Uncle Mark’s Gift Guide and Almanac. A yearly publication with great gift ideas and other cool information.
While reading an interesting interview with the designers of the logo for Obama’s campaign, I discovered a cool little UI element on the New York Times website. If you select a piece of text, a little icon appears. When clicked, a window opens with options to define, search and other actions. Very nice attention to detail.
New trailer just out for Pixar’s new movie “Up.”
The color palette and texture in this new movie looks nothing short of gorgeous. I was so taken by the look of the trailer that I had to play it again just to find out what it was about. I also had to wipe a little drool from the corner of my mouth.
I’ve posted some screenshots of some of the more luxurious shots here. Just look at the texture on that kid’s uniform. Man, that’s nice
Google further cements its overlord status by making millions of LIFE magazine photos available for search. How about those Mormons?
Shorter bedtime stories by Ikea.
Easily the nicest custom paint job I’ve seen on a scooter to go with one very awesome road trip. This guy used to be the art director and designer for Scooterworks and Genuine Scooter Company (Home of the Stella).
Well done Google.
I’m not a lawyer, but dang. The Google Chrome EULA looks highly suspect. Think I’ll stick with Safari.
This just brings a smile to my face.
“workin’ at a place w/o a ui guy sucks”- A developer friend of mine who IM’ed this to me a minute ago
Quick side note to my post about the Stella. Last week I presented a smaller version of this presentation to our design group. It was the keynote presentation for a design conference some of us attended earlier this year. In the presentation, Mr. Spool talks about the importance of using what he calls “tricks” and “techniques” to accomplish a specific task or set of tasks.
Piaggio (the company that makes the Vespa) started out making locomotives and then mostly airplanes after that to meet wartime demand. After WWII, they needed to start doing something else to survive and thus the Vespa was born to meet the needs of a crippled Italian economy and people who needed cheap, reliable transportation.
If Piaggio had thought of themselves as an “airplane” company, they may not have ever created the Vespa. They used a set of tricks (using tools to do things they were never meant for) and techniques (skills that can be applied to any task) to create a sea change in their company. They took the design skills they had and leveraged those skills to completely reinvent themselves. Today, other companies still look to the Vespa as the benchmark for elegant scooter design.
Speaking of scooters, please accept the awesomeness that is vintage Italian two-wheeled goodness before it destroys you. I named her “Wanda.” She gets 80mpg. More info on this fine Italian beauty can be found here.
Fantastic illustrations of obsolete superheroes. I love the one called “Larry 3000.”
Crickets chirping.
VIVACALACA. Que bueno.