tumblo.graphr

"It looks like a human was involved in choosing what went where. It looks too editorialized. Google..."

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 02:46:44 -0800

“It looks like a human was involved in choosing what went where. It looks too editorialized. Google products are machine-driven. They’re created by machines. And that is what makes us powerful. That’s what makes our products great.”

- Marissa Mayer addressing Google designers, as quoted in “In The Plex” by Steven Levy

Shit That Siri Says

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 08:42:29 -0700

Shit That Siri Says

"Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to..."

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 17:02:37 -0700

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

- Steve Jobs

Photo

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 16:54:16 -0700

Here’s the thing about Apple’s “recent” success.

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 12:02:27 -0700

Here’s the thing about Apple’s “recent” success.:

It isn’t recent.

The only thing that has changed are some numbers. Some big numbers: largest company in the world, second most profitable company in the world, most profitable retail stores in the world, best-selling smart phone, second best-selling smart phone, best-selling tablet computer, etc.

Other numbers have not changed: customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, consumer ratings, etc.

So now we have some new numbers which make it easy to say “Apple is better.” But Apple has not changed. Apple is operating from the same principles, discipline, vision, and methods that they have always (with Steve and team) been operating from. What people who understand have been saying is no more true now than it was ten years ago: Apple is better. Not in trivial, transient ways. Not in the “My beliefs are right, yours are wrong” sense. Apple is doing, and has been doing, things much differently than any company—in any industry—for at least the past ten years. Apple’s products and operations are vastly superior. Many people have recognized this all along. Some people will never recognize it.

It’s just now all the numbers confirm it.

More like: How do you not have ALL OF THE FRIENDS.

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 20:07:00 -0700

More like: How do you not have ALL OF THE FRIENDS.

Apple’s Designers Work Towards Storefront Symmetry

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 21:17:24 -0700

Apple’s Designers Work Towards Storefront Symmetry:

One of the best examples of Apple’s design craftiness is the just-opened 4th Street (N. Calif.) store, where the new sidewalk, store window panels and inside stone floor tiles all are dimensioned and positioned to present a symmetrical appearance. In this case, the master element is the stone floor tiles, which are 76 centimeters square (about 30 inches). The glass window panes are then manufactured to a multiple of that dimension. Outside, Apple routinely installs a new sidewalk in front of its street-facing stores. In this case, the sidewalk was made with contraction lines that are also multiple of the stone tile dimension. When all the painstaking design and construction work is finished, passersby and store visitors “see” the effect, but probably don’t realize why the store is so attractive.

Louie Mantia on "workflow"

Sat, 03 Sep 2011 11:53:49 -0700

Louie Mantia on "workflow":

I’ll be honest with you, I never understood what “workflow” means. I don’t go through steps of things to do while designing. I just sit down and start drawing in Photoshop. It’s almost like molding clay. You just have to start molding and fleshing out icons and UI design by doing. I draw fast enough in Photoshop that I don’t sketch, make wireframes, or preliminary work. I mostly just jump right in and create things.

This came up again and again in interviews, and it was difficult for me to answer honestly without coming off as lazy or arrogant. But honestly? I don’t do sketches, thumbnails, wireframes, or anything like that. In the case of web design, I often even skip Photoshop. One of the things I hated about school was how often I was forced to “reverse engineer” my final products into preliminary stages in order to fit into some predefined “workflow” that had no relation to how I actually worked.

Anyway, I just wish I had said it as well as Louie.

Resigned

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 23:38:26 -0700

Resigned:

Apple’s products are replete with Apple-like features and details, embedded in Apple-like apps, running on Apple-like devices, which come packaged in Apple-like boxes, are promoted in Apple-like ads, and sold in Apple-like stores. The company is a fractal design. Simplicity, elegance, beauty, cleverness, humility. Directness. Truth. Zoom out enough and you can see that the same things that define Apple’s products apply to Apple as a whole. The company itself is Apple-like. The same thought, care, and painstaking attention to detail that Steve Jobs brought to questions like “How should a computer work?”, “How should a phone work?”, “How should we buy music and apps in the digital age?” he also brought to the most important question: “How should a company that creates such things function?”

Jobs’s greatest creation isn’t any Apple product. It is Apple itself.

What they're "protecting" us from

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:19:19 -0700

What they're "protecting" us from

http://www.foodspotting.com/alexhong

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 13:48:11 -0700

http://www.foodspotting.com/alexhong:

I will finish this. I will eat… ALL OF THE THINGS.

serifluous: Madeon - Pop Culture (live mashup) Alphabeat -...

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 20:57:00 -0700

serifluous:

Madeon - Pop Culture (live mashup)

Alphabeat - Boyfriend

Alphabeat - Fascination

Bag Raiders - Shooting Stars

Black Eyed Peas - Gotta Feeling

Britney Spears - …Baby One More Time

Capsule - Can I Have A Word

Chromeo - Mamma’s Boy

Coldplay - Viva La Vida

Daft Punk - Aerodynamic

Daft Punk - Around The World

Deadmau5 - Raise Your Weapon (Madeon Remix)

Deadmau5 - Right This Second

Ellie Goulding - Starry Eyed

ELO - Mr. Blue Sky

Girls Aloud - Biology

Gorillaz - Dare

Gossip - Heavy Cross (Fred Falke Remix)

Gwen Stefani - What You Waitin For (Jacques Lu Cont Mix)

Housse de Racket - Oh Yeah

Justice - DVNO

Justice - Phantom Part II

Katy Perry - One Of The Boys

Ke$ha - Take It Off

Kylie Minogue - Wow

Lady Gaga - Alejandro

Linkin Park - Crawling

Madonna - Hung Up

Martin Solveig ft. Dragonette - Boys and Girls

Michael Jackson - Billie Jean

Nero - Me and You

One Republic - All The Right Moves (Danger Remix)

One-T - Magic Key

Ratatat - Shempi

Solange - I Decided (Freemasons Remix)

Stardust - Music Sounds Better With You

The Buggles - Video Killed The Radio Star

The Killers - Losing Touch

The Who - Baba O’Riley (SebastiAn Remix)

Yelle - Que Veux Tu (Madeon Remix)

So this is pretty much the best mashup I’ve ever heard. Did I mention this kid is 17?

Remember Girl Talk? DJ Earworm? Yeah, me neither.

“Our brains have just one scale, and we resize our...

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 23:14:00 -0700

“Our brains have just one scale, and we resize our experiences to fit.”

Anatomy of a Mashup: Definitive Daft Punk visualized

Wed, 11 May 2011 12:13:00 -0700

Anatomy of a Mashup: Definitive Daft Punk visualized:

I could listen to the first two minutes of this forever.

Also, pretty.

Paper Tigers

Mon, 09 May 2011 21:31:01 -0700

Paper Tigers:

Let me summarize my feelings toward Asian values: Fuck filial piety. Fuck grade-grubbing. Fuck Ivy League mania. Fuck deference to authority. Fuck humility and hard work. Fuck harmonious relations. Fuck sacrificing for the future. Fuck earnest, striving middle-class servility.

Google vs. Apple: How Business Models Drive Disrespect vs. Respect for Privacy

Fri, 06 May 2011 23:30:00 -0700

Google vs. Apple: How Business Models Drive Disrespect vs. Respect for Privacy:

This explains everything:

97% of Google’s ~$30b in annual revenues comes from advertisers, whereas ~99% of Apple’s ~$87b in annual revenue comes directly from customers who buy and use Apple’s products and services.

Video

Sat, 23 Apr 2011 11:45:35 -0700

thedailywhat: Art Project of the Day: From a series of...

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 12:30:00 -0700

thedailywhat:

Art Project of the Day: From a series of Smithsonian promo posters designed by Jenny Burrows as part of a portfolio project.

[reddit.]

Typography could use some work, but the concept is brilliant.

Photo

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 14:15:07 -0800

Arcade Fire, and the ‘Never Heard of It’ Grammys

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 17:37:00 -0800

Arcade Fire, and the ‘Never Heard of It’ Grammys:

There are some obvious jokes to be made about people with Internet access using Twitter to complain about not knowing something, as opposed to using Google to look it up. But for the most part, this reaction — all these examples cherry-picked from teenage pop fans and bemused adults — is just plain normal. “Never heard of it”: This has been the natural and traditional response of all sorts of ordinary American humans to all sorts of phenomena. It’s not really about knowledge or information. It’s an argument, for the most part, and a faintly aggressive one — a way of insisting that what you pay attention to really does define the world. What you’ve heard of is real, and everything else is marginal. The center holds, and you are that center. You are normal and aware, and not just some tiny atomized entity that can only hope to know one tiny corner of the universe.