37signals Illustrations

Benjamin W.

November 11, 2010

This is another great post from 37signals.

Jamie describes the product illustration process for Basecamp. You should go read it. It’s not long and it gives some great insights.

It’s not an easy task to give a sense of an app from a small drawing of some icons. What I love about this post is that it shows iteration. It shows that the first idea really wasn’t the best idea. Still the first idea had to be executed so that we could see what was or wasn’t working. And get feedback. If he just thought and thought and thought until it hit him like a bolt of lightning, he wouldn’t have come up with that final illustration which is by far my favorite. It says what it needs to say in a clean way.

This is something I need to work on. There are too many ideas in my head that stay there because they’re not good enough yet. They only way for them or me to get good enough is to do those ideas as best I can. Put them out there. And do it again and again.

Design inspiration in new places.

Benjamin W.

September 29, 2010

As a graphic/web designer, every once in a while you may find a need to explore the web for lovely looking things and find some inspiration. I don’t think there’s a better place to look than BIKEEXIF.

I look upon these motorcycles with envy.

David Gewirtz on Apple ruining lives.

Benjamin W.

June 22, 2010

I just read David’s post via Daring Fireball.

This is an article about how many lives and businesses have been ruined by Apple. And I’m not going to debate that. It’s not like the App Store is the most successful developer market place in the history of any platform or anything. But that’s not the point.

The point is that for every developer that is crying about Flash, there are several new companies excited as hell about iOS or HTML5 or whatever other awesome thing Apple is pushing. I’m a good example. I wouldn’t even be learning programming if it weren’t for my exposure to Apple’s products.

If monetary reward is the only way we’re going to judge anything, than just kick me in the balls now and call it a day.

Apple really is a big start-up. They do some risky stuff and they turn on a dime. When you’re as big as Apple, those decisions effect more people. They take the heat and they keep selling a ton of products. There must be something to this. They must be doing something right.

Good and evil is a gradient scale. And Apple is defintitely on my good side.

Merlin Mann on Future Proofing Your Passion

Benjamin W.

May 18, 2010

Merlin Mann distills the unbelievable amount of over lapping anxieties in my head into small chunks of advice that make me think there might be another way of doing things that isn’t so painful. His new post on 43folders is no exception.

Just go read it.

Violation Report.

Benjamin W.

May 7, 2010

So designworklife posted about Violation Report. It’s a site where you can post pictures of people being discourteous in public. A way to humiliate them. Shame by fame, if you will.

I didn’t find the site very funny. It’s a great idea that should have remained a funny forum thread on some site I never visit. Okay, that was harsh.

But seriously, it’s like flirting with a girl you don’t care about so the one you do care about will care about you. Could we get any further removed from actually getting what we want?

Aside from Violation Report being rude, it’s indirect. It’s a way for us to feel better about our shit day by being completely un-courteous , behind someone’s backs for the entire world to see.

Here’s an idea. The next time someone’s doing an “Alpha-male Stretch”, politely ask them to move! If this person doesn’t immediately say “Sure” and scoot over, you have my blessing to post pictures of him and his kids on whatever public shaming site you want. But if you just sit there stewing in your own self-pity and hating this person for sitting comfortably, you’ve got some serious seat entitlement issues.

iPad. I want one but until then…

Benjamin W.

April 7, 2010

John Gruber wrote his review of the iPad. It’s really good. It’s extensive but in the right way. Hater or lover, you’ll get a sense of the possibilities and limitations of this beautiful piece of delish.

I’m a little tired of the “closed system” argument although Cory Doctorow’s post is very thought provoking. This device is bringing joy to a lot of people and a ton of inspiration. You may not be able to create apps right on the device or open it up or geek out customizing the core functionality but I have a MacPro and I’ve never written an app and wish I never had to open it up and have opened the Terminal once. I’ve never been more inspired than right now to write code, create, design and help others to do so with my mac, the iPad and the web. It may not give you tools that directly allow tinkering but it gives you a reason to care about tinkering. It doesn’t make tinkering easy, it just makes it worthwhile. At least for me.

So, stop your whining and do something. I know that education about our culture and what it should be is doing something. But education will only change things when those you teach actually build something real. So build something. Use the limitations of the iPad to inspire creativity or use your hatred of closed systems to build something open and better or encourage others to do so. Apple is a company putting out products that they (Steve) love and that others love too. It’s as simple as that.

I don’t wish the iPad was more open. I hope that Steve Jobs and those at Apple, stick to their guns and keep making things the best way they know how. But I want thousands more people to do the same. I’m not in the cult of Mac. I’m in the cult of Make Shit You’re Proud Of. And Apple does that better than anyone. More please.

The Law of Anti-Attraction by Sonia Simone

Benjamin W.

April 6, 2010

The law of Anti-Attraction.

Just a quick link to a post that really makes sense to me. The big secret in business or anything for that matter, there are big secrets.

Usability or Usefulness: the forgotten side of user experience.

Benjamin W.

December 4, 2009

Usable: capable of being used.

Useful: being of use or service; serving some purpose; advantageous, helpful, or of good effect.

Kathy Sierra is awesome. I didn’t know much about here until she was interviewed on the web 2.0 show. It’s amazing that you can design websites for a while and still not be fully aware of the people that matter on the web. Anyhoo…

Since that interview I’ve been completely stuck with the idea of making people kick-ass. Or at least asking myself how I can help people kick-ass. I’m a designer not a programmer, although I build the sites I design. But I have users too. People use my design to communicate. And if I’ve done my job, it helps them kick-ass at communicating to their audience.

This brings me to my point: Useful is way more important than usable. Usable seems so obvious to me that I don’t know why it gets so much attention. But usable implies that someone wants to use it. That they’re trying to use it. But why would they even try in the first place? They’ll try it if they think it will be useful.

The tools that exist now are unbelievable. We have it so easy with Photoshop, Coda and Final Cut that by myself, I can do what it used to take 25 people and 20 machines to do. And I can do it faster. Yet there is a relatively small amount of people who have taken the time to learn any one of them, much less all three.

Making a product simple or usable reduces the friction of getting people to use it. But it doesn’t motivate people to do so.

The value is not in usability but in usefulness. To the degree that usability makes something more useful is the degree that your user and you win. But everything, even Basecamp, has a learning curve. And people need to know why they should bother. Or better yet, how it will help them kick-ass at whatever they want to kick-ass at. I’m excited to see applications, sites, posters, video games, movies, blogs and books that really take into consideration how to help people kick-ass and remind them how much they want to.

A design inspiration blog with a bit more.

Benjamin W.

November 19, 2009

I’m a big fan of design blogs. I have my favorites that I check about every day: Swiss Miss, It’s Nice That, FormFiftyFive. The usual.

But I recently ran into Design Work Life. A blog by New York based design studio, Seamless Creative. (who also has some great work!)

It is rad because they don’t just post great stuff but they also write a bit of info about the studio or designer or concept behind the work. And that is really valuable to a learning designer like myself. Plus, I’ve seen quite a few things on there site that I haven’t seen featured anywhere else. Check it out and tell me what you think.

Fast Company Magazine: Ads vs. Content

Benjamin W.

September 30, 2009

A scan of the most recent cover of Fast Company with a hand drawn tally of how many ads there are versus how much content.

I’m a big fan of the Fast Company site. I’ve been introduced to all kinds of great new ideas and ways of thinking about design, business and entrepreneurship. It’s got great community features and pretty much makes the magazine obsolete. And here’s why…

I went through the most recent issue of Fast Company (October, 2009) and 33% of it is ads. A THIRD! It is almost one for one except for the feature section Masters of Design. But up until then, the ads we’re winning.

Is this surprising to anyone else? If I bought this on the stand for $4.99, a third of what I just paid my hard earned cash for is 54 full page ads.

Barnes and Noble should have created Amazon. Tower Records should have come up with iTunes. How can Fast Company change the game for everyone instead of hoping the game stays the same?