Today was my first faculty meeting. I never had to go to these in all my years as an adjunct. Oh, wait. I take that back. I did go to a few at MICA. Anyway, I’ve read a little on the difference between working in industry vs academia. One of the marked differences is the [...]
Today is the first day of the rest of my life. And this is the hallway where I’ll be spending the immediate future: the Visual Arts department at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. See all those posters? Student work. But my crit walls will be filled with iPad comps and wireframes. Because honestly, who [...]
Let me tell you a little story about a Blackberry, bad design, a deaf man, and an airplane. I was flying back from Savannah, Georgia (from, ironically, an interaction design conference) on a rescheduled flight after my original flight had been canceled due to the monster storms that hit the mid-Atlantic last month. I was [...]
I heard a piece on WYPR the other day on consequential strangers and how important they are in our daily lives. I then found this article in Time Magazine: If you look at the relationship continuum from stranger to soul mate, consequential strangers fall in that vast territory just beyond strangers and just short of [...]
Last semester, I taught a course on visualizing information at MICA. I used Tufte's first book, The Visual Display of Quantitative information. I love Tufte. I love his simple, Swiss modern approach to design. His strict belief in form following function. His unwavering defense of content and firm assertion that data presented must be [...]
My post using Omm Writer – beautiful white space for writing in. I have always, always loved snow, having spent most of my childhood knee-deep in it. So this recent post on Design Observer about snow, cities, and white space deeply resonated with me. The author talks about snow as the ultimate white space in [...]
Photograph of a type assignment submitted by Cécile Ingarao for my Typography II course at MICA, Spring 2009. Have you ever noticed that most designers share a few common preferences? Wearing lots of black, for example. And funky glasses. And for riding fixies and drinking artisinal espresso? I have noticed. And wondered why. Take espresso. Why [...]
On the steps of the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC. This taken with my Holga (I think), on one of my lunches. My gym is right across the street. Lately, I’ve been thinking about cities and use cases…. I’ve also been intrigued by this new social media service called Gowalla. Have you heard of it? [...]
Near Fell's Point in Baltimore, on my way back from taking Michaela to work. She's learning to drive. I figure the East Coast is a good place to learn how to drive defensively, as long as you don't get killed in the process. East Coast drivers are insane. Anyway, driving around Baltimore is in stark [...]
In my ongoing thinking about the city as an interface – as an operating system, if you will, of this thing we call Earth – I picked up a book I bought while in grad school: Universal Principles of Design. It lists a multitude of various design elements and principles to consider when designing. I'm [...]