Really Simple Sending

MailChimpLet’s say you’re one of the many people out there for whom the current dissatisfactory state of RSS readers effectively prevents you from using this site’s feed to keep up with what I write here at Subtraction.com. Or, let’s say my rather erratic publishing habits — sometimes several times a day, and other times not for days on end — make it difficult for you to remember to tune in on a regular basis. Well, have I got the solution for you.

For several months now I’ve been testing a new feature over at the just plain cute MailChimp service that they call RSS-to-Email Newsletter; which does exactly what the name implies — automagically convert what I publish on this blog into email form. And now it’s finally ready for the public.

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Creative Review: Harry Beck’s London Underground and Paris Metro Maps

Ratings

4 of 5 stars
What’s this?

A fascinating exploration of the origins, challenges and evolution of these seminal information graphics from two major urban transit systems. Having employed modern mapping abstraction to great effect in London, the designer Harry Beck was hired to do the same for Paris. His final submitted version was ultimately rejected, in part because it was too evocative of the London map — or not distinctly Parisian enough. But after decades of additional design revision, the current Paris Metro map is essentially the same as what Beck designed.

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Beast Pieces

Ratings

4 of 5 stars
What’s this?

The design and letterpress blog of Studio on Fire, a letterpress printer based in Minneapolis. Full of rapturous, close-up photography of luxuriously printed letterheads, business cards and other samples. For those who fetishize the tactile quality of letterforms and shapes pressed deeply into thick, fibrous papers, this could be NSFW.

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People Want Coffee Even in a Snowstorm

People Want Coffee Even in a Snowstorm

I was really feeling sorry for myself for having to put on my winter boots in order to make it through the snowstorm and cold weather to get to work yesterday. And then, right there in front of The New York Times building, was a reminder of how thoroughly pampered and just plain soft I am: at least I got to wake up hours later than the woman running this coffee and pastry cart, and at least I don’t have to spend my workday beneath the flimsy protection from the elements that her cart provides, and at least it’s warm enough inside my office for me to take off my coat. In retrospect, I really should have bought a cup of coffee from her that morning.

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Fed up with Feed Readers

It’s probably unrealistic to expect to ever find the perfect RSS reader for my own feed consumption habits, but boy is it frustrating that I can’t. I’ve been looking for years, trying every solution I can get my hands on. But compared to the feed management tools that were available as long as five years ago, it feels as if there’s been only incremental progress.

This is at least partly due to the essentially non-industrial nature of RSS reading. Whether you’re a casual RSS consumer or an expert, the majority of feed consumption does not directly produce income or revenue for the consumer. Rather, it’s an activity that’s highly personal in nature, and so naturally subject to a greater variety of individual whims and preferences than, say, word processing. This is why we have RSS functionality in so many different forms: as dedicated desktop clients, embedded in email clients, grafted onto browsers, bundled up as widgets and remotely rendered as Web applications. Not inappropriately, there’s no consensus on how to use this stuff.

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How Has the Economic Downturn Affected AIGA?

Ratings

3 of 5 stars
What’s this?

An assessment of the organization’s status during from executive director Ric Grefé: “AIGA… needs to meet members’ expectations in a leaner form, with reduced staff and financial resources, working smarter where we cannot work harder. This is not to say that AIGA is in danger — we have a solid financial foundation, with reserves of more than US$1 million and the number of designers who continue to maintain their memberships exceeds 21,000. Yet we expect sponsorship to be more difficult to attract, and that attendance at conferences and participation in the competitions may weaken.”

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