Ramblings about anything and nothing.
For me, WordPress has that pleasure principle going for it. I love using it. The design is elegant. It has great usability. It’s extremely flexible and customizable.
Put another way, WordPress is the Baskin Robbin’s Peanut Butter n’ Chocolate of online apps.
Seems like everything I design lately uses the Avenir typeface. I’ll often start with a different font, but I always seem to go back to Avenir. Why? It’s precise, modern, timeless, well kerned, and easy on the eyes. My overuse of it is however is making it a little stale.
There are other options, such as Freight:
Proxima Nova:
And Precious:
I could always go back to the tried and true Helvetica Neue. Or maybe I’ll finally get around to designing my ideal typeface.
(images from smashingmagazine.com)
As a designer, your main job is to make something others want. Somehow you have to get inside that client’s head and figure out what it is they’re really asking for. This is usually done through discourse and writing.
So you had a meeting, made some notes and put together a stack of requirements. But you’re not out of the woods, because words create problems as well. 1. Words are imprecise. They can mislead if interpreted incorrectly. 2. Words are ineffective at conveying “want”. The average person has a difficult time speaking precisely about what they want, because want is based on emotion, and emotions are derived from a lifetime of living.
For myself, and I’m sure for most other designers, when confronted with a difficult client’s want that can’t be resolved by referring to the requirements document, I consult my gut. The gut, like want, has also been informed by a lifetime of living. Because people are more similar than different, it is possible to come close to understanding a want that is not yours, as long as your gut is appropriately calibrated. How do you do this? Be open to many ways of thinking and being, and to try to understand the contexts in which people live and operate.
I dreamt that I was in a car with Debbie for some reason we had to drive towards the sun. The sun was so bright that it appeared black. The black sun was large in the horizon. You could see clearly the animated anomalies and solar flares on the surface. I don’t know why we had to drive to it and why we thought we could reach it by car.
And then Debbie woke me to burp the little guy.
I dreamt that I brought home an eel. It was a sea eel with velvety black skin and fins with a soft white edge. The eel stared blankly, swimming in its clear plastic tank in slow s-curves, making the water look like corn syrup. I placed the eel’s tank in the refrigerator before I went to bed. This was a sea eel and I wanted it to feel at home. The ocean is dark and cold after all.
The next day I opened the fridge and discovered that the eel had given birth. The baby eel looked just like its mom, but smaller. I was surprised and happy to see the new eel. Momma eel looked pleased.
I took the eels out of the fridge and transferred them to a larger tank. The new tank was about the size of an English telephone booth. For some reason it was in the center of our living room. Debbie walked into the room. She took a hold of my hand. Together we looked at the two eels swimming together in slow s-curves.
I went for a run tonight. It’s been a while. The air was cold and dense with oxygen. I found my stride right away and I felt like I could run for hours. I ran in the streets rather than on the sidewalks because I was afraid of slipping on all the leaves. I ran down my street and then along the footpath just east of Lake. I then ran down the short switchback to the beach at Big Bay Park. The moon was over the lake, and it shone brightly. I got to the concrete pier jutting into the lake and stared at the moon and its far-off reflection for a while. The waves were crashing quite loudly. I then ran back up the hill. Halfway up I noticed the word “LOVE” spelled out with chalk on the path in large, clear lettering. Somehow I missed this on the way down. I stared at the word for a couple minutes. And then in my head I said to the anonymous author, “thank-you.”
I’m a dad. Papa. Pa. Pops. Dadda. Father.
I don’t know which moniker I should choose for myself. My father was “Pa”. He liked the “Beverly Hill Billies” when he became a dad, and I think that’s why he chose Pa, after Ma and Pa Kettle. He did not call his father any of these things because he spoke primarily Illocano (sp?) and Tagalog as a child. It also seems his father may not have been around that much. I say this because my dad doesn’t talk about his father much. Then again, he doesn’t talk about growing up in general. I don’t know if there is a reason for that, or if this lack of storytelling is a cultural thing. Of course, I would like more context to my being, and family history has always been a somewhat of a weak spot. I think I need to ask more questions.
I’ll go with Pa, to keep the tradition going.
I’m not totally sure what it is, but Vampire Weekend really does it for me lately. Is it that Ivy-League-undergrads-appropriating-Afro-pop quality? Yes.
http://www.vampireweekend.com/
One of the last days of summer. Open swim at the nearby high school. We actually got kicked out by the grumpy janitor for arriving after hours. He probably thought we were high school kids. Debbie only was able to get in up to her waist — it takes her about a half hour to get into a cold pool. I got in all the way (inspired by Bear Grills), despite my inability to swim.
