A few years ago, Facebook managers noticed a rush of complaints from users about friends posting photographs of them that they didn’t like. The pictures weren’t explicit; they just reminded users of something they would rather forget, or made them look stupid. These complaints were invariably rejected because no rules had been broken, yet […]
Monthly Archives: February 2016
How to write the shortest joke in the world
Quite an interesting article here on how to write short jokes, which should also be of use to writers, especially advertising copywriters. It begins by suggesting that one of the funniest and shortest jokes is Jimmy Carr’s ‘venison’s dear, isn’t it?’. Micro-gags like Carr’s also illustrate a central tenet of classical joke craft: for some […]
Walden for the 21st century – Kickstarter plan to update Thoreau
There’s no point in treasuring cultural artefacts if in doing so you restrict others from experiencing them.
Punctuation matters: See how novels look without words
It’s an author’s words, rather than their punctuation, that we think of as defining their style. But as Adam J. Calhoun found out this week, the periods, colons, semicolons, and commas a writer uses can have just as much impact on their output as their choice of language. In a Medium post, Calhoun stripped […]
Cardiff on film in 1931
A British Pathé newsreel from 1928 showing the city of Cardiff before World War 2. Here’s some unused footage shot in 1928
More thoughts on digital design education
I was invited to share my thoughts on digital design education over on Medium as a contribution to the Interaction Design Education conference being held at the end of the month in Helsinki. It’s a more considered response to the original article that sparked all this off – this time with some rather interesting facts […]
Statue inspires ducking protestors
According to The Guardian, all is not well in the train aficionado community: A statue of Sir Nigel Gresley is due to be unveiled in April, marking the 75th anniversary of the death of the designer of the Mallard steam engine. But there is a risk that his achievements will be eclipsed by an arcane […]
US road signs ditch new font for old
The Verge reports on changes to road signs in the USA: Unless you’re a typography buff, you might not have noticed the new font that’s been popping up on highway signs over the past decade. It’s called Clearview and it’s been around since 2004. For much of its life, researchers (including its designer, Meeker & […]
Japan gives Harry Potter the manga treatment
The Harry Potter franchise continues to enjoy huge success in Japan, 15 years after the release of first movie, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. The seven films in the series have grossed more than US$893 in the country and been seen in cinemas by more than 78 million people, while Philosopher’s Stone is […]
No, digital design education isn’t ‘broken’
I was a pretty mediocre graphic designer. It turns out I was a much better teacher of design than I ever was a practitioner. And you know what? I’ve met many practitioners who are shit hot at what they do, but couldn’t teach a monkey to throw its own faeces. There is absolutely no correlation between ‘real world’ experience and teaching ability.