Must. Blog. This.
Apr. 18, 2008 in blog, linkage
A discussion (in German) the other day in the foyer of Sinnerschrader (translated into English for my readers). Read the rest →
Buy My Friends Dot Com
Apr. 14, 2008 in net life, web too oh!
Now I know for certain that I’m just too old (or old-fashioned) for this social-networky friendy microbloggy stuff. Andrew Baron, Rocketboom founder, is selling his Twitter account, and his more than 1,600 followers on ebay (where else?). If we take this seriously, and assume that it’s actually not just a cheap publicity stunt, who the hell would offer him $1,125 (at the moment) for his followers? Isn’t it blatantly obvious that the people following him are doing so because he is Andrew Baron and that the vast majority would stop following him in seconds as soon as his Twitter account has been taken over by whoever wins in the end? They’re not exactly a captive audience, y’know?
Then again, his follower count has increased by over 200 folks just since yesterday, and he appears to be getting cold feet, so let’s just go with the cheap publicity stunt theory for now, shall we? [heads up via]
They Love it Live
Apr. 10, 2008 in ideas, music, net life
Early last year I lost a few extremely creative and intelligent colleagues, which was sad. What wasn’t sad at all was why they left—to work on a project which inspired and excited them all to the point that they’ve rarely spoken about anything else since. And now, finally, after plenty of sweat and stress, they’ve given birth. Tempodome is live. My first impression after a few minutes kicking the tires is good. They’ve built it with a nice, simple design which creates a suitable mood, and at the heart of it is an exciting idea: live concerts online. The idea of doing something cool online with events and music seems to be in the air this year, judging by how many cool ideas I’ve heard about, but Tempodome is the first so far to get their ideas online. So a hearty congratulations goes out to the Tempodomites, and I’m looking forward to your first concert and your future!
Shameless
Mar. 6, 2008 in business, design, net life
While having a smoke this morning, colleague Gregory Jacob reminded me of the subject of design “theft”, which I wrote about back in 2006. Back then, the discussion showed that there are many varying opinions of where inspiration stops and theft starts. Greg’s example, which takes the cake in my experience, is without question way over the border. Read the rest →
New But Not Improved
Feb. 19, 2008 in design
I’m no Luddite. I like progress. I enjoy new technologies, and when they’re actually better or completely new and original, I’ll be standing in line to get my hands on one like any other early adopter. But what I can’t stand (or understand) is developing something new which not only doesn’t improve the original, but makes it worse. Read the rest →
Linkbag of Tools
Feb. 9, 2008 in linkage, tools
In general I tend to have about three standard tools open all day, and don’t often fool around with the millions of ultra-focussed apps out there which only do one specific thing. But in the last week or two, a few of them have managed to catch my attention enough that I have to share. Read the rest →
Turning Trust Around
Jan. 25, 2008 in business, marketing
“I don’t believe you. Not only that, I believe you less than I did last year. To put it more clearly, I trust you less and less every year.” That’s what 2,565 consumers told the entire corporate world in October 2007. Read the rest →
Apple. Innovative?
Jan. 22, 2008 in apple, design, ideas
Those of you who don’t live in the design world or aren’t Apple Believers might not have heard of Dieter Rams, the world-famous designer of the world-famous Apple Look… ah, urm, wait a sec. Read the rest →
Friday Afternoon Fun
Jan. 18, 2008 in design, intelligence
And now, for your entertainment ladies and gentlemen, “probably the most mathematically complex robot you could ever build” doing bizarre and apparently useless things with bits of coloured plastic. But as an example of manipulation it’s certainly convincing.
[via Boing Boing]
The Medium is Still the Message
Jan. 15, 2008 in design, ideas, intelligence, marketing
I’ve been designing websites professionally since 1995, and never has any site I’ve worked on been discussed as much as the new Sinnerschrader site, and, to be exact, it’s not even a site at all. Read the rest →
Naked Relaunch, Part II
Jan. 14, 2008 in blog
As part of the Naked Relaunch, I’ve tweaked a few invisible things which had been irritating me for a while. While it’s unlikely that anyone would notice them at first, they’re likely to bite someone in the ass at some point. Read the rest →
Naked Relaunch, Part I
Jan. 11, 2008 in blog, design
Warning: if you’re reading this in the feed, it won’t make much sense. You might want to have a look at the site.
Gah! What happened?! Suddenly my blog looks like crap! Right? Don’t panic. Your browser is not broken. I didn’t delete my stylesheet either. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and this is indeed a relaunch — an experimental one. I’ve reduced the blog down to (almost) pure content, stripped everything except the most basic structure out of my CSS, and removed all the unnecessary crap like tags, categories, etc. Over the next few weeks (maybe months), I’ll take on different areas of the site and first clear up their structure, and once everything is working correctly and is well-organised, I may add some decoration.
What brought this on are three things that have been spinning around in my head for a while: Ryan Singer’s workshop at the Future of Web Design conference in New York last November, the ongoing influence over the last year of Oliver Reichenstein and his consistently intelligent blog entries in the iA Notebook, and my own thoughts on the role of design and content in the web. Read the rest →
Happy Time Passing
Jan. 9, 2008 in personal
The left brain tells me it’s totally stupid to give a crap that the year is over and a new one’s begun. I mean, what’s a year? Just a measure of time invented by us hairless monkeys to make it possible to plan all of our stuff. Is the first of January any different than the twenty-third of July (if you’d been to a big fat party on the twenty-second)? Other than the temperature and when it gets dark, not really. This may all be logical, but the right brain (or maybe it’s the little sweaty lizard brain back there in the dark) says, “shut the hell up, it’s a new year! Woohoo!”
So, accepting that it’s a new year and that this does in fact mean something to me, how was 2007 and where do I want to go with 2008? Read the rest →
Linkbag of Listening to Learn
Dec. 20, 2007 in design, linkage, podcasts, process
I’ve read Andy Rutledge’s blog as long as it’s been around, and his articles have never failed to be opinionated, structured, intelligent and useful. Now he’s got a podcast called The Design View Show and I can wholeheartedly recommend it for designers, but also clients, project managers, and anyone else who needs to understand, communicate, sell and judge design. He started with a bang in his first show by making it clear that the design profession has been stolen from designers, and we let it happen. Get it in your ears and learn something. And if you’re into the show, you’ll love his blog too.
