Get the new year off to a positive start with these design resolutions

Wake up. I hope you enjoyed your holiday because it’s a new year and it’s time to get back to work.

http://netm.ag/ukpl2L

TED PARTNER SERIES: Paula Scher gets serious

the importance of play and keeping it fresh and real.

Pentagram’s Abbott Miller Designs New Identity/Branding for Barnes Foundation

Pentagram’s Abbott Miller Designs New Identity/Branding for Barnes Foundation - UnBeige

http://pentagram.com/en/new/2011/09/preview-the-barnes-foundation.php

Our friends at Pentagram have this week posted information on the branding and identity work partner Abbott Miller has created for the new location. The logo is based off of the coloring of Matisse’s Joy of Life, resulting in a muted but strong, modern orange, laid out in a form based related to Albert Barnes‘ sketches for the original gallery. The main font within the logo is Milo, created by Mike Abbink, with Monitor just below, spelling out the full name of the organization. In addition to the identity, Miller and his Pentagram pals are also working on a site redesign (launched this week), as well as “environmental graphics and interpretative displays and materials.” Here’s a bit from their write-up about Miller’s process:

"To develop the identity Miller conducted extensive research of the Barnes estate and the original building at Merion. The identity’s form was suggested by a sketch by Barnes of one of his signature arrangements, a symmetrical row of paintings. Miller recognized the layout as “the DNA of Dr. Barnes’ vision,” a motif that captures the museum’s unique environment and Barnes’ singular view of art. The logo consists of a row of rectangles that recall the centered, axial hanging at the Barnes, each form containing a letter of the museum’s name. The letters play with positive and negative space, referencing the Barnes’ intention to read across works and make connections."

Designers Consumed by Lust as Wacom Unveils ‘Inkling’ - UnBeige

Designers Consumed by Lust as Wacom Unveils ‘Inkling’ - UnBeige

CCA Lecture: Scott Constable

Wednesday, November 3, 7 pm

CCA San Francisco campus
Timken Lecture Hall
1111 Eighth Street (at 16th and Wisconsin)

Before settling into a dedicated art and design practice, Scott Constable apprenticed in traditional joinery, cooked as a line chef, played drums and guitar in rock bands, served as an "Appropriate Technology Agent" with the Peace Corps, fished as a deckhand on a salmon seiner, and freelanced as a photographer, digital artist, and museum fabricator. Today, his deep interest in vernacular design has led to far-ranging paths of inquiry researching the origins of "invention within tradition."

Soon after moving to the Bay Area in the early 1990s, Constable established Wowhaus, an experimental art and design collaborative working at the intersection of public art, social practice, furniture design, and architecture. In 2007, beginning with a grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation (CCI), he established the hybrid brand/philosophy/manifesto/blog Deep Craft.

Constable lives and works on his rural family compound on California's Sonoma Coast. He grew up on Philadelphia's Main Line, studied at the Rhode Island School of Design, and earned a BFA with a concentration in sculpture and generative systems at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

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!