It was a few years before I realized that worry stones had a name, that they were borrowed from cultures other and older than mine. Heck, it’s been more than a few years since I’ve even held one. But in the last few weeks, before and after launching the redesign, I’ve kept working away at this website, much as I’d distractedly run my fingers over a smooth, flat stone.
I feel like my problem with design in general today is that folks want to burn everything to the ground and start again all the time. Whether that’s with a website, or a new web standard, or a political policy. They don’t want to fix what’s wrong with things bit by bit, everyone wants Thing 2.0 whilst jumping over all the small improvements that are required to get there.
I was sad to hear of the passing of Syd Mead last week. Here’s a sketchbook of his remarkable work for Blade Runner.
If only our digital social networks were to exhibit this kind of faded grandeur when they no longer exist.
The Buckminster Fuller Institute has put together this collection of resources which explain the ideas behind “comprehensive anticipatory design science.”
Seems especially relevant in light of the first issue of the Journal of Design and Science from MIT.
The legacy of the Black Mountain College lives on.
We better get used to them…
A fascinating project to document markings from 1939—designed to be visible from the air—placed all around the Irish coast.
I wish to cover the entire Brighton Pavilion in Bakelite for my own amusement.
A cute idea: see how signs (mostly in Brazil) would look if they were set in Helvetica.
A lovely little ode to the manicule.
A collection of directional signage & wayfinding artifacts, well-executed or otherwise.
I don't think the end of Catcher In The Rye will have quite the same impact after browsing through the signs on display here. This is big and it is clever.
Coffee porn, some of which is from the baristas working at Travelbag in Brighton.
Happy Cog redesigns Dictionary.com and its siblings.
Designed by Happy Cog.
Design review by Jay Small.