Lush layers, attention to detail, and ability to frame nearly any creative endeavor, be it aural, visual, artistic, engineered, edible or textural: Steampunk has emerged as a creative style, a fashion statement, a literary genre, and an excuse to wear goggles with absolutely everything.
Instagram, “the future of startups,” as coined by Business Insider in September 2011, was purchased on April 9th for $1 billion in a combination of cash and shares by Facebook, forming a powerhouse of photo sharing. Instagram launched in iPhone’s App Store on October 6, 2010 and grew so quickly on the first day that co-founders Kevin...
On April 4th, the New York Times posted a cover story on what author Sam Anderson calls “stupid games.” Yes, Sam Anderson has openly labeled Angry Birds, along with its posse of mobile games with similar simple and addictive experiences, as “stupid games.” He has even gone as far as to trace back the lineage of “stupid...
If you have worked as a graphic designer for any length of time, you may have heard a few terms thrown around by your clients as they critique your work. You have tried your best to present a well-executed and thoughtfully designed piece and your client says, “It looks nice, but it needs a more, pizzazz. Can you jazz...
Through information graphics, or infographics, complex information that would normally be heavy in text form can be presented quickly and clearly. We see infographics almost everywhere now on a variety of topics, including food, technology, business, health, politics, media, transportation and even product packaging. We also see flow charts for making decisions, visually...
Pinterest.com has been around since 2010. But it has only recently exploded in popularity once being discovered by the do-it-yourself crowd and given a boost with $37 million in funding. But what is Pinterest, and why is it quickly joining the ranks of other top social media sites?
When I was a design student, we'd take tours of design studios. At the end of the tour we were offered a question and answer period. One question was asked again and again, "Do you do things by hand or on the computer?" Why was this asked over and over? Why was the question phrased as if the two...
Subjectivity is the curse of design, and designers. Fortunately there’s a valuable, but often overlooked phase in the design process that can remedy this situation - testing. Testing provides designers a chance to see which design solutions will potentially work best. Testing also provides a counter balance to one of the biggest traps designers face – selecting designs based...
Yves Béhar is a visionary. Founder of fuseproject, a San Francisco based design agency, Béhar aims to break into new markets and disrupt old ones by bringing a humanistic approach to his work. You may remember him for the world’s first $100 laptop for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organization.
Customers. Audiences. Users. People. However you describe them, they are the reason that businesses and organizations exist, and ultimately they determine whether an organization succeeds or fails in the marketplace. As more and more organizations look to design for strategic advantage, a greater emphasis is being put on understanding how design motivates audiences. When combined with business analysis,...
