I already have an idea of not only how the website works but what type of company they are before I click on anything.

A Malcolm Gladwell book looks and feels very different than a self-published book. If I handed you a book you’ve never seen before, your mind immediately notes which of the two it reminds you of.

A Bell & Ross watch feels significantly different than a Timex from Target. There is no right or wrong, but if I handed you a watch, you could probably tell whether it reminds you of one with a three digit price, or a five digit price.

The same is true with customer service. If you start a new business and your outstanding customer service ‘reminds’ a new customer of phenomenal service they remember from Disney, Zappos or Nordstrom, you automatically reap some of the benefit from that customer’s positive memories.

I bet you can name the movie that this typeface reminds you of.

Everything your business does, says, feels or displays will remind someone of something. Do you know what that something is? Is it what you want to remind them of?

The only exception is when you’re designing something so unique that you (intentionally) don’t want to remind people of anything. The iPhone. The Blue Snowball microphone. The Soul iD book. If your product is that remarkable, you don’t need (or want) to remind people of anything, you want to blow the lid off.

[Be careful if you're thinking your product or service belongs in that exception category. It's possible, but unlikely.]