David Kadavy is author of Mind Management, Not Time Management, The Heart to Start & Design for Hackers.
I sat down with Nate Voss and Donovan Beery of The Reflex Blue Show to get really geeky on fonts. Give it a direct listen here, or view the post.
A few years ago, I noticed that there were no resources for Graphic Designers to learn about how to reduce the environmental impact of their print projects. I’ve done some research on the subject lately, and I have found that much more information has been popping up, however, it is scattered throughout the web and trying to sift through it all is overwhelming to say the least.
As you may have heard on my latest Be A Design Cast appearance, I have launched SustainablePrint.org: a wiki that will – with the help of folks like you – become the most comprehensive resource for Designers to consult when trying to reduce the environmental impact of their print projects.
As you can see on the site, I have gotten the ball rolling, but I only know so much about this subject so in order to be successful the project needs the expertise and experience of members of the Design, Paper, and Printing industries. Please help by contributing, offerring your suggestions, and telling every design, printing, and paper expert you know!
Just can’t afford that designer brand? Or maybe you want the name, but not all of that…class. Well, now you can make your own t-shirt in any brand you want!
There are two new places on the internets where you can hear my voice if you’re so inclined:
Bring the collaborative power of the internet to print by helping Be A Design Group design the cover of STEP Inside Design’s prestigious STEP 100. You can comment on existing designs, or have your photography featured on the cover. Here’s how to contribute:
In finally being on a team responsible for the development of some sites with considerable functionality, I have been searching for a way to communicate the site visually so that the entire team can have a set of documents to work off of for each release. After spending three years at an architecture firm and seeing the documents involved in getting a building built, I was sure there must be some equivalent visual language and documenting system for web design. After some research, I found that visual language, and a nicely-priced tool for executing it.
The possessions that by far take up the most space in my self-proclaimed lifestyle of minimalism are my books and my records. Until now, I just had a crappy WAL-MART (yes, I went shopping there, but only once, I swear) shelf for my books, and a bunch of cardboard boxes for my records. Besides looking bad, this system also wasn’t very space-efficient, so, since I’m not going to convert my vinyl to CD anytime soon, I decided to search for something much less crappy.
I’ve been looking for a new cell phone, and I am extremely frustrated and disappointed with the selection of cell phones on the U.S. market. The service providers and cell phone manufacturers just don’t seem to get it. Camera phones really are of little use, and cell phones need video capability even less. What does have potential and is actually useful is text messaging – which is absolutely huge in most of the world and is spreading. I have found that text messaging is a necessary component of socializing in California, so naturally I would like to have a cell phone with some sort of efficient system for text messaging. Unfortunately, all of the phones that have QWERTY keyboards and the like have way too many features and as a result are enormous. I don’t want a picture phone. I don’t want to surf the web. I don’t even want a color screen. All I want is the smallest phone possible with good reception, the capability to text with the quickness, and Bluetooth to back up my address book.
I think Google has the right idea with Google SMS on what is really useful in a cell phone (they’re always right). Very little of the information that we actually want to consume while out and about involves video or even pictures ��� it’s textual information like movie showtimes or business addresses and phone numbers. No, I don’t want to watch TV on my cell phone. I can appreciate that there may be a miniscule segment of the population in car-dependent America that may want to watch TV during commute, but this idea…is fucking stupid.
Along with all of these new and useless features comes interfaces and form factors that are more and more unusable. Now that color screens are pretty much standard, every interface has convoluted icons that bounce, twinkle and do whatever else they can do to make them absolutely useless in communicating what they represent. The phones themselves appear to have been designed by out-of-work comic book illustrators, complete with swooshy keypad designs and other unnecessary intricacies.
After looking at some European cell phone reviews, it looks like the Nokia 6822 (buy on Amazon) is about as close to “the phone for me” as I will find. I think I can get my hands on one through eBay (making sure to get an unlocked one), and if I change to a GSM provider such as Cingular or T-Mobile, rather than a CDMA provider (which will involve me surrendering my grandfathered-in 8 o’clock off-peak with Sprint), I can just swap out the SIM card. GSM and the flexibility of SIM cards sounds superior anyway, and will come in handy in the event of a trip abroad.
Obviously I won’t make it, but if you’re in the Omaha area, you shouldn’t miss it. Tour homes designed by Omaha’s premiere Architects at AIA Omaha’s Architect’s Home Tour. I was a part of the inaugural home tour two years ago and it was a huge success. AIA Omaha has put together another great lineup of homes that exemplify great architecture. You know where you can find homes that don’t exemplify great architecture. The tour will take place from noon-5pm on Sunday, September 25th 2005.
When a video capable iPod comes out, and you know it will, the concept of a static album cover will soon be outdated. Instead of a still image, short animations or videos will be more appropriate to have flash upon your iPod screen as you start playing an album. Naturally, your iPod will play music videos, too.