Design Archives

• 30 Dec 2009

  Create triangles, chat bubbles using CSS only

  Jon Rohan offers a neat tip for creating triangles (handy to use instead of « or ») and chat bubbles using CSS borders—no images! Includes IE6 hack. Creating Triangles in CSS

• 27 Dec 2009

  Fabricating Stories

  I recently came across the story of the Significant Objects Project, an interesting experiment where Joshua Glenn and his other collaborators take cheap thrift-store finds and see if they can create something more valuable by contriving a back story...

• 24 Dec 2009

  Google's Multivariate Testing Approach to Design

  Google's reliance on multi-variate testing as part of their design decision-making process isn't news. However, let's say, you find that you might need to conduct a test to determine which shade of blue among 41 gradations should be used...

• 6 Dec 2009

  "IA is not Boxes and Arrows."

  Amen! I came across CS and IA Unite Already, Will Ya! just shortly after I came across a job posting from Smart Design where they emphasized they were looking for User Experience designers who were not the Boxes and Arrows types…

• 21 Sep 2009

  Empathy in Design

  Great description of engaging the brain in design from frogdesign's Innovation Starts with Empathy: "The reptilian brain is dedicated solely to survival, whereas the outer neocortex hosts reason and higher intelligence...

• 25 May 2009

  Fast Company's 100 Most Creative People in Business

  Apple's Jonathan Ive tops the list of 100 Most Creative People in Business according to Fast Co. While I personally found most of their choices questionable, I was glad to see Hayao Miyazaki (#31), Evan WIlliams (#34), Neil Gaiman (#40), Gary Hustwit (#74) and Jane McGonigal (#80) mentioned.

• 10 May 2009

  Objectified Opening at IFC NYC

  Among my favorite quotes from the movie came from Dan Formosa (Smart Design), "Design for the extremes…and the middle will take care of itself."

• 10 May 2009

  Data-Driven Design

  “Using data is fundamental to what we do. But we take all that with a grain of salt. Anytime you make design changes, the most vocal people are the ones who dislike what you’ve done. We don’t just throw the numbers in a spreadsheet.” — Douglas Bowman on the subject of design.

• 8 Mar 2009

  Defining the Role of Design to your Product

  I love Seth's piece on Return on Design. It breaks down the role of design as it relates to marketing strategy and how investment for each tier varies as expected returns increase.

• 22 Feb 2009

  Using Inline-Block to Create Grid Layouts in CSS

  This makes me so happy, I could cry. Easily create a grid layout with variable heights using the CSS inline-block property (and an ie6 hack): Mozilla WebDev: Cross-Browser Inline-Block.

• 25 Jan 2009

  Designers Republic RIP

  Sadly, Designers Republic closed its studio. “It hasn’t really been DR for the last two or three years: it had gone too far from what it was supposed to be. I want to go back to what DR was ... working hands-on and not through account managers..."

• 18 Jan 2009

  Insane GUI

  If it weren't for the ear, I'm not sure I could have figured out what this app does. Max Magic Microtuner via Daring Fireball

• 6 Aug 2008

  Demystifying the On-Screen Em

  An update to an old post on converting ems to pixels, I found an old article, Sizing Fonts, that's helpful in demystifying why the conversion behind getting a precise measure isn't so straightforward. The default font size for browsers has...

• 21 Jul 2008

  Vintage Elements

  One of my favorites, though a limited source, for vintage elements is Chank's dingbat font, CrapMagnet Bonus. Visit Chank.com/freefonts.php for more free fonts.

• 21 Jul 2008

  Vintage Clip Art Collection

  Abundant collection of ornaments, objects, fleurons, decorative borders and mortices with a vintage feel -- most are available for free. Via BriarPress.org

• 22 Jun 2008

  Design for Ugly

  I ran across this tearful and inspirational story about Ugly that reminded me of what I detest about most design. Rather than focusing on our very basic need for meaningful interaction, most designers spend time unnecessarily on superficial elements. Look deeper inside. Focus on the emotional interaction. Design for Ugly.

• 31 May 2008

  Keeping Up With Social Tagging

  An Adobe Connect-based screencast of a presentation on Social Tagging, Social Bookmarking by Thomas Vander Wal, commonly credited for coining the term folksonomy.

• 22 Apr 2008

  God is in the Details

  ...and lately she's been busy at 37 Signals: Designing Details: Autoscrolling the edit state.

• 9 Feb 2008

  Obama Posters by Shepard Fairey

  Shepard Fairey designs Barack Obama's posters.

• 28 Jan 2008

  Vector Illustrations of People SIlhouettes

  Sure you can try using Illustrator's auto trace feature to get a quick silhouette (that is, if you're lucky enough to have a background-less image to begin with) but why bother? Get free full-length vector illustrations of people silhouettes via StylizedWeb.com. You may also want to look into Subeve, a font option for silhouettes of women, from an earlier post.

• 24 Jan 2008

  Helvetica The Movie

  First-time director Gary Hustwit's much-lauded documentary, Helvetica, is available to view -- in its entirety -- online for free. For reals! Fall in love with typography again.

• 7 Oct 2007

  Search Different

  Nice markup tip on styling search boxes to look like OS X search boxes: OS X style searchbox.

• 18 Jul 2007

  Covet this: Grid Paper

  Not just any old grid, these notepads use grids from renowned newspapers. Art of the grid

• 18 Jul 2007

  Lessons from Facebook's Redesign Fiasco

  Jared Spool analyzes Facebook's mini-feed fiasco and offers recommendations for keeping users happy after a redesign...

• 19 Jun 2007

  A vacuum for kids of all ages

  Adorable vacuum designed so little kids can sit on it and ride. If only my chores were like this when I was a kid... Rideable Vacuum Cleaner by Kristina Andersson

• 30 Apr 2007

  Chopstick Meets the Fork

  Another one to add to my ongoing fascination with chopstick design -- The Chork is a cross between a fork and a chopstick.

• 29 Apr 2007

  Stapler that doesn't use metal staples

  If you're stapling just a few sheets of paper, consider using the Staple Free Stapler. Really nice design staples sheets by tucking the paper into itself. No more prying off staples with your fingernails or choking the shredder by accidentally feeding it metal staples.

• 29 Apr 2007

  Comprehensive Table of Visualization Methods

  Not sure why the author(s) decided to present these as a pseudo periodic table (there's no connection with the logic behind how chemical elements are arranged in periodic tables) but it's a handy collection of useful visualization types, nonetheless -- and it makes impressive cocktail napkin sketches! A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods

• 9 Mar 2007

  The Difference Between a Designer and a Production Artist

  A designer's role is to solve problems; an artist's role is to execute solved problems. From jeffcroft.com, Bring me problems, not solutions

• 9 Mar 2007

  Free Fonts from exljbris

  Beautifully crafted, complete families—all free ! My favorites: fontin and the aptly named delicious. exljbris

• 9 Mar 2007

  Grids and Web Design

  Because most sites largely rely on text to communicate, applying well-thought grids and typography are the most critical building blocks to site design. As one commenter put it, "If a web designer gets the grid and typography right thats 90% of the battle." I agree. Here's an excellent roundup of good articles on grid systems on the Web: Grid systems in Web Design

• 7 Mar 2007

  The Fun Factor

  “Simplification is a non-negotiable must, but really good user interface design has to offer other qualities too. One is fun...” from The digital challenge: Making easy-to-use devices. Sure, a lot of designers and product managers require their products to be simple and fun to use. The problem is making buttons puffy or glassy does not ...

• 7 Mar 2007

  Repeat after me: Web users scan...

  You can never collect enough tips about effective copywriting for the Web: Does Your Copy Hold Up To A Quick Glance?

• 6 Feb 2007

  Free Font from Font Shop: Preface Light

  A gorgeous, curvy typeface -- and it's free for a limited time! Font Shop Free Fonts Download

• 2 Feb 2007

  Judging a Book by Its Cover

  "On average, a bookstore browser spends 8 seconds looking at a book's front cover and 15 seconds looking at the back cover. " Hmm, seems like we truly are a Blink society. Some book statistics.

• 1 Feb 2007

  Visual Patterns for Browsing

  As I suspected, the content presentation affects how people scan a page. If you liked Nielsen's F-pattern analysis, you'll love this: Eye Gaze Patterns while Searching vs. Browsing a Website

• 6 Jan 2007

  Redesigning Private Labels

  BusinessWeek's The Revenge of the Generic features a slideshow of private labels (aka generic brand) and how they are gaining ground with consumers through package design. Too bad they missed Publix in their feature which boasts the nicest private label package designs I've seen lately.

• 10 Dec 2006

  Don Norman's Heresy

  Don Norman makes a rather provocative assertion: Simplicity Is Highly Overrated. "Given a choice, [people] will take the item that does more. Features win over simplicity...

• 8 Dec 2006

  Free Itty Bitty Little Things

  Free (as in beer) 113 incredibly well-crafted 10x10 greyscale icons from Brand Spanking New.

• 30 Nov 2006

  Forms up the Wazoo

  I really heart Smashing Magazine's well-curated collections of practical resources for designers. This time around, I stumbled upon a treasure trove of web forms resources: CSS-Based Forms: Modern Solutions.

• 18 Nov 2006

  Flags of the World, Redesigned

  What if all the flags in the world underwent a redesign? This funny Flash movie walks us through flag redesigns through the client's commentary. Flags of the World.

• 16 Nov 2006

  Iterative Process

  Great article on NetFlix's "release early, release often" philosophy. It's something I also try and get clients to embrace, to see the design process as Product Evolution (lots of small, yet constant improvements over time), instead of Product Development (as a large set of changes rolled out in a single event over a longer schedule). The Freedom of Fast Iterations: How Netflix Designs a Winning Web Site

• 13 Nov 2006

  Newspapers and Redesigns

  It's been widely lamented that print newspaper circulation is on the decline. NewsDesigner.com recently examined what happens to circulation after the newspapers undergo a redesign: Redesigns and Circulation. (Sadly, it seems that design alone...

• 13 Nov 2006

  Draft Widget Spec

  The W3C have published an initial working draft spec for Widgets. Via http://virtuelvis.com.

• 8 Nov 2006

  Visualizing the Art of Complex Problem Solving

  The Art of Complex Problem Solving visually disentangled in a series of rollovers. Okay, so maybe it's still not that comprehensible. (Via Design Observer)

• 5 Nov 2006

  Site Adjustments for IE7

  Etre analyses sites from the FTSE 100 to determine IE7's effects on page display. IE7: Were they ready?

• 5 Nov 2006

  CSS Forms

  Stumbled upon this nice collection of stylesheets for enhancing web forms A CSS Stylesheet Collection for Web Forms. I especially like the repeat behavior and the input validation.

• 4 Nov 2006

  Motorola's Usability Issues

  Of 55 Motorola customers surveyed, 78% said they wouldn't buy a Motorola phone again due to poor usability. Ease-of-use dogs Moto

• 28 Oct 2006

  IE7 CSS Bug

  Rather ugly rendering bug discovered in IE7:IE7 bug 1: nested list (abs. positioned) is overrun by preceding link’s background colour. Via UX Magazine.

• 25 Oct 2006

  Great Scott

  Interview with Si Scott, typographer with flourish: Type for you. If only you could do this in CSS. Dang.

• 21 Oct 2006

  Katrina Cottage Wins People's Design Award

  The Katrina Cottage, designed by Marianne Cusato, wins the Cooper-Hewitt People's Design Award. (PS: The comments make for an interesting read.)

• 14 Oct 2006

  Shoes for Little Growing Feet

  Great idea for children's growing feetsies, Inchworm Shows can grow up to 3 sizes up with a simple push of a button. Via Gizmodo

• 5 Oct 2006

  Ellen Lupton's Call for Free Fonts

  In her Free Font Manifesto, Ellen Lupton urges foundries to offer good free fonts because they "have an explicit social purpose...[offering] the basics for maintaining literacy and communication within a society."

• 5 Oct 2006

  The Case of the Client and the Splash Page

  In case you have a client who's been living under a rock for the past five years, here's nice read on why splash pages don't work from an SEO perspective: How to Convince a Client They Don't Need a Splash Page. (Also another tip if that client insists on a splash page: fire that client! )

• 1 Oct 2006

  The Rise of a New Creative Class

  Jared Spool on the Birth of a New Specialty: Social Networking Design. Speaking of which, if you haven't already, watch Danah Boyd's talk at iBiblio on social spaces. Yup, it's definitely an important niche.

• 1 Oct 2006

  Project Runway Meets Hack Day

  All Women Team Takes Yahoo Hack Day Top Prize for their entry, Blogging in Motion, a photoblogging system in the guise of a handbag. For fans of Project Runway, you'll notice that one of the team members is Diana Eng, the season 2 wearables mistress who is clearly no stranger to 24-hour deadlines with crazy creative constraints.

• 1 Oct 2006

  The Meaning of Dashed Lines

  Wonderful illustrated essay on the language of the dashed line (though far from complete): The dashed line in use.

• 27 Sep 2006

  Designing for Older People

  Usability News offers 12 quick points to remember when designing for older folks though, I think, the first pointer pretty much says it all: "Older people are the same as younger poeple (sic). You don't change when you reach a...

• 15 Sep 2006

  Jonathan Ive: Design Rockstar

  Very good, in-depth article about Apple's SVP for Industrial Design: Who Is Jonathan Ive?

• 10 Sep 2006

  Slightly Sharp

  Tip on incrementally controlling Photoshop's Image Sharpening filter: Controlled Image Sharpening with Photoshop CS2. In case you missed it, here's an earlier post on demystifying Photoshop's sharp vs. unsharp mask.

• 8 Sep 2006

  Using Screenshots for Color Reference for Page Tweaks

  Funny enough, I had a conversation wtih someone a couple of days ago about why designers shouldn't use screenshots as a reference template for page tweaks because of color management issues. This post talks about those issues on OSX though the real meaty gems of wisdom are in the comments #3, #5, and #10.

• 7 Sep 2006

  Screen Type Preview Tool

  Easily visualize, compare and generate the CSS markup for screen typography with Font Tester: preview screen type. It has pretty hideous default settings but, hey, it's effective, comes with a good number of customizable properties and it's free!

• 4 Sep 2006

  Free Dingbats

  Loads of free dingbat fonts are available at Dingbat Depot. Also a couple of nice dingbat fonts...

• 31 Aug 2006

  Great Typography = Design

  I really relished SvN's commentary on Penguin’s Great Ideas = great design. I love great typography and am sickened when a client (or two) look at type-only directions as being bereft...

• 29 Aug 2006

  Smart Letter Opener

  Epistola is no just a gorgeous sliver of a letter opener, it can also determine the weight of your mail.

• 27 Aug 2006

  WDW Presentations

  Google videos of presentations from Web Design World 2006, Seattle includes Jeffrey Veen on Designing Next Gen Web Apps and Molly Holzschlag on Designing for Web 2.0: From Markup to Microformats, from Semantics to Ajax.

• 25 Aug 2006

  Packaging Font ID, part 2

  Another FontShop instalment on identifying fonts used on product packaging. This time around, they roam the aisles of Target: Design Outside the Box.

• 24 Aug 2006

  PMS to RGB Decoder Ring

  A lookup table for converting Pantone colors to Hex values. Color Codes Matching Chart HTML (Pantone, CMYK, RGB Hex). Now if only someone would do the same for TOYO.

• 24 Aug 2006

  Six-Sided Design

  My favorite mentor calls it "six-sided design". BusinessWeek's sensible tips on package design, The Art of Boxing, applies to just about anything in a box -- not just games.

• 22 Aug 2006

  Boxes and...not much else

  A few popular websites shown with their contents stripped: Internet Soul Portraits. Sad thing is, some sites are just ugly right down to their bones.

• 22 Aug 2006

  IE7 CSS Changes

  IE has made "over 200 behavior changes" which includes fixing a number of bugs from Position Is Everything. Oh joy! Well, that is, if only folks would stop using earlier versions of IE altogether. IE Blog: Details on our CSS changes for IE7.

• 18 Aug 2006

  CSS3 Sneak Peek

  I got pretty excited about the proposed CSS3 column spec. Here is a sneak peek at a few more proposed features in CSS3: CSS3 Preview. Especially exciting: rounded borders! But, do we really need CSS support for text drop shadows?

• 17 Aug 2006

  CSS Optimizers Tested

  Blogging Pro does a great job of testing a handful of free CSS optimizers so you don't have to: CSS Optimization: Make Your Sites Load Faster for Free

• 17 Aug 2006

  del.icio.us Thumbnails

  The popular bookmarking site, del.icio.us, now sports thumbnails. Nice technical feat but I'm not sure if it helps clutter and other usability issues.

• 16 Aug 2006

  DIY Heatmaps

  Create your own heatmap based on user clicks. The Definitive Heatmap

• 12 Aug 2006

  Quotes on Design

  For those who think knowing Photoshop automatically makes one a designer then, please, read Thoughts on Design and be enlightened. For the rest of us, read on and reaffirm what you already know. As Jane Jacobs put it so beautifully: "Design is people."

• 8 Aug 2006

  More Fun in the Supermarket

  Earlier, FontShop identified a number of popular magazine typefaces. This time, they've hit the supermarket and uncovered the typefaces found in packaging. Tasty Type. Also, if you missed it last time, Typographica identified a handful of Threadless T-shirt fonts.

• 8 Aug 2006

  Free Font

  FF Milo Regular available for free this month from FontShop. Also, Charriot Deluxe bitmap font available for free August 8 only via MyFonts.com.

• 8 Aug 2006

  Ode to Helvetica

  The ultimate tribute to that ubiquitous typeface: Helvetica, a documentary film by Gary Hustwit.

• 3 Aug 2006

  Saffer's Intro to Interaction Design

  An interview with Adaptive Path's Dan Saffer offers a historical tour of the evolving field of interaction design. Interaction Design: An Introduction.

• 3 Aug 2006

  Lost in the Supermarket

  While shopping for food at the supermarket the other day, I was surprised to hear The Clash's "Lost in the Supermarket" being played on their Muzak selection. I certainly appreciated hearing a tune that I could identify with but also began to wonder why supermarkets in general haven't changed in decades. First, there's the shopping cart. Certainly IDEO has considered that shopping carts can be improved upon. Then, In Austria, MPREIS, billed as the "seriously sexy supermarket" has really upended...

• 29 Jul 2006

  Users Are Opting for More Dynamic Interaction

  Interesting study from University of Hamburg which reveals that, over time, the use of the browser's back button has decreased by half suggesting a trend toward increased interactivity and form submission...

• 27 Jul 2006

  Happy Users Oversimplified

  PingMag's article on 5 Web Design Patterns for Happy Users is attention-grabbing though somewhat presumptuous about the universal preferences of all users...

• 22 Jul 2006

  Sustainable Cardboard House

  Add The Cardboard House to the list of affordable kit homes with style.

• 21 Jul 2006

  More on Baby Product Design

  Earlier, I pointed out a smart design solution for the dropped pacifier problem. Coincidentally, I ran into a BusinessWeek feature today on The New Baby-Gear Boom, a slideshow of redesigned products for babies. Except for one, the Philips DECT Baby Monitor, the products they featured were frightfully overdesigned and...

• 20 Jul 2006

  Taskonomy-Based UI

  The inimitable Don Norman on Logic Versus Usage: The Case for Activity-Centered Design. He cites the findings of anthropologists Dougherty and Keller and their observation of task-based organization, or taskonomy, for how humans structure their tools according to activity.

• 18 Jul 2006

  Typographic-Speak

  So, you at least know that leading is pronounced LED-ing (you do, dontcha?), now here's your chance to really impress others at the next typographic cocktail party. Great thread on how to pronounce those typographic luminaries' names such as Ed Benguiat and Zuzana Licko: How do you say "Tschichold?" and Pronunciation Question.

• 18 Jul 2006

  Smart Design Pacifier

  About time someone solved the issue of keeping pacifiers clean every time they're dropped: Always Clean Baby Pacifier.

• 17 Jul 2006

  Client-Designer Relationships: The Abridged Version

  In this day and age, I'm surprised to find the occasional client who still thinks a designer is no more than a (insert graphical application here) monkey. Seth knows otherwise and this is one of the many reasons I respect this man: How to live happily with a great designer. I'm inclined to include this in my proposals as a guideline for client-designer relationships...some clients can really use it.

• 14 Jul 2006

  Magazine Fonts Revealed

  Font Shop goes to the newsstands and identifies the typographic mixes that make up a number of my type favorites including Wallpaper, Real Simple and Icon. Glyphs in the Glossies.

• 12 Jul 2006

  Eyetracking Forms

  Take an eye-tracking setup plus a bunch of forms and you have one set of interesting outcomes on optimal label format and position for online foms. Label Placement in Forms. My only quibble here is I don't know how long the form was that was used in the test (which is one reason why a designer may want to opt for applying labels beside their respective fields). Interesting read nonetheless.

• 10 Jul 2006

  Chopstick Design

  I'm especially fond of chopsticks as they are the embodiment of simplicity and minimalism. (I even made a circuit-based chopstick game that's a little over-engineered.) So I was delighted to see PingMag's article on portable chopsticks: Portable Chopstick Designs. I love the Muji design (natch!) most of all.

• 8 Jul 2006

  Microsoft's Vista Fonts Pose CSS Headaches

  Folks at NeoSmart Files take Microsoft's new fonts (see previous post on MSFT's new fonts) for a spin in the real world and find some prickly issues. CSS & Vista's New Fonts

• 8 Jul 2006

  W3C's Draft Spec for Columns in CSS3

  The proposed spec outlines a more simplified approach to defining columns with new column properties such as column-count, column-width, column-rule and column-gap: Multi Column layout in CSS.

• 7 Jul 2006

  Impulsive Color

  According to a brief article from Dr. Stephen Juan for The Register, Red-orange, black, and royal blue attracts impulse buyers. Interestingly enough, when I worked in magazine publishing, red-orange covers often did outsell other color covers in newsstands.

• 6 Jul 2006

  Reading Behaviors on the Web

  Is reading on the Web really different? It's not all that different from offline reading behaviors, according to Caroline Jarrett, though, once again, context is the key.

• 4 Jul 2006

  Hot Dates, Geek-Style

  Christian Montoya's tips for getting hot dates with CSS.

• 3 Jul 2006

  How I Spend My Workdays and Holidays

  A pretty accurate pie chart of the time breakdown for web design/production: The breakdown of Modern Web Design.

• 28 Jun 2006

  FontShop's Freebie

  Download FontShop's featured free font: URW Grotesk Extra Light Extra Wide -- clean, thin, geometric and elegant.

• 28 Jun 2006

  Name That (Threadless) Font

  Next time you're caught staring at someone's chest, it better be because you're trying to identify their T-shirt font: Threadless Tee Shirt Fonts.

• 26 Jun 2006

  Banner Blindness

  People ignore things that are irrelevant (and, in my case, fugly) -- so why do many businesses still insist on peppering websites with banners? Research: Internet Users Plagued by 'Banner Blindness'.

• 25 Jun 2006

  Majority are at 1024 x 768 resolutions...now what?

  Nearly 80% of all Web users worldwide are at 1024 x 768 resolutions or higher and more than half are at 1024 x 768 according to OneStat. While it's tempting to start designing pages that occupy the full 1024 width, don't. Keep in mind that most folks typically don't expand their browsers...

• 23 Jun 2006

  AmEx Butterfly Card

  AmEx's new Butterfly card design has been receiving a lot of press lately though I fail to see how this is a better design? It's thicker, unnecessarily uses more materials and doesn't fit into a wallet or pants pockets. I'd file this under gratuitous design. Via Cool Hunting.

• 19 Jun 2006

  50 Tips on The Art and Business of Design

  Very helpful tips (if not reminders) on ideation, execution, best practices and minefields for designers: Computer Arts: 50 ways to become a better designer.

• 16 Jun 2006

  Spiekermann Uncensored

  Erik Spiekermann, esteemed designer, typographer and founder of MetaDesign, openly criticizes the World Cup design as "Just Embarrassing".

• 16 Jun 2006

  Link Love

  Jared Spool extols the merits of link-rich sites: Lifestyles of the Link-Rich Home Pages.

• 14 Jun 2006

  Re-Branding Mistakes

  Great list of tips that brand stakeholders (not just marketers) often make when re-thinking their brand: ReBrand's Top 20 Mistakes Marketers Make.

• 12 Jun 2006

  Car Design: Luxury and Complexity

  According to a study by JD Powers, the high price tag for premium features on many luxury cars apparently don't include usability. How Do You Turn On The #@!&% Air?

• 10 Jun 2006

  (Re-)Design Observer

  Their old Trendy MT template allowed them to "focus on the content first." Now, form follows function. Redesign of Design Observer

• 7 Jun 2006

  Accessibility for the Elderly, Visually-Impaired

  Two interesting products that address accessibility for the visually impaired and the growing elderly population. SpeakOn, developed by blind entrepreneur Chris Mairs, is a new device that challenges the paradigm of current screen readers such as JAWS to make the web accessible to the blind. According to Mairs...

• 6 Jun 2006

  More Goofy Military Wear

  Another one to add to the list of goofy military attire...this time, they get German-designed strap-ons: Special Forces Get 'Strap-On Wings' via The Raw Feed.

• 6 Jun 2006

  Paper Prototyping Resources

  Download a handful of resources for conducting paper prototypes for usability testing: paperprototyping.com downloads.

• 4 Jun 2006

  Hospital Features All Rooms with Sunny Exposure

  Smart solution to sunless windows! Patients in Revolving Hospital Have Sunny Rooms All Day via Modern Mechanix.

• 1 Jun 2006

  The Homepage Challenge: 20 Words, 27 Seconds

  According to Jakob Nielsen, people read only about 20 words on the homepage. Most don't scroll to look at additional content below the fold (we already know this one, right?). And that users spend about 27 seconds on a homepage, mostly scanning for links (of course, they've already formed a first impression in the blink of an eye).

• 29 May 2006

  UNIQLO SoHo

  UNIQLO -- the Japanese clothing company that's a cross between Banana Republic's affordable, casual yet refined aesthetic and the Body Shop's socially responsible raison d'etre -- will be opening a retail store in NY City's SoHo. They have launched a...

• 29 May 2006

  Skeet Shoot: The General Theory of Design

  I empathize/commiserate with Brian Sooy's poignant General Theory of Design: "Design consists of creating things for clients who may not know what they want...

• 27 May 2006

  Times New Roman

  As previously posted, Microsoft plans to include newly-crafted fonts in their next OS and Office releases. What wasn't known at the time was that apparently they will be sunsetting Times New Roman and will replace it with Calibri -- a sans serif...

• 25 May 2006

  Book Cover Design

  A site dedicated to book cover artwork: Book Covers. Among my favorites...

• 15 May 2006

  Affordable Homes with Style

  Thanks to some well known-brands that include Dwell and Ikea, streamlined, modernist style have now made their way into prefab homes. Just bring your own land and labor, and you're all set. Prefab Homes Get Fabulous.

• 12 May 2006

  PDF Versions of Current Magazines for Free!

  Free PDF eMagazines of popular newsstand titles including Make vol. 5, the May 2006 edition, Step Inside Design, April 2006 issue -- even the current issue of Harvard Business Review -- and much more. (Yes, you read it right -- FREE!)

• 12 May 2006

  Kill Them with Laughter

  US troops complained that their new government-issued protective armor suits make them look "too goofy". Bwhahahahaha...indeed, they look like a putty-colored Michelin man! Telegraph | News | Armoured suits are 'too goofy' say US troops.

• 11 May 2006

  As Seen On...The Big Screen

  Curious about the name of the typeface used on a movie title? Linotype has identified a few of them for you: Movie Fonts - Linotype Font Lounge...

• 8 May 2006

  Five Days, Five Eyetracking Studies

  Etre is publishing an eyetracking study over a five-day period beginning today: Five days: Dixons.co.uk.

• 5 May 2006

  McDonald's Makeover

  McDonald's unveils a revamped look for their franchises. But, the clean, simple lines and iPod aesthetic are the antithesis of their food which is superfluous and unrefined. Do they really think you can change customer perception that easily through store camouflage?

• 5 May 2006

  Forms Design

  I am irked by eCommerce sites that require you to create a member account first before you are allowed to make a purchase. Why not simply integrate the new member registration process seamlessly into the checkout process? EGM Strategy offers...

• 2 May 2006

  Poor Usability for Mobile TV

  Research conducted by Amberlight reveals that while consumers want mobile TV, they are "put off by poor design and user experience." picturephoning.com: Poor user experience puts consumers off mobile TV in droves.

• 1 May 2006

  Design for Invisibility

  Good design disguises the complex mess that runs behind things. "To be truly successful, a complex technology needs to 'disappear'". Now you see it, now you don't | Economist.com.

• 30 Apr 2006

  Death & Information Graphics

  Somewhat macabre, but it seems that artists/designers have found interesting ways to convey death statistics. The New York Times, for instance, recently ran a graphical map showing homicides in New York City's five boroughs between 2003 and 2005: Homicides and Crime in New York City - New York Times Interactive Graphic. Instead of their typical...

• 29 Apr 2006

  Site Usability for Kids and Teens

  "Teens prefer a simple and clean design and feel that functionality often gets lost in the more elaborately designed sites where download speed is also often compromised." This reaffirms what I discovered in my thesis research as well as observations on usability conducted for a number of children's sites. for A number of tips on designing for a young audience: Content Matters: Designing Usable Sites for Children and Teens.

• 28 Apr 2006

  Eye Tracking Case Study: Virgin Megastore

  Eyetracking study of the Virgin Megastore homepage showing how users change their visual focus with a simple banner change: Blog - Etre.

• 25 Apr 2006

  Photoshop Browser Templates

  If you ever need to show mockups within specific browser environments, then you'll want to download this free Photoshop template: Free Photoshop browser templates for webdesigners and screendesigners | webdesignerstoolkit.com.

• 24 Apr 2006

  Design Gestalt

  An essay from IDEO's Diego Rodriguez defines Design as a sum of many parts: It's the Ecosystem, Stupid. As I pointed out previously with Joel Spolsky's essay, designers should approach and view Design holistically rather than fragmenting it into artificial, myopic sub-practices.

• 15 Apr 2006

  Samsung's Virtual Screen for Mobiles

  Samsung has applied for a patent on a virtual, projected screen as an alternative input mechanism to QWERTY thumb keyboards, according to a report from unwired.com. View illustration of proposed concept

• 15 Apr 2006

  Demystifying Photoshop's Sharpen, Unsharp Mask

  Helpful tips from the stock.xchng community on when to use Sharpen vs. Unsharpen mask without sacrificing color fidelity: stock.xchng: Sharpen/Unsharpen.

• 12 Apr 2006

  Joel on Design

  Finally, a cogent essay on the importance of design -- particularly in how he defines design and distinguishes it from decoration: Joel on Software - Great Design: What is Design? (First Draft). You know the folks who have been peddling Experience Design as the new black? Guess what folks, it's redundant. Design = Experience. It always was, always will be.

• 1 Apr 2006

  Good Magazine

  Beautifully designed magazine, GOOD MAGAZINE | What Matters, done by Area 17. It has the typical impeccable typography and gridwork of Arnaud Mercier. What a good magazine, indeed.

• 28 Mar 2006

  Usability for Geezers

  Tips on improving usability for web users aged 60+. Improve Usability for Older Users [Usability and Information Architecture].

• 10 Mar 2006

  MSFT Origami

  Microsoft finally released official product shots of the much-ballyhooed Ultra-Mobile PC (aka Origami Project). Ultra compact computing: great idea. Execution: butt-ugly...

• 5 Mar 2006

  Sanscons Icon Set

  Nicely executed bitmap icons for general web/blog functions are available for free download and use at Sanscons: SOME RANDOM DUDE. Aside from being free, these icons' background colors can easily be customized via CSS. Nice work!...

• 28 Feb 2006

  The New Laws of Digital Technology

  Great report from the ACM on the "Rules for the Age of User Experience". Among my favorites: You can't make things easier by adding to them. Any feature that requires learning will only be adopted by a small fraction of...

• 27 Feb 2006

  Drunk Driving Ad Campaign

  Brilliant. From Advertising/Design Goodness....

• 23 Feb 2006

  IDEO Seeking Design Interns

  From IDEO: “IDEO helps companies innovate. We design products, services, environments, and digital experiences for organizations seeking new ways to provide value to their customers. IDEO creates visible and tangible strategies for innovation and executes all aspects of design and...

• 7 Dec 2005

  21st Century Garanimals

  A little fashion-challenged? Maybe you're even a bit colorblind? The wearable fashion design team at Keiko University is working on a wearable prototype that changes its LED color display depending on biofeedback (such as body temperature)....

• 1 Dec 2005

  Double Entendre Logos

  Examples of logos not done by Paul Rand. Oh internet, why do you provide me with a constant source of amusement?...

• 9 Oct 2005

  Google, please take some design lessons!

  Google Reader made its public debut this week and I was unimpressed. They seemed to have focused on AJAXing everything in their dev queue without much regard for UI. Not that there's anything wrong with AJAX but, it does seem...

• 29 Sep 2005

  MIT Media Lab Laptop

  Now, I love Macs but this MIT Media Lab $100 laptop is loaded with enough thoughtful details to make me platform-agnostic. The laptop is the proposed design for the OLPC campaign spearheaded by Nicholas Negroponte, MIT Media Lab co-founder, Joe...

• 19 Sep 2005

  Logo Mashup

  Great analysis of re-designing identity for merged organizations....

• 18 Sep 2005

  Bingo!

  From a branding viewpoint, the site is almost entirely functional in layout and does not generate much emotion. BusinessWeek's article, Petsmart Needs Fixing, hits it right on the head. The trouble with many usability groups is they don't know how...

• 21 Aug 2005

  Flippin' Mattress

  A recent piece on the mathematics of flipping your mattress on American Scientist Online made me think of bed simplification. I not only make my bed every morning, I also flip/turn my mattress seasonally. And I do this by design....

• 19 Aug 2005

  Websites Designed for Boys?

  According to this study conducted by the University of Glamorgan, most websites are designed to appeal more to men regardless of the site's target audience. 94% of the sites displayed a masculine orientation with just 2% displaying a typically female...

• 6 Aug 2005

  Use as directed!

  Append the exclamation mark to anything and it metamorphoses the banal and lifeless into something that bounces with zeal and passion. Take a look at Yahoo! and tompeters! as examples. And, then there's the interrobang: how the superimposition of the...

• 2 Aug 2005

  Minimalist Billboard

  Sounds like an oxymoron, I know, but I did stumble upon a billboard ad with a witty concept and minimalist execution. Winner of the Cannes Lions Live Bronze award for outdoor advertising, this billboard for a suntan lotion was meticulously...

• 1 Jul 2005

  Temporarily Disable Curly Quotes in InDesign

  In InDesign, you do want to set curly quotes on as a default. But what happens if you want to use non-curly quotes for inch (") and foot (') marks? Here's how! From InDesign Magazine's Tip of the Week: Sometimes...

• 9 Jun 2005

  Ask Metafilter

  Mark Hurst pointed out to me this thread from Ask Metafilter where the following question was posted: The pdf manifestos over at Change This are gorgeous! How are they doing it? Before I could add my two cents, I was...

• 20 Mar 2005

  Easy, Breezy Favicons

  Wow, not too long ago, creating favicons required tinkering with obscure graphics converters and resampling palettes. Now, it's this easy....

• 19 Mar 2005

  MSFT to Introduce New Fonts in 2006

  Sick of verdana and trebuchet? Well, coming in 2006, Microsoft will be releasing six new typefaces -- including one by Luc(as) de Groot -- as part of their OS. Luc de Groot designed one of my favorite typefaces, Thesis. And, not so surprisingly, Calibris, one of the six new typefaces to debut in 2006, looks very similar to Thesis Sans...

• 17 Mar 2005

  Amaztype

  Latest viral Flash application from Yugop: Amaztype. Amazing indeed....

• 28 Feb 2005

  Mac's Interface Design Originator Dies at 61

  Jeff Raskin, Apple's employee #31, died today. He is credited for designing the Mac's revolutionary graphical user interface. Thank you, Jeff, for your gift. Read the Wired story....

• 13 Feb 2005

  Fontifier

  A few folks have complimented my handwriting and have suggested that it would make a nice font. Enter Fontifier -- just download the template, scribble, upload ... a few internet winks later ... voila! Your own penmanship as a font!...

• 2 Feb 2005

  Most Unusual Blog

  Not your run-of-the-mill blog. I found myself flipping through the collections of ... oh, I don't even know what to call it. You'll just have to see for yourself! http://www.3580.com/...

• 2 Feb 2005

  Delicious Book on Type

  New book from Ellen Lupton, Thinking with Type, set with my favorite type family, Thesis. (As an aside, I selected Thesis to be the official AOL typeface). With sections titled, "X-HEIGHTS 'Do I look fat in this paragraph?'," this promises...

• 2 Feb 2005

  Pramulator

  A Hummer of a pram made of hand-shaped aluminum. Uggh! It's like school in the summer: no class....

• 7 Jan 2005

  Color Picker

  Color Wheel is a neat color picker tool that includes websafe and websmart selectors....