“Embedded in Management Information Systems, sparklines efficiently add context and reduce the recency bias prevalent in data analysis and decision-making. Sparklines enrich data displays on mobile devices and are a prerequisite for effective mobile controlling concepts… In order to enable a wide public to benefit from sparklines, we offer an Add-in for Microsoft Office that creates sparklines. The sparklines are generated either as bitmaps or from specifically crafted TrueType Fonts (TTF), the Bissantz SparkFonts, which allows for continuous scaling and razor-sharp printouts.”

“In the Japanese language Nikkei newspaper yesterday I stumbled upon an interesting article featuring stories on people who have started small grassroots movements — however unintentional — by doing something in a unique way. One such person is Mr. Masayoshi Takahashi who has gotten a lot of people interested in his unique way of presenting, now labeled the ‘Takahashi Method.’ Takahashi uses only text in his slides. But not just any text — really big text. Huge text. Characters of impressive proportion which rarely number more than ten, usually fewer.”

“Over the years, I came to realize that my best work has always involved subjects that interested me, or — even better — subjects about which I’ve become interested, and even passionate about, through the very process of doing design work. I believe I’m still passionate about graphic design. But the great thing about graphic design is that it is almost always about something else.”

“Signwave Tracing Paper creates a PICT file on your Desktop with a time/coordinate plot of your mouse cursor’s movement. Leave it running for the duration of your working day to see exactly how much you move your move, and where it goes. Ideal for making unique personal desktop pictures!”

“As some might remember, in 2004 Microsoft lost a lawsuit to Eolas Technologies concerning a patent for ‘Distributed hypermedia method for automatically invoking external application providing interaction and display of embedded objects within a hypermedia document’ In short, Eolas holds the patent for how things like flash and quicktime/mediaplayer movies are added to a website — in any browser… Two days ago Microsoft released a preview of the ActiveX update for MSDN subscribers. This update is a workaround — or so Microsoft claim[s] — to the patent, but it also means a very different approach to adding embedded content in Internet Explorer… The ActiveX update makes a very simple change. It prevents you from automatically interacting with an embedded object — like a Flash movie. You have to activate it first.”

In an effort to educate Visual Communication Designers and those who use their services, on the damaging effects caused by spec work and spec-based design contests, a group of designers from all over the globe banned together, fueled by passion and a lot of caffeine, to bring NO!SPEC to the public. With legitimate design opportunities turning into calls for spec work at an alarming rate, it is our goal to arm designers with the tools they need to take a stand against this trend, as well as provide businesses with resources and information on why spec work harms our industry, and alternative solutions to their design needs that do not involve working on spec.”

“Each week, the moderator of the AIGA-Gain mailing list poses one question to the group for discussion. At the end of the week, he summarizes the list’s responses, so the group can move on to the next topic. Question: ‘I like the idea of using design techniques being used to solve business problems, but in my organization, other groups have pigeonholed design into the typical, end-stage ‘make it look pretty’ part of the process. I think I have the skills to use design techniques earlier along in the process, but how do I communicate that to management? How do I get started–what’s the way to start doing this when you haven’t done it yet?’”

“Picture clouds bring photos to life by showing items on the web from a new perspective. With a little creativity, you can now show items online just like you see them in person. Whether it is a house for sale, or a fun 360 of yourself, picture clouds are easy to create and easy to post. No software to download, no special cameras needed, and no signup is required, and best of all — picture clouds are free.”

“The Google logo — that scrap of oddball typography — is perhaps the most famous piece of graphic design in the world today. Milton Glaser’s ‘I ‘Heart’ New York’ may have a prior claim, and the Coca-Cola script, the Nike tick (or swoosh) and the Mercedes roundel undoubtedly enjoy greater global ‘penetration’ (to use the aggressive language of marketing), but for the web-surfing millions, the Google logo occupies a position of unrivalled prominence.”

“With a book half-written, two conferences looming, and waves of client work smashing the levees, it seemed a good time to change hosts and funnel this old hand-tooled site into a modern content management system. The site is now powered by WordPress and hosted by Media Temple. The hand-rolled summaries feed has retired.”

“You should probably buy a shredder today. I get a heck of a lot of credit card applications in the mail. A bunch for Visa, quite a few from Mastercard and tons of them from American Express. I almost always tear them in half and throw them away. Sometimes, if I am feeling particularly paranoid, I’ll tear them into little bitty pieces. Is that good enough?”

“Business people don’t sit in their offices wondering how they can make a product uglier, and designers don’t want to create products that won’t sell. Everybody (usually) wants to do the right thing for the company, the products and the customers. So why do so many good designs get trampled during the product development process?”

“Edward Tufte’s new book, Beautiful Evidence, is now at the printer and should be available in May 2006. The book is 214 pages, full color, hard cover, and at the usual elegant standards of Graphics Press. Beautiful Evidence may be ordered now; the book will be sent immediately from the bindery when completed.”

“Among the many things to like about Veerle’s redesign of her blog is the way she does the hover effects for lists of links, such as those in her ‘approved’ section. Rather than force others to wade through Veerle’s CSS (wow, that’s quite a style sheet!) I thought it’d be helpful to show how to create this ‘block hover’ effect.”

A list linking to things like del.icio.us, Last.fm, Flickr, Bitty Browser, etc…