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Part (1) Making and Breaking the Grid
Have you read this book? It was written by Timothy Samara in 2002, which makes it an interesting design time capsule of sorts. Itâs content is 75% print design and 25% âdigital,â which basically meant webpages and
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Part (2) Speaking of DesignâŠ
Iâm just about done gathering speakers for this yearâs HOW Interactive conference in Chicago in October. This is the fifth year Iâve been involved in the planning of this conference, and the second time Iâve been the Program Director. Taking on that role has given me the opportunity to take some risks and try to push this thing forward a bit more aggressively. Last year, we had a really strong roster of speakers, each of whom covered a topic in what was ultimately a pedagogically ordered program â you know, here are all the things you probably need to know about this field right now, ordered in such a way as to build upon one another, from the simple, foundational concepts to the eventually more complex. But this year, I wanted to try something completely different.
See, last year, I was sitting among the audience of another conference, listening to a brilliant designer describe three different projects heâd worked on over the course of his career. With each one, he exposed a lot: How he found himself working on the project, what his goals were, what he knew how to do and what was a complete moon-shot, what worked and what didnât, and how he got from there to the next one. He showed images and video of work that influenced his projects, lots of footage behind-the-scenes as he worked, and, of course, he showed the final product. It was the ultimate special-features package. He didnât waste any time with why-you-should headlines, bullet point directives, or the slick, quick theory Iâve grown so accustomed to at design conferences. Instead, he put me right where I wanted to be: in the studio with him, making things, learning, discovering. I hadnât been so inspired in a very long time. I thought to myself, what if an entire conference could be like this?
I held on to that thought for the rest of the year. I wasnât sure why, but there was something about that idea â a conference entirely of show-and-tell â that I just couldnât let go.
A few months later, I and the rest of the HOW team were working through ideas for this yearâs HOW Interactive Conference in Chicago and it hit me. This was our opportunity to make that show-and-tell event Iâd dreamed of a reality. And we have.
This October, HOW Interactive in Chicago is entirely made up of expert, accomplished designers presenting case studies of their work. Thatâs it. Pure show-and-tell. Why? Because we need to hear how things actually are, not how they should be. We need the real â as messy as it may be â not the theoretical. That isnât to say that theyâre necessarily opposed to one another. Itâs just that weâve made stories from the field the priority this time, knowing that the theory that undergirds any successful work will be imparted by way of hearing how it was done.
I canât name-drop just yet â not all the speaker agreements are signed; not all the checks are cut â but I can tell you that we have designers coming from some amazing places to share their work. Theyâll be coming from Google, NPR, LinkedIn, Code for America, GDS UK, Buzzfeed, and some truly talented agencies here and abroad. The site should be updated in the next week or so to reflect the final program. Keep it in mind. If you decide to go, let me know so we can hang.
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Part (3) All the brand names I can see while typing without turning my head or moving my eyes
Paul Ford did this on his blog in 2003. Interesting to see the brands of then vs. now.
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Part (4) My next book will be called, Weird Things That Happen to You When Youâve Written a Book That No One Cares About
âŠbecause one thing that happens to you when youâve written a book that no one cares about is that youâll receive a cryptic voicemail that you can barely understand except for the phone number, which youâll write down on a post-it note and then call five minutes before the end of your day. This decision will prove to have been a mistake, psychologically. The phone will ring twice, and then an older womanâs voice will say,
âHello, Somethingunintelligible Community College.â
Then youâll say, âHi, my name is Chris Butler. I received a voicemail today from someone calling from your number?â
âHold on please,â sheâll reply. And then youâll hear a click. Youâll think for a second that maybe sheâs hung up on you, butâŠ
âHello, Somethingunintelligible Community College.â
This will be a different but similar-sounding lady.
So youâll repeat, âHi, my name is Chris Butler. I received a voicemail today from someone calling from your number?â
And new lady will say, âOh yes. Well. Weâve adopted your book as a text for one of our inter uh interact uh Iâve design courses and weâre trying to get an instructor copy. But we canât seem to get in touch with the publisher.â
âOh. Well, have you tried just ordering it directly from the publisherâs site or from Amazon?â youâll ask. Then youâll pull up your publisherâs online store and find your book there. And seeing that it is going for a very low price, youâll say, âAnd you can get it right now for the very low price â its lowest price ever, actually â ten bucks!â
And she will not laugh at this. Even though you said it in your funny infomercial voice.
âOh, no,â sheâll say. âWhen we adopt a book for our courses, we usually let the publisher know and they send us an instructor copy directly.â
Then youâll see where this is going and it will make you feel sad. But you donât show sad to strangers, so, âOhhhh,â youâll say. âYou mean youâre looking for a free copy.â
And saying that will make her uncomfortable.
âIâM SAYING we USUALLY get an instructor copy and weâve been TRYING and TRYING to get through to the PUBLISHER but NO ONE will call us back and this has been VERY frustrating here.â
At this point, youâll feel frustrated yourself, as the author of this book the woman feels entitled to receiving free of charge, and youâll want to remind her that you just wrote the thing, you donât sell it, though it would be nice to know that people are actually buying it rather than getting it for free, but sheâll interrupt this line of thought and sayâŠ
âCouldnât you help us get in touch with the publisher? Weâve NEVER had such a PROBLEM getting a book before. Donât you have a name or a phone number or ANYTHING?â
And now youâll want to say that surely the value of all this time spent trying to track down a free copy of your book must exceed the ten-dollar price tag and that just clicking âbuyâ on Amazon right now would solve the whole darn thing and you and she could go back to doing whatever it is that youâd rather be doing, but you wonât say this because youâll be in a sort of shock, really, that thereâs interest in your book but not in paying for it and that the person interested in your book knows that you wrote it â that sheâs talking to the author right now, phone to phone, in real time â but still treats you with the sort of contempt reserved for a customer service person standing in the way of this lady getting what she so obviously deserves.
So youâll give this lady the name and phone number of your editor, and youâll feel like youâre naming names to McCarthy, and sheâll say,
âWell I truly hope this is the last person I have to call about this. Iâm sorry it had to come all the way to you.â
And youâll say, âSo am I.â
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On Screen: Coda is a gorgeous nine-minute animated short about a lost soul running from Death. âI just need more time,â he pleads. âSo be it,â answers Death. And then they disappear into the night. In completely unrelated screen-based entertainment, you can play Simcity Classic and Oregon Trail in your browser, courtesy of the Internet Archive.
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Recent Tabs: This is perhaps the most honest and horrific account of cancer Iâve ever read, but itâs also the most beautiful account of sacrifice and friendship, too. âOne latter-day Medici posted a review of my book on Amazon complaining that even 99 cents was too expensive for what was just a âblog post.â Iâve often wondered if he was writing that comment in a Starbucks, sipping a $6 cup of coffee that took two minutes to prepare.â That quote from Peter Wayner, in The Atlantic, on Amazonâs new pay-per-page-read model. Publishing at the extremes: 140 characters or 3,000 words. The in-between is ignored. We need a Cold War-level of investment in research into new technologies to mitigate the coming effects of global warming. Throw away your bacteria-ridden sponge and 3D print this anti-microbial scrubber. Crusher-palm. 2015 Design of the Year award winner is an incredible, science-fictional project of mimicking human organs with tiny chips that carry living human cells. Bodega fights mocks gentrification. Raspberry Pi-powered chicken coop door. The the Distributed-Centered Subject. Amazing kinetic hair dryer installations. This summer, when you watch Ethan Hunt cling to the side of an airplane as it takes off, just remember WHO DID IT FIRST.