"New" design aesthetics?

Nothing for months (not that nothing interesting was happening; rather, I mean that I've just been lazy/busy and not writing anything on this blog), then POW, something interesting pops up. Gizmodo posted an article yesterday about a SXSW panel on "The New Aesthetic," a (kinda) new trend in digital design. That article linked out to a Wired article by Bruce Sterling and to several other sites, including Glitch - Designing Imperfection and a sort of manifesto on a site called Book Two, that comment on this New Aesthetic.

In part, The New Aesthetic (P.S. can't we come up with a better name than that?) is about representing the digital glitches inherent in - what to call them? - "failed" digital design. Errors sometimes created in digital design become art unto itself. Pixelation can (should) be celebrated. Googlemaps goofery is a comment on the nature of the visual form. OK, yeah, I'm oversimplifying it, but I think there are some interesting aspects of postmodernity going on in these concepts. Go read the artciles. What do you think?

Photoshop (etc?) tutorials, among other things

OK, so there's this program called Photoshop... too basic? Well, at least keep in mind that there is a pretty solid free photo editing tool as well.

OK, so there are lots and lots of Photoshop tutorials out there. I mean really, a lot. Tutorials for beginners and pros alike, because - honestly - Photoshop is such a robust program that even long-time pros at it can gain a lot from seeing other designers' tips/tricks in practice.

One tutorial site that I recently ran across, and on which I see plenty of consistently good (or at least interesting) tips is PSHero. Now, I don't know anything about the folks (person?) who runs the site, and I'm not endorsing them for office or anything. However, I think the site makes lots of good design suggestions - often, but not always, applicable to designers at a variety of skill levels - and walks you through the steps for creating various design documents.

Specifically, their section dedicated strictly to Photoshop (they also cover vector graphics and, sometimes, design in general as well) has some slick-looking tutorials. Maybe go check them out.

Interesting applications of type

Per our discussion today in class, here's a link to some typeface portraits.

On the same blog, there's a post with some videos of designers creating the portraits. It's not exactly a how-to, but you can see the designer set type to paths and then play with font size, weight, etc. to create the portraits.

I also thought this blog had some interesting experiments in typeface. Many of them are hard to read, but when that design decision is made carefully and in a way that doesn't ultimately obscure the message, it can still work, can't it?

A new way to read? (This could save you textbook money!)

Allow me to make an analogy:


Remember the original Nintendo GameBoy? Well, no. You probably don't. Though it threatens to date me even further, I'll admit that I do. I got one not long after they came out, and it was awesome. I played it so much, I used to see Tetris blocks on the sides of buildings, on cars driving by, and even when I closed my eyes. Then, other hand-held game systems started to come out; they had cool new features, better games and (gasp) color screens. There was the Atari Lynx; Sega had the Game Gear, etc. (I'm overlooking the fact that all of those systems - and most of their parent companies - have gone the way of the dinosaurs, while Nintendo is still going strong. It's my analogy, and I'm going somewhere with it.) Fast forward to systems like the PSP and DS with gorgeous screens, WiFi, etc, and suddenly that old GameBoy seems like a relic, an ancient joke that can't stand up to the scrutiny of history.






Think, too, about the original cell phones. Not the Korean-war-era-looking giant bag phones, but early cell phones. They did just what their name implied, and little more. Now, of course, our cell phones do a mind-blowing array of things and have more computing power than NASA's early computers. And, of course, there's the top of the ivory pedastal: the iPhone, which does everything and makes it look good.


Now, to the point. Apple is coming out with a new tablet (think computer with no keyboard) that, I think , has the potential to revolutionize portable reading devices in the same way that the iPhone revolutionized cell-phones. According to a post on Gizmodo, One of the markets Apple is setting their sites on is the textbook market.

Imagine buying this device, with its gorgeous screen, WiFi capabilities that let you (make you want to) use it everywhere for everything, AND you have all of your textbooks for classes on it, plus interactive class-supplements, blogs, discussion boards, etc. According to the article, McGraw Hill and Oberlin Press are already trying to get deals with Apple. How many of their big, expensive books do you currently own? How much money would you save if you could buy less expensive e-versions of those books?


Compared to a device like amazon's Kindle, even the Kindle 2 or the supersized Kindle 2 (both from Ars Technica), I don't see there being much competition. Like the old-school Gameboy (and perhaps the Model T), the Kindle can represent any color you want, as long as it's a shade of black. It sort of has a touch screen, but Apple has clearly demonstrated fire superiority in that arena.


Could be that Apple new business model has one goal: shift paradigms.

Meaning: a product not only of language but of typeface?

Several years ago a documentary called Helvetica made the rounds through indie cinemas, film festivals, etc. If "Helvetica" sounds familiar, that's because it's one of the most prevelant fonts (or typefaces) in use today. Look around wherever you go today; I bet you'll see some Helvetica.

Anyway, in the film, Modernist designer Wim Crouwel says that Helvetica is "the most neutral typeface."

He says that he loved using the typeface because "it was a little more 'machines'," suggesting perhaps that the neutrality of the font allowed for accompanying images to really draw attention rather than the text itself.

Meaning (and semantics, for our class' discussions of language) often depends to some extent on context. Situation, audience, etc. often influence the meaning of a "text," regardless of an author's intention. But typefaces often carry with them a sort of visual semantics, a sense of emotion perhaps that helps create that context. That's one reason that we have to be very, very careful not only deciding what words we use to convey meaning, but also with what our presentation (text, images, whatever) might also "say" to an audience.

While on the topic of typeface, you might also check out this awesome video featuring European Design Hall of Famer (no, I'm not kidding) Eric Spiekermann. That opening song is about to become my iPod's "Most Played."

Seeing is believing. Believing is seeing.

A friend recently sent me a link to this video of an artist who works in what's called "tilt-shift" photography, which is often used to create images of fake miniature models. Per our discussion about "truth" in images, about visual rhetoric and communication, I thought it's an interesting thing to think about. Check out the slide show below. If it doesn't load, click on the "Metal Heart" link to go to Vimeo's site.



Metal Heart from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Thinking about chunking

How's that for a headline? In case you're interested, here are some links to some of the graphics and/or sites we looked at today in class.

Web Without Words shows some examples of chunking, not only of text but of images.

The example of a website structure map is here. However, it's just an ad for a program that provides a graphic user interface (GUI) for designing a website. All I did to find it was look in Google images for website structure.

The "backbone" image was designed by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, although I found it as an ad for some other company.