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This series of licensed Dune activity books from the 80′s, unearthed by Coilhouse Magazine, are like something cooked up by Banksy:

Gruesome. David Lynch needs to commission more of these.

Interest no. 6: “The focus of the interest deals with gang related crime and whether the Danes have changed behavior because of it.”

Interest no.4: “The focus of the interest deals with whether or not the Danes think it’s ethical to wear religious symbols in public professions.”

Orntoff’s Infographics project attempts to put data into context by using representative images.  I’d perhaps tweak the actual representation used to better match each data set (e.g. proportions are unclear in the second example) but the general concept is brilliant. See more images and more context at his site.

1. Material Shortages and Designing a New Material World.

A fantastic interview with Michael Braungart of the Cradle to Cradle at core77 discusses the need for designers to develop a new understanding about the materials they use and the ways in which they use them. Braungart elaborates on the role designers play in industrial transformation with respect to material selection, and the importance of making choices that are sustainable, healthy, and socially conscious.

Designers hold a key to the future, but designers need to understand their role differently and learn to have more self-esteem, ambition and responsibility. For example, why are designers designing desire for toys made of materials that contain dozens of chemicals? Why are designers designing desire for electronics that use our increasingly limited supply of rare minerals?

The interview does a great job of reiterating what we’re all about here at DLB: Designers need to believe that good design can create positive side effects. Initial design intent should be “good” instead of “less bad.” And as designers, we have accountability in design ethics: when selecting materials, when creating material streams, when creating designs that impact the environment or human health.

2. 2011 World’s Most Ethical Companies

Every year, WME accepts company applications for their “most ethical” list. The list is largely based on companies that have leading compliance and ethics programs, compared to their peers, though the overall methodology for determining winners is based on a host of factors: Corporate Citizenship and Responsibility; Corporate Governance; Innovation that Contributes to the Public Well Being; Industry leadership; Executive Leadership and Tone from the Top; Legal, Regulatory and Reputation Track Record; and Internal Systems and Ethics/Compliance Program.

We believe that in the long run, ethical behavior is good for a companies bottom line, so I do want to like WME’s data that ethical companies outperform financially. Yet I’m skeptical. Allowing companies to apply to be judged on an ethics scorecard just seems like asking for “ethicswashing.” Not to mention that the rankings seems to do a lot of comparison to peer companies – but just because a company has a strong reputation compared to its competitors doesn’t meet it’s good, it just means it’s less bad. Right?

3. Comic Sans Pro

Yes, it’s true. $120 gets you all four pro versions of Comic Sans, with its “friendly, casual appearance.” But please, remember to make fun of Comic Sans on your own time.

4. 10 Best Graphic Design Apps.

I came across this list while looking for a color identification app. Sure enough,
Color Picker is exactly what I’m looking for. Haven’t tried it yet but will report back.

Helps designers identify, capture, and combine color patterns with the color wheel and image picker. Take pictures using the application’s “snap & tap” technology and select any color featured in the image, or choose from several shade schemes available. There’s also a database that lets you browse through Web-safe, HTML, and multiple Pantone colors, as well as an option to email palettes.

The ability of some objects to be highly designed without signaling the fact of their design is their allure, their interest, and their beauty.

Harpman and Specht have been collecting since 1984 and have the largest collection of independently-patented drink-through plastic cup lids in the United States. They note that the collection “..has no monetary value, but rather operates as some modest form of intellectual capital.” It is certainly interesting to think about the countless hours that packaging designers have put into these lids, and the fact that many of the designs may have even been considered quite novel at least to a specialist (though when presented all in a row, I can’t help but think how much we like to overdesign things).

A fascinating write-up of the lid collection lives at Cabinet.

100% of proceeds go to the Red Cross. You can also donate any amount through their site without purchase.

Sure, pie charts are overused. I agree that we, as designers, need to be very calculated when visualizing information rather than falling back on easily-created MS Excel favorites like the pie chart. But, it just seems a little, I don’t know, elitist to completely disown pie charts. There are plenty of articles begging “please don’t use pie charts” and even calling pie charts “the prime evil”. There are also lots of ideas around how we can move “beyond the pie chart.”

But since it’s Pi Day, can we discuss the merits of pie charts? Two points come to mind:

1. Practically, pie charts are appropriate for displaying data in specific situations, particularly a part in proportion to a whole and more specifically, parts that are unevenly distributed with respect to the whole.
2. Emotionally, pie charts can evoke strong feelings in certain situations, given the pie’s link to other conceptual and linguistic cliches that play on our instinctive desire for sweetness and sense of proportion and fairness.

So first, the practical bit: Pie charts can sometimes visually convey percents in a way that bar charts cannot. Take this example from Jeff Clark’s post In Defense of Pie Charts. He illustrates that they are the “visual analog of the mathematical concept of percents” with the following series of charts:

Can you easily tell what fraction of the whole is represented by A (red) ? Sure, with the scale present, and even without it you can figure out that the red bar is roughly half of the total. But is it immediately obvious ? I don’t think so. Not nearly as obvious as it is in the pie chart for the same data:

But perhaps even more importantly, I value pie charts for their ability to evoke an emotional response. The concept of dividing a pie into pieces is conceptually and linguistically something that is globally understood by humans of all ages. The ideal pie is cut in equal sections, and an unequally sliced pie (chart) plays to the tension created when things are not equal. Sweetness-seeking beings like ourselves instinctively want the big piece of pie, and if it isn’t ours we feel jealousy, or anger – “Hold on a second, who’s getting that giant piece?” Pie charts can make us feel jealous, invoking a “land grab” for the bigger piece.

When used in a situation where they need to convey a politically charged message or quickly illustrate an inequality, pie charts can be quite persuasive.

Via.

Infographic at GOOD.

Via DesignBoom.

A book printed through a printing chain made of four desktop printers using four different colors and technologies dated from 1880 to 1976. A production process that brings together small scale and large scale production, two sides of the same history.

MAGENTA (Stencil duplicator, 1880)
CYAN (Spirit duplicator, 1923)
BLACK (Laser printer, 1969)
YELLOW (Inkjet printer, 1976)