Period Three Blog

Aug132007

Graphic design of pirates

Posted by Gene in Random Stuff, Design

If you’ve never really studied the flags of the worlds famous pirates, you’ve definately missed something pretty neat. Not the old standard thought of skull and crossbones to say the least. Pirates of the world had a fairly intricate signage system and in many cases the history behind the pirate’s lives take form in the different versions of their flags/signage. it’s astounding to think that they actually cared about their brands at the same time killing and pillaging their way through life…

Take Blackbeard’s signage; he fancies himself the king of pirates while holding an hourglass. Which can only signify that his time is limited as king, seeing as how he’s a pirate and all… While my main point was to present the pirate flag as a design work, I am still a bit of a history buff and pirates are definately one of my favorite subjects, so I’ll just share a few interesting links:

Brief History of Blackbeard
Wikipedia on Blackbeard
National Geographic Kids on Blackbeard
Blackbeard was from North Carolina
Queen Anne’s Revenge (Blackbeard’s ship)
Blackbeard’s real name was Edward Teach
They even made a movie
Party with a pirate
Playmobile loves pirates

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Aug092007

New Apple Keyboard

Posted by Gene in Design

I just love the newly re-designed Apple keyboard. It is in-and-of-itself a work of art. I always liked the last deisgn, the all white keyboard, its well designed too, but this, this is just beautiful. I know you’ll say, dude, its just a keyboard, but when you combine the way it looks with the price $49 you can’t beat it.

The extended layout has a full complement of keys, including document navigation controls, a numeric keypad, and special function keys for Mac features such as brightness, volume, eject, play/pause, Exposé, and more.

Sleek and compact, it has low-profile keys that provide a crisp, responsive feel and function keys for one-touch access to Mac features. Intelligent power management conserves battery life by automatically powering down the keyboard when you’re not using it and turning it on the instant you start typing.

- I’m sold…

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Aug062007

The shed brief

Posted by Gene in Design

I don’t think all of the entries are serious, but its nonetheless interesting to study. There are some pretty neat and forward thinking designs here. Also, consider this an “homage” to our own shed building partner in crime, Jay…

This is a chance to consider the essential purpose of the shed. Is it just an extension to the house, an overflow storage space, a dumping ground for junk? Why, then, are some people so inventive in utilising their sheds? Is it the shed’s unique capacity to provide a detached personal refuge within the suburban home that makes it such a springboard for originality? Some writers use their shed as a private study for their creative work; increasingly, people use it as an office from which to run their business from home. Perhaps it is the shed’s ability to adapt itself either to work or to leisure purposes with equal success that results in the diversity of roles it plays in our lives?

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Aug012007

Martha Stewart, Nerd

Posted by Jay in Design

This month’s Wired magazine is a “How To” issue, and on the cover is Martha Stewart decorating a Wii cake. I was skeptical, but I have to say, she rocks. The short interview is full of quotables, in response to question “What can geeks learn from Martha Stewart?”:

It’s about using your hands and your mind to make things work better. Whether you’re a programmer or a seamstress, it’s all about new techniques, simplifying old techniques, and consolidating steps. Making things go faster — but not worse. Better.

This is really the crux of creating and really sums up why I do what I do perfectly. So read the whole thing….

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Jul122007

Perfectly simple

Posted by Jay in Design

Mark Boulton launched his new site last week and boy is it a wonderful piece of work. Everything is perfect about it, from the layout, the typography, the subtle colors, even the couple of sketchy illustrations in the sidebar. Under the hood it’s designed with as much thought and skill as the interface. It’s perfect. We espouse simple design here at Period Three and I hope we achieve that for the benefit of our clients, but this site just pushes all my buttons. In Mark’s blog about his launch, he says this about simplicity:

Simple really doesn’t come easy though; like good tea, it has to be stewed for a while. The design for this site was stewing away for about six months. Most of that was getting the brand right—the tone of voice, the typography, the colour. All of it took bloody ages.

That is what is fundamental about simple design. It’s not easy. Just because you can throw some type on a white field and call it minimal doesn’t make it good. It takes skill, knowledge, experience and talent.

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Jul052007

Fadtastic: 25 ways to improve your website

Posted by Gene in Design

Very good list of items for general consumption on how to improve your website from Fadtastic. Some of these i’m guilty of taking for granted when rushed. This could make a really good checklist when you are summing up a website for a client.

My favorites on the list:

- If you’ve got any code snippets that could annoy the user, like resizing browser windows or opening new pages in a new window, then remove them. Just because you like something a particular way, your users may not. Don’t take over their desktop.
- The correct use of headers (in a semantic, logical manner) can produce fantastic results. The H1 tag is the most important - try using some keywords in there.
- Check (or get others to check) the site under as many conditions as possible. Try to do this every time the site has a significant update. It’s worth it as it only takes a minute or two.
- There’s a big trap that often people fall into. Whitespace. How many times have you heard “we need to fill that space and cram the text in a bit more”? More text in a single area isn’t a good thing. It can make it harder and less enjoyable to read the content. It you had a shop would you cram as many products in as possible? No. You’d let them have space so they get noticed. Do the same with your text.

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Jun182007

Paul Rand

Posted by Gene in Design

As famous designers go, Paul Rand is probably my favorite, his humble attempt to bring grace and style to the ordinary is at the heart of why I (as i’m sure most of us) got into all this graphic design business in the first place.

From Impressionism to Pop Art, the commonplace and even the comic strip have become ingredients for the artist’s caldron. What Cezanne did with apples, Picasso with guitars, Léger with machines, Schwitters with rubbish, and Duchamp with urinals makes it clear that revelation does not depend upon grandiose concepts. The problem of the artist is to defamiliarize the ordinary.

I recently stumbled across this great lecture/interview of Paul Rand at an MIT event. It’s a pretty good read, here’s a quick preview:

What is design?
Design is the method of putting form and content together. Design, just as art, has multiple defintions, there is no single definition. Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that’s why it is so complicated.

What is the difference between a designer and an artist?
There is no difference between a designer and an artist. They both work with form and content. I try to create art, whether I make it or not is not up to me, it’s up to God.

What is the difference between ‘good’ design and ‘bad’ design?
A bad design is irrelevant. It is superficial, pretentious, … basically like all the stuff you see out there today.

What are the fundamental skills of a designer?
The fundamental skill is talent. Talent is a rare commodity. It’s all intuition. And you can’t teach intuition.

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Jun112007

Apple ditches aqua ‘bubble’ tabs for new look

Posted by Jay in Design

According to archive.org, Apple rolled out the tabs around the beginning of 2000. Today, with the WWDC conference and subsequent website updates, Apple has finally lost them. OS X has undergone significant use interface changes over the years, from the release of the first edition of OS X, yet the tabs remained remarkably the same. Why would they change them now if they were reluctant to in the past? What is it about Leopard that sealed their fate? Perhaps it’s a signal that the UI is actually completely consistent? Currently in Tiger, iChat, iTunes and Safari retain the brushed metal look, while apps like Mail and iPhoto have a flatter, gray appearance.

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Jun102007

FedEx - subliminal effect…

Posted by Gene in Design

I know those of us who are designers have noticed this before, but i’ve had too many conversations lately about the FedEx logo in particular and how the designer (Mr. Lindon Leader) intended for the negative space between the upper-case E and the lower-case x to form an arrow. My conversations are usually a response to “hey, I never noticed that” or “do you think they did that on purpose?”…

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Jun042007

jPhone, really?

Posted by Gene in Design

Looks like Sun is going to give the Apple iPhone a run for it’s money, seriously, I doubt it…

Sun doesn’t expect the new software to be ready until months after the iPhone launch. With that in mind, it will be impossible for Sun to beat Apple to the punch; the company has a good buzz going already.

Of course, there’s also the fact that Sun has offered its Java 2 Mobile Edition for years, a mobile platform that has done little to advance the state of the art in cell phones and really nothing for consumers at all.

So if the only thing they seem to be competing on is the design of the interface, do they seriously think they can compete with Apple?

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