“As you move into management, the very things that made you effective as a craftsman are now deadly threats to your success as a manager. Your independence and self-reliance, which was an asset, is now a liability.”

“The Typetester is an online application for comparison of the fonts for the screen. Its primary role is to make web designer’s or web developer’s life easier. As the new fonts are bundled into operating systems, the list of the common fonts will be updated.”

“As part of the conference within a conference for students, Michael Bierut listed 20 courses he did not take in design school (I think I got all of them)… His point was that design is just one part of the job. In order to do great work, you need to know what your client does.”

“Onlife is an application for the Mac OS X that observes your every interaction with sofware applications such as Safari, Mail and iChat and then creates a personal shoebox of all the web pages you visit, emails you read, documents you write and much more. Onlife then indexes the contents of your shoebox, makes it searchable and displays all the interactions between you and your favorite apps over time.”

“‘Never waste a stroke.’ That’s the best piece of advice you’ll ever get in logo design. However, it’s also advice that can inadvertently get you in trouble. Draw a blue circle on the screen and you’ve just stolen the Blaupunkt logo. Draw a yellow line and you’re copying Visa. Draw a black swoosh and you’re ripping off Nike. The less intricacies involved in creating your masterpiece, the more likely it is that someone has already created it.”

“I mentioned this idea briefly when I posted about the recent redesign, but I wanted to expand it further. Web designers of the world, let’s talk about your bottoms. When you’re designing pages — specifically content pages — what is the best possible thing that could happen? I mean after the user has bought a computer, gotten internet connectivity, figured out how to use a browser, and somehow found their way to your site… what is the single best thing that they could do? Read. That’s right, read. And read all the way to the bottom of the page. In this business, a user that actually reads all the way to the bottom of a page is like gold.”

“Over a year ago I began trying to work out a cheap and easy way to scan 35 mm slides on an ordinary flatbed scanner–to avoid buying the Transparent Media Adapter for several hundred dollars. This is the third–and, I think, the final–stage in figuring out how to do the same job for free. (If you’re curious, links to my two previous methods are on the Scanning Experiments page.)”

“…searching over 110,000 recipes and counting. Why search for recipes one site at a time when you can search them all here? We scour the web to find the best recipes on the web’s most popular recipe sites. You can save your favorites in your own personal recipe box.”

“This morning a young gentleman contacted me to meet for an interview. As I am feverishly coding away at a project (note the lack of posts recently), I had to decline. But I did want to give him some advice. He is in an entrepreneurship class in college, and the professor asked them to contact someone about establishing a graphic design business that targets the entertainment industry.”

“I’m a fan of how Maciej is displaying his oil paintings. For each of his newer paintings (like this one of a West Village scene), he’s documenting the progress of the work as it goes along so you can see how the painting becomes a painting.”

“One of the organizations that I recently learned of, who I believe could use our services is Our Money Too. This is a group of Americans lobbying our government to establish some sort of tactile markings on our U.S. currency. It seems like it would be a ‘no-brainer’ to get this rolling in Washington, but as you can guess it has been held up a number of times in the legislative process. THIS IS A GRAPHIC DESIGN PROBLEM. As graphic designers, this is exactly the sort of issue we should address.”

“All image files linked below are being hosted on BadDesignKills.com server. This is to ensure that LogoWorks.com does not remove the images before the public at large has the opportunity to view the rip-off artwork. Since first addressing this issue I have personally been accused of lying and threatened with a lawsuit by Arteis the parent company of both LogoWorks.com and InstaLogo.com. Many other designers have found other clear rip-offs as well and have posted them on the HOW Design Forum. The below examples show the original logo and define its source and then the rip-off logo created by LogoWorks.com. We have done this for no other reason then to educate the public in regards to online hack-design service.”

“This is a weblog dealing with Web 2.0, and issues of openness, control, trust, authencity, and whatever else deemed relevant. The ’sandbox’ is a metaphor for this space where information, people, and tools interact in this spirit of openness and freedom.” Go Peter!

XPLANE is a communications design firm that specializes in making complex business issues easier to understand. Our information design is recognized around the world and we are looking for smart, creative and passionate people to join our team.

We are currently looking to fill two positions.

Production Manager
You’ll help to manage and grow the production side of our creative department. Ideal candidate will have at least five years experience in print design and digital imagery. We want someone who is highly skilled in the following programs: Adobe Illustrator, Microsoft Powerpoint, Excel, and Word. CSS, HTML and Flash ability would be a plus. We want people who can handle anything.

Concept Developer
You’ll work with high-level business executives to help shape the look and feel of their visual communications. We’re looking for highly creative designers who take just as much satisfaction in problem-solving and storytelling as they do in the final aesthetic. Our creatives take an active part in client contact and you will have many opportunities for travel both in the U.S. and Europe.

We offer full benefits along with a salary that is commensurate with AIGA guidelines. Must be willing to relocate.

Please submit resume AND a few of your best samples to the email linked above. No phone calls please.

“Many times in the corporate world, you will find yourself facing the ‘dead elephant in the middle of the room.’ This is the issue that everyone is aware of, but somehow nobody mentions. It could be emotionally charged; it could feel to big to confront; it could be that nobody is comfortable bringing it up. If you are a manager, it might very well be that you are the only one who doesn’t see it.”