Category Archives: Design

All the things that can be said about the passing of the Apple co-founder Steve Jobs have been said at this point. I couldn’t begin to summarize his legacy like Stephen Fry does so brilliantly in this essay, or pay a better aggregated tribute than Wired or Fast Company or a dozen other tech sites have. All I can say is that I find his death profoundly sad. It’s sad because of all his accomplishments. He was a Tesla, an Edison, a Lindbergh, a Van Gogh. It’s sad because he created a company I admire, that makes products I enjoy and rely on.

My career started in advertising, focusing mostly on web design. That later evolved into UI design for online applications and even physical products. The broader category for the work I do is called User Experience (UX). However, when I tell people outside of the professional Design world that I’m a UX Designer, they usually have no idea what I’m talking about.

A colleague of mine recently returned from a long weekend holiday to Arizona. In their travels, she and her lover toured the winter home of Frank Lloyd Wright. I’m not an architecture nerd, so my knowledge of FLW is incomplete at best. I know very little about his actual work, other than how my mother — who actually is an architecture nerd — will never forgive him for the popularity of the split level ranch house and how it has “single-handedly ruined the neighborhood curb appeal of most of America.” In describing his Arizona winter home,

Yesterday I was thrilled to see that three photos of the MINI Countryman crossover had leaked a couple weeks weeks ahead of MINI’s planned reveal schedule. With the press embargo broken, MINI decided today to go ahead and let Motoringfile and others reveal the full set of R60 photos and accompanying press release. Motoringfile’s founder, Gabe, accompanied the reveal with insightful analysis, as usual.

Exterior design is always subjective. And when you’re dealing with …

I had an experience this week that I wish were rare in my industry, but sadly it just isn’t. I was asked, by a stranger, to work for them for nothing. This person wanted me to do what I do every day for a very good living, but for them, and for free. They’re not a charity or a non-profit — just a person with an event and a big-name brand sponsor. Here’s

I love Twitter. It’s the best way to find things like this. Via the Definitive Touch blog:

I’ve noticed something in the past few weeks that isn’t at all a new phenomenon, but seems hyper present in our marketplace right now: the artificial confrontation.

On Friday Palm launched their highly anticipated smartphone, the Pre, just as Apple was likely to (and subsequently has) reveal the latest version of the iPhone. So naturally, there are a flurry of tech blog articles and news source stories about “Is the Palm Pre the phone to unthrone the iPhone?”

Frequent commenter RB pointed out this article on Wired.com about “scooter trends” which turned out to have almost nothing to do with scooters at all. What’s more it appears to be a fumbled rehash of this interview for Taiwan Economic News. I expect more from Wired and am annoyed at the consistent misconception Americans and American journalists have of scooters, scooterists, and scooting.