Mobile Design Tools

Ok, so it is just one tool so far.

Back in the day, when you didn't know what a font was, you just slogged through font books for hours. Then email helped us sub this little job out to our network of design friends.

Then, finally, someone got computers to do their job: make our lives easier. whatthefont.com enabled you to upload a graphic and get a pretty educated guess as to what font it actually was... with of course the hope that you would then purchase it from your AI font benefactors.

Well, now the internet is in your pocket, and the time when you are most likely to see a cool font you want to use is when you are no-where near a computer.

Ta Da: WhatTheFont for iPhone !

Snap a pic, upload it, get your answer, all from right where you are standing, whether it be in a bookstore or walking down the street.

My tests with it had mixed results. Basically, if your image is not black font on white background you are in trouble and need to clean things up back at the lab with Photoshop - just like the web app. I was however able to shoot some Blue Shield letterhead and get Avant Garde Medium returned as the result... Correct!

Mid-Century Digital

A wonderful example of someone who goes deeply down the rabbit hole of popular geekdom and invites us all along for the ride is on display at the Hal Project.

Joe Mackenzie created a simple Hal screensaver back in 1999, and has since grown his obsession in a very clean little site that has various fun downloads, including - my introduction to the concept - a great new screensaver that replicates the screen design of the computer screens seen through out the film, mostly in the background.

Sadly, I dont think the screen saver has an audio component, which seems like it would a naural progression from it's current state.

The screens themselves are decidedly modern - as in contemporary - design, which shows how well basic design principals hold up in the face of the current aesthetic of digital conversion.

h/t Coyote!

Iron Man 3D interface

So this film set off quite the discussion on the iXda list the other day, and led to a lot of very cool links to the sci-fi movie software interface digerati.

It took me a while to find a screen shot to use with this post - it seems there are few images of the bally-hooed interface, but Jason Wong was kind enough to post a movie clip of the scene - shown is where Mr. Downey is about to put his hand into a holographic autocad drawing and test out the fit.

So, we were curious as to who was responsible for the graphics - and it seems that cool movie interface scene is dominated by a very few people, and one in particular: Mark Coleran.

Here are some more links related to Mark:
Here he chimes on a Motion Graphics forum
His Flickr Account

Now, back to the cool interface thread - it lead also to a lot of real world experimental gestural interfaces:
Rendering for an Interactive 360º Light Field Display

Oblong the former MIT kids who worked on the gestural interface for Minority Report - along with Schematic - and also science advised the Iron Man movie.

The other cool interface in Iron Man is Stark's 'heads up display' , built by the ever cooler Pixel Liberation Front

Links to more cool reels (including the Minority Report stuff) can be found on Del.icio.us

This guy has figured out how to use a wii-mote to track finger positions and head positions.

Dan Saffer posted this true 3D gesture to 3D model drawing system.

However, Bruce Sterling (an author books that would make cool movies) is the sci-fi interface buzz kill.

cross-platform PNGs

I am about to post a "best viewed in firefox" tag on my website, because I am changing all the gifs I am using to PNGs, and I am too a) lazy and b) busy and c) annoyed to implement the following solution that will allow IE 6.x to properly render my pages.

But, I think that this is a great article, so I am linking to it for all you designers who DO want to take the time to code this up:

PNGs in IE 6.x

tip o' the hat to Jack from the wwwac list

inverse interface

apple does it again - after using a multi-touch interface for the new iphone, they had to figure a new way to improve the UI...

as BoyGenius says in the scoop on this not ready for market device:

"In a patent filed by Apple right before January's MacWorld where they announced the iPhone, shows a smaller double-sided device. It has phone functions, but one side is touch screen, while the other side is the display. The patent describes this as a way to keep smudges off the display while using multi-touch instead of a stylus on the back. This reminds us a little of the Samsung UpStage phone with dual sides and a touch interface on the back. Will it be easy to control the iPod though, while reaching around back? The device looks much smaller then the iPhone, and could be plans for a 2nd generation iPhone, or even an iPhone nano. This patent seemingly will impact not only future iPhones, but iPods as well. Who wouldn't love to see a dual-sided multi-touch iPod?"

Multi-touch taken to the next level, solving the "fat finger blocking the thing you are trying to click" problem...

I can see this sort of interface as bizzare to use the first few times, and ubiquitous in 10 years.

mapping

it never ceases to amaze me how the map can always be re-invented.

london map made of type

a small design shop in london created this gem you design anglophiles can order

nyc subway map proposal

and i have to say the simplification of the NYC subway map is great. i have always been able to read the past 30 years of subway maps, but i think i am in the minority even amoung nyc'ers on that.

annual web design survey

well, a list apart is having their annual web design survey - a great way to spend 10 minutes and hopefully further our understanding of the industry.

tip o' the hat to david shaw.

grandfathered brands

Slate has a great little slideshow on racist brands that have been "grandfathered" into the popular culture, spurred on by the "promotion" of Uncle Ben to, uh, CEO?

update: more on the New Uncle Ben here.