I saw Disney Pixar’s “Up” last night at New York’s famously outsized Ziegfeld Theater, where the audience was shockingly sparse. Only half of the seats in the house were filled, if that, which I found to be amazing and, for a Saturday evening show at one of the city’s premier cinema houses, somewhat appalling too. To be sure, Pixar films do well, and “Up” is well on its way to a healthy profit. But adjusted for ticket price inflation, the movie’s opening weekend gross makes it only the fifth-best performing of all of Pixar’s theatrical releases.

In this lengthy and somewhat incredible conversation, Geoff Manaugh talks with gaming critic and author of the personal narrative and philosophical reflection “This Gaming Life: Travels in Three Cities” about points of commonality and departure between architecture and video games. Along the way, they explore fascinating territory, including ideas about how creativity in both fields — and by extension, design in general — is influenced by competition or the lack thereof, and the disconnect between the buildings architects design and the architectural environments the same architects might enjoy in video game worlds. Actually, there is so much good stuff in this interview that it would take me all day to excerpt and comment on everything I found enlightening or revealing. Highly recommended, and worth reading through to the end.

A blog from creative strategy consultant Richard Smith focusing on ideas for redesigning U.S. currency, with an open policy for accepting idea submissions. The proposed designs from Michael Tyznik and Michelle Haft are quite pretty. However, it seems as if most submitting designers are neglecting the very real usability problem of the lack of size distinction among the various denominations — a one-dollar bill is the same size as a one-hundred dollar bill, which means they’re practically indistinguishable from one another to many visually impaired people.

Author Phil Patton notes the allure and recent popularity of dissected, diagrammatic visualizations of complex objects, especially in three dimensions. “The exploded drawing suggests the desire graphic designers feel to move into three dimensions… [it] is a place where the graphic artist meets the sculptor.” Of particular interest is Patton’s reference to Damián Ortega’s exploded view sculptures, like this one:

A terrific disquisition on the art of creating compelling levels in single-player video games. Even for a confirmed non-gamer like myself, the author’s thoughtful analysis is a fascinating breakdown of what goes into this particular brand of user experience. Not all of these concepts are applicable to every design problem, but every designer can learn a little something about how to think about users from these principles, I think.

“‘Pacing’ is a word bandied around a lot when talking about level design, but it is actually a very complex concept to pin down. Just how does the pace affect the player’s perception of the level and what is it that sets a well paced level apart from a poorly paced one?

“With these questions ringing in my ears I was determined to try and delve a little deeper into just what constitutes level pacing, but I found very little literature on the subject. Instead I decided to focus my efforts on breaking down the core elements of what determines pace itself. In doing so I identified several key aspects of game pace: movement impetus: the will of the player to move through the level; threat: the notion of danger; tension: the atmosphere and mood of the level or perceived danger which is reflected in the player; tempo: the level of actual action currently being experienced by the player.”

Designer Grace Smith sent me an email asking if I would reveal the contents of my Mac OS X Dock― and I did!

In its latest issue, British design magazine Eye ran a feature story about the well-publicized dissolution of the trendsetting design studio The Designers Republic. I’m a longtime fan of the studio and most (not all) of its work, but as this letter to the editor points out, the story Eye published amounts to little more than further publicity for TDR’s reconstitution under the same name, in smaller form — critical analysis it was not. Kudos to Eye for having the temerity to publish this on its blog.

“FPO is a blog dedicated to both the visual stimulus and the detailing of the development and production of printed matter: annual reports, books, business cards, stationery suites, collateral materials, posters, packaging and anything else where ink meets substrate.” Brought to you by Bryony Gomez-Palacio and Armin Vit, who were responsible for the recently shuttered Speak Up.

Enlightening visualization of how much ground various underground transportation systems cover relative to one another. They’re presented in an appropriately spare manner, too, though it would be nice to be able to overlay them, one on top of the other.

Wonderful, irresistibly endearing and nearly forgotten cover illustrations from a half-century ago, dug up by the folks at Asbury & Asbury.

“The Special Collections of RIT Library at the Rochester Institute of Technology is the repository for a collection of 99 posters and 4 record covers designed by Jacqueline Casey dating from 1963 to 1990. Jacqueline Casey worked as a graphic designer for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during those years and the posters promote activities and events on campus. In 1992, the MIT Museum donated the posters to RIT Library, RIT, in accordance with Ms. Casey’s wishes.”

There are some stunning posters in this collection. Completely worth navigating the amazingly inelegant, institutional-style cataloging interface in which they’re presented. Via Grain Edit. More at AisleOne.

Bam! Clunk! Whap! A visual catalog of the interstitial fight-scene titles from the old “Batman” television series. Seen collected like this, they’re actually quite beautiful. According to this blog post, the most popular titles were “Kapow!” (used 50 times) and “Boff!” (used 43 times). Now you know.