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People Wanted

Some NYTimes.com-related business today…

First, there’s a pretty plum job opening with T Style Magazine, the Sunday insert that has become a closely watched showcase for luxury design. The magazine launched an online version last year that, I think all of us involved would agree, is an imperfect first step in marrying the singular immersive qualities of the print edition with an authentically digital experience.

That’s why this position could be so influential. As Janet Froelich, the magazine’s creative director, describes it, “The focus of this position is to oversee the translation of the design approach of the print publication to the Web.” It’s a pretty unique job that requires publication design skills, a refined typographic sense and a good eye for photography — and a sophisticated understanding of the nuances of the Web. We’re essentially looking for someone to really help shape how a luxury magazine expresses itself online. By my guess, there are less than a dozen people in the world qualified for this job; if you’re one of them, send your résumé and cover letter to A. J. Rourk.

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The Message Comes in Medium

Rumplo.comNo one should listen to anything I say about anything.

For instance. My friend Sahadeva Hammari told me a long while ago that he was working on a new startup that would collect and display links to graphic tee-shirts from all over the Web. My reaction was, “That’s a neat idea, but to what end?” It didn’t strike me that it was a concept that would go very far. As it turns out, the resulting site, Rumplo is pretty damn engaging.

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Lost in Spacing

It’s always surprising to me the things I continue to learn about the delicate art of presenting design ideas. Yesterday, for instance, while proving my theory about the power of spacing in interface design, it was made very clear to me that messing with email interfaces is a bad idea.

Or, at least, it became apparent that, as a way of demonstrating how a more discerning application of negative space might improve Gmail, altering the number of email messages presented in the interface created an unnecessary distraction. By adding more vertical height to each message in the list, I effectively pushed a small but significant number of messages below the screen’s ‘fold.’

That particular change proved too contentious for many readers, which makes sense. People get very attached to applications as integral to their daily lives as Gmail, and any suggestion of reducing its efficiency — even if other gains are offered — are unlikely to be met kindly. Changing that variable, for better or worse, was not the point of the argument I was making; I should have known better to have avoided it, but of course all things are clearer in hindsight.

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Spacing Is Everything

If it’s true that in comedy, timing is everything, then in design, I say that spacing is everything. Or at least it counts for a heck of a lot. This is especially true for Web design, and especially true again for the design of interfaces, which is what the bulk of Web design boils down to. The number of pixels separating elements in an interface plays a critical and frequently underestimated role in the orderliness of that interface.

This is an idea that nags at me all the time, mostly because I see so many instances when a more nuanced attention to spacing could benefit a design at virtually zero cost. And it ’s something that comes to mind especially when I look at the school of Web design that prizes functionality so highly that the deprecation of form becomes a virtue. The argument over whether usability does or does not have to come at the cost of aesthetics is so contentious and frequently debated that I won’t go into great depth with it here. Suffice it to say that I don’t believe they’re mutually exclusive. They better not be, anyway, because that’s what my whole livelihood is based upon.

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The Art of Japanese Books on Art

Art Space Tokyo CoverWhenever it is that I’ll finally get an opportunity to make it to Japan, I plan to take with me a copy of “Art Space Tokyo,” an unexpectedly stunning bit of cultural travelogue from Chin Music Press. It’s a beautiful — and I mean gorgeous — guide to “twelve of Tokyo’s most distinctive galleries and museums,” written in English, lovingly edited by Ashley Rawlings and masterfully designed and curated by a friend of mine, Craig Mod of Hitotoki fame.

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Investing Strategies for iPhone Customers

iPhone 3GHurray for the iPhone 3G! Really, I’m not mad. I’m kind of excited that 3G is finally coming to the iPhone, and I harbor sufficiently little ill will against Apple for so dramatically lowering the cost of entry to their iPhone platform that I may even go ahead and buy one for myself when it’s released next month.

Looking back at the original iPhone and how that’s worked out, I realize that if there’s anyone that I should be mad at, it’s me. It’s no secret that the value of digital hardware drops precipitously. I guess what’s so surprising — or galling, to many — is just how precipitously the value of an original iPhone, bought in June of last year, has dropped in just twelve months. Take a look at this chart I cooked up.

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Go Speed Racer Go

Speed RacerMost of you reading this probably have only a few days left, at most, to go see what in my opinion will surely prove to be one of the most underrated films of the recent past — before it’s withdrawn from your local multiplexes entirely due to its almost universally poor critical response and its relatively anemic box office performance to date. The name of the movie is “Speed Racer.”

Don’t be fooled by its juvenile source material — an American adaptation of a Japanese anime franchise that originated in the late 1960s — or its unabashed formulation as a would-be summer blockbuster. It really is one of the only movies I’ve seen this year that really qualifies as high art, not just entertainment, but a leap forward in filmmaking. For designers, this movie should also be of some interest: its disappointing reception amongst both the cognoscenti and the popular moviegoing public are a testament to my theory that the combination of graphic design and cinematic storytelling is a surefire recipe for failure.

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D-Crit

Later this year here in New York, the School of Visual Arts will debut a new, two-year Master of Fine Arts program in Design Criticism. The program promises to train students “to research, analyze, and evaluate design and its social and environmental implications,” and boasts a faculty roster that includes many of the sharpest minds writing about and working in design today.

In spite of my general aversion to academia, I must admit that I’m pretty excited about this. Don’t get me wrong; I have no objection to scholarly pursuits. There’s just something about academia that usually fails to get me as worked up as I feel like it should. But D-Crit, as the program has colloquially named itself, has the potential not just to turn out stellar practitioners, but also to elevate a sorely underdeveloped aspect of our craft. Design has gained much traction over the past several decades, but the way we think and write about design has a long way to go, it seems to me.

The chair of the D-Crit program is the prolific Alice Twemlow, who has written far and wide about design and over the past several years has had a rapidly growing reputation and influence as one of the profession’s key critics and thinkers. She also happens to be a friend of mine, so I took advantage of that fact to conduct a brief interview with her here, trying to get a better idea of her ambitions for the program as it readies itself for a fall kickoff.

(Another note: in advance of that kickoff, D-Crit has been organizing a series of readings in New York City, previewing some of the writing and works from faculty. The next one takes place this coming Thursday, at KGB Bar in New York’s East Village, and focuses on the intersection of design and food. I’ll be there.)

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Notes on Note-keeping Software

YojimboSomehow, I’ve noticed, when someone brings up the subject of note-keeping software, it often turns into a much more extensive discussion than originally intended. Last Thursday I wrote about my search for the right all-purpose repository for recording details that would otherwise escape me, followed it up yesterday with some ruminations on the philosophical questions that search raises about online versus offline software, and now here I am again already, writing a third installment.

People come out of the woodwork with suggestions and opinions when it comes to this particular software niche. It’s been really helpful, so I felt it was my duty to report back on what I heard and what path I’ve decided to take.

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Cover Stories, Old and New

Far be it from me to pretend I really know what makes for good rock ’n’ roll. Beyond the music and musicians that I like, I have no idea, really, what does or does not make sense for the rest of the listening public. But I sincerely do believe that, past a certain age, most acts really should stop releasing albums and just let their back catalogs stand as the definitive statement of who they are. There are plenty of good reasons for this, not the least of which is that the youthful theatrics of rock music are just an embarrassment when pantomimed by nearly anyone over, say, forty years old. Maybe forty-five.

Another reason is that, past a certain age — or perhaps a certain stage in a career — most acts’ new album cover designs lose that singular, epochal quality that was so common to their early releases. That is, where an act might once have released iconic albums replete with cover art that not only reflected their time but also defined it, those acts’ older, mid-life incarnations tend to release album covers that only lamely follow ripened trends.

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