Edward Tufte Goes to Washington : The New York Times: [Tufte] was appointed by President Obama to a panel to advise the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which monitors the way the $787 billion in the stimulus package is being spent
Beast Pieces: Squarespace Poster and Business Cards : I follow Beast Pieces regularly. I
A few weeks ago, we moved the studio (affectionately dubbed the BitCave) across the street to newer, slightly larger digs. It’s more comfortable, the windows open, we have our own temperature controls–you know, real lavish stuff. Yesterday, we relaunched the SimpleBits Shop , bringing the fulfillment back in house. Our slightly larger space is able to accomodate the stock, and now each order will be lovingly hand-packed by resident Commerce Director, Meagan Fisher . … Read the rest here
Business Cards Made From Discarded Letterpress Posters : In addition to hauling tees around at SXSW, I
This year
A few nights ago I attended a UX-Bri session where one of the speakers floated the idea of doing free usability testing in order to win projects. I asked about the moral implications of this and was surprised by the response. While the audience largely disagreed with the idea of speculative design work, it seemed that speculative UX work was somehow more acceptable. The speaker later cc’d me into an email question from one of the audience members querying my negative reaction to speculative pitching so here was my response… “Dear XXXX, There has been a debate over the subject of speculative work running within the design community for some time now, so I thought it was worth raising the issue. One side of the argument states that helping a client solve their problems for free, before being awarded a contact is bad practice… Read the rest here
The concept of ‘Pull Marketing’ is all the rage at the moment. In the age of the Mad Men, selling a new product was easy. You’d be handed a commodity product like toothpaste or washing powder and set about building a brand to set it apart from the competition. You would then buy advertising space on a small number of influential marketing channels and wait for the sales to roll in. … Read the rest here
One of the problems of working in the knowledge economy is the constant need to keep abreast of current trends and thinking. This would be fine if you worked in a mature industry or one with a limited number of books, papers and conferences appearing each year. However in the knowledge economy of the web, more information is being published every day than could be consumed in a year. What’s more, that pace is increasing. The problem is exacerbated by a number of things… Read the rest here
For no particular reason, I present to you a list of things that were true on August 27, 2001 : The iPod, XBox, YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, Ubuntu, and Blu-Ray did not exist. IBM was still in the PC business, Handspring was still around, and Blackberries were data-only devices with no telephone capabilities. The Euro had not yet entered circulation, currencies like the Franc, Mark and Lira were still legal tender. George Harrison, The Queen Mother, Gregory Peck, Barry White, Johnny Cash, Ronald Reagan, Ray Charles, Julia Child, Pope John Paul II, Johnny Carson, Steve Irwin, Gerald Ford and Michael Jackson were still alive. SARS, Avian Flu, H1N1 were not in the common vernacular. Enron and WorldCom were still in business. … Read the rest here
For no particular reason, I present to you a list of things that were true on August 27, 2001 : The iPod, XBox, YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, Ubuntu, and Blu-Ray did not exist. IBM was still in the PC business, Handspring was still around, and Blackberries were data-only devices with no telephone capabilities. The Euro had not yet entered circulation, currencies like the Franc, Mark and Lira were still legal tender. George Harrison, The Queen Mother, Gregory Peck, Barry White, Johnny Cash, Ronald Reagan, Ray Charles, Julia Child, Pope John Paul II, Johnny Carson, Steve Irwin, Gerald Ford and Michael Jackson were still alive. SARS, Avian Flu, H1N1 were not in the common vernacular… Read the rest here
It’s so easy to wallow in self-pity when things don’t go right. As much as 2009 sucked on all levels, it wasn’t all bad. As much as I want to sulk, the fact remains that I live a charmed life. Through some karmic luck of the draw, I’ve got a lot to be thankful for. Personal Projects This past year was a year of simplication and basically had me letting go of all my personal projects—at least for the time being. I shut down SidebarAds, I never worked on Snitter, and I never finished Haylia, FontSmack or any number of other personal projects that I wanted to work on… Read the rest here
It’s so easy to wallow in self-pity when things don’t go right. As much as 2009 sucked on all levels, it wasn’t all bad. As much as I want to sulk, the fact remains that I live a charmed life. Through some karmic luck of the draw, I’ve got a lot to be thankful for. Personal Projects This past year was a year of simplication and basically had me letting go of all my personal projects—at least for the time being. … Read the rest here
I’ve been doing designs for screened t-shirts on and off basically my entire career. Back in the day, Gildan and Hanes Beefy-T were popular choices for doing screened tee runs. The material was generally thick and beefy, and the fit was what you’d expect from a run-of-the-mill tee. About four years ago American Apparel became mainstream and took the wholesale apparel industry by storm. The material was much lighter and the fit was more form-fitting… Read the rest here
Last we left off , I’d just started going down the road of playing with @font-face , sans IE. This is the follow-up where we bring Internet Explorer back into the equation and look at the hoops we need to jump through to bring it in line. A quick refresher: following a different path than every other browser out there, IE requires a custom-created, rights-managed font file called EOT (Embedded OpenType). The syntax to safely serve up an EOT to IE was shown in that previously-mentioned post . What we’re covering here is, how in the world do you create an EOT file in the first place? Well, there’s WEFT, Microsoft’s one and only tool for creating EOT files… Read the rest here
This post will most likely come off as a ramble of sorts, but I’m okay with that. I figure I write enough stuff carefully crafted, from punctuation to grammar to sentence structure, that I can afford a break once in a while. Even if publicly. Speaking of writing, this post is all about that. Let’s start with a question I’m asked occasionally by those of you considering authoring something of your own: Should I sell my book as a PDF or publish it in print (either via Lulu or a publisher)? First of all, if you’re considering self-publishing, I’ve already written about the ups and downs of that … Read the rest here
So, it’s been four days since rejoining the ranks of the self-employed . The transition from full-time employment to self-employment has been nearly seamless. This is probably because I’ve been through this all before, but also because the timing was right. I was ready to leap and therefore hit the ground running. I have no shortage of work right now. In fact, I’ve probably not been this busy for quite some time. … Read the rest here
Yesterday at noon I turned in my employee badge, laptop, and other employer-owned property. Goodbyes and K.I.T.’s were exchanged. A Snickers was indulged, just because. And with that, I concluded a chapter from the last three years of my life. Today I begin full-time employment as founder, principal, whatever of Cameron Moll LLC. This is a decision that has been quietly (and carefully) considered since November 2008… Read the rest here
If there’s one thing I enjoy most about running Authentic Jobs , it’s hearing positive feedback from customers. Not every employer finds the right candidate, mind you — that’s why the money-back guarantee in place. But many do. Here are a few recent testimonials. … Read the rest here
Design Melt Down Go to the source
The notion of a business card style site is not all that complex. A simple site with only the basic info and, most importantly, contact information. After all the very purpose of a business card is to enable someone to contact you. Such is the same with a business card site. Perhaps for lack of time, or lack of need, these mini web sites just point the user to this crucial information. … Read the rest here
Design Melt Down Go to the source
The notion of a business card style site is not all that complex. A simple site with only the basic info and, most importantly, contact information. After all the very purpose of a business card is to enable someone to contact you. Such is the same with a business card site. Perhaps for lack of time, or lack of need, these mini web sites just point the user to this crucial information. … Read the rest here
