Little Orange Icons

XML StandardThe world of XML syndication is still a soup of acronyms and counter-intuitive terminology — RSS, Atom, XML, feeds, aggregation, ’casts, etc. — but at the very least, we’re inching towards visual standardization in how we represent it iconographically. Microsoft, in an uncharacteristic but laudable show of cooperativeness, agreed late last year to adopt Firefox’s orange RSS/XML icon — a rounded little square with featuring what might be best described as ISO-style broadcast waves — for its Internet Explorer 7 browser.

I like this icon, but it has its shortcomings: First, it too neatly sidesteps the issue of what flavor of XML feed it’s representing, which would require, in some instances, that it be accompanied by a text label. No standards or guidelines exist for such text labels, as far as I know. And second, even with a text label, it can be fairly diminutive on a page, causing it to get overlooked easily.

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Museum-quality Design Talkin’

Last night I went to a lecture by Paola Antonelli, the Museum of Modern Art᾿s Curator in their Department of Architecture and Design. The event was part of the AIGA New York’s long-running series of “Small Talks,” which features various luminaries of design speaking in relatively intimate venues — a really great program, by the way.

Antonelli is responsible for a series of acclaimed design exhibitions at MoMA over the past decade or so: “Humble Masterpieces,” which examined objects modest in size and price that also happen to be indispensable design accomplishments; “Workspheres,” which examined the evolving ideas behind the spaces in which we work; and a comprehensive retrospective of the legendary designer Achille Castiligioni, among others. They’re all original and impressive curatorial visions, but they also all focus on design in three-dimensions; architecture and industrial design have benefitted the most from the museum’s surveys of the design arts, while graphic design has suffered the most by neglect. In fact, the museum’s own permanent graphic design collection is somewhat narrow, devoted almost exclusively to twentieth century posters, which doesn’t exactly make for comprehensiveness.

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Museum-quality Design Talkin’

Last night I went to a lecture by Paola Antonelli, the Museum of Modern Art᾿s Curator in their Department of Architecture and Design. The event was part of the AIGA New York’s long-running series of “Small Talks,” which features various luminaries of design speaking in relatively intimate venues — a really great program, by the way.

Antonelli is responsible for a series of acclaimed design exhibitions at MoMA over the past decade or so: “Humble Masterpieces,” which examined objects modest in size and price that also happen to be indispensable design accomplishments; “Workspheres,” which examined the evolving ideas behind the spaces in which we work; and a comprehensive retrospective of the legendary designer Achille Castiligioni, among others. They’re all original and impressive curatorial visions, but they also all focus on design in three-dimensions; architecture and industrial design have benefitted the most from the museum’s surveys of the design arts, while graphic design has suffered the most by neglect. In fact, the museum’s own permanent graphic design collection is somewhat narrow, devoted almost exclusively to twentieth century posters, which doesn’t exactly make for comprehensiveness.

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Reading About Talking About “Getting Real”

The Adobe Design Center, an online magazine exploring all manner of digital creativity, has just published an interview that I conducted with 37signals front man Jason Fried. At first glance, the presentation of the article looks misleadingly as if it focuses on me, when in fact it’s actually a serious conversation about Fried, 37signals and their “Getting Real” approach to Web application development. I tried to pose a string of serious questions as to the practicality of “Getting Real,” both to satisfy my own curiosity and also to try to get Jason to respond to some of the contradictory experience and feedback that I’ve heard about the approach. I think I did a pretty decent job that sheds a little bit more light on this emerging developmental philosophy, but you be the judge. You can read the interview here.

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Reading About Talking About “Getting Real”

The Adobe Design Center, an online magazine exploring all manner of digital creativity, has just published an interview that I conducted with 37signals front man Jason Fried. At first glance, the presentation of the article looks misleadingly as if it focuses on me, when in fact it’s actually a serious conversation about Fried, 37signals and their “Getting Real” approach to Web application development. I tried to pose a string of serious questions as to the practicality of “Getting Real,” both to satisfy my own curiosity and also to try to get Jason to respond to some of the contradictory experience and feedback that I’ve heard about the approach. I think I did a pretty decent job that sheds a little bit more light on this emerging developmental philosophy, but you be the judge. You can read the interview here.

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Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About My Day but Were Afraid to Ask

An Event ApartMy speaking session on day one of An Event Apart New York City is called “Dawn ’til Dusk with a Design Director.” The idea is to compress one of my typical work days into a breezy little talk, with the hope that eighteen waking hours of activity will make for at least fifty-five minutes of entertainment. Heaven help me if it doesn’t.

I’ll be chronicling everything design related that happens to me, starting more or less from the moment I wake up, through my day at the office, and into the evening, as I slave in front of my computer in service to this blog and other extracurricular projects. Along the way, and with some humility, I hope to convey at least a few interesting lessons on how good design is created and managed, the various ways design informs those activities not explicitly design related, and maybe even how to have a life outside of design.

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