Again, we are packing skiing gear and other necessities for a winter holiday trip to Northern Finland. Our basecamp will be a lovely log cabin located very far from the nearest Internet access point.
I can hardly wait.
Category Archives: Blog
Designquotes
February 17, 2010 – 20:36
Alex Giron put together a design quotes display system that can be used as a screensaver.
Solar
February 7, 2010 – 13:14
Solar by flight404.
Made with Processing. Audio by Goldfrapp (“Lovely Head” off her first album).
mnmlist
February 4, 2010 – 8:56
- It’s a site by Leo Babauta of Zen Habits.
- It’s about minimalism, and why it’s important today.
- It’s about stuff, and how it has come to overwhelm us.
- It’s about distractions and commitments and a neverending task list.
- It’s about the culture of more, of bigger, of consumption.
- It’s about how less is the answer.
It’s an eye opener.
Get motivated
January 26, 2010 – 13:42
Sometimes a little push is needed. Start your day by watching Al Pacino’s great speech in Any Given Sunday.
(via ArcticStartup)
Mini generation gaps
January 11, 2010 – 8:36
The NY Times has an interesting report on the iGeneration, born in the ’90s and this decade, comparing them to the Net Generation, born in the 1980s.
“People two, three or four years apart are having completely different experiences with technology,” said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project. “College students scratch their heads at what their high school siblings are doing, and they scratch their heads at their younger siblings. It has sped up generational differences.”
…
Now in their 20s, those in the Net Generation, according to Dr. Rosen, spend two hours a day talking on the phone and still use e-mail frequently. The iGeneration — conceivably their younger siblings — spends considerably more time texting than talking on the phone, pays less attention to television than the older group and tends to communicate more over instant-messenger networks. Dr. Rosen said that the newest generations, unlike their older peers, will expect an instant response from everyone they communicate with, and won’t have the patience for anything less.
Gall’s law
January 6, 2010 – 11:35
“A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. The inverse proposition also appears to be true: A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work. You have to start over, beginning with a working simple system.”
Gall’s Law is a tongue-in-cheek, rule of thumb from John Gall’s Systemantics: How Systems Really Work and How They Fail.
Stop sign designed by committee
December 16, 2009 – 20:22
What if there were no stop signs, and a major corporation was charged with inventing one? They’d brief their agency and let them do it. Sorta. Welcome to corporate creativity, where groupthink and endless revisions help good ideas get executed.
This funny yet painful piece of reality goes out to all our fellow craftsmen.
Good ideas rarely come in bunches
November 25, 2009 – 11:58
One of the more common problems which tends to create doubt and confusion is caused by the inexperienced and anxious executive who innocently expects, or even demands, to see not one but many solutions to a problem. These may include a number of visual and/or verbal concepts, an assortment of layouts, a variety of pictures and color schemes, as well as a choice of type styles. He needs the reassurance of numbers and the opportunity to exercise his personal preferences. He is also most likely to be the one to insist on endless revisions with unrealistic deadlines, adding to an already wasteful and time-consuming ritual.
Theoretically, a great number of ideas assures a great number of choices, but such choices are essentially quantitative. This practice is as bewildering as it is wasteful. It discourages spontaneity, encourages indifference, and more often than not produces results which are neither distinguished, interesting, nor effective. In short, good ideas rarely come in bunches.
The designer who voluntarily presents his client with a batch of layouts does so not out prolificacy, but out of uncertainty or fear. He thus encourages the client to assume the role of referee. In the event of genuine need, however, the skillful designer is able to produce a reasonable number of good ideas. But quantity by demand is quite different than quantity by choice.
Design is a time-consuming occupation. Whatever his working habits, the designer fills many a wastebasket in order to produce one good idea. Advertising agencies can be especially guilty in this numbers game. Bent on impressing the client with their ardor, they present a welter of layouts, many of which are superficial interpretations of potentially good ideas, or slick renderings of trite ones.
Paul Rand explains why demanding many solutions to a problem merely leads to waste and confusion: The Politics of Design.
C’était un rendez-vous
November 4, 2009 – 13:52
On an August morning in 1976, French filmmaker Claude Lelouch mounted a gyro-stabilized camera to the bumper of a Mercedes 450 SEL 6,9 and had a friend, a professional Formula 1 racer, drive at breakneck speed through the heart of Paris.
No streets were closed, for Lelouch was unable to obtain a permit.
Breathtakingly insane.
UPDATE: Vimeo → Youtube. The movie is better in larger size, though.