Designing for the iPad
This article came through the ol' inter office mail today and I was immediately intrigued. It lays a great critical eye to the all the glitz and glamor of the newly launched iPad that should give a sobering set of rules to an potential design looking to dive into it's interface. The article was written by iA, a two office production of 7 people that have made some impressively large and well designed sites. If you don't read the article, at least take a look into the work they've done at this company. That should give some credence to them.
Good Magazine and Good Infographics
First and foremost, I wanted point out the wonderful magainze that does GOOD. Good describes themselves as "...a collaboration of individuals, businesses, and nonprofits pushing the world forward. Since 2006 [they have] been making a magazine, videos, and events for people who give a damn." The succinct and blatant statement immediately caught my attention. I quickly scanned through some of their content and frequently found myself reading into tid bits of their articles which covered a variety of topics I'm interested in - environmentalism, politics, media, design etc. But what made this magazine join my long list of RSS feeds so quickly. Well, you can subscribe to the magazine for as little or as much as you want and 100% of the proceeds go to a charity of your choice. Good stuff.
Check it out. They do some great work.
One thing in particular I consistently love from GOOD is their infographics. Not only are their infographics well designed, but infographics are a invaluable way of communicating material in an informative and interesting that could otherwise be boring and dry.
Here are some of my favourite examples thus far:
A time line of state same sex marriage laws - here
Changes to 15 most popular public transit systems in the US - here
Fresh Fonts
I am at a bit of a loss for this article as I do not speak the necessary language to reserach the group or the project itself. Fortunately, a picture is worth a thousand words - English words in this case! It appears the people at autobahn.nl set aside some time to investigate some novel approaches to creating new and visually appealing fonts. The used a variety of squeezable goods such as toothpaste and the results are really quite impressive. Even though the real life product eventually meets a slimey fate as it slides and melts away, they held up long enough for the team to translate it into a longer lasting digital medium.
A great way to approach brain storming and encourage creativity. Do it hands on! Go check out the page.