This week, we’re reading about managing creatives, getting products into the hands of users more quickly, introducing variability into font design, the future of digital audio, and what the Super Bowl is doing with a location-based app. 

What are you reading? 

5 Keys to Successfully Manage Creative Employees

Managing creative employees can be a challenge but when done right results in consistently great work. In this article, Aquent’s VP of Global Marketing, Nelson Rodriguez, shares his (quasi-zen) advice on managing creatives. His top priority: Encouraging a collaborative approach where people are less concerned with who came up with what and more concerned with how to make every idea better. 

The Experience Makes the Product, Not the Features

As Lee Dale argues in this post, “Your app’s customers aren’t won over by features. They’re won over by product experience.” In order to fine-tune that experience, you need to get your app to your users sooner rather than later, which means identifying the core experience you are trying to create and letting go of the idea that you can’t release until the feature set is complete. 

Variable Fonts for Responsive Design

Responsive web design is one of the hottest movements in digital because it just makes sense for products to work across devices. Unfortunately, as Nick Sherman points out in this article, “the glyph shapes in modern fonts are restricted to a single, static configuration.” This creates a “glass floor” for responsive typography and Nick has some ideas about how to break through it.

What’s in Store for Digital Audio in 2015?

Since the web is truly a multi-media platform, developers and designers need to think beyond the visual. In this post by Anne Wootton, industry experts weigh in on the future of digital audio.

NFL's First Super Bowl App is Only for Those in the Stadium on Game Day

It’s Super Bowl weekend here in the US, and we’d be remiss not to include at least one story on the big game. Like many large organizations, the NFL is continually experimenting with how to improve fan experience with technology and apps. Interestingly enough, the app Samantha Murphy Kelly discusses in this article is only usable by fans in the stands. Is this a model for location-based apps in the future?

Image Source (Creative Commons): Karen Roe.