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UnBeige logo by Kevin M. Scarbrough, as part of our regular design our logo feature
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webThursday Jun 25, 2009
Habitat Gets Into Twitter Trouble
Tuesday Jun 23, 2009
Twitter Along with UnBeige
Famed literary critic Lionel Trilling once described Henry James as a "social twitterer." Sure, he meant it as an insult, but it makes us feel better about having signed up to twitter ourselves. Look to the official UnBeige Twitter feed, for up-to-the-minute newsbites, event snippets, links of interest, design trivia, and free candy (OK, we're still working on the physics of that last one). The mediabistro.com tech wizards have added to the sidebar at right a handful of our most recent word bursts (limited to 140 characters), but you can sign up to follow all of our twittering, and start twittering yourself at twitter.com. A few other twitterers we suggest following: Pentagram (@pentagramdesign), Frog Design (@frogdesign), Paper's Kim Hastreiter (@kimpaper) and Mickey Boardman (@AskMrMickey), fashion designers Paul Smith (@PaulSmithDesign) and Norma Kamali (@nkcollection), RISD president John Maeda (@johnmaeda), and of course, Karl Lagerfeld (@karl_lagerfeld). Monday Jun 22, 2009
Guggenheim Launches Online Design Forum
Imagine walking into a brand-new public building—let's say it's a museum, a campus student center, or a mental-health clinic. Every detail has been designed, from the drop ceiling to the polished floors. But taped to the security desk is a paper sign, printed out in all-caps Times Roman, that says Restrooms Are Downstairs in the Basement Behind the Boiler Room or Don't Even Think About Asking Me Where the Elevator Is. These homemade signs boil over with irritation, directed at a clueless public who don't know how the building works. What's happening here is not a failure of the public, however, but a failure of design.Are we overdesigning our homes, our cities, ourselves? Or are we not designing them enough? How do we now define "good design"? Would you ever band together a stack of racy letters with a magenta ribbon? Join the conversation here. Friday Jun 12, 2009
Layer Tennis Playoffs Kick Off This Very Morning
If you have missed any of this season's Layer Tennis matches, then we just don't know what to do with you anymore. But fortunately for you, we have an opportunity for you to redeem yourself in the faces of us. That solution? Cancel all of your plans for the day and catch not one but two matches today, with the playoff season just now kicking off. First up today, at 10am Central, it's a David and Goliath battle as the venerable Chris Glass faces off against the voter-selected winner of one of the qualifying matches, Gregory Hubacek. Will it be a moping of the floor or an incredible defeat for the ages? Second, it's something of the main event, with mega-designer Sam Potts waring against the also-a-mega-designer, Aaron Draplin. That match kicks off at 2pm. So there's your day, all planned out for you. You're welcome. Wednesday Jun 10, 2009
Make It Like a Polaroid Picture
(Poladroid photo by Flickr user bawtrees) Recently on UnBeige: Tuesday Jun 09, 2009
Typeface the Music and Dance
Wednesday Jun 03, 2009
Redesigns and Responses: An Interesting Discusssion About Site Redesigning Without Being Comissioned
We've seen, and even reported on (when they were exceptionally interesting), designers creating new layouts for websites without having been commissioned or even asked by the companies they were redesigning for. Usually spawned from some big experienced frustration or sheer embarrassment over how lousy a site is, these designers feel the need to get in there and show their web team how it should be done. Though none, to date, have been as interesting as Dustin Curtis' recent run-in with American Airlines. After struggling to navigate within their clumsy site, Curtis, a talented user experience designer by trade, spent a couple of hours putting together how he thought the airline's site should look and function and then sent them the comps. While he likely expected no feedback, he was surprised to hear back, anonymously, from one of the members of American's designers. In a lengthy, very sad note, he explains what it's like to work there, from too many hands in the pot to forever design by committee. In short: endless meetings, much too large to function efficiently and, one might argue, with less focus on the end user. But then the letter switches gears into a more hopeful note, saying that it's always difficult steering ships that large and that American is slowly but steadily making improvements as quickly as they can. It's a great read from both sides, showing that there are problems with sites like these, but it's not always as simple as just throwing together a comp over a couple hours of free time. Tuesday Jun 02, 2009
At Mediabistro Circus, Data Is King but Design Is Differentiator
Brandishing a whip and clad in gold lame pants, mediabistro.com founder Laurel Touby reprised her ringmistress role as she welcomed hundreds of media types to the second annual Mediabistro Circus, which kicked off today at the TimesCenter in New York City. The theme of this year's media-meets-technology confab, explained Touby, is "Extraordinary Impact: Do More with Less." The focus of the doing? Data, data, and more data, according to many of the day's speakers. But don't count out design.
Where does this leave publishing? In flux, according to "From Gutenberg to Movable Type," a panel discussion ably moderated by Dan Costa, executive editor of PCMag.com. Panelist Eileen Gittins, founder and CEO of Blurb, the self-publishing company, is a believer in the power of branding to best communicate with niche markets. "Gone are the days when you have to guess who your audience is," she said of Blurb's print-on-demand model, which eliminates warehousing and adds a new agility to publishing. "Books no longer need to be static things, where you print one—kerplunk—and then maybe come back later with a second edition. Books can now be the starting point of communication." Wednesday May 27, 2009
Web Design by Democracy?
That approach informed a redesign at Cooliris, a start-up whose software offers a way to view pictures and videos on a three-dimensional virtual wall of thumbnail images. In the new version, which Ms. Dunn helped design, the company includes headlines and other text next to images. Previously on UnBeige: Wednesday May 20, 2009
And the Winning Google Doodle Is...
Michael Bierut, Steven Heller, Ellen Lupton, Clement Mok, and the rest of the esteemed judging panel have spoken, and Texas sixth grader Christin Engelberth's "A New Beginning" (pictured above) is the big winner in the annual Doodle 4 Google contest, which challenges kids from around the country to redesign the Google logo according to a designated theme (this year's: What I wish for the world). "My doodle expresses my wish that in the current crisis discoveries will be made," wrote Engleberth in her contest entry. "That in these discoveries solutions will be found to help the Earth prosper once more. That those solutions will help the world get back on its feet, and create a better place for everyone." Engleberth's winning doodle will adorn Google's U.S. homepage tomorrow (today, meanwhile, it sports a fun fossil theme to highlight the discovery of humanity's long lost lemur link), and she will receive a $15,000 college scholarship as well as a $25,000 technology grant for her San Antonio junior high school. Between May 11 and 18, the public cast nearly 6 million online votes to select the National Finalist doodles: "Friendship Around the World" by five-year-old Miriam Elizabeth Lowery, "Stop to Smell the Flowers" by Blakely Linz, age 13, and "From the Ashes" by Emerald Lu, also 13, whose symbol-stuffed design includes a phoenix, lotus blossoms, wheat, a circling pair of koi fish, a clock, and a butterfly. All of the regional finalists' designs will go on view tomorrow at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, where the "Doodle 4 Google: What I Wish for the World" exhibition will be up through July 5 in the museum's design education center. Previously on UnBeige: PreviouslyNYT Launches Photojournalism Blog Milton Glaser Launches New Website Kids Nationwide Vie to Doodle for Google Coming Soon to a TV Near You: Adobe Flash Planned YouTube Redesign 'Totally a Hulu Approach' LIFE.com Launches with Millions of Photos, Ellen DeGeneres's '6 Cutest Dogs' Yoox Moves Forward with IPO Plan Don't Judge a Film by Its Nostalgic Faux Book Cover Ai Weiwei Blasts Chinese Government for Earthquake Response Is Damien Hirst One of the 100 Most Influential People in the World? Wanted: Designer Who's Up to the Test Flickr Teams with Getty Images to Launch 'Flickr Collection' MoMA Debuts Redesigned Website Mediabistro Launches MediaJobsDaily.com Cooper-Hewitt Gets In on 'Doodle for Google' Design Contest Action Joseph Ungoco Leaves Zink for Fashion Site WhatsWear.com DnA Talks Rockwell's Oscars, Gehry's 80th, and George Lucas Building at USC The Queen of England Unveils Her New Website Layer Tennis Kicks Off This Afternoon Architectural Digest Remembers John Updike Google Celebrates Jackson Pollock's Birthday WhiteHouse.gov's Sudden Redesign and Macon Phillips' Promise for a More Internety America And DIY Shepard Fairey Posters for All Neville Brody Appears on Design Matters Today at 3pm French Fashion Companies Sue Over Photographs Taken at Fashion Shows Pandamania Pounds Taiwan Website Marriott CEO: What My Deep Fryer Accident Taught Me about Hotel Management Edward Leida Launches Website, Will Guest Art Direct NYT 'On Language' Column Virtual Person to Win Actual $10,000 for Outstanding Achievement in Second Life Helmut Newton Estate Issues Critic Paddy Johnson a Cease and Desist New Website Tracks World Trade Center Progress, or Lack Thereof Anti-Spec Target, Pixish, Set to Shut Down Candy Pratts Price on Style.com and Substance: 'We Run It Like a Magazine' Behind the Scenes at Yanko Design Info on, Reactions to Wall Street Journal's Redesign A Wiki for Future Project Runway Designers Sartorialist Falls into Gap Ads A Day In the Life of the T-Shirt Design Competition World The Death of PodTech and the Importance of Good Design Illeana Douglas to Star in IKEA Web Series Critiquing Obama's 'Thanks to Hillary' Banners Brandweek Retools Website, Picks 'Superbrands' Newspapers Run Into Messy Design Trouble Online Focus Web Design on Quick and Easy, Says Jakob Nielsen's Usability Report MB Circus: Designing for Speed, Simplicity Armed with 'Lots of Little Ideas' Sixth Grader Designs Today's Google Homepage Logo Making a Case Against E-mail Meeting Web Design By Jouve, I Think They've Got It: Artnet Adds Design Marketplace Ian Adelman Leaves nymag.com for Tina Brown's Online Venture Dash Still Doesn't Dig April Fool's Photoshop Express Launch Round-Up In Scion Speak, Everyone's a Designer Jonathan Adler Loves a Doric Column! BusinessWeek Thinks Hulu Has the Design to Succeed Spitzer Lesson #1: Don't Trust a Prostitution Ring Using an Unsightly 'Web Design' Front Designing A Replacement for E-Mail? Introducing Chumby: Will People Surf the Internet on a Beanbag? Playing Ball with Don Hamerman Yahoo Pink Slips Entire 'Design Innovation' Team Blueprint Subscribers Receive Little White Postcard of Death Judging Obama and Hillary: Mac or PC? New CRIT Blog Debuts and Steven Heller Exhibition Goes Online David Airey Returns Full Force, Launches New Logo Blog Layer Tennis Finals: Be There! Meeting Adrian Holovaty, the Brains Behind EveryBlock Finally! Emigre Becomes a Blog! Kinda. Not Really. No, Not at All. American Craft Crafts a New Website The Scoble-Facebook Ban, Maybe Not Such a Bad Idea? Piers Fawkes and PSFK Fight Back After Anti-CES Post Cooper-Hewitt Launches John Maeda-Designed Google Gadget In Which We Blog About Lynn Yaeger's Imaginary Blogging About the Met's Blog-Driven Show #1 on Our Year-End List of Most Interesting Year-End Lists: Album Visualization David Airey Harnasses the Power of the Internet, Regains Hacked Site When Harold Met Blogging: Museum Enters Blogosphere via Costume Institute Show The Continuing Absurdity of Web 2.0 Naming David Airey Gets Hacked, Loses Popular Design Site Storey Turns His Blog Against 'The Blog Council' Wallpaper Picks Their Favorites Grads Can We Believe This Threadless Clone? Not Really, No. T Magazine Site Chooses Style Over Substance Wear a Blue Hat For Web Standards On Monday, November 26 Dezeen Celebrates Its First Birthday Hillman Curtis, Monkeys Differ on Web Design Priorities Alissa Keeps Her Eye on the Cursor as Commentator for Layer Tennis Match Not Long for This Virtual World: Users Bored by Second Life Apple Store Redesign...Um, And? The Theft of smashLAB, Again and Again If Google Were a Startup, Looking for Friends to Come Visit... A List Apart's 33,000 Designer Strong Look at the Web Vimeo Goes HD and Why That;'s a Very Cool Thing Google Standards Across This Big Blue Marble CBC Makes Use of Its Readership, Adds "Report Typo" Link The Scary Visage of Font Face Rules Second Life Parties, 'Why Bother?' Asks Ken Wheaton |
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