Love this idea from Fusca Design. Must remember this for Future-Brummel for when Future-Brummel has a “need” for a shelf like this.

Cow DNA Now Fully Mapped

And what have we found? That over the years of domesticating cows and selective breeding, we’ve ended up with a mentally retarded version of the species former selves. GREAT FOR BUSINESS!

Both types of cattle show evidence of natural selection in genes that appear to be involved in making the animals — large, horned and potentially dangerous — docile. In some breeds, specific variants of behavior-related genes are “fixed,” or seen in essentially every animal. Curiously, some of those genes are in regions that in the human genome seem to be involved in autism, brain development and mental retardation.

Bill Moyers Interviews the Wire’s David Simon

Great for any fans of the Wire. BONUS: Also great for fans of inner city crime and bureaucratic mess. BONUS BONUS: A fan caught Simon before his appearance with Moyers and took him out to lunch. I like this David Simon character. If you haven’t started the Wire yet, start now. And you can’t stop until you at least finish a season; they start off decidedly slow.

Pt. 1:

Pt. 2:

M.S. Corley Re-imagines His Favorite Movies With Classic Penguin-Like Covers

I love this trend of design reinterpretation that’s been going around. Kottke did a nice roundup of some of the better redesigns, some noted previously here.
UPDATE: Here’s some more – Blue-Note Wu-Tang
UPDATE UPDATE: The Magic continues!! – Classic records as Pelican Books.

In Defense of Eye Candy

Stephen Anderson makes a great case that good looks in design go more than skin deep:

The more we learn about people, and how our brains process information, the more we learn the truth of that phrase: form and function aren’t separate items. If we believe that style somehow exists independent of functionality, that we can treat aesthetics and function as two separate pieces, then we ignore the evidence that beauty is much more than decoration. Our brains can’t help but agree.

The Royal Tenenbaums Prologue, Annotated in Video

An in-depth look into Wes Anderson’s style and choices through the first few minutes of The Royal Tenenbaums. Some of the analysis is a little manufactured, but most of it is pretty interesting. Make sure to pause often. If you’re an Anderson fan, be sure to check out parts one, two, three, and four.

Great student project by Thomas Nilsson

The Loudness War Analyzed

The music industry makes records louder and louder and have pushed beyond reason in an effort to stand out amongst the rest of the radio. This drives me nuts. Every time I listen to a Lily Allen record, I can’t stand the fact that the drums are distorted to make a buck; and I particularly can’t stand the fact that the people who perpetuate this problem know about it, but deny that it’s a problem in the first place:

“Somebody told me about [people complaining that the Guitar Hero version of Death Magnetic sounds better]. Listen, what are you going to do?… …The Internet gives everybody a voice, and the Internet has a tendency to give the complainers a louder voice. Listen, I can’t keep up with this shit.” – Lars Ulrich

I don’t know how he can honestly mean that when they guy who mastered it is embarrassed to be associated with the album. Make sure to also check out the Wikipedia entry on this topic.

Fez

Ohhh! This looks fun…

LEBRON!

Lebron James may end up having the greatest basketball season in the history of the NBA this season. And the funny thing is, he’s still got flaws in his game: His post-up game; Spotty outside shot; Stands still and dribbles too much. I’m betting that he’s going to end up being the best player to ever play in the NBA. Case in point:

I guess Jimmy Kimmel is pretty good at it too…

Takeshi’s Challenge: The Meanest Video Game of All TIme

Back in 1986, actor/director Beat Takeshi, a man who doesn’t like video games, wanted to show people how foolish they were for liking video games by making the most annoying video game of all time for the Nintendo. For example: A level where you must sit in front of the TV and hold the select button for 60 minutes. Apparently it’s coming to the Japanese Virtual Console on the 31st of March.

In a similar vein, Penn & Teller created a video game for the SegaCD in which you must drive across the Nevada desert in real-time for 8 hours in order to get “1 point”. There’s a torrent available for the brave.

Concept for Energy Consumption Visualization on the iPhone

Dear Future, please make this for me. I just had a $600 energy bill and need your help.

Old Growth Media and the Future of News

After Clay Shirky’s great write-up on the death of the newspaper, Steven Berlin Johnson of outside.in wrote a nice peice on a posibility for the future of news. If only someone could figure out this investigative reporting and war correspondence problem…

Walk This Way

GOOD Magazine’s guide for reducing your water footprint. I need me some low-flow toilets. FYI: Getting local WA State apples in Seattle doesn’t use as much water because of the lack of transportation.

Measuring the Design Process

The best thing to come out of web-design icon Doug Bowman’s resignation from Google is this well thought out article by Scott Stevenson. Doug on his departure:

Yes, it’s true that a team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can’t operate in an environment like that.

This particular point set off Mr. Stevenson to put into words concepts that I’ve always been aware of, but have always struggled to articulate as well as he did in his post:

The most contentious point between software engineering culture and visual design culture is the question of whether important things can be always seen in absolutes. The engineering approach values measurable, reproducible results which can be represented in a graph or a checklist. Unit tests and benchmarks illustrate progress. [...] Visual design is often the polar opposite of engineering: trading hard edges for subjective decisions based on gut feelings and personal experiences. It’s messy, unpredictable, and notoriously hard to measure. The apparently erratic behavior of artists drives engineers bananas. Their decisions seem arbitrary and risk everything with no guaranteed benefit.

Through out my career, I’ve regularly been in similar environments; and one of my biggest problems has been figuring out how to hurdle that divide. I feel that part of my role is as a visual taste maker. You might test to find the most crowd pleasing shade of blue at the first pass, but I might come up with a blue that might not be your instant choice, yet will grow on you when taken in holistically. Like Henry Ford said, “If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a better horse.” There is a point with visual design where logic starts to breakdown in ways that only experience can answer.

Hand Sewn Vinyl Atari Cartridges

These are huge!

Small Talk: Twitter Powered Weather Visualization

The coolest way to find out that the weather is shit in Seattle. The site uses Twitter status messages in various vicinities to draft a picture of not only how crappy it is outside, but what people think of it. Make sure to use a modern browser.

Tweetbook: Twitter user publishes his life in tweets

I don’t think that I tweet enough to get as thorough of a journal of my life (and thank the Maker™ for that), but I love the idea. I post too many shortened URLs for it to make any sense. Maybe one day…

Mind Opera wanted to work with me based on the design of my blog, particularly the “dark” background and the use of icons. After talking about the need to show off that they were a creative agency, we decided on a “hand-made” feel to the site.

Outside of some slight variations, the first design I handed them was what they went with. One of Mind Opera’s directives was that if they were going to use a mark, that it would be their pre-existing mark. Otherwise, the logotype could be all new. Based on how drastically the feel of the new design direction and the old mark were different, I decided to leave it out and focus on making a distinct logotype. One of my earlier attempts was in the “hand-made” vein, a wooden sign. After concern about the sign translating to other mediums, we decided on the four-color logotype that is currently used.

Being that Mind Opera worked as creative-types, they spoke a similar visual language and made the project very easy to dive into. Make sure to browse their new site and their page on my portfolio.