The industry seemed to assume that it was the very physicality of books, newspapers and magazines that we craved – or that we required in order to comprehend the idea of a digital equivalent. The industry was wrong.
Tag: design
This post is not about the technical quality of the logo. I am not writing about brand design, but about brand management. This is about a simple rule: Brand design follows brand management, not the other way around.
Oh my god, don’t make things for “Everyone.” Fantastic post from Dan Sinker about the pitfalls of trying to design for mass consumption. My favorite line:
Don’t ever make something for “Everyone” make it for someone. And make that person love it.
The Space Between the Notes
These days, doing anything on my phone isn’t measured by what an app does, but by the space in time I’m navigating between apps—the moments of transition between doing something and doing something else.
Checkboxes that kill. Great post about the dangers in complex, customizable settings. Two key takeaways: regularly audit how people are using your product and consider whether more than 2% of your users will use a setting.
On Thingpunk. Interesting read via Matt Pearson about what the author dubs Thingpunk. Essentially:
Thingpunk is a deep bias in design thinking that sees physical products and the built environment as the most important venues for design and innovation even as we enter a world that’s increasingly digital.
Not sure how to capture it but it was an intriguing read.
Learning to See is a fantastic post from iA. It’s tough to pick out any one highlight but I liked this statement:
Beauty in design is not found by adding prettiness to a bold, functional design, it’s adding detail to the essence, so the functional logic becomes more humane, refined, and clear.
Search is an interface for accessing the archive, just as the front page is an interface for accessing the news. The archivist’s task is to build an interface that offers a better experience than search.
Such a great article about archives and their potential for highlighting the ongoing value of writing. I appreciate the emphasis it places on human touch. Someone once told me that, "Great content doesn’t scale. You always need someone to have their hands on it."
I strongly believe digital books benefit from public endpoints. The current generation of readers (human, not electronic) have formed expectations about sharing text, and if you obstruct their ability to share — to touch — digital text, then your content is as good as non-existent. Or, in the least, it’s less likely to be engaged.
Word. Art Space Tokyo is a gorgeous site and I bet will drive a lot of digital sales, in addition to readers.
Design Tip: Never Use Black. Neat post with some great illustrations of why pure black doesn’t work well for interface elements.