"Lines are better than boxes."
Anthropologist Grant McCracken takes note of a wonderful collection of "found sounds," from the "plastic bottle pachinkos" of a vending machine to the carefully designed (if not focus group tested) sound of a closing car door, to the produtive-sounding clack of the ThinkPad keyboard, to the high-pitched whirl that reminds the listener of the mortality of hard drives.
We focus so much on visual design, but experience encompasses all five senses.
Sometimes it takes an anthropologist to observe and remind us about the obvious. Grant McCracken's blog has good posts from time to time.
Solid predictions for 2008. Nothing too surprising, but good that somebody wrote them down, and a good reminder of what's important in technology this year. Trends include niche social networking websites, open mobile platforms, and that expressing identity (via social networking sites) gets more design buzz than building a user experience (which is more focused on single user apps). No predictions on how an economic downturn would affect the technology/design world.
Clearview typeface uses taller lowercase letters with larger negative space (such as the hole in the 'o') to make signs 16% more legible - saving 2 seconds of decision-making time when driving at freeway speed.
"It also put $138 million in his pocket."
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