“AIGA has changed its official name from ‘American Institute of Graphic Arts’ to ‘AIGA, the professional association for design.’”

“2006 is just around the corner, and that means that it is time to bring some (vague) predictions for this web business we are in. The AJAX hype will go on — but eventually fail. The rather sickening hype of AJAX is going to continue, and it will get very big in the first 6-8 months of 2006. But, as the end of 2006 nears AJAX, is going to fail. The reason is not because of AJAX itself…”

“Any veteran of the software industry will tell you that version 2.0 of any product tends to be a shortlived staging post on the way to 3.0, which is where it finally hits the mark. Windows was a classic example. 1.0 was so buggy it was hardly worth using. 2.0 fixed some serious problems but still had a lot of shortcomings. 3.0, launched in May 1990, was an instant success, and the rest of the story, as they say, is history. Don’t be surprised, then, if Web 2.0 also turns out to be just a staging post on the way to a much more mature and durable Web 3.0 is going to deliver a new generation of business applicationsWeb 3.0 era.”

“Jazz has remained a very accessible art form partly because fans are educated by their own music collections. Albums employed text, photographs and graphic design to illustrate how a network of artists created a musical language together. Without the physical album, online music stores will play a much larger role in teaching new listeners about jazz. While institutions, educators and preservationists will soon face the same challenges, music stores will be the first to use digital interfaces to educate the listening public about jazz.”

“We started in spring 1997. We had roughly six weeks to create a name and an identity. It may be hard to believe, but we reviewed probably 1600-plus name alternatives, seriously considered over 800 names, and presented over 100 strong candidates to the team. This might seem like an arduous task but those meetings were filled with fun, laughter and confidence that we would get the right answer.”

“Yesterday I attended User Interfaces for Physical Spaces, a one-day workshop and field trip co-produced by MAYA Design and the IA Institute. The day was essentially an extended case study of the work MAYA did with the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (the public library system, CLP), applying methods of user-centered design and information architecture to the design of physical spaces.”

“Home of budget DIY photography projects… a grassroots thing — a collection of fun and exciting photography projects for people to enjoy.”

“My fellow shutterbugs: What’s your pleasure when you capture the world around you? Are you a slave the rich beauty that is film or are megapixels the shape of your desire? Yes, there could be third response (’both’), but I’m going to ask the hard question. What would be your desert island choice? Film or digital (with extra points for why).”

“The Toronto Star and thestar.com announced today that the Company has removed the mandatory registration feature from its Internet site, making it even easier for readers to access Toronto’s best site for local, continuously updated news, blogs and information. ‘We believe that in order to be competitive in the online news and information space, growth of both audience and page impressions will be the cornerstone of our success. Further, we believe that the key to that growth is through the removal of all barriers, including registration,’ said Michael Goldbloom, Publisher, Toronto Star.”

“Visual thinking is about using pictures to help you solve problems, think about complex issues and communicate more effectively. Are you ready to work on your visual thinking skills? You don’t have to be an artist.”

“After reading Cameron and Andy’s predictions for the coming year I was not convinced that they were telling us everything, holding back and protecting us from some future horror. So I enlisted the aid of Taco Bell to help induce a nacho cheese hallucinogenic state where I was able to see into the future with eyes unclouded. Here is what I saw…”

“First, a caveat. This is not a list of the 50 greatest web sites ever. Rather, it’s a tally of the best sites that launched — or piqued our interest in some way — since last year’s list. Think of it as our round-up of 50 nifty links we think you should check out.”

“We all know impossible people. They tend to share three main characteristics — they cannot be reasoned with, they believe they can do no wrong, and they are convinced that everything is someone else’s fault. If you haven’t had some first-hand experience in dealing with such people, even a brief conversation can raise your blood pressure through the roof. Here are some insights and steps for dealing with these highly difficult people.”

“It’s been said that art, creativity, and innovation are about the recognition and mastery of constraints… One of the best ways to be truly creative–breakthrough creative–is to be forced to go fast. Really, really, really fast. From the brain’s perspective, it makes sense that extreme speed can unlock creativity. When forced to come up with something under extreme time constraints, we’re forced to rely on the more intuitive, subconscious parts of our brain.”

“If one aspect of design has suffered most in its transition to the Web, it is the art of typography. For years, Web typography involved little more than choosing a typeface and font size. Unstyled Times New Roman was the norm, and the integration of established typographical techniques and rules was unimagined.”