great idea for a visual book:
Design has many rules that claim to be big truths and full of wisdom. Designers all go by rules that work for them. However, their rules may not work for someone else, or for a particular piece of design work. When a rule is forced upon you, it stops working and becomes a joke, like “Never use a PC,” or “Leave it until the last minute,” or the most famous of them all, “Less is more.”
The problem is that every rule related to, or governing, design is ultimately ridiculous. In this book we have collected the most talked-about rules and the viewpoints of designers and thought leaders who live by them or hate them.
(Thanks SwissMiss!)
Let’s make sure to revisit this in 2 1/2 years… :-)
24/7 Wall St. has come up with 10 ways in which Twitter will permanently change American business within the next two to three years, based on an examination of Twitter’s model, the ways that corporations and small businesses are currently using the service and some of the logical extensions of how companies will use Twitter in the future.
Earlier this year XPLANE was interviewed for the Oregon Arts Commission’s Annual Vitality report. It’s just been released and XPLANE not only made it into the report, we headlined.
A PDF is available at this link, and the printed version will be distributed in the coming weeks. We’re very proud to be included on the list of creative firms the state has chosen to put front and center. XPLANE’s profile is on pages 6-7.
Here’s more about the study:
The innovative Creative Vitality Index, a concept developed by the Washington State Arts Commission, allows us to look at the health of the creative economy in a city, county, state, or other geographic area compared to a national index. Using readily available, inexpensive data on employment and community participation, the index is a reflection of the vigor of the creative sector of the economy.
The analysis details both for-profit (architecture and design jobs, for instance) and nonprofit arts-related activities (museum admissions, for example), and measures participation in the arts. In doing so, it adds depth to traditional arts economic impact studies. The CVI enhances our understanding by counting the thousands of people who make their living using creativity outside of the nonprofit arts world: Visual artists, graphic and product designers, writers and architects. It also counts the many individuals who participate in the arts by buying music, musical instruments, books, and works of art. It’s a fuller and more accurate picture of the range of artistic creativity in Oregon.
FlowingPrints, brought to you by Nathan from FlowingData:
FlowingPrints posterizes the hidden stories in data.
Not only are we creating more data every day, but data is growing more widely available from governments, organizations, and individuals. Big databases are just the first step though. We need to make sense of it all.
Enter FlowingPrints. As a project of FlowingData, FlowingPrints analyzes, interprets, and visualizes the meaning behind the data. The final result: posters that present beautiful stories in beautiful data.
FlowingPrints will announce whenever a poster is ready, and that poster will be available for a limited time. While previous posters will be digitally viewable in archives, only one poster will be on sale at any given time.
I just got beta access and can’t wait to try out this visually-oriented CMS:
The Cargo platform powers a variety of creative communities in the fields of Education, Design, Research, and Conceptual Art — currently under development… Cargo evolved out of the system that runs the SpaceCollective community. We found it remarkably successful and efficient in creating visual content on the web, placing a strong emphasis on design, layout, image quality and typography. Our goal is to dramatically increase the accessibility and exposure of creative individuals on the Internet, while aspiring to build a networked context that will contribute to the culture as a whole.
Not everything can be this simple, but lots of things in business should be:
Yesterday I found a flyer on my front door.
I’ve been staring at a project in my backyard for a few weeks. Staring hasn’t gotten it done. So I figured I’d see what it would cost to have these guys do it.
I called them. 10 minutes later the guy came by. He was down the street on another job. We walked out back. I told him what I needed done. He looked around for 20 seconds and said $300. I said “deal.”
That’s it. No proposal. No “I’ll get back to you tomorrow”. No “Let me see how much the materials will cost and I’ll drop an estimate in your mailbox next week.”
this gallery of student work:
The Interaction Design Pilot Year is a collaborative initiative between Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID) and The Danish Design School (DKDS). Our aim is for students, faculty and staff to work together in a multi-cultural, multidisciplinary studio environment to co-create a new kind of education that is relevant for academia and industry.
Not just relevant to ad agencies:
The bureaucratic organizational model thrived during the 20th Century. But is it the right model for advertising agencies in the 21st Century? Could an adhocratic model be better suited for these challenging times? …adhocracy, according to academics, is an organization which is the opposite of a bureaucracy. One that cuts across bureaucratic lines to capture opportunities, solve problems, and get results
Nice.
this amazing work:
