Archive for the ‘design’ Category
Objectified Trailer is out!
January 5th, 2009Check out the new trailer for Objectified: A Documentary by Gary Hustwit, director of Helvetica.
Posted in design | Comments (1)
Olympic Posters
January 5th, 2009I finally got around to watching Chariots of Fire for the first time last night, and one thing that stopped me dead in my tracks (besides the fantastic costume design) was the 1924 Paris Olympics poster. Fantastic! Awesome bold composition and great design that holds up just fine today. I then found this great archive of all the Olympic posters – worth a look.
Paris 1924
Tags: olympics, print
Posted in design | Comments (0)
Nifty Eye Candy with FlowPlayer
December 1st, 2008I was looking for an easy way to replicate Apple’s great movie trailer overlay effect about a month ago, and low and behold someone has now done it with my new favorite video tool: Flow Player and Jquery. Check it out.
Tags: design, links
Posted in design | Comments (0)
Putting the O in Obama
November 21st, 2008Great interview with the Obama ’08 logo designer
Tags: design, politics
Posted in design | Comments (0)
Designers solve all our problems
November 20th, 2008Interesting article from the WSJ
Tags: design, workplace
Posted in design | Comments (0)
Progressive Enhancement: A way to pull IE forward?
November 9th, 2008There’s been quite a bit of chatter these days about Progressive Enhancement, or Progressive Enrichment, depending on which definition you prefer. Either way, after years of lowest-common-denominator designing for IE 6 and worse, IE 5.5, it’s an exciting time for CSS designers. I wonder if this is a way for designers to pull Internet Explorer forward, rather than by looking backward to the installed user base. By showing a site’s best colors only in browsers that support tricks such as RGBa or border radius designers can, if they choose, create a virtual penthouse suite for the Safari, Firefox and Opera users out there. Using IE? Sorry, you don’t see the rounded corners. A new way to coax Microsoft forward? Just a thought.
Tags: css, design, internet explorer
Posted in design | Comments (0)
Housing Works
October 22nd, 2008Everything these guys touch turns to design gold. I’m sure this has already been blogged about just about everywhere, but it’s just so beautiful: Housing Works. It solves so many design challenges head on. Love it.
Tags: css, design, happy cog
Posted in design | Comments (0)
Pixels & Ephemera
October 18th, 2008Web design is a maligned field. Maligned because it is by nature a visual medium everyone can see, but not always understand. How often do you hear the phrase “I’m not designer…but I think…” or, for artists, the popular variation “I’m no artist…but everyone can have an opinion.” Really? Can you? Other disciplines or fields of study have litmus tests. In sports we have the execution of physical mechanics, combined with natural ability and experience. There are tangible things that separate us from them. We can enjoy sports, play them, be part of the sport, but when I play tennis I’m under no illusion that my opinion or play on the court matters as much as that of Rafael Nadal or Roger Fedderer.
In Web site development, unless we’re interested in looking under the hood, we don’t see how it works. Either it works, or it doesn’t. We can ‘feel’ if an application is responsive and reliable, and to be sure, there is beauty, artistry and creativity in software development – this is not a post pitting development vs. creative direction.
What designers do is mysterious, ephemeral, and does have requirements for critique. To have equal opinion just by virtue of the fact that you can see what’s in front of you is akin to becoming a music critic on account of the two ears attached to your head. It involves gut instincts that can’t be taught, constant practice and introspection. By all means, engage, have an opinion and critique, but remember this one thing: good design is hard.
Tags: design, rant
Posted in design, rant | Comments (0)
AEA Chicago
October 11th, 2008Off to An Event Apart in Chicago tomorrow. Last year’s conference I attended was a great experience, and a great chance to get my creative batteries recharged. Here’s hoping for more good times this year.
Tags: design
Posted in design | Comments (0)
Social cork board!
October 8th, 2008Intriguing idea – thanks to Joe Alba for the link. Great community ad / social space idea, or just cutsey Web 2.0 sharing? Either way, it’s slick.
Tags: design, links
Posted in design | Comments (0)