We’re very fancy now—with our user interface design and our user-centered design and our mobile first and our right ways and wrong ways.
But we’re all just geeks—folks in glasses and ties and knits and tweeds fiddling, fumbling, exploring.
That picture there, up above, is one of the first computer games ever made. One of the first computer interfaces.
“Hey guys, this is the first computer monitor… ever.
Let’s do something with it!”
That’s where we come from. That’s our roots: fiddling and exploring and being excited in tweed.
It makes me want to stop looking for more right answers and start looking for more of that “shit, I have no idea what we’re getting into here but I can’t stop being excited about it!” spirit.
I’ve been using the “Everything is. Going to be ok?” desktop wallpaper for a while. It’s great. I’m using the space one.
I’ve really fallen in love with the sentiment.
Everything is. Listen, this is life. This is what it’s like. This is happening.
Going to be ok? You gonna be ok with that? Can you keep standing? You have what you need, you’ll be fine. OK?
And maybe the part I love the most is the ampersand. Aaaaaaaaand there’s a ton of potential. Aaaaaaaand there’s stuff here that can give you the big, deep smiles inside. Aaaaaaand it’s gonna take work. Aaaaaaaaaand it’s worth it.
This is the universe, sweetheart. It is. Make it happen. It aint easy, but it’s worth it. You gonna be ok with that?
So I made an iPhone wallpaper that succinctly says it all to me. You can download it here.
I also made a little blurry version to set as the background when your iPhone is unlocked…Because the main image was a little too bright and confusing behind my icons.
I recently found this Creatiplicity podcast. The host can be a little precious, but in his episode Elliot Jay Stock says some striking things.
Why did we start designing?
We didn’t start designing because we wanted to “solve problems” or find “elegant solutions.”
We started designing things because we love to make and fiddle and shape and see what can come of it.
It’s interesting to remember this. It gets back to the diy/punk spirit of design.
We didn’t get into designing things because we cared about x-height or kerning or grids or bauhaus or wire-rimmed circular glasses… all those things we think will make a Frank Chimero or Jason Santa Maria notice us. read more →
With the great response from last weeks thoughts on design, math, ratios, objectivity and the punk spirit I thought I’d give a little example of how math and “feel” can work together.
Below I showcase several content and sidebar layouts based on font size, line height and common maths ratios. Click the image for a larger PDF.
What I’m doing here is using a starting number (e.g. 15px font size) and using ratios like the golden section, musical thirds, etc., to give me a list of numbers from which to choose when I need to define the width of an object. read more →
What does human nature, biology, and ancient Greek architecture have to say about how wide my sidebar should be?
I’ve recently been geeking out about how my calculator can help me design more gooder.
I’ve been influenced by people who say there may be objective-ish right answers to design problems… or at least righter answers.
Making it feel right
Up to now everything I’ve designed has been a product of feel: shaping the stuff to look right/good to me. Obviously often within constraints which shape the design as much as my “feel” (the CEO hates blue, the site must be accessible to weird people, the target audience is Australian Latinos, etc).
This is the only way I could have known how to make things. I’m self taught, no lessons, and the fun thing about design has always been caring about the experience and making it right.
But this feel-based approach has been called into question by a few smarty pants people. read more →
Sometimes everything’s not OK. But there’s no sense in giving up.
And sometimes you over-extend your reach. You commit to too much or pretend to be something you’re not. That’s not fun. When it comes crashing against you it may not feel ok.
But that doesn’t mean things won’t get better, or that you won’t learn something and grow.
Here’s a thing I know I can believe because if it’s not true then why go on? (You see the way that arithmetic takes care of itself?) I believe everything is going to be okay. read more →
Focus on value creation. Design enhances value, it does not create it. Stop creating shitty startups that look amazing. [...] Stop this cycle of creating beautiful novelties, getting your 15 minutes, then disappearing. Create value.” Jon Yongfook
There are places I go on the internet to get design inspiration.
I go to places like this and I browse and browse.
And I realize: good design feels like a commodity.
Everybody has a well designed site now. If they don’t, they will in the next 5 years. read more →
I’ve recently pushed out an update to the design of Ice to the Brim. If you’re reading this in your aRSSe reader, please take a gander at the creature in its natural habitat to get the full feeling.
The previous design wasn’t broken. It was quite nice. But I’ve developed so much as a site-maker, I’ve got so many new practices and tips with the code I make, that I wanted to update the whole shebang, make it purr, stroke myself with the elegance of the code as well as the visual aesthetic.
Some goals I had with the design
- Responsive — it must adapt to screen size because that’s the kind of thing that makes my juices flow.
- Easy in, Easy out — it must have a design that allows me to post small quotes, images, etc., without needing to think much about headlines and image sizes and quote citation markup, etc. I want to be able to fart little love bytes as well as write longer articles.
- Homepage Welcome — it must welcome first time visitors with an introductory experience of myself. read more →
