“‘Napkin Sketches 101′ written by Don Moyer in last months’ 360 e-zine, registered as our most popular article to date (as noted by number of pdf downloads). Moyer writes, ‘the leading edge of every wave of innovation is flecked with little drawings scrawled on cocktail napkins, envelope backs, scratch paper and whiteboards. Napkin sketches can help you see what you think about a topic and make it easier to communicate your ideas to others.’

His piece is interesting, well written and extremely practical. So much in fact, this 90-second article will re-cap some of Don’s napkin sketch tips.”

“Before you can draw a human figure with clothing, muscles, shading, etc., it is necessary to understand the basic proportions of the human figure. Proportions on a figure are simply how long the major anatomical parts of the body are, in relation to each other.

Let’s examine the proportions of a healthy male human figure. Proportions change based on body type, age, sex and activity level. Our example healthy male figure will be seven heads tall. As a foundation, let’s start with these lengths that are all the same. Each of them are two heads long…”

“Events at the St. Louis Science Center will focus on usability in healthcare. The advances of technology may have ushered in a new era of convenience, but sometimes along with it comes a new era of frustration. From alarm clocks to zippers, things are becoming more sophisticated but also harder to use for the average person.

To address the balance between ‘new and improved’ and ‘easy to operate,’ a relatively new group of professionals aims to show the St. Louis community how life can become a bit easier on Nov. 10 at the Saint Louis Science Center. Making life a little easier is the goal of the local celebration of the third annual World Usability Day, an initiative that is focused on the benefits of usability engineering and user-centered design. Created by the Usability Professionals’ Association, World Usability Day includes special events across the globe — including here in St. Louis.

With healthcare products as this year’s theme, the celebration and demonstrations at the Science Center will focus on how the average person can better deal with the myriad of complications that come with, navigating health insurance claims, nutrition, prescriptions and supplements, and other products and processes associated with healthcare.”

It all happens Saturday, November 10 from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the St. Louis Science Center, 5050 Oakland Ave. St. Louis, MO 63110.

Perfunctory public notice: On this day in 1999 xBlog started broadcasting to the world. This is the 6,000th item added to this visual thinking linkblog.

By winter 1999 the idea had been stirring for at least year, inspired by Camworld, Kottke, Rebecca’s Pocket, peterme and a handful of others. I built some prototypes but never put them online. But once I started working full-time at XPLANE I knew had I found the perfect home for these design/web/communication/etc links.

With the help of Jeff Lash, xBlog became a great linkblog. For eight years it’s been filled with almost daily links to what used to be scarce online visual resources. Those online resources aren’t so scarce now — in fact they’re everywhere. So xBlog’s function as a filter is still useful, but we’re going to take it up a few notches in 2008. Lots of notches.

xBlog’s linkblog component will still be here but I’m looking to start sharing much, much more. Good. XPLANE. Stuff. And trust me — we’ve got lots of good stuff to share.

“The Eames’ best-known film is the 1977 Powers of Ten, the zooming visual explanation of scale which has no doubt been shown in more than 10^4 classrooms and 10^2 science museums. In their much earlier film A Communications Primer they describe the application of Claude Shannon’s model of communication to familiar media experiences, along with some that aren’t very familiar nowadays, such as telegraphy. There are very nice iconic images deployed, as well as shots of media technologies in use.

In about twenty minutes the film covers not only Shannon’s basic model for communication but also details how digital information is represented and, via the analogy of the halftone photograph, how it can be built up to represent data that is arbitrarily detailed.”

“The IAN symbol libraries contain over 1500 custom made vector symbols (in 32 categories) designed specifically for enhancing science communication skills. The libraries are designed primarily for use with Adobe Illustrator (requires version 10 or better), however we also offer eps and svg versions for non-Illustrator users. The symbols allow diagrammatic representations of complex processes to be developed easily with minimal graphical skills.”

“Amy Wang’s graduate thesis project, Ametrica!, was recently honored as a winner in the Adobe Design Achievement Awards. Amy is a recent graduate from the School of Visual Arts MFA Designer as Author program. She discusses her process of discover and her intention to spread the message that the U.S. should adopt the metric system.” (Thanks On Paper Wings!)

“Recently, a client asked us how they might make the most of our design engagement. We started a staff e-mail thread and came up with these tips that organizations should know to create truly innovative products with an external design firm. As we told our client, innovative products come from companies with one important characteristic — willpower: The perseverance and committed resources to see a breakthrough product launched.

Here are Adaptive Path’s tips for our clients — or yours.”

“When we asked you, our readers, to tell us whom you would like us to interview for Creative Characters, one name that kept coming up was Christian Schwartz’s. Although he’s not even 30, Christian Schwartz is among the most prolific type designers in the USA, having published fonts with about half a dozen foundries. He has also created successful corporate type systems, such as the superfamily made for the German railways, for which he and Erik Spiekerman received the Federal German Design Prize 2007. And that’s not his only award this year…”