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.

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1. Is Humanitarian Design the New Imperialism?

A thought-provoking essay from Bruce Nussbaum over at Fast Company Design:

Do designers need to better see themselves through the eyes of the local professional and business classes who believe their countries are rising as the U.S. and Europe fall and wonder who, in the end, has the right answers? Might Indian, Brazilian and African designers have important design lessons to teach Western designers?

And finally, one last question: why are we only doing humanitarian design in Asia and Africa and not Native American reservations or rural areas, where standards of education, water and health match the very worst overseas?

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1. Old-Fashioned Color Wheels

Imprint is running a history of color wheels. Part one is out, featuring the 18th and 19th century. The contrast between the Victorian layouts and bright colors is almost too much. To my eye, they don't look 200-plus years old.

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1. The Power of the Pause

One for the Less is Better file, Bobulate asks us to consider the effect of pauses within design:

Walter Benjamin reminds us “architecture is experienced habitually in the state of distraction.” So when a structure that’s always been present on your daily walk suddenly becomes an empty lot, your definition of space and flow changes — there is a pause. And the surrounding environment takes a new form.

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2. More Evidence that 3D May be Harmful

Revisiting an old story, Slashdot has a few links that suggest 3D television might have adverse affects on people, particularly children.

Sega uncovered serious health risks involved with children consuming 3D and quickly buried the reports, and the project. Unfortunately, the same dangers exist in today's 3D, and the electronics, movie, and gaming industries seem to be ignoring the issue.

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3. Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Another client post, this time from Andy Rutledge. I tend to agree with his take; designers should own up to more responsibility for a good or bad client experience:

There’s an easy test for evaluating design professionalism. The quality of your client experiences is directly proportional to the quality of your professionalism. If you have “stupid clients” it’s because you’re behaving stupidly to begin with, for we attract what we project. If you’ll stop being stupid, your clients’ IQs will increase dramatically.

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4. Dude, You're Getting a (Broken) Dell

Some bad ethics-related press for Dell. It seems they tried to cover up a hardware problem with some shady behavior and got written up in the NYT:

Documents recently unsealed in a three-year-old lawsuit against Dell show that the company’s employees were actually aware that the computers were likely to break. Still, the employees tried to play down the problem to customers and allowed customers to rely on trouble-prone machines, putting their businesses at risk. Even the firm defending Dell in the lawsuit was affected when Dell balked at fixing 1,000 suspect computers, according to e-mail messages revealed in the dispute.

The broken components had an estimated 97% failure rate, and they're not even going to fix their own lawyers computers? I'll say this: they stayed committed to their own story. To fix the computers would be to admit there was something wrong with them.

1. Design Thinking: A Useful Myth

Core77 has an essay from none other than Donald Norman, who criticizes the idea that "design thinking" is unique to designers but considers it a necessary evil if they are to be taken seriously for more than "making things pretty".

2. Death by Gadget

No phone or tablet computer can be considered “cool” if it may be helping perpetuate one of the most brutal wars on the planet.

From the Design Ethics desk: a NYT Op-Ed that asks us to consider the human cost of electronics made with conflict minerals.

3. Strength in naughty or nice

We've often said that if you want your business to do well, you should be morally good. Now you have another reason: Harvard researchers claim that trying to do good may give you super powers.

4. Gizmodo launches Apple iPhone petition

Gizmodo argues that Apple should either fix the iPhone 4 reception problem or give free cases to users (which fix the problem).

It does seem shady that the phones are broken and Apple's best suggestion (other than holding it unnaturally) is to buy a new $30 case from them. Even if that wasn't their strategy (and I doubt it was), they can't afford the perception.

1. So you want to be a (freelance designer)?

In one of the best articles I read this week, Steve Friedl shares his experience as a technology consultant. But I think there is much to learn here for anyone who runs a very small business dealing directly with clients (i.e. freelance designers like ourselves).

I'll share one maxim of Friedl's -- of the ethical variety, in keeping with our theme:

Never, ever lie or fudge on an invoice

If you are ever caught — or even suspected — of funny business on the financial front, you will not be trusted anywhere else. It is impossible to give a customer The Warm Fuzzy Feeling™ if they are wondering about the legitimacy of your invoices, and this is fatal to a customer relationship and to ever getting a good reference.

This is not to say that mistakes on an invoice won't happen, but how you deal with them will tell a customer a lot about how you do business. Your goal should be to overwhelm them with integrity.

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1. How Steve Jobs beats presentation panic

Image from Penny Arcade

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1. How BP is fighting back

Interesting story on Grist about the many ways BP is attempting to control more than the oil spill. It's reaching out to tame lawsuits, legislators, and even Google.

2. Lessons learned from 13 failed software products

Failure is the best teacher, as they say. I found a lot of this advice useful.

3. The State of Web Fonts, June 2010

A List Apart has a great comprehensive review of Web Fonts -- browsers, tools, and other information. If you're interested in learning more or possibly taking the plunge, this is a helpful resource.

4. Design Fiction

Bruce Sterling finally organized his sprawling Wired blog. Of interest to BlogLESS readers: the new Design Fiction tag. It's like science fiction for the creative set. A speculative glimpse of our design future punctuated by Sterling's entertaining rants and snark.