one word: thundercougarfalconbird

State Department wades into Internet Information Design

2010-03-15T14:09:00.001-07:00

Hillary Clinton's State Department is trying it's hand at the sort of online social networking savvy that served her boss so well during his campaign.

Their new site, Opinion Space, is a sort of left wing/right wing map that visually illustrates "which ideas result in the most discussion and which are judged most insightful by the community of participants," based on 5 "central" issues that Ms. Clinton, it seems, has chosen to focus on.

The software was created by the Berkeley Center for New Media and uses Principal Component Analysis from advanced mathematics to plot your overall opinion as a point (or star) in the constellation of other viewpoints.

"Opinion Space is designed to 'depolarize' discussions by including all participants on a level playing field," says BCNM director Ken Goldberg.

SF Gate's Tech Blog has a more extensive post highlighting the experimental version of about a year ago. One concept that seems missing from this version is the idea of "landmarks" (blue dots) that represent the opinions of public figures… for obvious reasons, given the host.

The largest problem I see with this is the standard limitation with polls - the questions define the debate. I had trouble with the first question, as I think nuclear proliferation is a serious international issue, but that a nuclear armed terrorist is an extremely unlikely occurrence. Remember, the last try involved an underwear bomb. We are not talking rocket scientists here, as yet.

However, the social rating/Ranking aspect is vastly interesting - I am wondering how this map is going to look in a month - mostly to the left is my guess. Unless Fox does a piece on it, of course.

I guess my favorite thing about this is that the State Dept. is leveraging the intellectual property of academic research and development in the real world.

It's no iPad... and that's a good thing.

2010-03-12T11:17:00.000-08:00

Update: A couple more articles on the Microsoft Courier's current devolution, as Gizmodo calls it. I still think the interface idea is interesting, and is a step towards a more visual and less folder- and file-based use of the 'desktop' metaphor - it also seems to allow more cross-application sharing of data than the iPad. Saving you a click through, Gizmodo's latest article is based on this Engadget post.

Update: A friend said the book metaphor was dated, but I contend that it is not a book, it's two monitors, upping productivity.

Gizmodo has posted pictures and video of Microsoft's new "tablet" - which, it turns out, is more of a 'booklet'. The video is very much worth watching, especially if you are an interaction designer.

I happen to think this is FAR closer to what I had hoped the iPad to be.

Instead we got this:

JavaScript Java Sketch

2010-03-10T10:32:00.000-08:00

Harmony is a fun and engaging javascript based drawing tool. It is instantly usable and has an uncanny ability to make the most inane doodling look good.

This amazing little web app was built by a web designer and developer named Ricardo Cabello.

This was created by "playing with various drawing algorithms" and the new HTML5 spec's <canvas> tag.

It is loads of fun - I did the little doodle on the left in about 5 minutes. Click on it for the full size version.

Graphic Design of the '70s

2010-03-03T07:35:00.000-08:00

The van is just about the coolest movable canvass ever invented. Unfortunately, a certain segment of airbrush 'artists' got their hands on it in the '80s and well, I am sure you have seen the poorly proportioned results.

But those earlier, graphically pure vans live, on the streets of LA, and around the southwest, where rust has yet to claim them.

Joe Stevens has been chronicling both their current social environment and their slow demise (partly blamed on the "cash for clunkers" program).

Not so sure about the horizontal scroll used here - a more up date version of that coming next.

Mobile Design Tools

2009-04-08T16:45:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-19T14:13:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-21T12:52:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-21T11:05:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-14T17:31:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-26T18:08:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-25T11:45:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-23T19:23:00.000-07:00

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.

UX meets Politics

2007-04-22T22:13:00.000-07:00

obviously there are many intersections of the above, but thanks to a applying a standard web pattern - the tag cloud - to political event, standard...um...evasive patterns emerge.

the Gonzales Testimony tag cloud is possible thanks to the folks at IBM's ManyEyes project, an experimental site that allows users to upload data sets to be defined with advanced visualizations. There is endless cool content up here: use it to make a point about allmost any subject, including of course, your own.(On a Mac, though, use Safari. Firefox doesnt play nice with the Java.)

the Gonzales user cheated a little with adding "i_" to "don't" to make it a single word... which i think was unnecessary to make the point. not a lot of recollection going on there by the "attorney general" of the "united states".

Tip o' the hat to Jared Spool.

helvetica

2007-04-21T00:43:00.000-07:00

Well, though Comic Sans has a whole movement against it, Helvetica seems to be a bit more popular.

It's everywhere.

Helvetica the font is now featured in an independent film about typography,
graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the
proliferation of one typeface as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives.

More about the film...

morphing definitions

2007-04-19T00:16:00.000-07:00

so i've been doing a lot of reading lately on what exactly it is i do, because as usual the internet professional community has reached critical mass on the term "interaction designer" as i am beginning to see it for the first time in headlines for job postings.

it's nice to have someone keeping up to define it for us.

gooey digital biomass

2006-09-19T16:50:00.000-07:00

so i received this link from a friend, and i find it to be absolutely gorgeous.

it's seems to be basically a long series of photos or maybe even morphed together with some sort of morphing software... it actually reminds me of some early experiments i did with after effects and "morph" back in the 90's.

however, the photographic resolution and concept are very striking. and kind of gross.

the production company, 2minds has some other great stuff on their site, and their work is very oookey and intriguing. very organic, yet so obviously digital.

they also explain on their site that the above video was rejected by the label (or someone) and that another company was hired to produce a more "commercial" video, which is very "google earth". also pretty nice, and conceptually interesting, but yeah, not as cool. or oookey.

flash scientists

2006-08-19T08:39:00.000-07:00

i am working on a XML/flash project that involves tracking data a user inputs over time and then comparing that data to other users and displaying as a live scaleable graph. nice bit a programming gonna be needed for thatk, eh.

so i went to my favorite vector flash experimentation site, podlob.com, and it is for all intensive purposes down. well, there is a placeholder page.

so that sets me off on a quest for similar sites through-out the internets, and just off i have come accross one that is really just plain beautiful.

Gallery Incomplet is a wonderful compendium of the mysterious Grant S' flash experiment. none or few of them have the vector/bezier type of display and interaction i am looking for, but man this guy is like his own little MIT media lab.

another cool flash guy is Andre Micheal - he does a lot of great 3D and image distortion and mapping work. Also some very cool sound experiments.

here is a site that is a little more similar to podlob - uncontrol

there is a little flash navigation that you have to use to see the different algorithm and mathematics based flash movies - which actually annoys me, because you can't bookmark a specific piece, and the "index" requires rollovers to see where you are going. great stuff inside though.

more to come as i dig around...

ad agency douchebags

2006-08-15T12:30:00.000-07:00

ok, this guy started out with a pretty witty visual rant on generic agency types that one might come across quite often in the little weird world of advertising - especially here in the NYC interactive scene:

the big intro to the characters

it really came together for me on this this frame.

of course, we also love this chick, as we all do in fact know her.

She also has the secret weapon for 'strategery' - a brilliant little thing that reminds me of my favorite pre-crash dot com meeting distraction: Buzzword Bingo

in the weeks since those posts, there has been a whole new level of agency douchery:

the agency.com subway video

i am sure you have heard all about it

anyway, our hero gets his licks in on that action too.

thanks for the chuckle, pete.

tiled tabs

2006-08-15T09:59:00.000-07:00

I just installed a cool little Firefox plug-in from Viamatic...

called 'foXpose', it acts like the f9 key on a Mac - it takes all your open tabs in one Firefox window and tiles previews of them - allowing you to quickly click on any thumbnail to go to (or close) that tab.

It isnt exactly amazing, but i find that when you are shopping or downloading a lot of youTube videos it is quite helpful... especially if you have more than 10 tabs open and the little titles in the tabs say things "The De..." and "Overv..."

you can download it here .

maybe i should start a "must-have" Firefox plug-ins list.

Logo Redesign

2006-07-15T13:06:00.000-07:00

so, i got some design tips from an unlikely source this week as i checked into Homestarrunner for my bi-, tri-, uh, semi-weekly fix of Strongbad email.

Once again, strongbad dips into my core competancies with a quick and slick redesign, of the famed "no loafing" sign.

squish it, skew it and flip it all around !

i actually like the colors that the cheat winds up with.

Modernist Springs

2006-07-12T19:44:00.000-07:00

OK, blogging is hard. every day i bookmark stuff that i want to do a post about, and yet no posts appear.

it's bad magic.

but the internet is goodness. And so is the dream of Modernism. And so is my girlfriend, who suggested a beautiful getaway for us some time when we are on the West Coast.

Palm Springs was at the center of the Modernist movement in the US and so has an usually large amount of fantastic modernist buildings.

You can visit there by taking advantage of some very foresighted folks that deserve a mention in Wallpaper for sure.

the Orbit In is a small boutique hotel and spa lovingly restored to splendor.

One of the buildings in the hotel - well, actually more of an annex - is by one the area's more famous and prolific architects, Donald Wexler. I am not sure when I will be able to organize a group to rent that puppy, but when i do, i will require vintage clothes and cars for everyone, and we can party down in the desert of modernism's twilight with all sorts of tiki drinks and groovin tunes.

in the meantime, visit this vista if you can, and perhaps contribute to the societies that are trying to save this classic buildings from today's short sighted wrecking ball.

my favorite widgets

2006-05-24T09:25:00.000-07:00

So i finally upgraded the old iBook to OS X 10.4. in doing so, i am now able to sample (and comment on) the great widgets that are up on the apple site. before the upgrade i was also dabbling in using Yahoo's widgets, but they were only semi-satisfactory, and you have admit the who "expose" thing rules: finally a reason to click the scroll wheel.

i am going to archive this post in the links nav, and simply add to it as i discover new and exciting widgets.

and so, without further delay, a sampling of the best in dashboard functionality:

go-go redball

this little toy uses some kind of simple collison detection and gravity simulation to create a virtual superball you can throw around your screen with your mouse and relive that childhood feeling of anticpation as you try to predict where the thrown ball will end up. luckily there is no OS X sewer grate.

NoteZar
this item is brilliant and tres useful, and only has a couple small drawbacks. basically, this widget is a multi-page notepad - it takes all the text detritus you would normally keep in Stickies and puts it into one single, indexable widget. big deal, eh. well, this is where the bigness comes in - the text is saved not on your computer, but on the developers website. that means rather than having one set of stickies at home, and another at work, and another on your laptop, you have but one single set, synced automatically when ever you post. there is also an option to share Notezar with your friends, so they can see all your notes.
Neat.
The widget itself is a little ugly - the default display is dull grey with white text and green and purple headlines - i hope the guy doesn't fancy himself too much of a designer. You should be able to choose note and text colors in some sort of preferences. The other visual problem is the clunky clip-art-looking icons. if only he knew some great interface designer...
The biggest drawback to this widget is there is no local version of your notes - say in some sort of cookie or cache. if you are not online you can't see your notes, period. bummer. There are also probably some security issues with keeping sensitive info online - i dont know what sort of protections are set up for that. Also, the responsiveness when you click the icons is a little slow - all in all, minor complaints, but the concept is so great i just want the rest of the widget to live up it.

DashFlix
this is another very simple idea that is useful in a "i am too lazy even to bookmark" way - it displays your currently viewing and "in que" films from your netflix account.
it is one of the few widgets that is "two sided" - the 'front' displays your "viewing" films, and the 'back' lists the next 26 or so films in your que.
nice branded skin, also.

game physics

2006-05-20T21:39:00.000-07:00

enigmo 2 is the first video game i have been interested in since snood (motto: forget life, play snood), and even so i can only play for a few minutes.

the rube goldberg concept and the 3D is so neat and the play is so subtle - kudos.

the enya soundtrack is a little hard to take however - mute it and just run your itunes.

interestingly, there was a toy back in the 70's that was basically a real life version of this game... see a vintage TV spot about it here.

also, the whole rube goldberg concept is being played out in virtual reality through video game hacks that allow "players" to manipulate the game environments, constrained somewhat by the local physics of the video game

e-design

2006-05-19T15:06:00.000-07:00

where the 'e' is for 'environmental'

an amazing toy car from Horizon lets you run your own alternative energy power plant.

i would be HIGHLY interested if they could upscale this thing into running a Go-Ped.

back in black

2006-05-19T14:45:00.000-07:00

what can i say. i am a sucker for Sith laptops. As soon as Adobe releases the intel-native version [warning-PDF] of CS.

cross posting

2006-05-06T10:06:00.000-07:00

as i suppose a blog is just shameless self-promotion masquerading as shameless self-involvement, i might as well mention when i post new things on my website.

i just put up comps from a little bit of online application design i did over the winter for Stein Rogan + Partners

The project is an online e-commerce application that allows users to download quicktimes of 15, 30 and 60 second ads recently broadcast on television. It is marketed mostly towards competing ad agencies so they can keep up with the Jones with out all the time and hassle of watching TV

This one of those gigs where you walk in and they say, "we need you to redesign this application, but you cant change the colors or fonts or placement of elements"

this happens more often than you would think

however, there somehow is leeway within those constraints to improve upon the early sketches, and i think this interface came out all right, if a little heavy-handed

click the first icon on the right on this page to see the final result - the client logos are edited out

great minds think alike?

2006-05-06T09:21:00.000-07:00

there are few things more frustrating then coming up with a great idea for functionality implemented with a hot new technology and seeing someone else be first to market

on the other hand, the same thing re-enforces the marketability of the idea

the last couple months i have been working at a high-end interactive shop, concepting and designing a new shopping portal for a major Fortune 500.

last monday, yahoo launched a new geek gadget portal using several fancy-pants ajax intereractive elements i had been building into our prototype

tech.yahoo.com has several great concepts going for it - most notably is the add to compare tray ajax widget. i love it, and in fact i thought of it two months ago, after discovering a certain functionality that was being shown off on the demo site of a software suite that builds plug and play Ajax modules

my Information Architect said he would defend me in 6 months when our site launches and everyone says i got the idea from yahoo. thanks, charlie

they're handing out Geek Makeovers, however, so that's a tough act to follow

now that's a toaster

2006-04-10T20:20:00.000-07:00

i have been reading a book about one of the 20th century's industrial design icons, Brooks Stevens.

his designs and ideas shaped a great deal of american industrial design of the past 60 years or so, and is stuff affected basically every item in american households of that era. his shop is still in business, run by his son Kipp. they are even hiring.

for a few days i harbored fantasies of snagging a job there in their web and graphics department and spending the summer driving a 1955 Gaylord Grand Prix around the Wisconsin Dells, eating cheese curds and parking on the lake to make out.

speaking of cougars

2006-04-09T08:01:00.000-07:00

here are a couple i love...

they are on ebay, so these links maybe come dated:

68 Cougar in that wonderful green gold - the same color as my thunderbird

and the interior of this 71 Cougar is just kick ass.

i really like the 67 - 72 Cougars - they were like a Mustang with a Thunderbird interior - the best of both worlds's for the Ford Motor company those years.

the Cougar eventually moved over to the Thunderbird platform completely, and then had that weird 90's re-invention as a Mistubishi Eclipse knock off.

ajax widgets

2006-04-09T07:47:00.000-07:00

a collection of browser based widgets... boy, this space is getting crowded.

i am not sold on the usefulness of the browser based "desktop" - but then, not everyone has Tiger

here is a sample page i tried with ProtoPage - more to check the Ajax interactivity than anything else.

i am on an ecommerce project right now that we want to use a decent amount of ajax for, and i am trying to get a feel for the possible.

yes sir, taking the blog out for a test drive

2006-04-08T18:20:00.000-07:00

seemed appropriate, and retrofuturist

obligitory link post:

might want to turn the headphones down