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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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Not Moving from Movable Type

Movable TypeFor the time being, I’m sticking with Movable Type as the publishing system for Subtraction.com as well as A Brief Message. It’s not that I’m still enamored of it; as anyone who’s been patient and persistent enough to post remarks on my posts lately (thank you, by the way) will attest to, my particular installation of Movable Type is often painfully slow, and the version that I’m using, 3.33, gets longer in the tooth every day.

I’ve complained about this before, but the reason I’m staying put is that the switching cost is too high for me at the moment. I just can’t imagine investing the time necessary to re-create these templates in another publishing system; that’s a project for when I get laid off. I’m also holding out hope that a coming revision to its promising but not quite ready for prime time fourth version will modernize Movable Type sufficiently that switching to a competing package will offer fewer advantages. I still maintain that going over to WordPress would be trading in one set of problems for another (I know there will be many people who disagree with me on that point).

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Form of… a Book about Forms!

If you design Web pages with any kind of transactional component and you’re not paying attention to this, then you should: the talented interface designer Luke Wroblewski is currently in full promotional mode for his upcoming book “Web Form Design Best Practices,” to be published soon from Rosenfeld Media.

Clearly, they’ll have to come up with a sexier title than that if they ever adapt the book into a major motion picture, but at least it makes no bones as to what it’s about: designing highly intuitive and efficient forms for capturing user inputs on the Web. You can get a kind of preview of the content over at his blog, where this one essay on optimizing sign-up forms for wireless networks will teach you more about the art of interaction design than most courses will teach you in a year.

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The Little Keyboard That Could—n’t

iPhone KeyboardLet’s not even talk about the horrible wincing I did when I learned that Apple lowered the price of its iPhone today by US$200 — a mere eight and one-half weeks after I dutifully and idiotically waited in line to buy one. Apparently, there are some avenues of recourse available to us early adopters, but here’s my take: I have neither the time nor the energy in my life to go charging back up this particular hill. I knew what this thing cost when I bought it, and I knew it was going to go down in price one day, and so here we are.

In a tangentially related matter, the lower iPhone prices and the introduction of the iPod touch presumably means that more and more customers will soon be exposed to the wonders of Apple’s multi-touch, software keyboard. On that, I have something to say.

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Technical Brief

Wow, the response to A Brief Message so far has been terrific. Thanks to everyone who posted comments on the site, on last night’s post, or who wrote in to me with your support — and to everyone who read the site, too! My partner-in-crime Liz Danzico and I worked long and hard to make this happen, and the encouragement has been deeply gratifying.

I just wanted to take the time to write a few additional notes about the site to clarify some points, and also to hash out some technical details.

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A Lengthy Message About A Brief Message

Welcome back from the summer holidays, everyone. If you’re ready to dive into fall, then I have just the thing for you: a brand new Web site that I’ve been cooking up for several months now with my good friend Liz Danzico. The site is called A Brief Message. As of 11:45p tonight, it’s live, so you can go and visit it right now and read the inaugural article from the incomparable Steven Heller.

If we did our jobs right, you’ll get the gist of A Brief Message in about thirty seconds, tops. You can also read the introduction from Liz, who is the site’s editor-in-chief, for more insight. (She also has a great write-up on her site.)

I’ve been toiling away all weekend to get this launched — and the whole concept of the site is brevity — so I don’t want to go into too much detail here. But I will add a few comments that, hopefully, will round out the ideas driving this new entry into the arena of sites about design.

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End of Summer Remainders

As I mentioned on Wednesday, it’s quiet around here this week. That’s why I’m going to dump a bunch of links into another round-up post, and then set off to enjoy the three-day weekend… though I may be back at my desk as soon as tomorrow. Anyway, just a warning that some of these are older tidbits I’ve had kicking around for a while. That’s why I’m burying them here on the last Friday in August!

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The August Work Ethic

Are you on vacation these last few days of August? If so then what are you doing staring at a computer screen, reading my blog?

Me, I’m at the office throughout this slow, concluding week of the summer. But if I weren’t, if I had time off, I think I’d do what I haven’t done yet all year, even on the ostensible holidays I’ve taken: fall off the grid entirely and relax properly — without telephones, without text messages, without the Internet.

We don’t do that enough in the States and I sometimes regret it painfully. European readers know what I’m talking about. Just before the calendar turns to September, the cities empty out and the shops close in a kind of workers’ solidarity like no labor strike ever seen on American shores.

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