March 2012
138 posts
Let Pixels be Pixels
speckledwords:
Can we let our buttons be flat? Can we skimp on the the texture? Avoid the bevel, emboss, and glassiness of a button? These are things I’m asking myself. Skeumorphisim is my new favorite word, and not just because it’s so hard to spell. The idea of skeumorphic design is to make digital interfaces resemble as closely as possible their real-world counterparts. This explains the wood...
T-63: I am a product of design
tonyhschu:
Part of the MFA Interaction Design Weekly Thesis Blog series - 2 of 64
Our cybernetics instructor Paul Pangaro introduced us to a wonderful word last term: Autopoiesis. Definition via Wikipedia.
(from Greek αὐτo- (auto-), meaning “self”, and ποίησις (poiesis), meaning “creation, production”) literally means “self-creation” and expresses a...
“We scientists now understand how important emotion is to everyday life, how...”
– Emotional Design: Why we love (or hate) everyday things by Donald A. Norman (via joonseobae)
Teaching HTML from the ground up
tonyhschu:
It pains to me to see designers intimidated by code. At SVA I am surrounded by talented designers who have amazing intuition and great taste in interaction design. Few of them get to see their designs to fruition, however, because they never learned to code.
I want to change that.
I try to point my friends to tutorial sites, and implore them to experiment. With little guidance,...
Saved by Tumblr
barbaradewilde:
I was in the weeds on a design project last week and Tumblr really saved my neck. I was working on a book project with Patagonia. The title, The Responsible Company, sums up the content, a compilation of hard-won lessons in pursuit of a sustainable business practice. The authors, Vincent Stanley and Yvon Chouinard, are are absolute gents, idealistic and innovative. Chouinard...
“I dream about a kind of criticism that would try not to judge but to bring an...”
– Michel Foucault (via viafrank)
Good ideas are not everywhere.
tashwong:
Strange as it sounds, this was a somewhat surprising insight. At grad school we’re constantly surrounded by concepting sessions, thesis ideas, and astounding guest lectures; so much so that I tend to forget that theres a lot of half-baked work out there.
The startup mania that happens at SXSW was a rather amazing reminder of how many undercooked or just downright creepy ideas become...
“Why don’t we already focus our efforts on wicked problems? It seems that our...”
– “A Large-Scale Distraction” from Wicked Problems by John Kolko
My entrepreneurial design classmates may remember me tentatively raising my hand when Buzzfeed’s Jon Steinberg asked, “Who hates advertising?” I couldn’t quite articulate my position, and it was because I was wrong.
I don’t hate...
Entrepreneurial Vulnerability
tonyhschu:
Lately I’ve felt like I am on a roller coaster ride between excitement and dread. This is probably part of a larger lesson about entrepreneurship from Gary and Christina. I am dreading the end of the term, and how far behind I feel with regards to the entrepreneurial design final project.
Running experiments is essential for finding product-market fit, and we do that by building...
“If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money....”
– Simon Sinek from swissmiss
On community driven systems of storytelling
sanarao:
It is not easy to reach out to people one admires, especially if they are well known and by that effect extremely busy. For several weeks, I contemplated and made excuses for not reaching out to Jonathan Harris of Cowbird fame. I first heard of him close to six years ago when I came across one his most loved data driven works titled We Feel Fine and then consequently other works like I...
be online worker
minseungsong:
Spend at least 60 minutes acting as a worker. I like all assignments from entrepreneurial class. This assignment is one of the my favorite. I was so curious, how does it work and how can I make. Finally I did 2 tasks, I haven’t got much money but learn many things.
1. Amazon Mechanical Turk
Cool concept. I can make money using my knowledge! Yes! but sadly reward is so small. I...
What's my story?
prachipundeer:
We began Thesis Preparation with Liz Danzico last week, the first of our three thesis courses here at SVA IXD. We started by asking ourselves what thesis means to us. I see it as an opportunity to do something I’m really passionate about, but haven’t yet got a chance to do.
Liz asked us to do a little exercise where we had to think of a story from our past or present life. The...
Learning through doing — Lesson #1: Listen
tomharman:
In the shadow of the Williamsburg bridge. Shelves upon shelves of wooden blocks and sculpted artifacts. The smell of the forest and seasoned machinery.
This was the scene on Saturday, when I sat down with cross-disciplinary craftsman, Tim Daly. An interview, which marked the first in a series of short films I plan to make, focusing on unearthing principles of Cybernetics and system...
“Killing bad ideas is fine. Killing good ideas isn’t all that bad, either. What’s...”
– Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman of Oglivy, in an interview with creativebrief. (via dumplingboy)
Taking your own advice
barbaradewilde:
I went back to Penn State for an alumni design event last year. I hadn’t been back to school in 15 years and, I have to say, it was great to visit. The design studio wasn’t in the same building, the old tables that were lacquered with spray mount residue had been replaced with modern work spaces. There was lots of room, it was clean. The students were great. I gave a talk about...
A Close Meet with 3D Printing World
shanshangao:
Back to middle of Feb, due to my knowledgable Entrepreunuer teacher, Gary and Christina introduction, I sent a cold email to a 3D printing teacher, Aaron who has been worked on industrial design for 15 years. I expressed us, interaction designers, desire of learning 3D printing skills, which I quote here,
“Dear Aaron Trocoia,
I’m Shanshan, an interaction design student from School...
Notes for Talking to Anil
tonyhschu:
I just sent an email to Anil Dash to invite him to coffee. Not just because his blog was one of the first I read when I was a teenager. Not just because I was inspired to work on the web because of his work. I want to buy Anil coffee because I want to chat about role an interaction design might play in the digital future of democracy.
So here are my notes for what I want to talk to...
Time travelling
gurivenstad:
About a year ago, I spent both days and nights making the 18 pairs of shoes for Fam Irvoll’s fashion collection. I had so much fun doing this, and it was a really good break from the work I was doing at that time. While I was sanding what was to become the heels, I was wondering where I would find myself the following year. I knew that I really wanted to go to New York, and I was...
Reaching out to an award-winning global...
joonseobae:
About a week ago, I wrote a blog post called Going from ‘greed is good’ to ‘greed for good” on the role of an innovator based on Fast Company’s interview with Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran, an award winning correspondent for The Economist. He recently wrote a book called Need, Speed and Greed: How the New Rules of Innovation Can Transform Businesses, Propel Nations to Greatness and Tame the...
Time travelling
gurivenstad:
About a year ago, I spent both days and nights making the 18 pairs of shoes for Fam Irvoll’s fashion collection. I had so much fun doing this, and it was a really good break from the work I was doing at that time. While I was sanding what was to become the heels, I was wondering where I would find myself the following year. I knew that I really wanted to go to New York, and I was...
A Close Meet with 3D Printing World
shanshangao:
Back to middle of Feb, due to my knowledgable Entrepreunuer teacher, Gary and Christina introduction, I sent a cold email to a 3D printing teacher, Aaron who has been worked on industrial design for 15 years. I expressed us, interaction designers, desire of learning 3D printing skills, which I quote here,
“Dear Aaron Trocoia,
I’m Shanshan, an interaction design student from School...
be online worker
minseungsong:
Spend at least 60 minutes acting as a worker. I like all assignments from entrepreneurial class. This assignment is one of the my favorite. I was so curious, how does it work and how can I make. Finally I did 2 tasks, I haven’t got much money but learn many things.
1. Amazon Mechanical Turk
Cool concept. I can make money using my knowledge! Yes! but sadly reward is so small. I...
“Like I said at the outset, it’s all about practice. Whether you’re...”
– Making Money by Jason Fried of 37Signals
“Jason Fried reveals how he got good at making money. I am not a full-fledged...”
– How to make money: practice from Kottke
Mining Thesis -Week 1
sanarao:
Here we are, a bunch of 14 eager Interaction Design students who have no idea what the process of thesis will be all about. All uniquely equipped to do the one thing that only we can do and no one else. That being my biggest takeaway from our first Thesis Preparation class, I am excited when I look back at what we have achieved through the last two semesters here and think about how...
Watchtomharman:
Four weeks ago, Sana, Prachi, Barbara and I started brainstorming. It was much colder at the time so we set about designing something that would help people warm their extremities without requiring the use of thermal underwear or snow boots. We wanted a solution that would be discreet and elegant enough to work for cocktail parties and evening soirées.
Our prototype, Chaffe-eau,...
Tina Roth Eisenberg interviewed on The Great... →
“I love it when people think I had a strategy with building the swissmiss empire; that is not the case. I’m a gut reaction person. If something feels right and looks like fun, I go for it.”
“The purity of human expression and experience is not confined to guitars, to...”
– Bruce Springsteen’s SXSW Keynote: “Listen up youngsters: this is how successful theft is accomplished.” (via garychou)
minnieblogs:
thesis one
Today is/was my 3-0 birthday. I walked out at 7:30 this morning and haven’t been home since. Work, class, then staying in studio to do homework for tomorrow. Sitting next to me is half eaten cupcake from my boss - all creamy and festive with sprinkles.
Going through baby blues, I promised myself not to get swayed by my emotions (negative) this semester. I just had to go...
“In the early 1980s, German artist Gerhard Richter painted 24 views of flickering...”
– Give it time… (via brycedotvc)
How This Entrepreneur Raised $28,000 Using Airbnb... →
Week 4: What is a company and why does one start...
Week 4, the close of the first month, seemed a good time for soul-searching, and so that’s what we did: we spent the classes thinking through why one starts a company and heard from people who have and have not started companies.
Self-described nerd and Tumblr EVP Andrew McLaughlin was our first guest for “story time,” an informal chat during which he (wait for it .. ) told stories from his...
Khoi Vinh on client services
The End of Client Services versus In Defense of Client Services
What I Learned When I Started a Design Studio by... →
How to Bootstrap by Spencer Fry →
In my 10+ years of running Internet companies, I’ve never raised a single dime, yet I’ve still gone on to sell three profitable companies and am currently on my fourth, Carbonmade. Bootstrapping is something I’m very familiar with, so I’ve gathered together some thoughts that should provide you a step-by-step process of going from idea to product to profitability. I have...
First time watercolor instagr.am/p/IQu8KAHAwV/
— Nikki Sylianteng (@nsylianteng) March 17, 2012
Fragments of Ricocheting Thoughts: The Market and... →
tonyhschu:
Why worry that we are moving toward a society in which everything is up for sale? From What Isn’t for Sale? in the Atlantic by Michael J. Sandel.
For two reasons. One is about inequality, the other about corruption. First, consider inequality. In a society where everything is for sale,…
Words.: You, as a Cat →
speckledwords:
I needed to get Twitter famous. Or just mildly influential. I needed to create some kind of content that would get shouted out by RTs, reblogs, or shared at least twenty times. (class assignment, I swear)
My early hopes were that it would just kind of happen, a by result of being awesome or…
On the Salvador Dali of magic →
bobulate:
Career advice from one half of magician duo, Penn & Teller:
Have heroes outside of magic. Mine are Hitchcock, Poe, Sophocles, Shakespeare, and Bach. You’re welcome to borrow them, but you must learn to love them yourself for your own reasons. Then they’ll push you in the right direction… Love something besides magic, in the arts. Get inspired by a particular poet, film-maker,...
