This past February, our friends over at Groundwork Opportunities held their first hackathon in the Bay Area, aptly called “The Hack.” We were super excited to work alongside other companies like Facebook, SalesForce, Square, Atlassian, and Accenture to help expand GO’s free, fee-less fundraising platform that empowers people from every walk of life to champion social change abroad by owning and executing their own fundraising campaigns for causes throughout the developing world. Check out some photos from the event below, and read more about The Hack on the GO blog.

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Since February I’ve been writing a column on The Industry—a fast-growing online publication that highlights design focused startups and the people behind them—called ‘Design Your How‘. Design Your How’ dissects the design process through the lens of personal and collective productivity. I’ve looked at everything from the importance of office hours to how to effective communication within your team, and I’ve tried to do so in a way that highlights the design process as a valuable tool that’s applicable to a wide range of professions. That is, after all, what we do here at Toi.

Here’s an excerpt of my most recent article, ‘Balancing A Team‘:

Like any artist, musician, or performer, effective designers are offering people new ways to see the world around them, to connect with like-minded communities, or to find useful products and services in the easiest possible way (ok, so most well-respected artists, musicians or performers aren’t exactly doing that last one).

Design is a science, but, when done properly, it can speak to people like an art.

Which is why knowing how to effectively put together a team is such a valuable skill. Team building is an art and a science, itself, and effective leaders understand the kinds of people they need to surround themselves with, and why they need them. Here are four kinds of people who you need around you.

And here’s a link to the entire series, if you’d like to read them all.

Having a well-designed and comfortable office space is important. It is, after all, the place many of us spend the bulk of our time each week. At Toi, we’ve just recently moved offices, and we’re really happy where we’re at now—especially since we got the coffee machine up and running.

That said, this is 2012 and, for as long as I can remember, my “desk job” as a designer has never been tied to any specific desk. In fact, most of the Toi team tends to roam during the week, working from home occasionally, from airplanes while we’re on the road, and from coffee shops around town. Armed with MacBook Airs, MMT’s Mobile Monitors and iPhones, we get out of the office when we can to keep the inspiration flowing.

While most of us tend to work offsite in isolation, every once and a while we get out of the office together for a workday field trip so we can experience new things, eat (amazing) new food, and put our heads down and focus on some of our work in a brand new environment.

Today we went to Pasadena and camped out at Intelligentsia Coffee, downtown on Colorado Street.

If you live in LA and you’ve never been to Intelligentsia, you need to get off your couch and go right now. Order a cappuccino. They’re incredible. Promise:

We also had a chance to stop at Cousin’s Maine Lobster for one of their legendary lobster rolls—they ship the lobster overnight from Maine every day—for lunch. The lobster was melt in your mouth good, and the bread was absolutely incredible. I’ll be back for seconds (and thirds, and fourths).

I would show you what we worked on, but that’s a secret. We’ll be updating our portfolio with more new work soon, so stay tuned.

Workday field trips have actually become a fairly common once-a-month thing. So expect more notes from the field coming your way soon.

In the meantime, you should get out more.

We’ve finished carving our pumpkins. Happy Halloween, folks!

It’s Monday. This is hilarious. And you deserve a break.

Thanks to our lead developer, Gary, for sharing with me this morning.

As is the case for most companies, Toi started in a modest office space. But we’ve since moved up in the world, taking over the upstairs portion of an executive suite just north of Los Angeles.

We’re pretty stoked to have a new, and bigger, space to call our own. A space to play pool in, to host margarita Fridays in and, of course, to dream up life-changing brands and brand experiences in:

The photos above are just a teaser since we’re still getting the place all set up, but expect a full overview of the all new Toi Shop in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, like your neighborhood 7/11, we’re open for business 24/7.

So if you need anything, please let us know.

What comes to mind when you think about the color red? Passion? Love? Coca-Cola? The White Stripes?

How about the year 1914? Because apparently red was a lot more prominent in the early 1900′s than it is now.

And this chart showing the last 98 years of movie posters proves it:

Created by Vijay Pandurangan because he needed to prove a friend wrong who didn’t believe him when he “mentioned how [he] felt that most movie posters these days were very blue and dark,” this is about as thorough as it gets. And it look great.

Bravo, Vijan!

(h/t Fast Co. Design)

We follow our clients very closely here at Toi.

So we were pretty stoked to wake up to a profile of 2011 Thiel Fellow James Proud on Forbes yesterday:

“On Wednesday morning, Proud announced the sale of [GigLocator] to Peter Shapiro, a New York music entrepreneur who owns the Brooklyn Bowl and Relix magazine. Shapiro says he plans to integrate the the site’s technology into undisclosed future plans and will have a team continue to develop off the foundation that Proud created.

‘I could tell the direction that he was going with it, and the kinds of information and the functionality it provided 20 yards down the field,’ says Shapiro of GigLocator, for which he paid a six-figure sum.

GigLocator’s site now features a ‘closed doors’ message and Proud says he has moved onto other side projects, among them a brief collaboration with PayPal cofounder Max Levchin. His Twitter exploits show him hanging around Sean Parker’s Airtime and making grilled cheese with Dustin Moskovitz, connections he would likely not have made had he been in a university and taking daily classes. Still, the independent Proud, who is currently living in the U.S. on a visa, says that missing school isn’t for everyone.

‘I wouldn’t say that everyone can skip university and I think even Peter said that not everyone should skip university,’ he says. ‘He’s just saying that for some people, university isn’t the right option.’”

Read the rest of James’ profile on Forbes here.

Since I went on a bit of a rant about Apple’s WWDC event yesterday, I feel like I need to justify it. After all, it’s not like Apple needs another post written about them (a Google search for ‘Apple’ revealed a whopping 123,000,000 stories).

But, unlike some things in this world, I think Apple deserves all of the attention they get for a couple reasons: They continue to release “revolutionary” products on a very tightly regimented schedule, and they don’t short-change the details.

In fact, Apple adds details to their details. Case in point: check out how Apple’s iOS 6 software update will adjust the reflection on the music player’s metallic button as you tilt your iPhone:

That is why the tech and design communities pay so much attention to Apple. Because the team at Apple pays even more attention to the products they’re creating

If you’re in the tech or design business, Apple’s WWDC event is essentially an international holiday.

Each year, nerds from around the world gather in front of their (soon-to-be-outdated) computer screens to watch video live-streams, or to constantly refresh Twitter or MacRumors.com to find out which shiny new Apple product they can blow their money on next.

But, more importantly, maybe, each WWDC event is a glimpse into the near future, and it gives the design and tech industries a chance to figure out how Apple’s advancements can help create better online, and offline, experiences for businesses and consumers.

Here’s a short-list of  our favorite new features:

MacBook Pro with Retina Display

Since it’s hardware, this isn’t a “feature,” per se. But with 5.1 million pixels, it  opens up a whole new world of design possibilities. John Gruber, over at Daring Fireball, had this to say about the MBP’s Retina Display:

“I have a review unit from Apple, and after just 15 minutes or so trying it out, it’s damn impressive. Much like with the iPhone and iPad, it’s not so much that the retina display looks good as that, after you’ve used it for even just a few minutes, non-retina display MacBooks look bad. It’s not just pixel size, either — color, brightness, viewing angles — everything about it is amazing. Best display I’ve ever seen, period.”

Now it’s our job to make the websites you view on that display look sexy.

iOS6: Passbook

I have so many gift cards in my wallet it’s ridiculous. Add the occasional concert, movie or plane ticket, some cash, my credit cards, and a few business cards and my wallet is tapped out. Enter Passbook. Built right into Apple’s next version of iOS, Passbook is more than just a digital card wallet: It’s a whole new platform for developers.

“Besides the gee-whiz factor of having scannable cards organized in a pretty interface within the iPhone, the most interesting thing about Passbook is that the digital cards are able to make use of the iPhone’s geolocation capabilities. “When you get to the movie theater, your ticket automatically pops up on the lockscreen,” explained Scott Forstall, Apple’s SVP for iPhone software, demonstrating how a Fandago movie ticket in action. (via TechCrunch)”

We’re dying to work this functionality into some new projects.

iOS6: Apple Maps

Apple and Google have been a bit on-again-off-again over the last few years. And with Apple’s move to push Google out of the iOS Maps slot, we’d say they’re off again. That said, Apple’s newly designed Maps application seems to be a lot easier on the eyes, and it includes a lot of features that Google was reluctant to add to the original Google Maps app because it would eat into the improved map functionality that their own Android platform offered. In addition to a beautiful visual make-over, Apple’s new Maps app now includes turn-by-turn directions, and ‘Flyover’, “a whole new perspective with amazing photo-realistic and interactive 3D views of major metro areas.” (Check out more info about iOS 6′s Maps here.)

Apparently it can be a bad idea to withhold features from a company that’s sitting on over $600 billion in cash: Because they’ll just re-create the feature themselves.

We’re excited to see where these new and improved maps will take us.

Which new Apple product or feature are you excited to spend your savings on?