xBlog: The visual thinking weblog
23rd June 2004

Photographing On Federal Lands

“If you are photographing on federal lands, you will want to be familiar with Section 302(b) of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act. It sets out in no uncertain terms the “rare and unusual circumstance’ that a permit would be required to photograph on federal lands.”

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23rd June 2004

Photographers’ bust card

“Here’s a great printable one-pager that describes what you’re legally allowed to take pictures of, and what to do if someone tries to bust you for it.”

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23rd June 2004

Barthes on the Ballpoint

“‘Ballpoint’ is an exhibition at London’s Pentagram Gallery organized by my partner Angus Hyland and featuring the work of ‘artists, illustrators and designers invited to make an artwork using only ballpont pen.’ The participants include Ron Arad, Nicholas Blechman and Christoph Niemann, Paul Davis, Marion Deuchars, Jeff Fisher, Alan Fletcher, Benoit Jacques, Uwe Loesch, and Ian Wright. The exhibition, which runs through June 25, prompted an interesting note from Dan Hedley. Hedley, who describes himself as having recently completed a Ph.D on ‘the strategic use of branding in Renaissance literature,’ pointed out a passage from a 1973 interview with theorist Roland Barthes. ‘It would appear from the interview,’ says Hadley, ‘that not only is M. Barthes no friend of the ballpoint, but he is rather critical of those who are.’”

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23rd June 2004

What’s in a name

“If standards conscious designers already follow conventions, then the stage is set. So I decided to look at forty designers’ sites to see what conventions were being used in common page elements like headers and banners, navigation, content and footers. Here’s what I found.” And here’s What’s in a name (pt2).

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23rd June 2004

Requiem for an elastic dream

“An elastic layout is the perfect compromise between allowing a designer to effectively do their job while still giving the user some control over how the content is presented to them on the web. We can all have our cake and eat it too. That is, until you realize that Microsoft is ruining the party.”

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23rd June 2004

Photography Composition Articles

“In this library you will find articles with information about how to improve photographic composition and technique.”

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