05.24.12 |
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Designer Craig Mod:
This is an essay for book lovers and designers curious about where the cover has been, where it’s going, and what the ethos of covers means for digital book design. It’s for those of us dissatisfied with thoughtlessly transferring print assets to digital and closing our eyes.
The cover as we know it really is — gasp — ‘dead.’ But it’s dead because the way we touch digital books is different than the way we touch physical books. And once you acknowledge that, useful corollaries emerge.
Virtually all my reading these days is electronic but man, Craig has some amazing, gorgeous cover examples here.
(As an aside, can I just say how incredible FF Tisa looks on this page? Makes me start to question my own designs, in a good way.)
05.23.12 |
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Film Crit Hulk over at Badass Digest wrote an extremely in depth breakdown of David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive back in March. I finally caught up and read the whole thing last weekend, and it’s incredible. Mulholland Drive is one of those films that started out completely indecipherable on my first viewing. I’ve seen it at least twice since then, and it’s grown to be one of my favorite films of the past decade. As always, Hulk can be distracting with his ALL CAPS style, but he nails a lot of what makes this film so good. I love his break down of Naomi Watt’s audition scene:
HULK THINKS THIS ENTIRE SEQUENCE IS ONE OF THE GREATEST SCENES IN MOVIE HISTORY FOR A SHIT LOAD OF REASONS. THE FIRST IS THE WAY LYNCH ORCHESTRATES THE FUCKING THING. WE’RE SO READY FOR SOME SORT OF COMEDIC REHASHING OF BETTY’S HAM PERFORMANCE EARLIER, BUT THAT DOESN’T HAPPEN. WE JUST ENTER THEIR LITTLE SCENE SO BEAUTIFULLY THAT ALL THOSE THOUGHTS DROP FROM OUR MIND. WE JUST FALL INTO THE SCENE THEY’RE DOING. LYNCH NEVER CUTS AWAY, STAYING CLOSE ON THE TWO ACTORS’ HEADS, BUT LOOSE ENOUGH FOR IT TO FEEL EASY. LOOSE ENOUGH TO FEEL THEIR PASSION AND QUIET MOVEMENT. EMOTIONALLY WE SEEP RIGHT IN. BUT WE ALSO GET INVOLVED. WE KNOW THE SENSE OF THE STORY. WE FEEL THE CHARACTERS’ HISTORY.
WE FORGET EVERYTHING. WE FORGET WHO BETTY IS. WE FORGET WHO THIS GUY IS. WE EVEN FORGET WE’RE IN A FUCKING AUDITION ROOM. AND WHEN IT PULLS BACK WE REMEMBER WHERE WE ARE AND WE FEEL THE SAME EXACT WAY EVERYONE IN THE ROOM DOES… JUST THIS HOLY. FUCKING. SHIT.
… AND HULK THINKS IT’S PERFECT CINEMA.
05.23.12 |
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What are the future elements or tags that best support responsive images? A List Apart tackles the debate between the Responsive Images Community Group (RICG) and a browser manufacturer proposed alternative. Essential reading for web developers.
05.22.12 |
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Stephen Hackett:
It really seems like this bigger iPhone story is picking up steam, and that’s fine, I suppose. I’m just at the point where I don’t give a shit about this kind of thing…Even after it’s announced, I don’t think I’ll care about it being 3.99 or 4 inches across. Seriously, the numbers — and this story — aren’t important.
Bingo.
05.22.12 |
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Gamespot writer Hilary Goldstein argues how Microsoft should shape the Xbox successor to remain competitive. I’m not so hot on her arguments for “Kinect integration for all games” (many games are better addressed with a standard controller) or to bundle an HD Kinect on every system (guaranteed to push system costs up by at least $50-100, which would hurt Microsoft against its competition). Still, many make a lot of sense: throw in Blu-ray, raise the bottom end system setup, and branch off into new first party gaming franchises.
05.22.12 |
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Jeffrey Zeldman, talking about the (semi-controversial) redesign of his own personal site:
Even our best clients can sometimes push back, and even our most thrilling projects typically contain some element of compromise. A personal site is where you don’t have to compromise. Even if you lose some readers. Even if some people hate what you’ve done. Even if others wonder why you aren’t doing what everyone else who knows what’s what is doing.
Great points here. A lot of the work I did here on nickschaden.com was based on experimentation that I could only toy with on other paid jobs. Doing something for only yourself – a personal site, side project, something else fun on Github – is sometimes our best opportunity for growth.
05.22.12 |
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Panic’s much lauded web development editor Coda is getting its 2.0 release this Thursday, May 24th. Can’t say I’ve been a fan given its lack of Rails support and very tightly integrated, “all in one” design style. Nevertheless, for the right developer, especially one heavily integrated into an FTP/mySQL/LAMP stack, this could be very enticing.
Don’t forget about Diet Coda for iPad either. It’s hard for me to mentally wrap my head around coding on an iPad, but Diet Coda looks like a promising tool.
05.21.12 |
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Modern Hollywood blockbusters have one thing in common: lots and lots of guns. The New York Times talks to The Specialists, the largest East Coast supplier of prop movie weapons in the East Coast. It’s crazy there’s over 5000 prop weapons in a bunker somewhere in the middle of Soho.
05.21.12 |
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Dropbox has unveiled a new competition for this year:
Dropquest is a multi-step scavenger hunt that has you solve a series of puzzles (inspired by the likes of MIT’s mystery hunt or notpron [though not nearly as time/effort-consuming]). Everyone who completes Dropquest will get at least 1 GB of space (even if you participated last year). Also, everyone starts at the same time, but the questers who finish the soonest get amazing prizes!
Cool. Late at night after work I might tinker with the objectives here. Get cracking if you’re interested as the deadline to finish is June 2nd.
05.21.12 |
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TUAW’s Steven Sande wrote an article early this month on how the Brooklyn Tap House has adopted iPads for its point-of-sale system:
The main attraction for the POSLavu system, according to restauranteur and co-owner Hugo Salazar, was the price. Many restaurants use systems from Micros or Aloha that can sport price tags of US$20,000 or more; the bottom line for the devices and software at the Brooklyn Tap House was about $7,000.