“The infinite canvas is the idea that the size of a digital comics page is theoretically infinite, and that online comics are therefore not limited by conventional page sizes. An artist could conceivably display a complete comics story of indefinite length on a single ‘page’. Scott McCloud introduced the concept in his book Reinventing Comics.

Although McCloud asserted that this freedom was one of the most important qualities of the online comics medium, relatively few webcomics have taken advantage of it; most produce work in more traditional formats such as the serialized comic strip and the rectangular page, rarely exceeding two screens in height.”

Jon Udell: “When I read this story about cancer care in the Sunday New York Times yesterday, I was struck by one particular information graphic which I thought was very nicely done. It turns out that Chris Gemignani was impressed too, and he decided to recreate the image using Excel.

“I’ve had trouble justifying my excitement about this intricate visual detail, so I thought it would be good to collect a bunch of examples from over fifty years of information design history, to show it as a powerful visual element in ubicomp situations.

Even though the dashed line has emerged from a designer’s shorthand and from the limitations of monotone printing techniques, it has a clear and simple visual magic, the ability to express something three- or four-dimensional in two dimensions.” (Thanks Stephen!)

Note: XPLANE founder Dave Gray is quoted in the post, which features an XPLANATiON worked on by yours truly!

“10 years from now what will we look back on as important to the web? That’s what we asked 16 top designers, developers and entrepreneurs… We asked them all this question:”

What’s one thing about today’s web (company, technology, movement, etc.) that you think we’ll look back on in 10 years and say ‘that was important’ or ‘that was really a turning point in the history of the web’?

Victor Lombardi: “My friend Austin wrote me, ‘I’m putting together a list of recommended books for designers interested in strategy, the business side, and jumping into entrepreneurship. Can you recommend 3-5 books you think are indispensable?’

I don’t think there’s a single book that fits that description well, and I’ve wondered if a ‘business for designers’ book would be popular or not. But pressed for an answer, here’s the 3-5 I pointed to…”

“It’s easy enough to find out how long copyrights last, but much harder to decide how long they should last—but that didn’t stop Cambridge University PhD candidate Rufus Pollock from using economics formulas to answer the question. In a newly-released paper, Pollock pegs the “optimal level for copyright” at only 14 years.”

“This test will ask you 10 questions to determine how well you understand the principles of good table and graph design.” Note: You better get 10 out of 10 on this! (Thanks Dynamic Diagrams!)

“In 1978, Donald Gunn was a creative director for the advertising agency Leo Burnett. Though his position implied expertise, Gunn felt he was often just throwing darts—relying on inspiration and luck (instead of proven formulas) to make great ads. So, he decided to inject some analytical rigor into the process: He took a yearlong sabbatical, studied the best TV ads he could find, and looked for elemental patterns.”

“The craft of graphic design is replete with ratios, rules of thumb, and math—all an attempt to rationalize decisions that otherwise fall to subjectivity. Finding justification for design decisions is important to me—I want to bring purpose and intent to my work and depend less on taste and opinion. But I often find myself designing on impulse or intuition—pushing pixels around the screen or lines down a sketchpad with no structure, no rationalization— just because it ‘looks right’. That haphazard and experimental process gives me a lot of freedom, but it isn’t really design.

I asked Mark Boulton, Andy Budd, and Jeff Croft, three designers I deeply respect, about designing on impulse versus intention. They each had something different to say, but they each presented a design process far more rationalized and justified than my own…”

Jorn Barger, in response to this and this and more.

“as we observe the 10th anniversary of ‘blogging’
and debate the precise definition of that term

i’ll go on record as claiming not only that
rwwl was the 1st proper weblog
but that it’s still the
only
proper weblog”

“Even if you never read a single thing Dave Winer wrote in his 439 years of blogging, it’s worth taking time to study his ideas about comments on blogs (he doesn’t allow them).”

…to the extent that comments interfere with the natural expression of the unedited voice of an individual, comments may act to make something not a blog…. The cool thing about blogs is that while they may be quiet, and it may be hard to find what you’re looking for, at least you can say what you think without being shouted down. This makes it possible for unpopular ideas to be expressed. And if you know history, the most important ideas often are the unpopular ones…. That’s what’s important about blogs, not that people can comment on your ideas. As long as they can start their own blog, there will be no shortage of places to comment.

“I spent the weekend building a new style for Shaun Inman’s Mint 2 called Tufte Mint. The inspiration and namesake of the style was Edward Tufte’s The Visual Display of Quantitative Information—a fantastic book that chronicles the history and theory of data graphics.

Tufte Mint’s design is focused on maximizing data-ink and minimizing chartjunk and decoration. The graphs in particular have been designed in a style Tufte presents in his book. Keep reading for more info on the design and to grab the free download.”

“At a conference recently, I heard Dan Cederholm from SimpleBits talk about inspiration. He showed a bunch of different techniques he uses, including how he uses Photoshop’s mosaic filter on an image to blow up giant pixels representing the basic colors in the picture. He uses those as pallets for the design work he does. Very cool.

Inspiration can come from process, but it can also come from the most unexpected places. For example, when we were designing the data-over-time visualizations for Google Analytics, we were totally stuck with bar graphs. We’d iterated dozens of times, scoured the web for examples to steal, and had tried just about everything. The result felt muddy and chartjunked…”

“I started to think that NC-17 movies perhaps shared a common visual string in their marketing materials — dark and provocative… I started with R and pulled up the top five movies’ posters. Less provocative but very dark. I moved on to PG-13’s five. Not provocative at all but dark nonetheless. PG’s five? Much friendlier but, yes, dark. It wasn’t until I got to the five Gs that I started seeing some bright colors in the movie posters.” (Thanks HOW Blog!)

“Grid-it notepads are a series of notepads based on the layout grids of famous publications: ‘By moving the grids from the backround to the foreground, and divorcing them from their content, we pay homage as well as render the invisible visible.’”