SimplifierLab

Vintage Elements

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:55:05 -0500

One of my favorites, though a limited source, for vintage elements is Chank's dingbat font, CrapMagnet Bonus. Visit Chank.com/freefonts.php for more free fonts.

Vintage Clip Art Collection

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:46:21 -0500

Abundant collection of ornaments, objects, fleurons, decorative borders and mortices with a vintage feel -- most are available for free. Via BriarPress.org

Design for Ugly

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 19:42:30 -0500

I ran across this tearful and inspirational story about Ugly that reminded me of what I detest about most design. Rather than focusing on our very basic need for meaningful interaction, most designers spend time unnecessarily on superficial elements. Look deeper inside. Focus on the emotional interaction. Design for Ugly.

The Girl Effect

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 14:13:25 -0500

A viral video about humanity. It's immensely moving, powerful and is what compelling content needs to be. Storytelling in its simplest form: type and maybe a couple of colors. The Girl Effect

Keeping Up With Social Tagging

Sat, 31 May 2008 21:23:38 -0500

An Adobe Connect-based screencast of a presentation on Social Tagging, Social Bookmarking by Thomas Vander Wal, commonly credited for coining the term folksonomy.

O'Reilly's Programming Menagerie

Sat, 31 May 2008 21:01:39 -0500

Thank you Rodrick Brown for making the O'Reilly library available online.

Shawn van Every

Sat, 17 May 2008 23:06:28 -0500

Shawn is genius and I'm glad his students and NYU recognized him with an award. Here's his acceptance speech.

God is in the Details

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:51:18 -0500

...and lately she's been busy at 37 Signals: Designing Details: Autoscrolling the edit state

Taggers, Moshers, Skaters— Unite!

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 22:18:28 -0500

Having made it as an official selection for the 2008 SXSW Film Festival, Beautiful Losers is the new Helvetica. Trust me on this one.

Obama Posters by Shepard Fairey

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 13:49:23 -0500

Shepard Fairey designs Barack Obama's posters. (Not sure why he calls them pasters though...)

Vector Illustrations of People SIlhouettes

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:49:31 -0500

Sure you can try using Illustrator's auto trace feature to get a quick silhouette (that is, if you're lucky enough to have a background-less image to begin with) but why bother? Get free full-length vector illustrations of people silhouettes via StylizedWeb.com.

You may also want to look into Subeve, a font option for silhouettes of women, from an earlier post.

Helvetica The Movie

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 23:49:06 -0500

First-time director Gary Hustwit's much-lauded documentary, Helvetica, is available to view -- in its entirety -- online for free. For reals! Fall in love with typography again.

People before Profitability

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 21:57:33 -0500

There is simply no question that Mr. Bezos’s obsession with his customers — and the long term — has paid off, even if he had to take some hits to the stock price along the way...“Jeff used to say that if you did something good for one customer, they would tell 100 customers,” Mr. Kotha said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/05/technology/05nocera.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

A somewhat similar story about Zappos on putting people ahead of profitability: I Heart Zappos

Indeed. Do something remarkable and you've gained a long-term advocate.

Media / File / Measurement Converter

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 22:56:17 -0500

Wickedly useful online app, youconvertit will convert documents, media files even various units of measurement.

Parallels Drag and Drop not working

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 21:25:33 -0500

Seems like Parallels drag and drop function stopped working after a recent OS X update. I've been able to drag and drop from Win > Mac but not from the Mac desktop to Windows.

While the Parallels team is working on a solution, I've simply been dragging files directly into the Windows folder from the finder window. Just open a New Finder Window > [mounted parallels directory] > Documents and Settings > Owner > [parallels directory] Desktop. I find that it works even faster than drag and drop.