What does a musical composer know about creativity that he can teach the rest of us? Robert Fritz knows enough to be able to say, “You can be the predominant creative force in your own life.” My own experience bears this out.READ MORE
When in the beginning stages of a design, I recommend using descriptive words before you settle on colors and imagery. READ MORE
Have you ever been confused by a piece of technology? We know electronics can be complicated, but what about the shower in a hotel room? If you have failed to figure out how something works, you are not dumb. The fault is with the designer! Don Norman is an advocate of user-centered design and has lent his expertise to Apple Computer, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, and others. His book The Design of Everyday Things is a classic, and a comprehensive introduction to design thinking.READ MORE
A prolific and groundbreaking designer, Saul Bass designed posters for the film industry, including many Hitchcock films. His clients loved his kinetic hand-lettering so much that they asked him to create movie title sequences. His breakthrough approach turned a boring list of credits into a mini-film that set the emotional tone for the feature that followed.READ MORE
The restrooms got a major makeover at LaGuardia Airport, reports the Wall Street Journal:READ MORE
The line between back-end and front-end programming is not always distinct. Many times programmers have to make design decisions on the fly. This guide is intended to help avoid the worst transgressions. As with all rules, there are exceptions—but leave those up to the professional designers.
Do you recognize this album cover? In Make It Bigger, Paula Scher describes the design process that she oversaw as art director at CBS Records. She thought the idea of a guitar-shaped spaceship was “idiotic.” After a lot of back and forth with the band, the product manager, and the illustrator, the hit album of 1976 was released with this cover.
Scher’s book tells the story of her career as one of the most well-known designers of our time. She candidly describes how politics, personalities, whims, and luck affect the design that is ultimately produced.READ MORE
I’m good at picking restaurants. Long before Yelp I used my own method of choosing a restaurant based on its typography. My husband and I don’t like chains, even though you can be assured of consistency. In our travels, we’d rather throw the dice on a one-of-a-kind restaurant. When I find good typography on the outside, I always find good food on the inside. I’m sure that’s because the same attention to detail permeates the entire business.READ MORE
WordPress is the premier open-source content management system (CMS). WordPress allows web developers of any skill level to build a website with database functionality, making frequent updating, archiving, and blogging simple and easy. WordPress powers over 25% of all websites, including those of top companies like Time Magazine, Google, Facebook, CNN, and eBay.READ MORE
When HTML first hit the scene in the early 1990s, web developers had no control over the fonts used on their pages. The web browser was entirely responsible for selecting fonts. Netscape introduced the <font> tag in 1995, giving developers the opportunity to choose their own fonts for the first time; the tag was incorporated in the next official HTML standardization. But even with a <font> tag, only fonts already present on the user’s computer could be displayed. Otherwise, the browser would display a preselected “fallback” font instead. This led to the designation of “web-safe” fonts: the fonts most likely to be present on most computers. Designers could rely on them to provide a somewhat predictable experience for every visitor.READ MORE