Searching via Web Directories

On her site The Spider's Apprentice, Linda Monash talks about online search resources including Web or subject directories – which she compares to using the "subject" option of a library card catalog.
Monash explains:

Think back to the library card catalogue analogy. In the old card files, and even in today's computer terminal library catalogues, you find information by searching on either the author, the title, or the subject. You usually choose the subject option when you want to cover a broad range of information.

Example: You'd like to create your own home page on the Web, but you don't know how to write HTML, you've never created a graphic file, and you're not sure how you'd post a page on the Web even if you knew how to write one. In short, you need a lot of information on a rather broad topic—Web publishing.

Your best bet is not a search engine, but a Web directory like the Open Directory Project, Google Directory or Yahoo. A directory is a subject-tree style catalogue that organizes the Web into major topics, including Arts, Business and Economy, Computers and Internet, Education, Entertainment, Government, Health, News, Recreation, Reference, Regional, Science, Social Science, Society and Culture. Under each of these topics is a list of subtopics, and under each of those is another list, and another, and so on, moving from the more general to the more specific.

Example: To find out about Web page publishing from Yahoo, select the Computers and Internet Topic, under which you find a subtopic on the Wide World Web. Click on that and you find another list of subtopics, several of which are pertinent to your search: Web Page Authoring, CGI Scripting, Java, HTML, Page Design, Tutorials. Selecting any of these subtopics eventually takes you to Web pages that have been posted precisely for the purpose of giving you the information you need.

If you are clear about the topic of your query, start with a Web directory rather than a search engine. Directories probably won't give you anywhere near as many references as a search engine will, but they are more likely to be on topic.

Web directories usually come equipped with their own keyword search engines that allow you to search through their indices for the information you need.

Monash offers many other valuable insights on search strategies. Check them out at The Spider's Apprentice.

from Q&A!

An Overhaul of an Underground Icon

Link to article in the NYT with historical sequence of maps

Next month, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority will unveil a resized, recolored and simplified edition of the well-known map, its first overhaul in more than a decade.

More Info on Barbra Streisand's Design Book

From Unbeige

By Steve Delahoyde on May 28, 2010 07:00 AM

Save for that quick post last month when we told you she would be the keynote at this year's BookExpo, it had been almost a full year since we'd last thought about Barbra Steisand writing a book about architecture and design. But now here it is all over the place (thanks BookExpo), with the first peek at its cover (where Babs looks just slightly more comfortable than her very uneasy dog). The initial info has come out now, so we and you now know that it'll be 288 pages, cost somewhere south of $60 depending on where you buy it, and has an official release date of November 16th of this year. And while we'd really rather not have to think about it again until then, she does score some points in this quote over at the NY Times' T blog for dropping Mies van der Rohe's name:

Gayle King, the editor-at-large of O, the Oprah Magazine, interviewed Streisand but was obviously outmatched by the diva's aesthetic prowess. "When I think of a Tiffany lamp," King said, "I think of bright colors." "No," replied Streisand, "you're thinking of fake Tiffany lamps." Burn! King went on to quote Oprah, who likes to say, "God is in the details." "Ah," Streisand chimed in, "But Mies van der Rohe said the devil is in the details." They're both right, of course, but Babs had the last word.

Michael Bierut on designs rising status

It always good to take some time and hear from the industry’s best. This video from AIGA last year shows design legend Michael Bierut Discussing good design, working in a recession and designs rising status.



View on the Blur Designs blog

Streaming Lecture from the Cooper Hewitt: May 27

The event will be streamed live online.
http://cooperhewitt.org/

MICHAEL BIERUT and YVES LUDWIG of Pentagram talk about designing the catalog for the National Design Triennial: Why Design Now?

* Thursday, May 27, 2010
* 18:30:00
* | Lecture

A partner at Pentagram, critic at Yale and co-founder of Design Observer, Michael is one of the world’s most admired graphic designers. We at Cooper-Hewitt were thrilled with the design that he created for our Triennial exhibition catalog! He will be the first presenter in a new series of conversations, BILL’S DESIGN TALKS, moderated by Bill Moggridge.

Yves Ludwig is the graphic designer at Pentagram who developed the full design for the Triennial catalog. She and Michael will show the design process as a case study and discuss the design of this piece in a broader context, followed by a discussion with members of the contributing team at the museum.

Stir Copenhagen: Design, Culture + Your Senses

July 9–19, 2010
3 Undergraduate Credits
(Credits usually transfer between schools, check with your department to confirm.)

Open to All Students
Cost: $3350.00
Registration for this course closes May 14, 2010.
http://www.risd.edu/summerstu_registration.cfm

Additional Information:
Visit the website
Contact Stephanie Grey

Course Description

To stir means to provoke, to evoke strong feelings in, to rouse to activity.

Invigorate your design process in Copenhagen this summer and participate in an intensive, ten-day, sensory-based design workshop. Immerse yourself in Danish design, history and culture from an insider's perspective and discover how a passion for creating exceptional design is woven into the fabric that forms Denmark. Students in this course tour the studios of notable Danish designers and gain insight into their thought processes, visit historic architectural sites, tour museums, bike through the cobbled city streets as the natives do, and take day trips to scenic parts of the country.

Your point of view is found through your senses as you focus on taste, texture, smell, sight and sound as a means to connect with your surroundings. You are introduced to the topic of the senses and design through readings, discussions and exercises that yield innovative approaches to design concepts. A sensory-based design process guides you as you record the happenings of the city and the nuances of the culture. This process helps expand personal awareness, and as a visual communicator, helps broaden and strengthen your design skills and gain the tools necessary to invite full sensory participation into your design work. Each student creates a final process notebook, which serves as a tangible method of creating and can be used for a lifetime of generating work.

This course — led by Stephanie Grey (MFA GD'04), a Boston-based graphic designer who has lived, worked and taught design in Denmark — challenges your current methods of creating (and experiencing the world) and helps stir, invigorate and add value to your design communication, products and experiences.

:output is looking for a design intern in amsterdam

:output offers a place for an internship in Amsterdam for 3 or 6 months starting june 2010. We are looking for an enthusiastic and reliable student with experience in graphic design projects (minimum 3rd year student). Skills in Adobe CS and experience with print work projects required. Your assignment would be to co-design the new :output book.

If you are interested to spend your summer in Amsterdam working with us please send your application with CV and work samples to: lambers@open-output.org.

Film: Typeface at YBCA

By Justine Nagan

Sat, May 15: 6 pm - Justine Nagan in person
Sat, May 15: 8 pm
Sun, May 16: 2 pm - Justine Nagan in person
Sun, May 16: 4 pm

Typeface tells the story of the Hamilton Wood Type Museum and print shop in rural Wisconsin. The centuries-old technique of handmade wooden type comes to life when seasoned craftsmen, masters of this obsolete but beloved technology, meet with international artists and together navigate the convergence of modern design and traditional technique. Preceded by a short film to be announced. (2009, 58 min, digital video)

YBCA is offering $6 discounted tickets to students and faculty through our onsite box office (not online). If people pick up their tickets early, it also entitles them to same-day admission to our galleries.

BLF (Billboard Liberation Front) Speak at DeYoung Museum, May 7th.

Cultural Encounters: Friday Nights at the de Young presents “Mission Muralismo” in partnership with Precita Eyes Muralists

WHAT: Street Art San Francisco: Mission Muralismo series presents “Directional Signals: Pranksters and Preachers, Paste and Stencil” featuring talks by Rigo, and John Jota Leaños. Also, Jack Napier, BLF co-founder, and Milton Rand, Kalman BLF chief scientist, will give a presentation titled “The Art and Science of Billboard Improvement,” plus stencil cutting demonstration by Russell Howze author of Stencil Nation: Graffiti, Community and Art.

WHEN: Friday, May 7, 6–8:45 pm
Live music in Wilsey Court: Marcus Shelby Quartet featuring vocalist Faye Carol performing the MLK project, 6:30-8:30 pm

WHERE: de Young Museum, Golden Gate Park

COST: Programs are free of charge

On Friday, May 7, the de Young Museum presents another dynamic program, luminous projections, and book signing in the ongoing series Mission Muralismo, in conjunction with the recently published book Street Art San Francisco: Mission Muralismo, edited by Annice Jacoby for Precita Eyes Muralists, foreword by Carlos Santana (Abrams, 2009). The evening focuses on the talent and passionate work of major contributors to the book: Rigo, John Jota Leaños, Russell Howze, Jack Napier Billboard Liberation Front (BLF) co-founder, and Milton Rand Kalman BLF chief scientist

The lecture/demonstration program will take place in the lobby of the Koret Auditorium starting at 6:45 pm with Russell Howze demonstrating stencil cutting and the process of working a stencil from start to finish. Visitors will have an opportunity to see completed stencils and work at his stencil station until 7:15 pm.Projections of Howze’s work will be shown in the Koret Auditorium.