Everything All The Time

» The iPod will never last: Product Design theory

“Khoi found this fascinating little gem from the depths of the Internet: the Macrumors forum on the day that the iPod was unleashed on the world. What’s interesting is the amount of negative feeling and general disappointment.”

Originally it seemed everyone thought the iPod would fail. Similar to the feelings that first stirred with the iPad.

I wanted to bring attention to this post, because it touches upon something I’ve brought up before. As a general rule with most consumer products meant for the masses, most companies or designers play it safe and design by the “step, stretch, leap” method, ultimately falling under “step”. Let me explain (these are my short definitions):

Step: a small change or improvement over an existing product feature or technology. Visual updates are minimal to trendy: Trying to coincide with today’s market.

Stretch: greatly improving or changing an existing product feature or technology. Visual updates are a vast change: Very stylized and different than what people are used to seeing.

Leap: drastically changing everything about a product or technology, or inventing a new unseen category all together. In some cases no connection between past & present can be made.

The iPod fell under the stretch category, since it vastly improved upon the UI of the mp3 player. Products in the stretch category are generally harder to sell since folks have a harder time understanding them, or the need for them. People did not get this sense of improvement with the iPod until they were really able to test drive them in a store, or read reviews of first hand usage.

I’ll get to my final point. I’m surprised at the reaction to the iPad, because in my opinion it really falls under the step category, and people can usually make the connection to those types of products much easier. If you think about it, the iPad has nothing new that we have not seen already in terms of the iPhone and iPod Touch. It merely takes advantage of a larger format. Therefore, I’m very sure it will do well once it hits the market and people can witness the product first hand.

(via binkythedoormat)

2.26.10   27 note(s)  

Municipal Airports (reproduction print)

A hand printed reproduction of the original Harry Herzog 1937 print. Limited to 250 signed prints.

$100 at Hickoree’s Hard Goods (btw, an awesome store)

2.25.10   27 note(s)  

» Faked Concrete Testing Results: Yankee Stadium, WTC, etc.

It blows my mind at how greedy some people can be. These people were so desperate to get rich, they put literally hundreds of thousands of people’s lives at stake.

“…in a sprawling case that accused the company of falsifying concrete and steel test results for nearly 120 projects in and around New York City. They include such icons as ground zero’s Freedom Tower and such crucial pieces of infrastructure as the forthcoming Second Avenue subway line.”

“The tower, the subway line, the stadium and at least 23 other buildings have been declared safe after retesting, the city Buildings Department said Wednesday. But officials are still awaiting results on at least 67 more.”

The first clue should have been their company name: Testwell Laboratories

Full article available at Architectural Record

2.25.10   6 note(s)  

Greenwich Village: Jefferson Market Courthouse 1905

The original image from the Library of Congress.

Click through to download the hi-res tiff file.

2.25.10   14 note(s)  

Joe Hisaishi by Daisuke Tsutsumi

Stunning illustration with almost a painting like quality. This was a commissioned piece that Daisuke did personally for Joe Hisaishi; a famous Japanese composer recently rewarded a lifetime achievement award from the Japanese government. This will be on his thank you packages that are sent out to people.

Click through for Joe’s blog, with lots of other great work.

2.24.10   12 note(s)  

Smoke by Bevk Perovic for Vertigo Bird

Even though these have been passed around on the blogging circuit already, I wanted to post them. To me, these capture the attention of a child-at-heart like myself, yet remaining simple and modern. Would look great in a kid’s room also.

2.24.10   7 note(s)  

» I gave in to twitter

why not…..  let’s see what this is all about…

2.24.10   7 note(s)  

I’ve been working on a full redesign of this blog layout, but with my very limited extra time, it should be done sometime next year. I honestly wish someone would invent this thing where you lay out your site in illustrator, then hit export, and presto! all the links are done and everything.

Anyway, I have a serious thing for condensed fonts lately, and one that I will be using for the redesign is Steelfish by Larabie Fonts. You can grab it for free by clicking through.

2.23.10   14 note(s)  

Josh Middleditch

An awesome illustration from Josh. He explains it below:

“Its a piece I did on the poem ‘The Panic Bird’ by Robert Philips. I went through a long process of experiments with different images and ideas based on the poem. I took a lot of photos, used these to create single images which i then cut and distorted. In the end result i tried to capture the atmospheric feel of the poem. It was a project that took about 3 weeks to complete and is probably one of my favorites I have done at the moment”

Click through for more stuff from Josh. Nice work.

2.23.10   10 note(s)  

» Announcement: IE6 Funeral

Aten Design Group is hosting a funeral for IE6 at their Denver Colorado office:

“Internet Explorer Six, resident of the interwebs for over 8 years, died the morning of March 1, 2010 in Mountain View, California, as a result of a workplace injury sustained at the headquarters of Google, Inc. Internet Explorer Six, known to friends and family as “IE6,” is survived by son Internet Explorer Seven, and grand-daughter Internet Explorer Eight.

Funeral services for Internet Explorer Six will be held at 7pm on March 4 at Aten Design Group, 1629 Downing Street, Denver, CO 80218. Those unable to attend the funeral are asked to send flowers.”

(via dbox)

2.23.10   8 note(s)  

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Surfer Blood / Swim

These guys have been making all kinds of waves (no pun intended) on the music scene. The whole “Astrocoast” album is really good.

Played 97 time(s).   2.23.10   6 note(s)