The Future is Scary
May 8, 2012
I attended a local IXdA meeting that screened the Microsoft short film Connecting. The film was followed by a panel discussing themes brought up by the film. Here are my thoughts.
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How to Build a Website
March 9, 2012
What is it like to build a website? This is a question with probably as many answers as there are people. I do think there are some phases that are fairly consistent. Watch this entertaining video of the creation of Warby Parker’s 2011 Annual Report and then I’ll explain why I thought it was worth sharing.
Process Leads to Simplicity
January 5, 2012
Anthony at UX Movement wrote an article that made me think quite a bit. I agree with some of his points and disagree with others. Let’s start from the top.
Editing
December 2, 2011
Editing, speaking generally, is part of any creative endeavor. I have been involved in a variety of creative pursuits in my life (we all have, but that’s another subject) and have found editing to be the commonality between them all.
Open vs Closed & SOPA
November 18, 2011
Last Monday I went to see Hugh Dubberly make a presentation at the University of Washington. He presented Experience Design as the best way to succeed in today’s marketplace. Experience design is building systems and services in which customers can experience your brand in many different contexts, as the best way to succeed in today’s marketplace. There was some discussion after the event regarding whether a successful system exists that is “open”. This is what I wanted to focus on today, open versus closed systems.
Goodbye Steve
October 11, 2011
When I was a child and first discovered Star Wars I became obsessed. I began to learn everything I could about the Universe George Lucas had created. I was fascinated by the mythology and the processes that had gone into translating that myth to film. I realized then that stories were not plucked from the air but came from the imagination of an author. Once this realization struck I began to talk to my parents about how George had done this and George had done that. I wrote a letter to George to complain that the latest Star Wars video game was not coming to my console of choice. Then one night at dinner, my father asked me why I called him George instead of Mr. Lucas or George Lucas. I didn’t have a good answer then but I think I am beginning to have one now.
Bacon
October 9, 2011
This week I found more than one website having to do with one of my favorite all time things, bacon. It’s a bit off my usual topics but I thought I had to say something about it.
Simmering & Cooking
September 23, 2011
I have a persistent dream that seems to sneak to the front of my mind on occasion. I want to make a cookbook. I’m no expert at cooking, but I do enjoy it. Especially when the results are sweet, a side effect of my life-long sugar tooth. I’ll figure out what form it will take later.
IxDA Bauhaus?
August 12, 2011
A few months ago I went to a local IxDA/AIGA event, sponsored largely by Microsoft, where several speakers from the local interactive community discussed the current state of interface design. The speakers from the Microsoft phone division coined a phrase, IxDA Bauhaus, to frame their discussion.
Why I Don’t Read Newspapers
April 1, 2011
News aggregators make looking at headlines a completely brandless experience. Google News couldn’t care less whether you are the New York Times or the Seattle P.I. (its printed edition is now defunct… get it?), and apparently the news organizations do not care to differentiate themselves much either. I recently watched State of Play and could not help feeling that all the rush to get to the truth before a competing paper was a complete farce. The fact that the reporters in the movie made fun of blogs and the internet is the ultimate irony. In real life as soon as his story was posted every newspaper in the country would repost the same facts rearranged slightly to reflect their own style guides. Within 15 minutes it does not matter who got the scoop. I learned more about the Japan earthquake in the first 10 minutes from Twitter than the newspaper sites were able to tell me in 12 hours. Aggregators have driven the value of the newspaper headline to zero. Remember how people used to save Newspapers on historic days? Me either. The cable news has been eating the newspaper’s lunch for a couple decades and now the internet is stealing the money it has hidden in its socks.
Otl Aicher
January 27, 2010
The last person I focused on in my Bachelor’s Degree Senior Thesis was was the german designer Otl Aicher. The image above is actually what gave me the idea to post portions of my thesis to the web. My parents gave me this poster for Christmas this year. I’m not sure if it’s an original or not (probably too affordable to be original) but it’s the fencing poster for the 1972 Munich games. You can get yourself a poster here and read more about Otl Aicher below.
Paul Rand
January 26, 2010
This post section of my college thesis that features the 2nd designer I chose to focus on, Paul Rand. Below I also included some great interviews with and about Paul Rand. Enjoy!
Saul Bass
January 25, 2010
For the next couple posts I’m going to pull from the research portion of my senior thesis. I studied three designers that have been influential to me. This first post is featuring Saul Bass with some videos featuring his work and an interview with him below.
Alien Concept
November 1, 2009
My brother called me a while ago asking me to do some concept art for a character in a story he is writing. He told me he wanted an evil alien, with legs bent backward like the hind legs of a dog, the tail, but an overall human form. So I set out to work. I fired up Painter and remembered why I don’t use that program, it’s super slow. I have version 10, maybe 11 is faster, but with some of Photoshop’s upcoming features they might have missed out on their opportunity to solidify their place in the market.
Deeply Intertwingled
July 9, 2009
Here’s another paper I wrote for my Multimedia Survey class on realizing more effect content searching on the web. Read ahead and enjoy, I’ve added links where they didn’t exist in the paper version so you can see some of the stuff I’m talking about.
From Imagination to Realization
June 11, 2009
This is a paper I wrote for my Multimedia Survey class looking at the process that the world has taken in technological innovation. Read ahead and enjoy, I’ve added links where they didn’t exist in the paper version so you can see some of the stuff I’m talking about.