Not that I would have doubted it before, but Information Architects Japan makes a good case for the idea that “Interface=Brand.”

It was during a mildly depressing trip to MySpace (not that time spent there in general breeds cheerful thoughts) that I decided it was time to sidestep into the raucous, milling crowd and view another “adspace.”

I had previously observed the advertisement for Apple’s “profiles” for the second-generation iPod Nano on MySpace’s front page, and I was once again reminded of them by a “featured profile” banner on my dashboard page. This time, though, I was inspired to curiosity as to what form an Apple-designed MySpace page might take: After all, host and guest here are two are almost polar opposites; Apple on MySpace seems something akin to installing an Eames chair inside a McDonald’s.

I clicked through, and was, for perhaps the first time in months, greeted with the incongruous presence of “design” on MySpace (I was also musicallly admonished by the group The Teddy Bears to “Gather around / Listen to ma champion sound”). “Green iPod Nano” had a variety of marketing materials it offered to share with me, from screensavers, to desktops, to iTunes Store links where I could purchase the aforementioned “champion sounds.”

Then, after a greatly minimized Apple legal notice, came the comments.

Most frequently, obsessive consumerism plus MySpace literary debris resulted in smeary, runny prose like this:

I have a green 1 just like u and im loving it hehehehe but i wanna have all 3 color lol pink and also bblue heheh

Occasionally, among these appeared ones like this, which almost seemed too “good” to be true:

hello iPod nano Green! you rule, and i really want to have you. wanna be my listening buddy? its like nano meets mini!

The formula of standard praise + cutesy, yet marketable personification + astute product line comparisons reads, to me at least, less as genuine Gen-Y and more as clever viral marketer.

Perhaps the most unfortunate commentary on the young consumer mind was related to an implicit disposability of what was once a luxury item:

soooo beautiful… i need to upgrade my first gen black nano. i love this. rock on peace

Remember, once it’s a need instead of a want, it becomes a responsibility.

RockOnPeace!

I fast-forwarded through much of it, but there’s something to be said for the curiously plodding humor of The Many Shades of a Master Paint Tinter.

And just on the heels of that last post, UX Mag is back and out of beta!

The loaded-sounding title of this post, rather than engaging the subject of consumer choice and historical precedent, simply refers to my latest independent project, a sixty-second video spot warning of the hidden difficulties consumers face when provided DRM-laden files for their media-purchasing dollar.

As for history, though, there is more. The project might have been slightly easier in the execution had it not been for an unfortunate bit of history between an Adobe product and an Apple product:

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The temptation of creative convenience nearly succeeded in leading me astray, though “astray” may not be appropriate in this context of my recent redesign of no substance. all eloquence.

It had been my hope to stray from what had been, in my opinion, the most overused visual device in contemporary interactive design: Diagonal stripes.

This is not to say that I prejudicially view popularity as overuse.

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