If you work for a company that builds primarily consumer software, there are, hopefully, three groups of humans who believe they are accountable for the product. They are: Engineering. They build the product. Design. No, they build the product. Product Management. No, really… they build the product. Do you see the issue? You have three… more
You’re not going with that title, are you? I might. There are no actual trophies or awards. Correct. There are three Rands Useful App Awards this year, but before I award them, I will define the criteria I used to select these products. The application has substance. This is not a one-shot utility that does… more
From typography.com:
About two years ago, H&Co Senior Designer Andy Clymer proposed that we design a monospace typeface. Monospace (or “fixed-width”) typefaces have a unique place in the culture: their most famous ancestor is the typewriter, and they remain the style that designers reach for when they want to remind readers about the author behind the words. Typewriter faces have become part of the aesthetic of journalism, fundraising, law, academia, and politics; a dressier alternative to handwriting, but still less formal than something set in type, they’re an invaluable tool for designers.
I’ve dropped Operator Mono into both Sublime and Terminal. A monospace typeface needs to be readable and without a lot of opinion. After brief usage, Operator Mono easily meets both requirements.
At the bottom of an individual post on this site, you might notice there is a small grey leaf. No one has ever commented about this leaf. No one has ever asked about its significance. It’s a pleasant quiet ending to a post. There was a time when this version of the site was being… more
My hunch is a lot of folks are going to have a bunch of questions that will easily be handled by this handy guide by Sebastien Gabriel:
This guide is designed as a “get started” or introductory read for the starting to intermediate designer who wants to learn or get more knowledge about cross-DPI and cross-platform design from the very beginning.
You wake up in a small, enclosed glass cube. There’s a bed, a toilet, a radio playing music, and other bare essentials, but no door. You have no idea why you are here or what’s going on. After a few minutes of looking around your tiny space, a calm yet creepy electronic voice begins speaking.… more
For a word that can so vastly change the fortunes of a company, it’s worth noting that no generally accepted definition of the word design exists. This means when your boss stands up in front of the team at that all-hands and says, “We’ll have a design-centered culture,” there’s a good chance he’s saying nothing… more
I do this talk called “The Engineer, The Designer, and The Dictator,” and it’s about the things I love. It’s a little bit about the nature of engineers and why I think we might have more power than we deserve. I talk about designers, the creators of art, and how I want the engineers and… more
As I talked about in The Book Stalker, there are books I need on my desk, books I need in the room, and books I just need to know exist. The following seven books are the precious ones I referred to in that article and they each serve a specific purpose. It strikes me the… more
I’m searching my articles from last year regarding SXSW and I can’t find any documentation of one of the major discoveries. SXSW is the only conference I know where designers and developers hang out. Designers have design conferences. Developers have nerd conferences. SXSW has somehow convinced both parties to head to Austin and actually talk… more
