-
-
Decided to try a spontaneous Turing Test on the weird Comcast customer service rep (like you do), and….wait what?
-
~ The Myth of DPISeventy-two is a magic number in printing and typography. In 1737 Pierre Fournier used units called ciceros to measure type. Six ciceros were 0.998 inches.
Around 1770, François-Ambroise Didot used slightly larger ciceros to fit the standard French “foot.” Didot’s pica was 0.1776 inches long and divided evenly into 12 increments. Today we call them points.
In 1886, the American Point System established a “pica” as being 0.166 inches. Six of these are 0.996 inches.
None of the units ever strayed far from 12 points per pica: 6 picas per inch = 72 points per inch. It was an important standard by 1984, when Apple prepared to introduce the first Macintosh computer.
-
The urge for good design is the same as the urge to go on living. The assumption is that somewhere, hidden, is a better way of doing things.
~ Harry Bertoia -
-
-
Software options proliferate extremely easily, too easily in fact, because too many options create tools that can’t ever be used intuitively. Intuitive actions confine the detail work to a dedicated part of the brain, leaving the rest of one’s mind free to respond with attention and sensitivity to the changing texture of the moment. With tools, we crave intimacy. This appetite for emotional resonance explains why users - when given a choice - prefer deep rapport over endless options. You can’t have a relationship with a device whose limits are unknown to you, because without limits it keeps becoming something else.
~Wired 7.01: The Revenge of the Intuitive
(via davidhoffman)
(via davidhoffman)
-
- Water, 1400
- Land, 1840
- Gold, 1850
- Wire, 1880
- Air, 1900
- Celluloid, 1920
- Plastic, 1950
- Space, 1960
- Silicon, 1980
- Networks, 1990
- Data, 2000
(via davidhoffman)
-
You are not Jesus and comps aren’t for saving. If something isn’t working, start over. Otherwise the goal you’re working towards is saving your work, not solving the problem.
Also, comps do not have feelings. You are not abandoning them. (You have no idea how much therapy that sentence took. Seriously.)
This urge comes from not wanting to feel like the time they’ve spent on that comp is wasted. The only possible way you can waste time is by being dishonest with yourself about its value. If you just spent an hour on a comp thinking it was working, then that was time spent honestly trying to solve a problem. The minute you realise the comp isn’t working and you start trying to “save it”, you’re no longer working towards good design. You’re working towards ego salvage. You gonna bill for that? That’s what I mean by dishonest time.
