August 2012
21 posts
6 tags
“I like pressure. Pressure doesn’t make me crack. It’s enabling. I eat pressure,...”
– —Louis C.K., from this great interview with The A.V. Club.
I — of course — was also interested in hearing Louis’s perspective on getting cast for the next Woody Allen film:
He was very kind to me, and I met him. It was a big deal for me; I didn’t care if I got the part or not. I really...
July 2012
26 posts
8 tags
Gut Churn →
Jad Abumrad, creator and host of Radiolab, has written a great piece on how Radiolab came to be and how he wrestles with his newfound success (you know, winning a MacArthur Genius Grant, and all). I especially love how he still feels that gut churn he felt when he started except this time, it’s a fear of staying stagnant, of resting on the past successes while fearing whatever that new thing...
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The spot
It’s 11:00 on the uptown R train. At the 23rd St. stop, an older gentleman steps onto the car and pauses in the doorway as he scans the half-empty seats. A smile slowly speads across his face. Whispering, as if talking to himself, he slowly walks towards the woman in the corner seat. She’s smiling too, their eyes are locked. He slides into the seat next to her and she removes her...
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Toxic Nostalgia →
Angela Riechers, writing for Imprint, questions the use of nostalgia and skeuomorphic elements in design:
Maybe we pine for outdated mechanical items because featherweight digital objects and applications lack soul. Quickly obsolete (the average lifespan for digital products is 18 months before a new version becomes available), they acquire no patina, remaining devoid of the gentle signs of...
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It’s Not My Fault, I’m Happy – Passion...
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WatchFor a little Saturday morning inspiration, I can’t recommend enough James Victore’s recent talk at the 99% Conference on viewing your work as a gift. Victore spends some time looking at the work he did for The New York Department of Probation (talk about an interesting client!) and how that has furthered his belief that design can help us live better.
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“99% of my time is spent procrastinating as compared to 1% of actual writing: a...”
– Oliver Miller, Why I Write
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“We’re repairmen—repairmen with a toolbox. If I repair a little of myself, I’ll...”
– Bruce Springsteen, from this great profile in this weeks The New Yorker.
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What makes an identity? →
Rebekah Cox on the nature of identity:
To start it’s important to understand what identity isn’t: Identity is not a password, it’s not root access, it’s not your calendar, it’s not your email, it’s not a technical achievement, it’s not your location, it’s not a user account in a system, it’s not your contacts and it’s not a feature.
...
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Russell Quinn is the world's most wired... →
I devoured this Wired profile on Russell Quinn, a software developer and designer from California who is releasing his first novel, The Silent History, later this year. What makes The Silent History so interesting is that it’s a completely iPad and iPhone native story, utilizing the strengths of a digital device:
Now after a string of behind-the-scenes successes, Quinn may be about to...
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Why We Need Storytellers at the Heart of Product... →
Sarah Doody on product development and storytelling:
A product is more than an idea, it’s more than a website, and it’s more than a transaction or list of functionalities. A product should provide an experience or service that adds value to someone’s life through fulfilling a need or satisfying a desire. The ultimate question then becomes: who identifies that value? After the executive or...
7 tags
“My filmmaking education consisted of finding out what filmmakers I liked were...”
– Paul Thomas Anderson (via austinkleon)
I learned more about graphic design by finding out who inspired the designers I like or read the book they read. Then I found out who those designers looked to or what books they read and would keep going farther and farther back, spreading out the range of...
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“It’s taking me a while, but I feel like I am getting closer figuring out how to...”
– —Andre Torrez, We Met On The Internet
I have a love/hate relationship with social media. I credit a lot of wonderful things that have happened to me to connections made through these sites but on the other hand, I have a growing frustration with this feeling that we need to not only have opinions...
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“I have good news and bad news. Bad news first: if you’re not happy right now, at...”
– via Robin Sloan, The power to be who we want to be
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“Design everything on the assumption that people are not heartless or stupid but...”
– The Internet and Everyone, John Chris Jones (via fieldstudy)
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Forward to Find My Way Home
I’ve been listening to a lot of new music lately and wanted to pull some tracks that have been in heavy rotation into a little mix. It sort of captures the fun spirit of summer, jumping from slower acoustic tracks to electronic dance songs to a bit of Kanye West. I hope you like it.
It’s called Forward to Find My Way Home and you can listen to it here.
Here’s the track...
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“I think most people find it difficult to hear criticisms of things they love. We...”
– Erin Kissane, How to Kill a Troll
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“‘Your’ classic is a book to which you cannot remain indifferent, and...”
– Italo Calvino, from his list of what makes a book a classic
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“Once you’ve truly begun, slow down. The difference between publishing two good...”
– Sarah Manguso, How to Have a Career: Advice to Young Writers
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WatchRelated to the recent post on how books are produced at Random House, here’s another fantastic video from Russian publisher Lamartis Publishing House on how they produce one of their books. Taking a more handmade approach, the process is beautiful as each step contributes to a wonderful finished artifact, only furthering the belief that print is not yet dead.
6 tags
“The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is...”
– —Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities
Today, my twenty-third birthday, seems like a good a day to stop and reflect on the things that make life worth living. This year my birthday gift to myself is to give more space to the people and things that make life good. Happy birthday to me; may this be the...
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‘Life is too short to be busy’ →
Tim Kreider’s piece for The New York Times being linked around like crazy, but it’s worth it because it’s that good:
I was a member of the latchkey generation and had three hours of totally unstructured, largely unsupervised time every afternoon, time I used to do everything from surfing the World Book Encyclopedia to making animated films to getting together with friends in...
