Creativity Matters, not only in the US of A

The power of wild, euphoric and surprisingly clear-headed creative thinking as practiced over and over in the studio can help as we struggle to address complex problems [...]. I fully expect that within the next quarter century our best innovators and world leaders will be people with art and design backgrounds.

[From John Maeda's blog Our (and Your) RISD » Creativity Matters]

Something I really hope for.

Apple’s specialty is the remix

An interesting article on Apple’s success:

Invincible Apple: 10 Lessons From the Coolest Company Anywhere

{1} Go Into Your Cave
{2} It’s Okay to Be King
{3} Transcend Orthodoxy
{4} Just Say No
{5} Serve Your Customer. No, Really
{6} Everything Is Marketing
{7} Kill the Past
{8} Turn Feedback Into Inspiration
{9} Don’t Invent, Reinvent
{10} Play by Your Own Clock

Farhad Manjoo is FAST COMPANY’s technology columnist.

[From Apple Nation | Page 7 | Fast Company]

Dieter Rams: Innovative design

I just came across the German industrial designer Dieter Rams via a tumblr blog post:

“Innovative design always develops in tandem with innovative technology, and can never be an end in itself.”

[From create.live.love]

Looking up Dieter Rams I found his ten principles to “good design”:

Good design is innovative
Good design makes a product useful
Good design is aesthetic
Good design makes a product understandable
Good design is unobtrusive
Good design is honest
Good design is long-lasting
Good design is thorough down to the last detail
Good design is environmentally friendly
Good design is as little design as possible

[From Dieter Rams - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]

According to Rams

Apple is the only company designing products according to his principles.

[From Dieter Rams - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]

I can only agree.

I’m a tailor, too, am I not?

On the Signal vs. Noise blog I just read this nice metaphor of software developers / software engineers being software tailors.

I design, I edit, I think, I review, I suggest, I teach. Some things I mess up, some things I fix up. But what I really do most of the time is trim, tuck, iron, cut, press, and fit. I’m a software tailor. [From I'm a tailor - (37signals)]

I like that picture. The only things missing are the proper tools for doing the job like a tailor.

Touch & Write Table: Collaborative Knowledge Tool

Social knowledge management, in general, and collaborative knowledge representation, in particular, need the right tools for assisting in these tasks. The touch and write table, developed at the knowledge management research department provides just that. Just watch the short video on YouTube.

Yes, you can think like a designer!

In my research on explanation-awareness I am looking very often into what designers do or don’t do (see elsewhere on my blog). If one already has a complex software tool that one wants to enhance with explanation capabilities it surely does not help to overwhelm the user with additional explanatory information, one needs to carefully design the explanation capabilities and the explanations. Garr Reynolds compiled a nice list of tips that I’d like to promote here:

Most people do not really think about design and designers, let alone think of themselves as designers. But what, if anything, can regular people — teachers, students, business people of all types — learn from designers and from thinking like a designer? And what of more specialized professions? Can medical doctors, scientists, researchers, and engineers, and other specialists in technical fields benefit in anyway by learning how a graphic designer or interaction designer thinks? Is there something designers, either through their training or experience, know that we don’t? I believe there is.

[From Presentation Zen: 10 Tips on how to think like a designer]

[composed and posted with ecto]

Indeed, why dots?

A while ago I blogged about Scott McCloud’s book “Understanding comics – The invisible art” (see understanding ontologies). I just came across a presentation (via Garr Reynolds’ Presentation Zen) that shows the use of abstraction in a very nice way.

Basic design lessons

“Once you can name something, you’re conscious of it. You have power over it. You own it. You’re in control!” 
Robin Williams

No, I am not talking about magic again (see last post), although most magic in novels follows exactly this principle:

“If you know the true name of XYZ you can command it to change form or to show where it is hidden, etc.”, whispered the wise beyond the limits of the Earth wizard <insert your favourite wizard’s name> in a gravely voice.

A few months ago I read the book “The non-designer’s design book” by Robin Williams and recognised just what Robin described in the introduction. Since I know about design and typographic principles I cannot stop noticing where those principles are being ignored or violated. I also think I began to better design documents and presentation. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but (basic) design can be learned.

As the book is for “all the people who need to design pages, but have no background or formal training in design” it was a perfect introduction for me. I learned about C. R. A. P.

• Contrast—Make elements, that are not the same very different.
• Repetition—Repeat visual elements of the design, thus, strengthening the unity of the piece.
• Alignment—Make elements visually connect with each other on the page.
• Proximity—Group related items close together.

Robin Williams illustrates the principles in great detail and—this is the most important part—with lots and lots of examples. The book has now its regular place on my desk where I can grab it easily when I need to be reminded or when I look for some ideas.

Thank you for sharing

Growth, control, and repose. These three need to exist in balance to make for a good forest of thought. [From Maeda's SIMPLICITY]

Another MIT legend: On-screen Designer Muriel Cooper

I haven’t heard about Muriel Cooper before but I think now I should have. Read about Muriel Cooper: The unsung heroine of on-screen style [via].

[composed and posted with ecto]