“Beauty is the most discredited philosophical notion — so discredited that I could not even find an entry for it in the index of the many books in the philosophy of art I consulted in order to find it discredited. Even if I believe that beauty is more than the charm of a lovely face, the seductive grace of a Mapplethorpe photograph, the symmetry of the sonata form, the tight construction of a sonnet, even if it is, in the most general terms, aesthetic value, I am not spared. For it is the judgment of aesthetic value itself — the judgment of taste — that is embarrassing.”

“On December 1, 2003, a new website for Harper’s Magazine launched at Harpers.org. This site was conceptualized, programmed, and designed by myself, under the management of Harper’s senior editor Roger D. Hodge. I also wrote some copy for the site, and have been editing the Archive of pre-1900 articles. I desperately need a nap, but I thought I’d tell you a bit about the site first.”

“Space flight is known to be a risky business, but during the minutes before dawn last February 1, as the doomed shuttle Columbia began to descend into the upper atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean, only a handful of people — a few engineers deep inside of NASA — worried that the vehicle and its seven souls might actually come to grief. It was the responsibility of NASA’s managers to hear those suspicions, and from top to bottom they failed.”

“Graphic Forums is a forum based on the idea of helping new members get familiar with various graphics programs. It is also meant to teach older members new tricks, and a place to show off your work.”

“MBDC is articulating and putting into practice a new design paradigm; what Time calls ‘a unified philosophy that — in demonstrable and practical ways — is changing the design of the world.’ Instead of designing cradle-to-grave products, dumped in landfills at the end of their ‘life,’ MBDC transforms industry by creating products for cradle-to-cradle cycles, whose materials are perpetually circulated in closed loops. Maintaining materials in closed loops maximizes material value without damaging ecosystems.”

“The Collaborative User Experience (CUE) team in IBM Research has spent nearly a decade studying email. Not only has email become one of the most pervasive and successful collaborative tools available, it has also become a key component of IBM’s Lotus Software offerings. In many ways, email can be seen as a victim of its own success — users increasingly suffer from overload and interruptions as well as use email in a manner for which it was not intended. To meet the challenges in researching email, we have taken a multifaceted approach to data collection.”

“Search for colors complements to your RGB values. Create color harmonies, combinations and themes. From your main (or background) color select trim and accents tones.”

“You are about to give a presentation about your project at a prestigious international conference. You have prepared the material. You are an experienced speaker. Surely nothing can go wrong. Or can it? Brian Kelly provides advice on the technical aspects of giving presentations.”

“On November 4, 2003, VeriSign announced a new ‘trust enhancing’ seal which they built using Macromedia’s Flash technology. This new seal makes a connection to their server and displays, in a dynamic text field, the name of the company that bought the certificate. The seal then invites you to click the seal to verify it. This is intended to make people feel more secure about the authenticity of the site they’re visiting. But that is a false sense of trust. The purpose of this page is to demonstrate how poorly designed and implemented VeriSign’s approach really is.”

“A Consumer’s Guide to Sustainable Seafood: Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program offers information to help you choose seafood that’s good for you, good for the oceans and information on overfishing, bycatch, aquaculture and habitat damage.”

“Morning Craft carries a range of charming, well crafted accessories, art, and items for the home made by a selection of talented artists, designers and crafters. Everything is handmade on a small scale. We are always on the lookout for a few good artists, crafters, and designers.”

“Raymond Loewy, the industrial designer, once said that ’simplicity is the deciding factor in the aesthetic equation.’ So, in the spirit of good design, let’s begin with a radical simplification. Artists are influenced primarily by other artists, which means that standard art history can sound like a baseball broadcast of an infield play: Velazquez to Goya to Picasso. And designers? To be sure, they are aware of the products of other designers, but their attention is not so narrowly focused.”