Dream Ball

Seoul, Korea studio UnPlug Design came up with this near-genius idea for providing makeshift soccer balls (okay, footballs) to third world children who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford them. A wave-like pattern is printed (or perhaps perforated?) on the boxes in which material aid to these countries is often shipped; once the box is empty of its contents, children and aid workers can follow the patterns to break down the cardboard and assemble the ball. More background and pictures here.

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Alex Cornell Interviews Experimental Jetset

An engaging and thoughtful question-and-answer session with the renowned Dutch design studio. Cornell asks for their opinion on a blog post I wrote last April called “Dear Designers, You Suck” in which I addressed the state of criticism in design today — and Experimental Jetset’s response is so different from my perspective and so interesting:

“We’re much more interested graphic design as criticism: the idea that a piece of graphic design is a manifestation of a certain way of thinking, a certain way of ordering the world, and that, by functioning in that way, that piece of graphic design is effectively critiquing the dominant way of thinking, the existing way of ordering the world.”

Read the entire interview here. While you’re at it, marvel at the rest of Cornell’s site to get a sense of why I’m so intensely envious of him: a young, talented, prolific designer with the authorial skills and time to publish regularly on his terrific blog. If only.

Update: Embarrassingly, I’ve gotten Alex mixed up with his employer, Scott Hansen. Sloppy mistake, sorry.

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A Makeover for the BART Map

An appraisal of the new transit system map for the Bay Area. “Unlike the notorious 1972 Massimo Vignelli redesign of the New York City subway map, the new BART map didn’t make much of a splash in graphic design circles.”

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The Secret History of Kubrick

As the semi-famous default theme for WordPress faces retirement later this year, The Huffington Post takes a look at how it came to be. It’s nice to see its designer, Michael Heilemann, get the credit, but the writer may go a little too far in playing up its importance:

“When Heilemann came to blogging, the Internet was studded with posts that were essentially diary entries, blocks of text with the occasional awkwardly situated photograph. The template he came up with was entirely different — at once elegant and open to innovation. Since its debut, Kubrick has helped change the face of cyberspace…”

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Indie Game Design Dos and Don’ts

A twenty-four point manifesto for independent video game designers and developers. While some points may come across asаbromides, the whole thing is written with enough conviction to be a compelling read — and while aimed at one particular kind of designer, it’s applicable to designers of all kinds.

For a kick, also see this contrarian comment posted by one reader. Excerpt: “‘Fun’ is a word with a lot of bad connotations for me.” That’s what you call a hater.

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Recent U.I. Progress for Firefox 4.0 on Windows

Longtime Firefox user interface designer Stephen Horlander offers an update on his continuing work on the browser’s next Windows version. It’s a fascinating peek behind the scenes at how an intensively scrutinized design project balances platform evolution, user feedback, team input and new ideas. It’s well worth a read, as is this wiki page that more formally documents how the user interface is changing with upcoming releases.

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