“It’s so hard to find things.My wife Caryn, experiencing the joys of using lds.org.
I’m finding it hard to not blame you.”
Carsonified launches their site for the Future of Web Apps – Dublin.
They’ve taken a page’s worth of information and blown it up to three and a half pages of design. Web 2.0 goodness, or a bloated excuse for a brochure? I can’t decide if I like it or not..
Just a note – I love these Carson workshops. I don’t exaggerate when I say they are the most professionally produced conferences out there. This note isn’t meant as criticism of their biz, just a note on the design direction of these latest sites of theirs.
How to spot a hidden handgun, a sweet infographic from Megan Jaegerman, as analyzed by Ed Tufte.
Target’s new gift cards are also 1.2mp digital cameras.
northtemple journal of design ~ November Issue
Exploring the inner workings of a designer’s mind is no picnic. Stop over-analyzing and go with your gut.
CD cover for Focus Jazz, designed by Barral Fabien
Love this new Museum of London logo, dissected over at Brand New. I don’t agree with his small bits of criticism at all – I love the type, the shapes, and the whole feel of it. The website, on the other hand, seems to dilute the vibrance of the logo by splashing those colors across the header and nav and such. But the logo, I love.
Veerle threw in a nice surprise in on her new business site for peeps with larger monitors.
Typeface is a new documentary about the Hamilton Wood Type Museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. Wonder if we can get a screening in SLC?
I’ll take these cans any day over the new ones.
Are Designers also Marketers? I’d say yes. And that includes personal marketing. I’ve said no to many an interviewee (and hire) based on bad ties, hair, shoes,.... If you’re a designer, should you know how to market? Love this excerpt: “when designers are tasked with selling their product they make better products.” Word.
“In the Shaker world, the appearance of a thing or person mattered only to the extent that it revealed its underlying function. Whatever did not interfere with function, served function. This is different from saying that whatever did not serve function interfered with function.”A few weeks ago, Kaleb posted a bit about the Shaker Design Philosophy. This post inspired me to look back through the book Shaker Built where I found this subtle shift in thinking. Thinking this way about your designs allows you to create something simple without being plain. It also allows the artist or designer an incredible amount of freedom within what may otherwise be considered hefty constraints. As long as a design element doesn’t interfere with the essential function, there can be an argument to keep it, even if it doesn’t serve any purpose itself.
While Apple has a healthy amount of attention on profit, product features, and competition, they seemed to pause this week to make a clear statement about their company. Steve Jobs passed around a Macbook chassis in their media event and Jony Ive, SVP of Design, emphasized careful craftsmanship in their product showcase. Apple has communicated what drives their company. They, the CEO and his fellow business-minded executives, respect the balance of form and function and embrace beauty and innovation. They notice nuances and foster a culture of design excellence. Leaders that love design are the foundation of an experience-driven organization.
Jared has another blog and no one told me about it.
This is a message from Tom Valletta who is the lead developer for our Open Source effort:
Your programmers are showing!The LDS technical community is beginning to get traction on some cool projects. The “Home Teaching and Visiting Teaching” application has code behind it now. The “Church History Timeline” does too. But because we have no designers contributing yet, our programmers are showing. Only you can prevent this opprobrium. Please get out and donate a design or two to the LDS technical community .
So if you have some free time and would like to contribute your design skills to the Church, go let Tom know. There are some great projects that are in need of some sweet design lovin’!!
The Professor, Mr. Dil, has unleashed his new beast at johndilworth.com. Nicely refined, John. No naked cherub babies, but well done. Who can name his title font?
Keep your eyes glued, as John will be displaying much of his MFA work, and if you’re lucky you can get in on these ridiculously cheap fine art prints he’s hocking. One of my favorites is on sale now, his Act Well Thy Part print. Now I’m just waiting for the Pants of Truth to come out, wherein John asks the vexing question, “Why is the truth concerned with getting its pants on?”
New in Gmail Labs: Stop sending email you later regret. This isn’t a joke, and it’s genius. Enable “Mail Goggles,” and Gmail will ask you a few math problems before it sends your email to make sure you’re sober enough to really mean what you just wrote. The feature is only active late at night in your timezone, and only on weekends, when some people might be prone to doing things they regret.
Love this idea, of designing things to be harder to encourage a certain behavior. We did something similar in our new Mission Office application here internally, making certain financial actions harder by requiring extra clicks or making the controls slightly obscure to discourage using them. Speed bumps are another example of using “poor” design to lead your user to act a certain way.
Speaking of color, here’s a sweet Guide to Choosing Colors for Your Brand. The graph above was created by Dmitry at Usability Post using a new website called Cymbolism, which “attempts to quantify the association between colors and words.” Nice resources no matter what your color background.
“There’s a very thin lineGraphic designer David Carson,
between simple and clean and powerful
and simple and clean and boring.”
former art director of Transworld Skateboarding and Raygun magazines,
and former professional surfer, in this clip from Helvetica.