January 2012
How Often Should I Charge My Gadget's Battery to... →
7 tags
Apple and Google as Creative Archetypes →
“The Google model relies on rapid experimentation and data. The company constantly refines its search, advertising marketplace, e-mail and other services, depending on how people use its online offerings. It takes a bottom-up approach: customers are participants, essentially becoming partners in product design.
The Apple model is more edited, intuitive and top-down. When asked what market...
Nice Web Type →
Nice Web Type is one place for web typography, following experiments, advancements, and best practices in typesetting web text.
Typedia: A Shared Encyclopedia of Typefaces →
Pretty handy.
Apple’s Massive Numbers And Some Context →
“At over $400 billion, Apple is now worth more than Greece”
TechCrunch
3 tags
Graphic designers do not charge enough!
Independent designers need to think like lawyers, tax preparers, doctors, and plumbers do when it comes to charging for our services. We need to be capitalistically professional about it and charge for every minute we do anything for a client.
If a job takes 40 hours, what does it cost a designer to live for a week, plus expenses, insurance, healthcare, retirement savings, emergency savings, plus...
The World’s Most Exclusive Condominium →
“A condominium is a territory jointly administered by two or more countries, often (but not necessarily) a territory on the common border between the parties involved.”
Four open questions about iBooks Author →
Even more important questions about iBook Author being crippled by Apple.
6 tags
Holding out for an ePub hero →
“I want our designers to be able to lay out a book by sight rather than by code. I want to be able to export my book in any format I choose, to be distributed on any and every platform. And, more than anything else, I want others to start making awesome ebooks, too. I want people to be able to focus on the content they’re putting together, rather than the laborious process of turning it into an...
7 tags
350,000 Textbooks Downloaded From Apple’s iBooks... →
I’d be worried if my printing business was based on text book printing.
From a design perspective, this is no great loss as most textbooks are horrible looking as far as design goes.
1 tag
How Kodak Squandered Every Single Digital... →
“Kodak has finally formalized what had been expected for years — it’s gone bankrupt. In the past 15 years, digital technology changed photography dramatically, and Kodak, a former heavyweight in the analog film business, got left behind. That’s the story of Kodak in the broadest of strokes, th…”
Mapping The Link Between Obesity And Car Driving →
Planning matters to our health too. The lack of planning and preference toward suburban developers caused much of this problem and many other health and social probelms too.
Contrast with the Netherlands. Is the Netherlands perfect? Heck no. But, compared to our approach in most of the U.S., we are primitive.
“Globalization is inevitably turning countries into brands as carefully managed...”
– From a Alina Wheeler Tweet but, I am not sure who said it. Possibly a Matias Sanchez?
Eastman Kodak Files for Bankruptcy →
Kodak made a bet on printers and ink. But instead, they should have made a bet on color and quality. Color and quality are what most of us who used Kodak professional and consumer products in the past think of with Kodak and Fuji too.
Not paper, not photo paper.
Kodak failed to understand it was not a product it was selling but rather its expertise and excellence.
Leica, another old photo...
A Pixel Identity Crisis →
A List Apart
Web and tablet designers: do your users over 35 a favor, read this!
Apple to announce tools, platform to “digitally... →
Garage Band for book publishing? It was inevitable. Apple and Adobe were the first to digitally destroy typesetting in the late 1980s. In the end, not really. Just typesetters who worked with lead. But, typesetting lives on (when in the hands of a person who knows what they are doing). Publishing, and just all the printed matter in general, will live on, even on paper (packaging, labels, etc.)....
A List Apart: Articles: An Important Time for... →
“If, for example, the designer is brought on after a feature set is solidified and a first version of a product has been built, there will be very little beneath the surface that can be done—and it’s what happens beneath the surface in product design that makes or breaks it. For design to work, at least one designer must be a part of the product team from the start. The design team needs to be...
(More than) 101 ways to read the New York Times →
Holly cow (sort of). There are many ways to read it but, some of these are just parts of the Times. Still, pretty amazing.
World War I Centennial: Councils of War →
As the centennial of World War I approaches, Mental Floss is running some articles about the events that led up to the war 100 years after they happend.
World War I had more impact on art and design (and a lot of other things) than any other event in human history. The end of the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian Empires and the emergence of democracies or communist states impacted...
Aggressive Salesclerks Push Shoppers to the Web →
“The customer walks into a store, and they need time to adjust their eyes to the light,” he said. “They maybe never were in the store before. They want to feel the lay of the land even if they know what they want. So if you go up to them before they’re ready and say, ‘Can I help you?’ which is a cliché, you hear, ‘No, thank you.’ That’s a silent derailer because, as subtle as that is, the...
“…most humans have two contradictory impulses: we love and need one another, yet...”
– Susan Cain author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking
“Without great solitude, no serious work is possible”
– Picasso
The Rise of the New Groupthink →
“Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption. And the most spectacularly creative people in many fields are often introverted, according to studies by thepsychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Gregory Feist. They’re extroverted enough to exchange and advance ideas, but see themselves as independent and individualistic. They’re...
Showcase of Logo Designs with Detailed Patterns →
Silicon Valley’s New Secret Weapon: Designers Who... →
Greenhouse Gas Data →
From the EPA.
A Dozen Common Mistakes →
“The reason firms fail is not creativity, location, or the marketplace. It’s management ability. Your firm is a direct reflection of you, and you must take responsibility for it. Here are the most common 12 mistakes we see creative service firms make. If you are managing a firm now, you’ll identify immediately. If you are an employee, this might give you some context for the decisions...
Top Tech Trends of 2011 →
Truth in Advertising by Tim Hamilton →
What’s the difference between UI Design and UX... →
Question answered on Quora?