Elevator Expertise from an Expert

Back in June, I wrote a rant about the unorthodox and not entirely successful innovation baked into the elevators at the new Times building. As I learned afterwards, they were designed according to a principle of elevator service called destination-based dispatching. The basic idea is that, rather than putting passengers on the first elevator car that arrives, the system routes passengers to the cars that will deliver them to their destinations most quickly.

This approach somewhat upends the traditional way passengers interact with elevators. Instead of hopping on the first car that arrives and punching a button for a floor, a passenger punches the button for her floor first, on a keypad available at the elevator bank. The system then directs her to, say, car number three, along with other passengers heading to the same floor. Once on the elevator, there are no buttons, nothing to push. It’s a little strange. At least the way it’s been implemented at our building, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

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From Me to You

After raising the possibility of a Subtraction.com Email Newsletter last month, I did some hunting around at the various email list services out there and settled on two main contenders: the well-regarded Campaign Monitor and the similarly capable Mail Chimp. They’re basically comparable, though I admit that I felt compelled to give the latter a try first because, well, chimps are just cuter than monitors.

That said, I’ve passed on both of them for the time being. Instead, I took the cheap route and opted for the built-in announcement list functionality provided by Dreamhost. Say what you will about Dreamhost’s spotty uptime record and sluggish performance, but they offer a terrific feature set for one-person Web empires like Subtraction.com. Their fairly complete if unglamorous set of tools for mailing lists, publishing software, ecommerce and other digital empire-building endeavors are really easy to set-up, and they come at no additional cost.

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A Brief Message, Briefly

AIGA Executive Director Ric Grefé has written a powerful piece for us over at A Brief Message. It’s a timely reminder for today, the sixth anniversary of September 11th, in which he encourages designers to take advantage of the unique opportunity we have to effect change in the world. I found it to be stirring and quite inspiration, and I think it’s well worth reading. Plus there’s a beautiful illustration by Viktor Kohen, a true master of the medium, that quite remarkably interprets Ric’s words.

Also, in case you missed it, last Thursday, we ran a terrific Message from Debbie Millman about design and beauty, which was illustrated by the singularly talented Felix Sockwell. As it happens, Felix will be appearing for AIGA New York tonight at the first of this season’s Small Talks. He’ll be joined on stage by Peter Bell and Herman Miller, Inc.’s Steve Frykholm to talk about how they collaborated together on that company’s “Be” product line. I’ll be there and please say hello if you’ll be too — though unfortunately it’s sold out if you don’t have tickets already.

Okay, I promise not to alert you here every time we post updates to A Brief Message. For now, you’ll just have to forgive my continued excitability; we’re having a lot of fun on this project.

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Clothes Make the Design Director

This morning I woke up and dressed myself all wrong. I don’t know why, but I dressed like an idiot. I put on a short-sleeved, collared shirt that, once I arrived at the office, seemed entirely inappropriate for the workplace; a pair of light brown corduroys that somehow seemed more ill-fitting today than anytime I’ve worn them before; and a pair of black, Chuck Taylor All-Stars-style sneakers more fit for a playground than a meeting room.

If I recall vaguely amid my early morning brain fog, my intention was to fancy the whole ensemble up a bit with a pair of the dress shoes that I keep at the office, but when I got there I was reminded that I kind of hate those shoes. I thought maybe I’d add a blazer I keep in the closet and sort of cover up my shame, but all of a sudden this blazer, which I’ve had for a few years, made me look as big as a house. So I resigned myself to going through the day looking like some kind of “Leave It to Beaver” reject stuck in design school. Pick me for your artsy kickball team!

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