The combined market share for, say, Firefox 3 and Safari 3 is larger than the overall market share for Mac OS X. Plenty of developers write desktop software that only works on the Mac — why aren’t more people writing web apps that only work in truly modern web browsers? The first one to do it is going to be a sensation.
The Anger Release Machine would be great to have around when I experience designer’s/coder’s/writer’s block. Why bang your head against the wall when, for a quarter, you can watch a vending machine slowly dispense a porcelain cat? via wrongdistance
Vintage Car Logos and Typography
A few months ago I was at the Barrett-Jackson car auction in Scottsdale, Arizona and was drawn to all of the fantastic vintage logos. The shiny chrome typography truly evokes an era when cruising was a pastime and global climate change wasn’t a concern. I pulled out my iPhone and snapped as many of the logos as I could.
It’s no secret that iPhone’s camera isn’t the greatest — and iPhone 3G doesn’t bring any improvements — so many of the photos were pretty shitty (oxymoron). I did my best in Lightroom to polish them up for your viewing pleasure. The retro typography is quite nice to look at, and might be a source of inspiration for you designers out there. Here’s a couple of my favorites:
“in the lens” by Garrett LeSage is pure abstract awesomeness. Can you figure out what it is?
Creative Recreation’s Don Carlo in Black is an awesome pair of slip-ons from one of my new favorite shoe brands. Perfect for the summer.
Nine Point Oh, or Sangria
Holy crap, it’s finally up. I am very proud to introduce Version 9.0, a design that has been about two months in the making. At least 17 designs were scrapped in the process, including a few that made it all the way from scribble to Photoshop mock-up to fully-functional website. If you’d like, you can call her Sangria — the link colors remind me of oranges and red wine.
I wanted the site to be outfitted in a look that stays out of the way of the content, but is extremely designed at the same time. That’s what I feel I have achieved with Sangria. I realize that these days a lot of people remain within the confines of their feed reader, but I hope that the new design encourages them to pay the site a visit every so often.
A couple months ago, while brainstorming in my notebook, I jotted down phrases like “emphasis on beautiful typography,” “minimalism and lots of white space,” “let the content speak for itself.” After weeks of revising and perfecting the design, I feel that I have finally reached those goals. Taking advice from “Design is in the Details” over at A List Apart, I obsessed over every facet of the site, analyzing it at various times and in various settings, removing anything deemed unnecessary or superfluous. I am very happy with the results and can’t wait to start filling the site with fresh content.
I plan on writing a more detailed recap of the design process in the coming days, so keep an eye out. I learned so much over the last two months, and would love to share that knowledge with the rest of you.
If you guys come across any bugs or glitches, I’d greatly appreciate it if you left a note in the comments. On many occasions, I didn’t make it to bed until the sky had begun to brighten and my brain had started to fry, so I know there’s a mistake or two somewhere.
That’s all for now.
The website will be sporting a new look in the next couple days. It is by far the the most detail-oriented design I’ve ever put together and I am very excited to let it into the wild after weeks of late nights and what seemed like never-ending perfecting of the new design. Stay tuned.
View “Grecian Columns” at flickr
What is graphic design?
Here is my entry to Veerle’s What is Graphic Design Poster Competition. Needless to say, it’s best viewed at full size.
I was inspired by the idea, “graphic design speaks for itself.” What is graphic design? “I am graphic design,” speaks the design itself. I incorporated some very basic examples of graphic design, as well as references to measurement, placement, constraints, typography, and so forth.
For example, the “i” in the blue circle is a well-known product of graphic design, visually communicating the word information. The word graph in graphic was emphasized and altered to resemble a bar graph, which is another very basic example of graphic design. And, of course, there is the reference to a stop sign, with the red octagon surrounding the word sign in design. Sign, which has four letters and begins with an “s” just like the word stop, is not only a reference to a stop sign, but also an allusion to signs in general, for graphic design very often deals with the creation of signs and symbols that convey information or instructions.
Having used blue for the information sign and red for the stop sign, I chose green for the word graph. This completes the RGB color model, and helps convey the idea that graphic design is the combination of four essential elements — type, shapes, lines, and colors — to create complex and communicative art.
The design strictly adheres to a 50×50 pixel grid.
The competition ends on Friday, at which point Veerle will select twelve prize winners. So far, it has been great to see what other people have come up with. Best of luck to all!
