Skeumorphism, flat design, and the upcoming hotness?

Wow, that's a pretty indulgent title. Lookit me having no shame.

I recently discovered (wish it had been a long time ago) UX Magazine, a great site about - well - user experience, primarily in a design context. Per my post from Monday, I was especially interested in a couple articles I found there. One is on general design trends that need to be put out to pasture, and I think author John McKinney makes some excellent claims, especially about stuff like drop-downs and carousels (plus a couple no-brainers like Flash).

Hi, rabbit-hole! That led me to a great article about skeumorphism (current favorite word) and its significance (or lack thereof) in design, and THAT led me to another excellent article about flat-design, a trend whose popularity author Luke Clum accurately describes as "a growing tidal wave." It made me think of Copperplate Gothic, 'cause wow did that used to be hot until it got used by every single designer. Ever. Yup. That's how I feel about flat design.

Some claims about 2014 design trends

As my Layout & Design class begins to talk about design (so-called good and bad, what it is vs. what it ain't), I noticed this Gizmodo article about upcoming design trends.

ENGL 3333 students, what do you make of these claims? What parts of our first readings/discussions fit into (or don't) Gizmodo's claims about what's going to be hot in design this year?

FREE software! Revisting an older post for ENG 3333, Spring 2013

Check out this old post on my blog for links to free design software.

Also, here's a link to the companion website for our text, Document Design.

Remember that Photoshop (and/or GIMP) and Dreamweaver (and/or some other WYSIWYG editor) are on many of the computers in JM 103. Over the course of the semester, we'll be using these programs to produce some of our class assignments, so if you want them on your personal computer, these links will help you get them.

"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?

Links for class today...

CBS news story about internet censhorship bill.
Basically the same story on Perez Hilton's blog, 'cause...

Basically the same story on The National Review's website.

Infographic about censorship in China.