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Category Archives: Design
The Chesapeake at sunrise.
This seems at once the wrong time and the best time in my life to start reading The Architecture of Happiness (or any other de Botton for that matter). Its central concern with the effects of architecture on emotional well-being … Continue reading
Posted in Architecture, Design, Nostalgia, Travel
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Wash and fold.
Four weeks in, and I’ve figured out a useful trick to packing light for weekdays in New York: a wash-and-fold near the office where I can drop off my laundry before the weekend and pick it up at the start … Continue reading
Posted in Design, Introspection, Nostalgia, Travel
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Portable cathedrals.
Perhaps the only mobile phone review I’d consider essential reading includes “Roland Barthes” among its tags and this choice paragraph: Each mobile phone handset is not a mere product, perhaps like the other products that have traditionally adorned the pages … Continue reading
Posted in Design
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Every letter counts.
2011 June 2, 8:46 pm As my live-tweeting of last week’s National Spelling Bee finals attests, my misspellings outnumbered my correct guesses by a factor of five, which led me to the realization that I am not a good speller. … Continue reading
Posted in Academics, Design, Food, Nostalgia, Typography
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A continuation of habitable space.
Bridging the line between clothing and architecture, the spacesuit is a portable environment: a continuation of habitable space, safe for human beings, capable of radical detachment from the Earth. Geoff Manaugh Based on an interview with the author, I added … Continue reading
Posted in Architecture, Design
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Not much else.
…certain brands, and bands, can so glammer the market that a mere 10 percent share is nothing short of ubiquitous. Apple is that good, Radiohead is, and not much else. The Apple Of Rock While I don’t buy the build-up … Continue reading
Posted in Art, Design, Music
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In the kitchen.
Back from Houston, with a foundational chunk of literature review written and a substantial amount remaining this evening. In the meantime, I’d like to believe that on the other side of this kitchen is a refrigerator that would give Christina … Continue reading
Posted in Design, Travel
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Traces of interfaces.
It’s hard to appreciate the variety of UIs though, since turning the screen off removes virtually all evidence of them. To spotlight these differences, I looked at the only fragments that remain from using an app: fingerprints. Remnants of a … Continue reading
By their covers.
First class each semester I hand the students a questionnaire. One of the questions asks the students to draw, from memory, the cover of their favorite book of all time. I superimpose the drawings over a photo of a blank … Continue reading
Posted in Design, In case you missed it
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And then we could fuck it up a little.
The Tiger Mother roaring perilously close to meme-dom has finally encroached on Design Observer. The payoff is a bit of remembered wisdom dispensed by Tibor Kalman to Michael Bierut on the rules: Tibor listened patiently to my ideas — there … Continue reading