Design
Topic archive / 918 posts
Links: July 2017
All the “wellness” products Americans love to buy are sold on both Infowars and Goop
Interesting look at how the same snake oil is marketed to very different audiences.
Trump and Putin’s Rashomon Summit
[T]he establishment of a cybersecurity working group with the two countries is somewhere between a head-scratcher and a punchline.
The Logic of Trump’s Sexist Attacks
The more a woman conforms to traditional gender norms, the more likely she is to experience… See more →
New work: Putting names, faces, and stories to the US’s outsize problem of pregnancy-related deaths. Heartbreaking reporting @ByNinaMartin. twitter.com/ProPublica/sta…
Web builders: Know of a tool to generate a static site from a single CSV? A page for each row, a navigation taxonomy for each column header.
“We’re using CSS to do CSS. No polyfills, or hacks. This is all as defined in the specifications.” rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/2017/…
“There is much to emulate at Apple — but not that almost 1:1 ratio of office to parking.” nytimes.com/2017/07/08/opi…
Looking forward to this. Taking @justvanrossum’s @drawbotapp workshop last month was the best decision I’ve made this year. twitter.com/CooperType/sta…
Links: June 2017
Animated Subway Maps Compared to Their Actual Geography
These are a wonderfully concise look at design thinking.
How G.O.P. Leaders Came to View Climate Change as Fake Science
Murray Energy — despite its enormous clout with Mr. Trump and his top environmental official — boasts a payroll with only 6,000 employees. The coal industry nationwide is responsible for about 160,000 jobs, with just 65,000 directly in mining, according to the federal Energy Information Administration.
By… See more →
Flexbox still trips me up every single time I try to use it.
Best WSJ hedcut ever? wsj.com/articles/hell-…
I’ve looked forward to this since it was a twinkle in @clagnut’s eye a decade ago. Haven’t read it yet, but I can confidently recommend it. twitter.com/webtypography/…
“I think the first real disruption will happen with the people tinkering with CSS and variable fonts…” subtraction.com/2017/06/08/dan…
So excited to return to MV. No pressure to win, score, achieve, collect, etc. Just a beautiful space with thoughtful mechanics to explore. twitter.com/ustwo/status/8…
These animated subway maps compared to their actual geography are a wonderfully concise look at design thinking. thisiscolossal.com/2017/05/animat…
Links: May 2017
Toronto’s New Flag
I’m a big fan of Kenzie Ryder’s concept.
Key to Improving Subway Service in New York? Modern Signals
Over the years, the authority has kept pushing back the timeline for replacing signals. In 1997, officials said that every line would be computerized by this year. By 2005, they had pushed the deadline to 2045, and now even that target seems unrealistic.
London has moved more quickly on signals because officials completed the work… See more →
People aren’t good at designing chairs.
Links: April 2017
I worked for Jared Kushner. He’s the wrong businessman to reinvent government.
I worry that this new office will be more of the same: a vanity project, one that exists primarily to put Kushner in the same room with people he admires whom he wouldn’t have had access to before, glossing government agencies in the process with a thin veneer of what appears to be capitalism but is really just nihilistic cost-cutting designed to project… See more →
Step away from the background-attachment:fixed.
Signed up for both @TypographicsNYC Python/DrawBot workshops with @justvanrossum and I’m pretty excited about it. eventbrite.com/e/python-progr…
This is beyond infuriating. Did no one think to measure how efficient it would be if everyone walked? Escalators are stairs, you slugs. twitter.com/nytimes/status…
Links: March 2017
Obama Administration Rushed to Preserve Intelligence of Russian Election Hacking
While assessing the significance of Flynn’s and Sessions’s meetings with Kislyak, an ambassador, consider this:
The label ‘intelligence official’ is not always cleanly applied in Russia, where ex-spies, oligarchs and government officials often report back to the intelligence services and elsewhere in the Kremlin.
What Is Race?
A good crash course on race from Whit Taylor.
Pissed Jeans: Why Love Now
I’ll probably have this… See more →
A crash course on the history of Emoji, the Unicode Consortium, and how Emoji expansion could be democratized. thenib.com/who-makes-emoji
Oh nice, not only is @creativecloud now doing notification spam, it’s also giving us opportunities to work for free!
I just don’t see why I should need two hands to perform the most basic functions of this pocket computer.
You had me at “miniature retro papercraft synthesizers.” thisiscolossal.com/2017/03/miniat…
I think “Comic Sans helps dyslexic people read. Cool, right?” might be better than “Fuck you for not liking Comic Sans” but what do I know? twitter.com/hj_chen/status…
Links: February 2017
Blown Away
If you’re suffering from an excess of self-respect, the Corey Haim/Feldman erotic thriller is now available on Hulu.
King Crimson: Starless
RIP John Wetton. Colon cancer. Here’s my favorite King Crimson song, which he co-wrote, sang, and played bass on.
What Can Ivanka Trump Possibly Do for Women Who Work?
Before the election, her main interest in women was getting them to buy her clothing, her handbags, and her shoes. Who can forget… See more →
Great hang with @m_swartz today, who shared some great journalistic design and strategy insights from his work at @upstatement.
Art is about the artist. Design is not about the designer.
“We’re trying to work freely without a client’s desire. […] We don’t give assignments, we give prompts.” 🙄 eyeondesign.aiga.org/why-fearful-co…
RIP design hero Dick Bruna, best known for his Miffy books for kids, though I’m partial to his early book covers. nytimes.com/2017/02/20/boo…
Designers: Anyone else have issues lately with Illustrator CC ignoring/changing colors and/or strokes when it opens SVGs?
Someone please confiscate my wallet. typography.com/fonts/ringside…
I just revisited this @shauninman post, which gets at part of it: “There’s an unmuddied economy of expression…” shauninman.com/archive/2010/0…
Trying to get my head around why this kind of work is so appealing to me. I want to believe it’s more than just nostalgia. twitter.com/Sir_carma/stat…
Links: December 2016
What’s Your Ideal Community? The Answer Is Political
It’s conceivable that people who live in cities come to value more active government. Or they’re more receptive to investing in welfare because they pass the homeless every day. Or they appreciate immigration because their cab rides and lunch depend on immigrants. This argument is partly about the people we’re exposed to in cities (the poor, foreigners), and partly about the logistics of living there.
The suburbs… See more →
A roundup of 2016’s visual and interactive storytelling highlights at @propublica. I’m proud to be a part of it. propublica.org/article/2016-p…
We just added a printable PDF version of our trading cards of Trump’s Cabinet picks. Last-minute stocking stuffers! propublica.org/article/the-ch…
Is there an especially good collection of scientific research on legibility/readability/etc? If not, let’s make one. Send me stuff.
A handsome new work in progress from @jasonsantamaria and his team at @Slate: slate.com/blogs/the_work…
I can’t wait to dig into the new book from @adactio, my favorite web philosopher. It’s called Resilient Web Design. resilientwebdesign.com
I’m pretty excited about @beep’s fancy new site and how it will give us all an opportunity to be smarter. ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/thread/
New work: @JessicaHuseman and I are making trading cards of Trump’s Cabinet picks, with a reading guide for each. propublica.org/article/the-ch…
“19 visual artists count down their 10 favorite albums of 2016 with reimagined cover art.” This is a delight. 10x16.com
Color management has bewildered and enraged me for decades. No more! Blessed be @chockenberry and @abookapart. abookapart.com/products/makin…
Links: November 2016
Kasich Goes for ... McCain
At least three prominent Republicans are publicly throwing away their vote.
The Different Stakes of Male and Female Birth Control
for some women, there are tradeoffs between their reproductive freedom and their mental and emotional health.
Not so for men. Though men have an equal responsibility to prevent unwanted pregnancies, they don’t share equally in the consequences, and never have. The burden of birth control has always fallen largely on… See more →
Today I learned that, for no apparent reason, :before and :after in CSS can’t be applied to images. I did not learn this quickly or calmly.
It is Blue Beanie Day. Fellow makers of the web, let’s not forget to make it as good as we can. zeldman.com/2016/11/22/yea…
I’ve long been frustrated by graphic designers’ general nonchalance that most of our work just dresses up capitalism’s ickiest impulses. twitter.com/ChappellTracke…