A few months back my company Pattern Making Co. decided to enact an indefinite boycott on the iPhone SDK, because our application the Cool O’Meter 3000 was denied live status on the App Store. You can read up on our rationale at the following blog post. When we heard that another App that had also [...]

When it comes to designing products a modicum of restraint should be employed to ensure a successful result. Sure there are many features that could be added just because they are possible but I ask you to live strictly by the following cliche - keep it simple stupid. The notion of “just because” has been [...]

In the film, A Beautiful Mind, the brilliant yet flawed professor John Nash has an epiphany that he publishes as “Governing Dynamics.” This theory alone has been my obsession for the past few years. Governing dynamics, in it’s blithe simplicity, stipulates that if all participants of a system are interested only in serving their own [...]

There was an inside joke in college that if you wanted to occupy a class with nonsense for a good hour all you had to do was raise the following question; What is the difference between art and design? Someone would pose a statement and then another would refute it. If you hit a lull [...]

It’s important to glance back to the past once in a while. Design being a pragmatic sport wasn’t always an easy endeavor. Before the invention of rapid prototypers, 3D modeling applications, and straight up magic machines industrial designers had to get down and dirty with their medium. Follow the breadcrumbs and you’ll see how limitations [...]

Over the weekend I scoured the internet in search of an appropriate printer to provide printing services for my client’s business cards. What struck me as surprising was the lack of printers with decent brand presentation - websites. Every site that I found looked like it was produced in the 90s (ex. 1 2 3) [...]

It was while talking to my lady friend yesterday that I gave some thought to the superstition that riddles the design process. The creative gods as they may be sometimes bless us with the eureka solution right away, other times it can take several hours to days to have a break through. With such a [...]

From time to time I do freelance design consulting for companies on the up and up. My services may include branding design work, interaction design, and even creative product development. I’ve been fortunate to have a keen sense for navigating the minefield that is courting potential clients. In this article I’d like to address what [...]

Rarely is it the case that you place something out there for mass consumption and it’s received exactly how you had planned it. An essential difference between products that fail and those that flourish are in their abilities to adapt to market opportunities. When your users find a new and innovative way to use your [...]

We are what we know. Tell me everything you can about ant colonies. That’s it? Why limit yourself to the things that make you a passable designer/engineer/person. You were taught in school the bare minimum to master your discipline of choice. Those who are hungry venture outside of their comfort zone and bring to the [...]

All good designs have one thing in common, they are conceptually simple. At the heart of everything is a simple digestible idea. Call this what you will; essence, thesis, spirit, substance. Aesthetic or concept wise stop blah blahing your audience and get to the point. Most importantly figure out what your point is.
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