CB: What does the bite in the apple represents? Is it a reference to a computing term byte? Is it a reference to the biblical event when Eve bit into the forbidden fruit? Is the fruit itself referencing the discovery of gravity by Newton when an apple fell on his head while sitting under the tree?
RJ: Well, I’m probably the least religious person, so Adam and Eve didn’t have anything to do with it. The bite of knowledge sounds fabulous, but that’s not it. And, there is a whole lot of other lure about it. Turing the famous supposed father of computer science who committed suicide in the early 50′s was british and was accused of being homosexual, which he was. He was facing a jail sentence so he committed suicide to avoid all that. So, I heard one of the legends being that the colored logo was an homage to him. People think I did the colored stripes because of the gay flag. And, that was something really thought for a long time. The other really cool part was that apparently he killed himself with a cyanide laced apple. And, then I found out Alan Turing’s favorite childhood story was Snow White where she falls asleep forever for eating a poisoned apple to be woken up by the handsome prince. Anyway, when I explain the real reason why I did the bite it’s kind of a let down. But I’ll tell you. I designed it with a bite for scale, so people get that it was an apple not a cherry. Also it was kind of iconic about taking a bite out of an apple. Something that everyone can experience. It goes across cultures. If anybody ever had an apple he probably bitten into it and that’s what you get. It was after I designed it, that my creative director told me: “Well you know, there is a computer term called byte”. And I was like: “You’re kidding!” So, it was like perfect, but it was coincidental that it was also a computer term. At the time I had to be told everything about basic computer terms.
It makes me so happy to know that even the designers of the most iconic logos still do some of their best work on accident. It’s fantastic that even when we don’t know why we do the things we do, there’s a part of our brain chugging along in secret, determined to make us look good. Each of us has a tiny think tank in our heads in a little cold war situation room with glow-in-the-dark paint all over the walls and a dozen crazy impulses battling to make the best of every situation. To know that you always have backup in your own head for any creative challenge: that’s reassuring.
Since I started thinking so much about augmented reality, I’ve got information design on the brain. Data visualization is a natural counterpart. Visual Complexity is a [four year old - sorry, i'm your grandpa, how do i work this thing] site that gathers impressively designed visualizations of complex information for your geeky delight. It’s produced by Manuel Lima, who went graduated from the program for Design + Technology at Parsons, in NYC.
(Evidently Helvetica just resolves well in all your standard-issue future interfaces) I’ll know more about it once I pick up some of theseinterestingbooks. In an equally cool-looking but perhaps slightly less useful display of info visualization, Random Walk has compiled images that attempt to interpret randomness in graphical form. Here, take a peek:
The project RANDOM WALK simulates randomness in visualizations, which are easy to understand. In this way, it delivers insight into a phenomenon, which has so far remained unexplained.
WHAT DOES RANDOMNESS LOOK LIKE?
RANDOM WALK asks this question and presents experiments in mathematics and physics, showing the mysterious interaction of chaos and order in randomness.
For extra Data Viz fun, check out this (also antique) Smashing Magazine article.
Well, any posting is better than no posting! So here’s an awesome link for today. I’ve seen a handful of amazing Augmented Reality (AR) videos online this week that are giving me serious reason to drop everything and pursue AR with my whole heart even though I’ve no idea where to start. Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve dreamed about having a heads-up display projected onto my glasses [and if you're being honest with yourself you know you've probably dreamed of it too]. So watching this video may make a little part of your brain squeal with glee:
I can’t tell if I’m more excited about the social or technological innovations Augmented Reality technology is going to inspire. It’s too easy to see marketing campaigns taking advantage of this in a GE Smart Grid / William Gibson Spook Country GPS Art installation way, city-wide promotions with special hidden symbols that reveal prize codes, et cetera. It’s also easy to see Starbucks and other brick and mortar retail stores unveiling their own apps that’ll tether personal purchasing habits, store accounts, estimated wait times, pastry availability data, et cetera together so you’ll know how far and how long till the next caffeine boost. That’s all obvious, if depressing, but that’s just the field I work in. I imagine the utilities for doctors and medical professionals will be stunning and much more useful, and you know the military has already been working on this technology for years for combat purposes.
But I’m interested in the visuals, for better or worse. And I’m curious if the extremely cluttered visual environments we’re used to navigating every day are going to begin to gradually simplify as more of the data marketers would have us absorb migrates into the ether. Or what the social consequences will be if the privileged elite are actually privy to a whole other world of interactive information, a common marker of class division made concrete through technology. You can talk about how the internet is already fulfilling such a role, and people do, but bringing it into the physical world is unquestionably – well, a little bit spooky.
If you’re interested in pursuing AR development (and you know Actionscript 3), you can check out this link for a Flash CS3 toolkit that should get you started. Of course, I’m no coder – but you might find it useful. Developed in conjunction with the Seattle, Washington based AR Toolworks. I’m still looking around for more information on AR development, educational programs, and just cool-ass videos. So if you find any, send them in! Besides Parson’s program in Design+Technology, which, basically, I’m already going to go to. It has been decided.
TypeCon2009 explores type for the screen, Dutch design, type in motion, advertising typography, the new life of wood type, and much more. Special events include the premiere of “Typeface,” Kartemquin Films’ new documentary on the Hamilton Museum, a keynote address by Jim Sherraden of Hatch Show Print, the Type and Design Education Forum, and an international exhibition of type and design. With dozens of workshops, presentations, panel discussions, special events, small group tours, and exhibitions in the works, TypeCon2009 promises a typographic adventure you will remember for years to come.
BE THERE OR BE OLDSTYLE. This is without question worth the $150 I will be paying for admission. If anyone thought it was impossible to out-nerd Dragon*Con, well, I will be doing it and doing it SO HARD.
The Flag of Earth symbolizes the Earth (the center blue disk), the Sun (the yellow disk on the left), and the Moon (the white disk on the right). The Earth and its most important celestial neighbors – the Sun and Moon – are overlaid on a backdrop of the darkness of space.
The Flag of Earth website is administered by NAAPO – the North American Astrophysical Observatory. NAAPO is a not-for-profit organization formed to run the Big Ear Radio Observatory in Delaware, Ohio, and which now runs the Ohio Argus Array.
Though in all honesty, wouldn’t most planets capable of appreciating a flag like this have flags that look pretty similar? Slightly different sizes of circles may not really get the point across. Especially when you have them hanging on poles on the top of your spaceships, whipping about in the solar wind in the middle of some epic space battle.
That’s not my opinion, that’s just science. Look it up.
“Natural gait is biomechanically impossible for any shoe-wearing person,” wrote Dr. William A. Rossi in a 1999 article in Podiatry Management. “It took 4 million years to develop our unique human foot and our consequent distinctive form of gait, a remarkable feat of bioengineering. Yet, in only a few thousand years, and with one carelessly designed instrument, our shoes, we have warped the pure anatomical form of human gait, obstructing its engineering efficiency, afflicting it with strains and stresses and denying it its natural grace of form and ease of movement head to foot.” In other words: Feet good. Shoes bad.
Since this is probably the only time this blog will quote from Podiatry Management, I would just like to repeat: Podiatry Management. Anyway, the whole article is fascinating if you didn’t read it last year, and if so, sorry, guys, I suck. But to sum it up, shoes fuck up your feet. Even casual walking shoes that feel nice. But of course, walking around a city barefoot is really asking for trouble – you know, loose hypodermic needles, pools of acid, colonies of flesh-eating bacteria, human feces, ants. So the solution?
It’s about time for a new post… but I have nothing to write about. So instead I will feature this link to a bunch of awesome free fonts, since that is just the sort of person I am. And if you read this chances are you dig typography too, and like free things (everyone likes free things!)
Emphasis on ‘Professional’, there—these look good. This isn’t fontz4u.tv or whatever.
I may live in Midtown, but I’m gay for only two things: Quirky Slab Serifs and Hugh Jackman (even with the pants-peeing/vomiting stuff, but man was that ever a disappointment). But anyway Archer from H&FJ (Makers of Gotham, which, you know Gotham) is like $200-$400 for use on one computer. Romeral, however, is free. It’s only available in one weight, but I think I’m okay with that for now.
Pretty much a naked link, but it speaks for itself in its greatness. More after effects vector animation stuff. I want to see more of these! What should be next? We’re not limited to Grimm’s fairy tales, here…
And there’s more to be seen on flickr with the tags ‘seattlelibrary‘ and ‘seattlecentrallibrary‘! It felt like I was walking around Mirror’s Edge, but thankfully I was able to restrain the urge to attempt some spontaneous parkour. I suspect this is the beginning of another level in my obsession with postmodern architecture, bright colors, and lowercase Futura bold.
Evidently there is quite a bit of controversy surrounding the building in architectural circles, or so wikipedia tells me. It’s pretty mind-blowing when you walk in, so maybe I wasn’t noticing things like usability as much as I should. Seattle P.I (R.I.P., LOL) Architectural Critic Lawrence Cheek reversed positions on the library in this insightful if not entirely persuasive retrospective piece:
This one feels, in varying places, raw, confusing, impersonal, uncomfortable, oppressive, theatrical and exhilarating. Ponder any spot in this vast building, and two, three or more of those adjectives inevitably swirl together. That’s the first indicator of trouble. If this building were fulfilling the showers of acclaim heaped onto it, all we’d be talking about is joy.
I could, and have, spent hours looking through this collection. Like many amazing things, it comes from the casual optimist. from the interview I excerpted earlier: an exchange that I thought was actually very insightful and changed my mind about e-books:
E-book detractors have of a strange idea of what most books are. Those beautiful dusty old encyclopedias, that rare first-edition of Ulysses, even your fancy new Vintage paperback? That is not most books. The Grisham and Grafton paperbacks at the airport, Chicken Soup for the Spirit, college textbooks — that’s most books. Does anyone really care if the next Janet Evanovich thriller has no corporeal form? Wouldn’t that be an improvement?
