::tuesday, january 30::

Strange Connections | Information Architect's Manifesto "Information architecture does not equal USABILITY. Usability engineers and user experience designers are wonderful and important, and we like them too, but they can't do everything. Neither can the user. You can't user test your way from a bicycle to an airplane."

::monday, january 29::

v-2.org > under the swooshtika "...simply to beg all you marketing types for a more inspired generation of corporate identity design brief, in the hopes that your designers will have more room to breathe and evolve..."

Of course, I have to wonder how much blame marketing can take really? I mean, can't these designers just stage a mutiny and refuse to keep cranking out swooshes?? Maybe if they'd stop phoning it in? The designers I work with would rather be shot than put out some of the cr@p passing as logo creation these days. Of course, part of the problem is that these new companies have no history to go on, and so they want all their hopes and aspirations to be poured into some energetic logo. And a little deconstruction here: interesting how the male-dominated industries they represent all end up with logos that look like sports balls in flight or acts of physical prowess. But, hey, that's just my pomo take on things... my "real" brain just chalks it up to the rule of mediocrity.

::friday, january 26::

IconFactory::Iron Chef Icons!

My buddies out at IconFactory have done it again. Wow, my wife and I watch Iron Chef pretty obsessively these days. Never knew there were so many truffles and fois-gras recipes in existence. Funny how the more we watch Food TV, the more we order pizza. Go to IconFactory, grab these puppies. You'll never have to cook again.

::thursday, january 18::

The Tim Burton Collective: Planet Of The Apes Pics

The first one came out when I was about 3 years old. I firmly believe that the stuff we're exposed to in the first 5 years of life actually shapes the growth of our physical brain. In this case, more like my brain stem. Amygdala override. I didn't see it in the theater of course, but it was on TV within a couple of years, so my Kinderbrain got a nice wallop. Most memorable scene? When Heston runs through the museum and discovers his former astronaut partner, stuffed with eyes wide open in some macabre "natural setting" diorama. Even at 5 years old there were some weird racial undertones happening for me, probably because I was living in Atlanta (in the early seventies, still considered deep, deep south) at the height of the black power movement, and the racist relatives and neighbors around me kept referring to "damn monkeys" and how downtown was a "jungle"? Now perhaps it looks more like animal rights? Either way, I'm a big Burton fan (more tapping into my pre-K brain vault -- all those lurid sets give me bodily flashbacks of wandering at night through Goofy-Golf architecture at Panama City Beach), and I'm wondering if his ironic sensibilities will translate well to the Ape saga. It's one story that can't afford to be cheeky.

::wednesday, january 17::

Posters of the Revolution. May, 1968

Modern marketing has nothing on angry propaganda. And nobody has ever done it better than the French. (via xblog)

::friday, january 12::

The Lord of the Rings

Fabulous, beautiful revamp of the site, now that the countdown is officially on and the new trailer is out. Grab a screensaver.

::thursday, january 11::

Kaliber10000 { The Designer's Lunchbox ™ }

e-Thom is k10k's adorable little version of Radiohead's Thom Yorke. Waferbaby strikes again.

::sunday, january 7::

ROTTEN TOMATOES: Movie Reviews & Previews

Rotten Tomatoes -- I've come to rely on these folks to help me make sure I'm seeing just the right movie to save my sanity on Tuesday evenings when Stacy and I go out (our 'date' night, when we have a regular babysitter setup). Now they have a new design, much cleaner and more usable. Now they just need an Avantgo channel. Come on guys... get with the wireless re-vo-lution!