More New Math
Writer and artist Craig Damrauer has another series of New Math to share. Some are better than others, but I like the simple concept and execution overall.
Blogless
The Stockholm-based design firm BVD is advertising their new line of products, available from the Japanese office supply company Askul. Among them is this clock, which I find worthy of reflection.
Consider the following: This is a beautiful clock, whose form follows its function. It is as easy to use in the context of an office as it is clever and visually striking. It is, by these counts, very nicely designed indeed. Things get less clear, though, when you consider that its core function seems to be reminding you every time you look at it that you're somewhere you don't want to be.
My planned post on codes of ethics became a series, so rather than split that up, I'm going to inject a little Blog Less (and perhaps a little bit of Spring) into the end of your week.
I can't recall where I first came across Julia Guther's work, but it has stuck with me for a long time. She has a beautiful minimalistic style that combines expressive linework with restrained use of color and mixed media. I like it.
One piece in particular has stayed with me and is why, even though its been several years since I first found Julia's site, I still can't forget her work.
Do yourself a favor and check out Julia's site.
For the moment, I'm not going to deconstruct their visual rhetoric. Just look at the difference between the retro and the contemporary:
I haven't done a Less is Better in a while, but when I saw this I had to say something. Look at all the badges and banners on the box, check out that hyperkinetic rabbit and his meteorites of sugar flying at your face. It's practically screaming at you. I hadn't realized how desensitized I'd become-- that there could be any alternative but an aisle full of this corn-based cacophony.
TheDieline speculates that the retro rollout is an attempt to connect to nostalgia, perhaps to get adults to consider buying more cereal (ostensibly because of the tough economy). Instead of belt-tightening, wouldn't it be nice if it represented something else? Not asking people to buy something, but asking them to consider their values.
The Trix rabbit on the old box doesn't need to sell you anything. In fact, he's not even looking at you. He's just enjoying the cereal. The craziest thing about him is that he's got rollerskates on. He goes outside to play.
Silly rabbit.
In a recent Boston Globe article, Matthew Battles invited several designers to compare the Bush-era whitehouse.gov with Obama's. They were asking: "Why does the site look better than Bush's?" and "What does the new page say about Obama's approach to governance?"
I'm not sure I completely buy their answers to either of those questions
The format of the article is to take some page element —the use of color on the page, for example— and compare the new with the old. But it feels like the comparisons aren't objective for the most part.
For example:
"The Obama site now has bold graduations [of color], texturing; Like Apple.com, it calls for reaction and collaboration" The Bush site, by contast, was muted and chaste, a pastel blue limited to the margins..."a set of dinner plates that only come out for visiting foreign dignitaries."
Really? Does that sound like an objective assessment or are we projecting with the metaphors here?
Instead of saying "the use of bold color focuses attention on headlines and interface elements" we get some partisan statement about how Obama is Steve Jobs and Bush is a stuffy old guy.
The article is seven paragraphs about form and one about function. If you compare the two sites, the content of the new page is not substantially different from the old one. In fact, it may be less genuine than Bush's. Obama's "blog" is a rebranded feed of press releases— there's no two-way communication. Besides a coat of paint and rearranged furniture, what's really that different about the new site?
The article is asking us to read too much into the new design. I like Obama and I like his websites, but I think there's some cognitive bias at work here.
Websites go in and out of fashion rapidly. With rare exception, there are few websites from even four or five years ago that would look or function as good as they did when they were first launched. To compare Bush's site with Obama's as though they were somehow contemporary is akin to comparing a Pinto to a Prius.
If the Bush whitehouse.gov launched today, I'd bet you it would look very similar to the current whitehouse.gov.
Obama's design looks better because it's up to date. Large slideshow images, subtle texture, bold use of color, serif fonts, active voice in navigation elements, whitespace, center orientation — you've pretty much run down the list of the top web design trends of 2009.
You could argue that a Bush website that launched today wouldn't be as good because he's behind the times, but I disagree. I don't think any web designer today (working for the President, no less) would put together something like the old White House site. It's just not done that way anymore.
Let's address the elephant in the room: maybe we like the website better because we like Obama better.
Obama has a good brand— a very good one. So good, in fact, that it has spilled over into what people think about his website. Perhaps that's the real story here?
I applaud the effort to get newspaper readers to think more about the design they encounter online, but I hate to see personal politics get in the way of what could have been a more objective discussion about better page design.
Thursday, I'll speak a bit on another reason this article misses the mark: poor graphic design.
See you then!
While we may have a taste for fine design and art, we certainly don’t have the budget to own much of it ourselves. Ask me what design I’m truly thankful for, and it would have to be the little things I enjoy using every day.
Here is my list of some affordable, unsung heroes that don’t often make the magazines and blogs, but are superstars to me nonetheless:
They wouldn’t win any beauty contests and you can pick up six for five dollars, but these guys are my workhorses day in and day out. I don’t like to be caught without one. What sells me is the gel ink which glides across pages smoothly and at just the right width. Besides a solid clicking mechanism, their rubberized grips aren’t too shabby for a budget writing instrument. Moreover, you can actually buy replacement cartridges for them, provided someone doesn’t run off with your pen (or you lose it) before you run out of ink.
I love her use of bright colors and marker as a medium. The texture, combined with the repetition of shapes makes this series of illustrations simple, yet rich.
(This particular piece is my Twitter background, until I can find the time to make a huge version of the DLB guillotine)
Via.
