cinemetrics is about measuring and visualizing movie data, in order to reveal the characteristics of films and to create a visual “fingerprint” for them. Information such as the editing structure, color, speech or motion are extracted, analyzed and transformed into graphic representations so that movies can be seen as a whole and easily interpreted or compared side by side.

Extra goodness at http://cinemetrics.fredericbrodbeck.de/.

We’re the designers. We’re the builders.

Wilson Miner’s talk at Build. Everyone is talking about it. I finally watched it.

I’ve used and loved Textmate for over five years and I have no serious complaints. It doesn’t bother me that it’s a dead piece of software (in fact it was nice to have something that didn’t change). I have simple requirements, and a elegant and powerful tool that never breaks. As a result I’ve essentially been ignoring the text-editor space (except for the stripped back writing tool iA Writer which is very sexy).

Noah Stokes prompted me to finally give Sublime Text 2 a try. It’s awesome. You can still launch from terminal, it has it’s own console, a badass command pallete, it supports Textmate themes and bundles, and has a nice distraction free (full-screen) mode. Install Package Control, Soda Theme, and read this article. Also be sure to give the multi-cursor functionality a whirl – it will wig you out.

Marketing is not a department; it’s the sum total of everything you do.

Currently reading Rework by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson of 37signals. Highly recommended. Countless wonderful quotes and plenty of motivation to be found. Thanks to The Godfounder for reminding me of this one.

The super talented Drew Wilson has just launched Pictos Server. Similar to Typekit, it hosts the icons you use on your site and serves them as a web font. Should provide great performance & design flexibility, particularly if you’re using something like SASS for CSS.

Khoi Vinh’s reflects on Google’s new Android Design creative vision/resource.

What struck me the most about the site, though, is that its vision is so broad that it becomes broadly generic, too. There’s nothing about “enchant me,” “simplify my life,” and “make me amazing” that’s objectionable, but there’s also nothing about those concepts that sets the platform apart from what iOS or Windows Phone are trying to do, either. The design principles are smart and illuminating, and in fact everyone should read them as they offer a lot of good advice. But again you could apply these to just about any design system, whether an OS or a suite of products.

Agree. Impressive content, well written, and a welcome resource (to designers and product people in general). The challenge is in shaping and influencing the platform’s existing developers and product designers. A difficult but worthwhile goal that will require more than well crafted style guides.

It’s time for the design community to follow in developers’ footsteps and fundamentally realign its focus. We need to think about products over posters and people over page views. We need this to happen at every level: in design schools, in design writing, and in the things we celebrate online and in person. We have a new purpose: elevate design and help change the world. Let’s talk about how to do that.

Yep, a wonderful and lucky time to be a web designer. Let’s not just enjoy it, but make the most of it.

You don’t need millions of customers to be successful. I’ll take 1000 customers paying me $25/month any day of the week.

Noah Stokes shares thirty five pieces of wisdom after thirty five years of life.

A super-cute animation explaining the client-designer conversation behind the the PBS logo.

BLDG BLOG (one of my all-time favorite blogs) dug up this fascinating image from a paper called “Baffles and Bastions,” published in the Journal of Archaeological Research.

All of the features they subsequently analyze occur at peripheries, borders, and thresholds. In their own words, “the militarily functional ditch and gate features and bastions discussed below, in fact and by definition, are all distinguished by being part of enceintes (that is, surrounding barriers or enclosures). Enceintes are barriers that prevent access to and, almost always, obscure vision of a particular location.”

Really caught my eye. Coincidentally(?) reminds me of level design in 1st person shooter games.

Emory Allen adds to his illustration daily. Wonderfully simple idea. Why haven’t we seen this before? Or have we?

Geek out with style and build your own Altair 8800, one of the first personal computers ever sold. (via Kottke)

A treasure chest of beautiful book covers at Julian Montague’s Daily Book Graphics project (via ISO50).

A wonderful follow-up to the beautifully built KernType.

Awesome front-end blog, some fantastic open-source JS resources.

Curious how the beautiful CSS animations on the iPhone 4s page work?

Some love it, some hate it. Read Rand’s proposal book designed specifically for Jobs before you make up your mind.

I feel that a typography-first, content-out approach to web design moves us one step further away from the unnecessary distractions of design-for-design’s-sake and one step closer to becoming true typographers.

It’s true. The recent explosion of typographic possibilities paired with the inherit challenges of web design (client-side variations) is re-inventing the technical art of typography.

A great post by Luke Beard on front-end implementation at Zerply.

Amazing resource by Jonathan Snook. I’ve linked to the ‘full’ version so you can ‘read later’.

Art of the Title interviews Producer Cara McKenny and Creative Directors Steve Fuller and Mark Gardner on the production of the iconic Mad Men titles. Covers the initial brief, concept, the politics involved in using a fall from a skyscraper, animation techniques, logo design, alternate approaches and more. Also see the wonderful Simpsons parody at the very bottom.

by Thomas Fournier

DENVER, Co. Aug. 24, 2011 – appendTo, the company dedicated to jQuery, the world’s most popular JavaScript Library, released data today showing that the percentage of websites that have jQuery deployed has officially surpassed the percentage of websites that have Adobe Flash deployed. Statistics compiled by HTTP Archive, which analyze the world’s top 17,000 websites, show that 48 percent of the sites use jQuery, while 47 percent use Flash.

Design is such an influential part of Facebook’s strategy that Cox and 64 other members of the design staff occupy desks that form a U-shape around founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Expands on some of my previous posts on Facebook’s design strategy. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if Facebook’s business provides the scope for roughly 64 designers (many of whom are absolutely brilliant) to all be at their best?

Frank Chimero and Andy Rutledge recently answered this question with a big fat YES.

I completely agree. You don’t get to call yourself a web designer if you’re illiterate in HTML & CSS (let’s not get bogged down in whether this is ‘coding’ or not). The discussion seems to come around regularly and it’s amazing that there is actual resistance to this idea (see Rutledge’s article for a succinct rebuttal).

But why do people resist this idea? Do they think markup and CSS is hard? Set in their ways? Scared it might be a slippery slope into nerdom?

If you’re brilliant enough to design beautiful websites you’ve already spent years mastering typography, composition, content strategy, visual design techniques, and some very complex tools. Learning HTML & CSS is a piece of cake in comparison. You’ve got no excuse, you’re obviously smart enough and you’re lucky. With HTML5, CSS3, modern browsers, Github, SASS & Compass it’s not just easy – it’s fun.

via Letters of Note.

Interactive visualization featuring screenshots of each major browser release.

Debate is usually an indication of intelligent human pursuit. But not always. One issue for design students—this no-brainer, simplest of issues—has ever been kept alive within the inane realm of debate since it first arose. As such, it is an unflattering indictment on those who contest the simple fact that a web designer must craft markup and css.

Good, bad and interesting. Get your daily dose of UXUI UXUI.

Old SF is an amazing location-based collection of archived photos around San Francisco. ISO50 found these great photos of the Marina Branch Library.

Thoughtful, fun design. Little Big Details is great.

Onformative, a Berlin based generative design studio (in their own words) use Processing to build an damn slick image generation tool as part of a comprehensive branding job.

Eliss is an oldie but a goodie, and my favorite iOS game. The game made early and perfect use of the multitouch surface, had an incredibly focused and beautiful aesthetic vision, and an addictive generative quality. Steph Thirion, the genius behind it has a teaser for his new game, Faraway. I’ve got a feeling the audiovisual overlap is to feature even more strongly, can’t wait.

I made a video teaser for my upcoming game Faraway.
Cool fact: it was all made in code, it’s an uncut programming sequence. No video editors were used.
- The game will come out this fall on iOS. Specific date and platform are TBA.

During the early 20th century residents of Fort Bragg, California chose to dispose of their waste by hurling it off the cliffs above a beach. No object was too toxic or too large as household appliances, automobiles, and all matter of trash were tossed into the crashing waves below, eventually earning it the name The Dumps. In 1967 the North Coast Water Quality Board closed the area completely and initiated a series of cleanups to slowly reverse decades of pollution and environmental damage. But there was one thing too costly (or perhaps impossible) to tackle: the millions of tiny glass shards churning in the surf. Over time the unrelenting ocean waves have, in a sense, cleansed the beach, turning the sand into a sparkling, multicolored bed of smooth glass stones now known as Glass Beach

(via Colossal)

It’s gobbling up a remarkable amount of talent — an All-Star Team, if you will. The problem with all-star rosters, of course, is that as a team they often suck. It’s an odd phenomenon, but if you put too much greatness in the same room, things don’t always turn out so… great.

Matt Drance wonders if Facebook are taking a risk by putting too much talent in the same room. It’s an odd concern. A individual doesn’t need talent to ruin a good team (but ego might help). This all boils down to the individuals involved and Facebook’s ability to give their brilliant new talent scope and room to work. One thing is for sure, you don’t lower your recruitment standards out of a superstitious belief that an “All-Star team” is going to fail.

To be fair, the article acknowledges this and the leadership challenges involved, but ends by wondering if Facebook can replicate Apple’s design driven success. Why an Apple (or Steve Jobs) comparison is necessary I’m not sure, but seeing important companies put such great value in design is encouraging to see – no need for alarm bells.

São Paulo based architect and artist Lucas Simões produces portraits by making cuts in layered photographs. (via Quipsologies)

Now we’re taking our publishing technology and everything we’ve learned and are setting off to help design the world’s largest book, Facebook.

Facebook continue to build what might become an unrivaled web design team (see here and here) and facility.

Great for the hundreds of of millions of Facebook users (and any future Facebook iPad offerings), although it’s a little sad we won’t get to see Push Pop improve on their brilliant work thus far.

Basically, I came to the conclusion that if I wanted to design great user experiences then that old model of being a design contractor or a studio or an agency would not work. Instead, it’s necessary to be a part of the company that owns the product, to be in a position where I can continually work on and improve the product without the artificial constraints of a services contract.

Khoi Vinh, the author of popular design blog Subtraction, previous Design Director for the NY Times, and previous founder of a design studio reflects on his recent decision to start his own company (more info on that is said to be coming soon).

Anyone who has worked in a digital studio will empathize with Vinh’s story. A team puts great work into the first iteration of a product only to see the money dry up, the contract end, and a product neglected when it most needs love – after real users get their hands on it!

Well written piece, and a nice (perhaps a little more considered) follow-up to Ben Pieratt’s recent article.

Your press checks are bullshit
Your personal logo is bullshit
Your employer is bullshit
Your studio is bullshit

A bold article by Ben Pieratt from Svpply on why designers might want to reconsider their careers.

People Movin by Carlo Zapponi is an interactive graph that displays migration patterns. It’s simple, but incredibly rich and impressively built with Canvas/HTML5.

The awkwardness, ambiguity and near uselessness of the 404 page.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. Who designed this evil (but kinda fun looking) death trap?

What is the worst piece of design ever done? on Quora.

Impressive infographics comparing recent data to that of the the late 90’s. Some of the more interesting pieces of data:

• Venture investment peaked in the 1st quarter of 2000 at $27 billion
• Current investment looks to be around the $6 billion mark

• A total of 619 tech IPOs in 1998, 1999 and 2000.
• A total of 84 tech IPOs in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

• The current number of active Facebook users is equal to the number of total internet users in 2002.
• The current number of iPhone owners is equal to the number of total internet users in 1997.

• Current revenue multipliers look quite high. Facebook at 37.5x ($75 billion valuation at $2 billion revenue), Zynga at 40x ($10 billion valuation at $850 million revenue), Twitter at 55x ($8.5 billion valuation at $150 million revenue).

Designed by Kissmetrics.

More mixtapes! DesignersMX invites designers to submit a mix and design an accompanying cover. Listening to Patterns and Process at the moment, purely because I liked the cover. Good mix though.

Adam Parks has put together 20 wonderful mixtapes, illustrating a cover for each. (via Subtraction)

Always love these sort of generative processes brought into the physical. Complete with paint, real mess, even stacks and grinds. Check out the making-of video. (via Colossal)

I want. The Guggenheim Museum, Burj Khalifa and The Farnsworth House also available.

Filmed at Lautner’s famous Chemosphere House. If you like the building find yourself a copy of Infinite Space, a wonderful documentary on Lautner’s work (including this building). If you like Sasha Grey I don’t think you’ll need my help finding more of her.

The power of collaboration. Would love to see this in person.

(via ISO50)

And don’t say that you’re the idea guy. Having an idea is one piece, but it’s a very, very small piece. In fact, it’s so small that it’s actually better to earn a technical co-founder without the idea in place so that you guys come up with it together.

Excellent advice. It doesn’t matter if you’re looking for a co-founder, a designer, or even working with an agency. Your idea is useless until talented craftspeople get their hands on it. If you let them, they might be able to make it work. If you don’t, they are probably polishing a turd, and not enjoying the smell.

When I see a very talented (and professionally proven) designer, writer or engineer asking for charity on Kickstarter I can’t help but feel that something is a bit whack – on two counts:

1. The creative (or arguably the entrepreneur in this case) is selling themselves short. We often see Kickstarters justifying the amount they are asking for by playing down any idea they will be paid and noting that the money will go towards bills, materials, etc. Why shouldn’t a talented creative, working on a project that people want be paid well!?

2. Where’s my equity? We are seeing start-up costs be funded without any exchange in return. What if Openphoto grows to the size of Flickr? The earliest of angels receive nothing for their investment (in some Kickstarter projects in the many thousands of dollars), or even a promise of being paid back.

I doubt this is the first software project on Kickstarter but it’s come right out of Sunnyvale, and an ex Yahoo/Flickr employee. There’s angel capital flying around The Bay Area at the moment – I can’t imagine being in a better place to access investors (big or small).

Somewhere there’s probably a line between personal creative projects, and professional or commercial endeavors. I’d suggest it’s somewhere between:

I need more wool so I can knit my grandchildren beautiful sweaters; and; I need $25,000 to bootstrap my new start-up for free.

That being said, I’m not against charitable behavior in creative projects, I understand there’s many without access to capital, and it seems that people want to give, so best of luck to all involved. I’m just confused about who is actually benefitting here.

Kottke on Oxford now recommending that internal documents ditch the serial/Oxford comma:

The kottke.org style guide still advocates the use of the Oxford comma, but take that with a grain of salt; I also misuse semicolons, use too many (often unnecessary) parentheses — not to mention m-dashes that are actually rendered as two n-dashes in old-school ASCII fashion — use too many commas, and place punctuation outside quotation marks, which many people find, in the words of Bill S. Preston Esq. and Ted “Theodore” Logan, “bogus”.

Funny stuff. If you get off on discussions about typographic structure and punctuation check out Episode #45 of the Talk Show where Gruber and Benjamin discuss logical punctuation. I personally won’t defend Kottke’s use of “dumb quotes” but that’s maybe because pressing alt + [ has become an ingrained behavior when writing a quotation.

(via Kottke)

It’s great news and more evidence that Apple are willing to lead the way in mobile browser development. position: fixed and overflow: scroll are also on their way with iOS 5, but let’s not get excited until Android catches up. Until these handsets enable position fixing and full overflow support we’ll have no choice but to continue to add JavaScript to fake these behaviors.

I’ve been working on a mobile optimized version of Topguest and it went live today. Visit topguest.com on your smartphone to take a look.

I’m not sure I buy into this ‘build in the browser to fuck with Apple’ idea. Steve Jobs evangelizes HTML5 and standards-based development and Apple backs this up by building the the best available mobile browser (which is probably the exact reason Facebook are working with it).

Let’s say Facebook succeeds with “Project Spartan” and becomes a distribution centre for browser based applications. I doubt Apple would be upset by Facebook (a company with unrivaled reach) showcasing the capabilities of Apple’s mobile products. I also doubt that people will stop developing native Apple applications.

If this is a war, it requires Apple to be against the evolution of browser-based application development. I don’t think they are. I think the quality of their browsers is evidence enough for now.

Innovation and execution. I think I’ll stop in at Lost Weekend and grab some Goofy cartoons.

(via Daring Fireball)

A post I wrote over at the Topguest blog on rapid blog development with Jekyll – the same platform I built this blog with. If you’re interested in front-end development I think it’s worth a read.

Great news. As of August 1st Google Apps (including gmail and docs) will drop support for IE7. If Google can do it, so can I.

“As the world moves more to the web, these new browsers are more than just a modern convenience, they are a necessity for what the future holds.”

Have found some simply stunning Anni Albers (the wife of my favourite artist, Josef Albers) prints at the National Gallery Of Australia.

Our CEO Geoff on the business we do at Topguest.