Tag Archives: Design

Glenn Beck and the new reality of video distribution

My man Jamie Dubs did a great talk at the XOXO fest on how Glenn Beck is the unloved rockstar of the new media landscape. Jamie did the amazing VHX.TV, worked on Add-Art, started Know Your Meme, led the Internet Famo Class… He’s the Kevin Bacon of my internet, but everyone has a max Jamie number of 3.

Anyway, get your learn on:

The computer you don’t see

That’s the best computer.  The best interface is no interface.

See the router that guides you as you make the cut.

See how the person makes the design and the router follows that design. See how the router is assisting.

See the laser cutter that observes the lines you draw.


See how the cutter follows the lines she meant to draw, and interpolates the proper line to cut.

But you don’t see a computer that you have to interact with.
The more you get back to the computer guiding you, assisting you, the easier and better it is. See auto-tuning guitars. See backup warning radar in cars. See Nest thermostats. See tiny little adjustments made for you without you noticing, enabling what you intend instead of what you did.

New Theme: Fluffy Clouds

When I’m having trouble writing something, I futz about with design instead. Hopefully, this feels like a summer sky to you. It still feels a little wonky to me, I can’t figure out what is wrong. What do you think? Too busy?

This is a child theme of thematic and the source to fluffy clouds is open and available on github. The geeky details: All css3 changes, I added multiple columns to make it easier to read on wider screens, all the clouds etc are done in CSS3 with no extra images.

Project Idea: AutoThemer

Blame Carly for bringing this up. 1

I’m terrible at color schemes.   I have a coder’s idea of color.  Sure, people have written careful articles explaining how to pick a color scheme.  Sure there’s even a website that helps you pick color schemes.

But why not make it easier, and have a wordpress plugin that does it for me? Continue reading Project Idea: AutoThemer

  1. Not on identi.ca?  You should be.   (back)

It’s all details

They say the devil is in the details. Sometimes subtle details are a place to shine.

I was reading notes on a lecture by the great Joshua Schachter, developer of Del.icio.us, when I was thunderstruck by a detail.

You have to speak the user’s language. “Bookmarks” are what you call them if
you use Netscape of Firefox – most users these days know the term “favourite”
instead. Half of his population (? users) didn’t know what a bookmark was.

It is true:
The small details matter