November 2010
36 posts
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‘Things don’t replace things; they just add on’ →
David Pogue reflects on his ten years working as a tech journalist for The New York Times:
Things don’t replace things; they just splinter. I can’t tell you how exhausting it is to keep hearing pundits say that some product is the “iPhone killer” or the “Kindle killer.” Listen, dudes: the history of consumer tech is branching, not replacing.
TV was supposed to kill radio. The DVD was supposed...
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“You are the only one of you, she said of it. Your unique perspective, at this...”
– —Alexander Chee on studying under Annie Dillard.
There is so much I wanted to quote from this piece. The entire thing reads as a great lesson in creativity.
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Happy Friday! [All I Want For Christmas is You -...
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“The minute you think that the past was better, your present is second hand,...”
– Karl Lagerfeld
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Picasso, Girl Talk, and some thoughts on influence
There is an old Picasso legend I’m rather fond of.
Picasso is sitting on a park bench sketching when a woman walks up to him exclaiming “It’s you, the great artist Picasso. Could you please draw a portrait of me?”
Picasso agreed. He studied the woman for a bit and then with one continuous line, he sketched her face in a matter of seconds. The woman was pleased with the likeness.
“This is...
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“When you make something no one hates, no one loves it.”
– Tibor Kalman
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Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction →
A great piece from The New York Times on technology’s influence on education and it’s effect on distraction and the inability to concentrate. One principle is trying to find a balance in how technology can be used in schools:
The principal, David Reilly, 37, a former musician who says he sympathizes when young people feel disenfranchised, is determined to engage these 21st-century...
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“Spend at least twice as much time editing as you do writing. Slave over every...”
– —Patrick Rhone (author of the always interesting Minimal Mac) on writing advice to his younger self.
I’ve been interested in editing lately. I think editors are more important now than ever before. Everyone has a voice and the platforms have been lowered. I think good editing can lift a...
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Cold : Bold →
Jonathan Harris writes some of my favorite things on the web and this talk he recently gave at the AIGA GAIN conference is the perfect summary about what makes his work compelling.
Combining elements of computer science, architecture, statistics, storytelling and design, Jonathan Harris’s online projects create large-scale living portraits of the human world—portraits that both simplify and...
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Happy Friday! [The High Road - Broken Bells]
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The Humble Pencil →
Semi-related to the previous post, Frank Chimero on the pencil:
The pencil is general, yet specific. Ideas can be hashed out with ease to gauge their potential. The marks can be vague enough so one doesn’t judge the execution, but instead judges the potential of the idea. This is why I can’t come up with ideas on computers. Computers are too specific; they have too many degrees of separation...
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Wohlgefühl →
From an interesting piece on handwriting, stationary, notebooks, and pencils:
Something handwritten shows that you care and that it is important to you…And, may I say, nothing beats the pleasure of being able to actually tick something off a list by hand rather than it simply disappearing from a screen because it has been done.
Handwriting shows you care. It’s involving yourself...
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You don't invent a product, you discover it →
37signals has an excellent piece on Dr. Edwin Land, inventor of the Polaroid camera and how he influenced Steve Jobs’ work. Both Land and Jobs believed that they simply discovered their respective products, claiming they could see it in their mind as clear as if it were actually sitting on a table in front of them.
On how Land developed the first Polaroid camera:
While on vacation, Land’s...
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“I think critique is great. Critique is the cornerstone of improvement for a...”
– —Mitch Goldstein on his time posing as @AngryPaulRand on Twitter.
This is exactly why I have a hard time reading complaints, criticism and negativity on Twitter (and, to some extent, the rest of the internet).
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Paul McCartney: Logo Designer? →
Fitting in with today’s other announcement, Steven Heller unearths the origins of the famed Beatles logo:
“It wasn’t a typeface … I think I drew it when I was at school,” Paul McCartney explains. “I used to sit around endlessly with notebooks, drawing Elvis, drawing guitars, drawing logos, drawing my signature…” Yet McCartney admits he isn’t altogether sure of the logo’s origins, and Ivor...
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Balance is key →
Khoi Vinh has an excellent piece on getting started in the design field, how to find success, and living a balanced life:
I think the prevailing thinking that life for twenty-something designers should be spent at the office first and foremost is bad advice. It might make good business sense for an employer, but it’s bad life advice.
Looking back on all of those overtime nights and weekends...
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Happy Friday! [I Think Ur A Contra - Vampire...
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“The best way to complain is to make things.”
– —James Murphy
Related to yesterday.
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Complaining versus Celebrating
Complaining is silly. Either act or forget. —Stefan Sagmeister
We complain about everything anymore. We complain when our food isn’t prepared as fast as we’d like. We complain when someone pulls in front of us on the highway. We complain about people around us. We complain about poor typography and bad kerning. We complain when a company updates their classic logo. We ask for change but then...
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The Most Important Thing I Learned About Art I...
Recently, it seems like some of the most profound life lessons come from children’s movies. Toy Story 3 teaches us how to embrace the future without forgetting the past. Fantastic Mr. Fox is about family and learning who you are. Up is about how to experience life and find the adventure in the everyday.
I watched Ratatouille for the first time a few months ago and while it’s an adorable...
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The Gunnian principles for design critiques →
Dan Saffer tallies what he’s learned about design critiques from watching Tim Gunn of Project Runway. Gunn’s principles for critique seem to be:
• The purpose of a critique is to make the design better. • Be supportive. • First, figure out what the designer was trying to accomplish. • Offer direction, not prescription. • Humor and metaphor work better than criticism alone. • Accept multiple...
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“People who know nothing in depth commonly assume that their opinions are the...”
– This is part of an interesting new educational theory that has children focus on one topic throughout their education and keep studying it from different angles. Two things:
You know those people who have to give you their opinion on everything as if it were fact? Yeah, me too.
I became a better...
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“I’ve never understood this bittersweet narcissism within myself. I love to...”
– —Roger Ebert on loneliness.
I don’t understand it either, Roger, but I know the feeling. I like running off by myself for a few hours and sitting along in a cafe or coffee shop. I like just sitting there and watching everyone else. Watching how people interact, watching the wind blow through...
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“People are interested only in themselves. If a story is not about the hearer he...”
– —John Steinbeck, East of Eden
This is one of those books that’s been on my list to read for a few years now, always putting it off to read something newer to relevant to my interests or shorter. I’d finished the rest of the books on my list that I already own and not wanting to buy...
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The Taste of Mexican Coke is all in your head →
Jonah Lehrer thinks he likes Mexican Coke better than plain old American Coke because Mexican Coke is made with sucrose not high-fructose corn syrup but wonders if something else is going on:
Although I can rationalize away that closet full of Mexican Coke bottles (thank you, Costco!), the psychology of taste perception suggests those rationalizations are wrong. Consider this clever study of soft...
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Brian Eno on improv, frameworks, and Marshall... →
Pitchfork has an excellent interview with Brian Eno, arguably one of the most influential musicians of the past few decades. He covers a wide range of topics that seem to transcend music and relate to all art forms. On the various ways we consume music:
I think that every format really is a different way of listening. If you take a different sort of psychological stance to it— like, I think...
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The Content Designer
Bill McKibben, in an article for The New York Review of Books on public radio, wrote:
Radio receives little critical attention. Of the various methods for communicating ideas and emotions—books, newspapers, visual art, music, film, television, the Web—radio may be the least discussed, debated, understood. This is likely because it serves largely as a transmission device, a way to take other art...
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What Happened to Downtime? →
Scott Belsky, founder of the 99% has a fantastic article on the importance of downtime and “the creative pause:”
It is now possible to always feel loved and cared for, thanks to the efficiency of our “comment walls” on Facebook and seamless connection with everyone we’ve ever known. Your confidence and self-esteem can quickly be reassured by checking your number of “followers”...
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“We are becoming more isolated than ever before. People used to talk face to...”
– Poignant insight from Wael Khairy’s review of Spike Jonze’s short film I’m Here. I absolutely love the film and this review really gives it the praise it deserves. It’s interesting how a film with robots as its main characters can actually tell a heartfelt story about what it... 