Something’s been bothering me about the FlatIron Building downtown Chattanooga… today I spotted it and took a shot to show how the pseudo pillars at the top of the building don’t match. The pillars on the right side of the building are one brick height shorter than the ones on the left. Picky, picky… but noticeable enough for me as a motorist to spot.
Email I received today from iDonethis
iDoneThis is a simple idea. What makes it much more impressive is their followup. I received this email from them today after slipping a few days and not noting down what I’ve done. How can you possible ignore this?? Kudos to you the iDoneThis team for a superb experience!
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Subject: Search you Dones
Content:
iDoneThis: There is no escape! Don’t make me destroy you. You do not yet realize your importance. You’ve only begun to discover your power! Join me, and I will complete your training! With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict, and bring order to the galaxy.
You: I’ll never join you!
iDoneThis: If only you knew the power of the Daily Done. Dundee never told you what happened to your father.
You: He told me enough! He told me you killed him!
iDoneThis: No, I am your father.
You: No. No! That’s not true! That’s impossible!
iDoneThis: Search your dones, you know it to be true!
You: Oh, huh, I didn’t know I could do that.
iDoneThis: Yeah, we just added that feature a few weeks ago. Just login and go to your calendar — there’s a search box up top.
You: Cool.
iDoneThis: Cool.
Great collaboration & presentation tools
http://freedcamp.com/ Project management - free
http://flauntkit.com/ Instant online collaboration - free
http://cageapp.com/ Online presentation - free
Tesco expands by creating virtual stores in subways using QR - sales increased 130%
In contrast to Osaka station, an analog water ballet…
Scientists use brain imaging to reveal the movies in our mind.
Osaka waterclock
The Alphabet 2
The Alphabet 2 from n9ve on Vimeo.
The Alphabet 2- a horn book video experiment - is a developmental spelling - video where each character visually represents the meaning of the word itself. Playing with different techniques and materials into little and big spaces, but always focusing on Helvetica font’s proportions. A collection of words in a delightful spelling-video.
Visual reference
If you have been puzzled by Mona Lisa’s smile – how she’s radiant one moment and serious the next instant – then your worries are over. It happens because our eyes are sending mixed signals to the brain about her smile.
Different cells in the retina transmit different categories of information or “channels” to the brain. These channels encode data about an object’s size, clarity, brightness and location in the visual field.
The image on the left is the regular Mona Lisa. Image in the center has a subtly emphasized smile and the image on the right has an even more emphasized. I was surprised at how much her face changed even with a minute pixel shift…
This has me wondering just how much we underestimate subtle differences in typefaces that can effect legibility and potentially comprehension. By default we create a visual database of what various typefaces look like. Subconsciously our brain compares whatever we see with our accumulated visual database. Subtle differences are conceivably noticed but necessarily rejected as abnormal. Naturally over time our point of reference changes as we accumulate more information. So our accepted standards today will no doubt vary from 5 years ago. In other words, the most frequently viewed typefaces will form the foundation of our current visual standards.
Moritz Resl created composites of over 900 fonts well worth viewing:
http://www.moritzresl.net/average-font/
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18019-mona-lisas-smile-a-mystery-no-more.html
Schiphol airport in Amsterdam is one of the few airports that have really designed their signage thoughtfully. One of the practical ways to help travelers is to give them a good sense of time. It’s all about time… Let’s face it, when you have to change gates, unless you’ve done this before, you really don’t have a clue how long it will take to get there where you are to the next gate. At Schiphol, you will notice a small pedestrian icon with timing inside the gate letter to show how long it will take to get there from that point. So for instance, if I wanted to get to gate G, it will take me between 9 and 12 minutes to get there. If I have a flight to catch in 8 minutes, you can make a decision on whether you want to give it a run or not. This is huge! I love the simplicity of “embedding” the time inside the actual gate letter so that you can process the information in one single glance. Kudos to the information designer Paul Mijksenaar.
My daughter just returned from the world’s longest yard sale http://www.127sale.com/ with an old personal size traveling trunk. What always intrigues me with the old well-traveled trunks are the stickers from exotic places all aver the world. But this time I spotted a sticker of the s.s. Col. Lindbergh, with the cool line“Swooping across the Atlantic on the s.s. Col. Lindbergh” I wonder what that must have been like…
Handy Pangrams with tester scripts resource
I find pangrams very entertaining and creating them is a lot of fun.
Here’s a link to down a pretty extensive list of pangrams that can be amusing. Download here
Oh, sorry, in case you don’t know what a pangram is:
A pangram is a sentence using every letter of the alphabet at least once. Pangrams have been used to display typefaces, test equipment, and develop skills in handwriting, calligraphy, and keyboarding. The most common English pangram: “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” (all 26 letters).
If you’ve ever wondered how an art gallery would display the world’s largest photo taken by the world’s largest camera (and aircraft hangar), check out the above artist render of an exhibition that’s opening tomorrow at UC Riverside. The 32×111 foot photo will be wrapped around a two story atrium at the Culver Center of the Arts. http://goo.gl/QIig2
I am liking this wooden bicycle http://lagomorphdesign.com/bike.html
