Why are you guys sitting so close together?

Thats a good question and 'well designed' is always subjective. Basically, I take into account how large a corporation is and assume the hurdles to get a higher level of design accomplished and in the end, it might seem boring. In actuality, I think theres a lot at work - pushing, pulling between agencies, in-house and VP levels to make something that is marginally better for us, as designers, but a lifetime better for others - actual users, investors, etc.

So i'm judging based off of how content is presented, the messaging quality behind it, layout, and basically how it's presented within the hurdles that supercede just really cool typefaces, unique layouts and flat vs skeuomorphic debates.

It's a subjective list for sure but its within F500 which ads some parameters around it.

A good example is Qualcomm. I think it is pretty progressive as far as experiences go but still retains some generic qualities that speak towards less savvy cliental, ie header background images. The content is also presented nicely...

I think....if it works well on some and not on others, regardless of Mac, PC, sex or race - it's a failure overall. It's just not necessary to implement - there's other ways to craft a narrative.

You could run each image through Automator with Digital Photography Automator Actions for CC. In the past, I've used Automator to run through multiple steps and re-save files. Has a learning curve but not much.

Crop, scale, etc are items included in the free set. http://www.robotphotoshop.com/?page_id=8

Hint: "Open" & "render" automator actions are required in each workflow..

I'd join

I think you're looking at this from the standpoint of a designer and not the other way around. Most users don't refer to the way an app works or looks as UX or UI, they either like it or they don't. That's enough context to make something simple enough that there's nothing (from a regular user, non-designer) to dislike about it.

You're partially correct on assuming its for 'high intend users' - it's HBO NOW, not HBO GO, not HBO.com an not the HBO that is derived from Cable providers. In that, they don't need to self promote, have any fancy on-boarding and for that matter, UI - the pretty stuff that makes the app users want to try to use something but eventually just delete it or stop using it altogether because thats all it is, pretty.

I'm not too sure if Huge Inc was involved but they designed HBO GO and HBO.com, albeit in Flash, but the team that was involved provided a very honest design. They weren't trying to reinvent 'browsing patterns' or some new-fangled way of searching for a movie you like.

I believe it's a good experience, not great, because it's not overly done and the app fits a market of Apple users who already don't subscribe to HBO.

Many reasons but probably the number one reason: companies just don't go out any buy other companies that seem like competitors. It's the same reason why Apple doesn't buy HP or Adobe.

As you've gathered, for Adobe to be interested in Bohemian Coding, BH would have to show profit margins of Sketch, number of users, and a number of other factors that as a designer, I can't quite speak towards.

All in all, it doesn't make sense for Adobe to spend the time and money to buy Bohemian Coding just for 'Sketch' when Adobes product strategy no longer cares for a Sketch type application. Think about how that app would actually fit into the app ecosystem and what Adobe is trying to accomplish with Creative Cloud. This can change and might in the future but I'd gather Adobe will be spending more time developing out integration across apps and 'cloud' before expanding the product line once more.

I'll tell you what this exactly it is...

It's Google's attempt to be or become synonymous with "high-design".

They aren't guidelines - it's just marketing materials to re-align the brand to "design" They have no Jony Ive' and basically no relationship to nicely designed products - they just have their reach and technology. By self-promoting ideas of design, they're trying to slowly rebrand as more of a design company.

This is very art-school speak and Apple, Braun and other companies who are known for their design practices are beyond this garbage.

Haven't found a free tool worth using but as others have said, Illustrator works pretty well. That being said, there's other tools and it really depends on speed, quality of the deliverable and ultimately what you're familiar with.

Here's a few tools I use that you might want to look into:

• Balsamiq: provides some fairly rough tools to work on quick lo-fidelity mockups. I consider it a sketching tool to get conversations going.

• Indigo Studio: Great product out of the box with a library of components to drag and drop onto the story board. Also has tools for responsive and prototyping.

• Illustrator and Indesign are great tools - I have a predefined set of library items in Indesign and have templates established with proper documentation. I always end up reverting to Indesign eventually in the workflow since it provides great control over multi-page documents.