Tag : design

This is the grid I use to help me draw sketch wireframes. It may be tatty and covered in splotches, but it helps me draw straight lines quickly.

The grid also helps me sketch pages around advertising. For the last five years the two constants of virtually every project I’ve worked on have been the width of the page and the size of ad banners. Got to fit an MPU above the fold. Can’t go above 980 pixels wide. Better make that column the same width as a skyscraper, just in case…

In March we launched Holler Gram, an app that turns your iPad into a glowing sign and simultaneously tweets into a predefined hashtag. It was perfect for conferences and we only did it as a bit of fun - which is why we are amazed that it's now been downloaded 45,000 times.

It's still being used by people all over the world and of the many fascinating uses people have found for it, the most humbling is from Australia where a group of teachers got in contact with us to say they'd been using the app to teach deaf children.

Wow, I've never experienced this feeling before. 

Facebook have done something cool. The new Timeline profile page is phenomenally well designed - almost magical compared to what was there before. 

This week, I came across some useful and neat-looking slides on design, (the latter of which is a good thing given the theme!).

First, from grammar to models and perception, Simon Collison, a freelance designer, writes about a dialect for design. The presentation has really clean graphics; don't forget to look at his website.   

Over the weekend I finally went along to the Design Museum in Shad Thames to have a look around the retrospective exhibition for Dutch typographer and graphic design icon Wim Crouwel.

Spanning a career over 60 years, the exhibition highlights Crouwel’s functional and rigorously modernist principles towards design across posters, corporate identities, typeface and exhibition design.

Staying with the design theme, here are some videos on design for when you have a few minutes to spare:

August De Los Reyes, Design Director at the Artefact Group in Washington D.C, outlines his vision for 21st Century design in a talk at MIX 11, Microsoft's conference for designers & developers last month. The video simultaneously shows his slides running through as he talks - very useful and something which most recorded talks don't offer.

Here are a few interesting presentations on design that I came across recently:

1. Minneapolis-based web design & strategy agency Livefront gave a presentation on design at Minnebar 2011 , a technology and design unconference in Minnesota. In it, they talk about the need to move from 'prescribed' design to 'responsive' design by paying attention to what is happening on the web and mobile.  

More below. 

When working in a team on a design or a vision, it’s pretty likely that lots and lots of assumptions will be made. They can be anthropological - “people will act as ambassadors”, “our users will share this” or “people will want to submit their stories, ideas, photos or limericks to our hub”. They can be economic – “This won’t cost much” or mechanical – “Yeah, of course our CMS can do that”.

Assumptions are seductive because they propel the project forward, they allow us to just bat away risk and move forward, like a juggernaut, unstoppable. They are exhilarating because it feels like you’re calling the shots, living on the edge or flying by the seat of your pants.

This week, our topic of conversation on the blog is design. From design thinking to user experience design and even learner experience design, a term I thought was fairly new but seems to have been mentioned back in 2004.  

First, Zaana Howard from Swinburne University in Australia talks about design thinking on the fly, using Agile principles.  

Read on for more.

Color is a new mobile location based photo app that lets you share photos with people around you. There's no need to follow friends because the social connections are based on distance. I like the concept - viewing real-time collections of photos from people experiencing one event like a party or gig. Color also lets you to shoot video, something I'd love from Instagram.