May 2012
7 posts
The futures of Facebook and Google →
Robin Sloan:
Okay, I’m going to argue that the futures of Facebook and Google are pretty much totally embedded in these two images.
With this great opening sentence, Sloan offers an interesting, forward-thinking piece on the Facebook vs. Google debate, from a unusual perspective: pictures.
So the titanic showdown between Facebook and Google might not be the News Feed vs. Google+ after...
ESAD Web Talks: Programme, talks' synopsis and... →
More information for ESAD Web Talks is now posted.
It’s really happening. This Thursday.
XOXO →
During these past few months, most of the posts here had something to do with independent publishing and disruption of existing markets by technology companies. If you like that sort of stuff too, you’ll like XOXO, an arts and technology festival in Portland this September, by Andy Baio (of Kickstarter and Kind of Bloop fame) and my good pal Andy McMillan (creator of Build and The Manual)
...
Zeldman on Readlists and Readability →
For some time now, people who miss the point have seen Readability as an app that competes in the read-it-later space. That’s like viewing Andy Warhol as a failed advertising art director. Readability is a platform that radically rethinks how we consume, and who pays for, web content. It monetizes content for authors and its technology is available to all via the API. It scares designers,...
Diet Coda →
A playful, smart, and all-kinds-of-awesome name for an upcoming app by Panic.
Readlists →
Great new experiment by the Arc90 folks, of Readability fame. Make a list of articles from the web, put a title on that, and publish that list on the web.
Not only is a great way to share text playlists, but more than that, shows that the folks behind Readability see the app as more of a platform for reading than a simple app that runs on all your devices. It’s also a great example of the...
Speaking at DrupalCamp Porto →
I’ll be speaking at DrupalCamp Porto 2012, a two-day event starting this Friday, May 4th. The staff was looking for a good balance between Drupal-specific talks and other topics in the fields of web design and development, so my talk has nothing to do with Drupal itself.
I came up with the title “Responsible Web Design” to bring together all the best practices and techniques for crafting a...
April 2012
6 posts
Ethan Marcotte on breakpoints →
Anwering the question “What devices (smartphones/tablets) and breakpoints do you typically develop and test with?” on .net magazine:
I’m a big, big believer of matching breakpoints to the design, not to individual devices. If we’re after more future-proof responsive designs, we should stop thinking in terms of ‘320px’, ‘480px’, ‘768px’, or...
App Store Preview →
Almost a year ago, while writing Listary’s description for the App Store, I felt the need to preview how my text would look like, so I made a quick HTML and CSS mockup for that. Now I finally took the time to publish it so anyone can use it. Check it out on Github.
ESAD Web Talks →
We’ve been preparing this for some time, and today I’m glad to announce a small one-afternoon event on web design at ESAD, with talks by Andy McMillan, Robbie Manson, Simon Collison, and The Standardistas.
Thanks to the school, the event is free-of-charge for everyone. It’s gonna be great. If you’re planning on attending, add yourself to the Lanyrd event page.
An Update From Rdio
It’s been a week since I made my application for a job at Rdio, so it’s time for an update.
Last Monday, an notification popped up on my iPhone. It was an email from Rdio’s own Wilson Miner, who was very kind to get back to me personally. He had bittersweet news. They loved my application, but unfortunately could only consider people eligible to work in the US. The job is a...
Hello, Rdio.
Since I began freelancing, working for a company again has crossed my mind more than once. But I’d only do it if I could work on something that I need, use and love. However, the number of products that I use every single day is very small.1 One of those products is Rdio.
Last week, Rdio’s Head of Design Wilson Miner tweeted a job opening for a Design Intern at Rdio. Being a...
Airplane Mode →
Interesting short post by Nick Disabato on how the favorite feature of his cell phone. When he really wants to be wherever he is, talking with someone with complete, undivided attention, he turns it on. Then:
I’ll turn airplane mode back off and get a series of increasingly pitched text messages from my friends who are wondering what all is going on and where to drink next. But nothing that...
March 2012
6 posts
Fluid Toolbars →
Dmitry Fadeyev from Usability Post posted a new UI concept by TOKI WOKI for window-based operating systems:
It works like this: when a window gets dragged offscreen, the controls on the toolbar will shift to fill any remaining space in order to stay visible. This means that important controls like the window close button will remain accessible at all times.
I’m unsure if something...
Look at Your Fish →
Fish is a very interesting short essay by Robin Sloan, available only as a free iPhone app, in the form of what Robin calls a tap essay.
This is an essay about the difference between LIKING something on the internet and LOVING something on the internet.
Not just an interesting experiment, it’s also very spot-on. There are millions if not billions of things being liked and faved each...
Show Navigation →
Andy Clarke researched many apps and websites looking for the best icon to represent “show navigation” in a mobile device.
You know those responsively designed sites where — on small screens like smartphones — navigation is either hidden or set at the bottom of a layout, then revealed when you click a button? Well, I think we need a standard ‘show navigation’ icon for that button in responsive...
Oink fails quickly →
Dustin Curtis on Oink being shut down:
The Milk Team:
We started Milk Inc. (the company behind Oink) to rapidly build and test out new ideas. Oink was our first test and, in preparing to move onto the next project, we’ve decided to shut it down to help focus our efforts.
This is awesome. The worst state for a startup is mediocrity. It kills creativity and, eventually,...
Readability Negativity →
Zach Weigand, on the negativity of some pro-Instapaper bloggers in regard to Readability:
It’s not about Readability sending money to publishers. It’s about Readability swooping in and kicking Instapaper in the nuts, and Marco’s friends stepping in to help a brother out…nothing more. The problem I have with all these people isn’t that they are backing Marco/Instapaper,...
My take on learning from competition
Marco Arment, the creator of Instapaper, on learning from Readability:
When Readability launched their competing app last week, their custom fonts received high praise and Instapaper’s looked pretty tired by comparison.
I could have interpreted this defensively and complacently […]
That would have just made me look stubborn and out of touch, failing to understand (in fact,...
February 2012
7 posts
John Gruber on Mountain Lion →
John Gruber was invited by Apple for a private presentation of OS X Mountain Lion:
But this, I say, waving around at the room, this feels a little odd. I’m getting the presentation from an Apple announcement event without the event. I’ve already been told that I’ll be going home with an early developer preview release of Mountain Lion. I’ve never been at a meeting like this, and I’ve never...
Hacked
The Tumblr account which I use to run The Pilcrow was hacked a few hours ago, hence the spam post (in case you saw it). Bastards.
The problem is now fixed and won’t happen again. My apologies.
Distance →
Speaking of magazines I’ve (pre-)ordered, you could do worse than supporting Distance on Kickstarter. Distance is a new quarterly publication featuring long-form essays about design and technology, published by Nick Disabato of Cadence & Slang’s fame.
There’s a lot of writing about the hows and whats of design, but we wonder where the whys are. So much of the writing...
Offscreen Magazine →
New good looking 112-page print magazine about people who make digital products:
Welcome to Offscreen, a new, collectible print magazine with an in-depth look at the life and work of people that create websites and apps. We want to tell the less obvious human stories of creativity, passion and hard work that hide behind every interface.
Besides six interviews with creative minds of...
Kickstarter's $2M →
Today, in five hours, two different Kickstarter projects — Elevation Dock and Tim Schafer’s1 designed Double Fine Adventure — reached $1M in funding. I backed Tim’s game, hoping for an iOS or Mac version.
It’s a major highlight for Kickstarter, which has been breaking the publisher barrier between creators and consumers for some time now. I believe the world will now start...
Musings on Preprocessing →
A few years after trying CSS Preprocessors for the first time (back then, the only one was SASS), I recently began using them again1. It took me just a few hours to reach the same conclusions that Chris Coyer reached.
For a long time I thought: I write CSS everyday. I know CSS pretty well. My workflow is fine. I’m productive. Why does anything need to change?
The real answer is that...
Interview on showcasePT podcast →
(This interview is in portuguese)
A few months ago, Pedro Telles, the host of showcasePT, a podcast about portuguese people doing techie things, invited us for an interview about Listary, which is now posted.
I had the pleasure of spending 30 minutes talking about my background, the goals behind Listary, how people may use it, the crowded productivity market, the reliance on Simplenote, why we...
December 2011
1 post
Faith
While exchanging emails with a friend about doing our own thing, I asked myself:
Why the hell do I make Listary? Why am I putting so much time and effort into something that, in the end, doesn’t make enough money?”
This is what I concluded:
I know we’re doing something good and learning a lot.
Lots of people way smarter than us, whose work I admire, keep telling us they like...
November 2011
4 posts
Share the Fun →
There’s a new iPod touch TV ad from Apple. It’s interesting. Here’s what it shows:
iMessage
Playing a game
Game Center
Playing a game
Recording a video
Sharing a photo on Twitter
FaceTime
Multitasking (with iMessage)
Music
iMessage (yes, again)
It’s a great ad, but what’s most interesting about it is that the Music app shows up for just one second...
Back To Work #41, “Carpal Tunnel Diem” →
Merlin Mann:
There’s a very unkind phrase that I’ve actually applied to myself. The phrase “poser” or “poseur”.
This is where you take on all the trappings and all of the affectations of something, and where you end up doing some pantomime version of something that’s theoretically interesting to you.
That could be an artist, it could be an activist, it could be a...
I'm going to be a teacher
Starting next January, I’m joining the teaching staff of a postgraduate course on Web Design, here in Portugal, at ESAD1.
It’s a year-long course that will teach the web to a small group of students, three days a week, with evening classes. We will teach the web of 2011, with an up-to-date curriculum comprised of topics such as digital culture, the history of the medium, designing...
In real life →
Short but fine piece by Mandy Brown:
We have this phrase—“in real life”—to distinguish between the life that goes on in our pockets and the one that happens on the street. […] But the obvious corollary to a “faux” life grates more and more each day. Is life online necessarily less real?
October 2011
2 posts
On Leaving
In times of trouble, I always come back to this quote:
No matter where you were born, where you have lived, how long you have been away, this is the only country that is yours. It’s a God-awful mess right now, has been for awhile, and probably will be for awhile longer, but that doesn’t make it yours to desert. It makes it yours to fix.
From the always lovely Pictory.
Jobs' Theory
After reading many pieces about Steve Jobs’ passing, I couldn’t stop thinking this: what I’m thankful for isn’t any product that he helped to create, it’s that he proved that shipping products with great care and attention to detail is not just a theory. It’s possible.
June 2011
1 post
I had a conversation with a lovable bastard →
A week ago, a friend of mine, Ricardo Melo, told me he wanted to interview me regarding a tweet I posted. What? An interview? I said. But I put the weird feeling aside and agreed to do it. It was more like a good conversation you’d have at a bar. But online. With no drinks. Well, I know I wasn’t drinking, can’t be sure about him. No strangers nearby either. That changes things,...
May 2011
1 post
Running Towards →
I used to draw pictures and there are many that wish I would still draw pictures. Maybe I will. Probably. But, I have a new job. It is to make these words. There are those that say that by not making these pictures, I am devaluing myself, that I am some how running away from the thing that made them like my work in the first place. They’re right in saying that I’ve abandoned making images for a...
April 2011
2 posts
Ten things Austin Kleon wishes he was told when he... →
It’s one of my theories that when people give you advice, they’re really just talking to themselves in the past. This list is me talking to a previous version of myself.
I like these kind of things. Some slap you in the face, some make you nod in oh-yes-I-have-been-there-too agreement. Most of all, they make you think (if you’re willing to). Like Austin says, your mileage may vary.
...
Tweeting and Writing and Deflating Like a Balloon →
One can’t go too deep in a stunted format. But still, it kind of feels like writing because my fingers are flying, there is that sound of the keyboard, that row of letters getting longer, that momentum of the cursor pushing right. But, it’s not the same as lengthier writing, because it doesn’t necessarily take us anywhere.
Frank is trying to tell me something.
February 2011
2 posts
The Manual →
The Manual is a new limited-run print magazine published three times a year. Each issue will have six substantial, beautifully illustrated feature articles, along with additional rich and unexpected bonuses. Challenging, contemplative, playful, and visionary, the articles focus on bringing a greater depth and maturity to our craft and profession: design on the web.
However, you won’t find...
Jef and Aza →
Aza Raskin posted a sad but beautiful heart touching story about the last gift his father gave him:
Three days before he passed, Jef had an accident. He needed to use the restroom, so—stooped under his arm—I supported his weight as he hobble to his business. There was something quietly unsettling about escorting my father to a toilet that had been taller than me when we first moved into the...
January 2011
1 post
Little Big Details →
A collection of wonderful little details in UI design that you may never even noticed, but when you do, you start appreciating the designer’s work a lot more. Plus, they often link to a blog post with more rationale behind the design decisions. Now I know how wonderful Google Chrome’s tab-closing behavior really is.
November 2010
6 posts
Jeffrey Zeldman on awards →
The day after winning three awards at the .net Awards 2010, Zeldman writes:
Our industry needs real design discussion, peer review, and recognition. I believe in the .net Awards, as their partnership with A List Apart attests. They are the best our industry has.
They are. I just think they’re not good enough. Then Zeldman continues talking to his friend who thinks he should not accept...
Smashing Magazine, Blog of the Year 2010 →
The .net Magazine Awards 2010 ceremony was held this evening in London, and Smashing Magazine took the prize for Blog of the Year. There’s no better way to say it: What a joke.
Let me recall what I wrote before about the .net Awards:
The .net Awards aren’t paying enough respect to the amazing work of web professionals. What’s interesting is that they could really be celebrating the...
“The” Project →
An interesting niche blog:
Wordmarks from a private stock of predigital lettering scoured from low resolution archives, personally converted to bezier outlines by Robb for use by today’s graphic designers who appreciate the wonky shapes of yesteryear.
Some of the wordmarks are particularly lovely, like the one used in the ad for 1935’s “The Bride of Frankenstein”. The lettering for...
Fifty and Fifty →
Fifty and Fifty is a collective, curated project where fifty individual designers are invited to represent their home state by illustrating it’s state motto.
Contributors include Aaron Draplin, Bobby McKenna and Jessica Hische. Looks promising.
Wings →
Coudal Partners made a video of the process behind Raven’s Wing, the latest release of their COLORS series of Field Notes. On the outside it’s a just a beautiful black memo book. But I highly suggest you watch the video and notice the great care that everyone puts into this process, the old machinery that embosses the covers or the workers that manually wrap the 3-Packs with a...
On the taste of our community and the .net Awards
A List Apart, Abduzeedo, Blog.SpoonGraphics, Boagworld, CSS-Tricks, HTML5 Doctor, Smashing Magazine, Soh Tanaka’s Blog, ThinkVitamin, Tuts+ Network. If you’re part of the Web Design and Development communities, these may sound familiar — they were the nominees in the “Blog of the Year” category of the 2010 edition of the .net Awards.
After seeing this list I immediately thought “Seriously?...
October 2010
1 post
Publishing vs. Making Money →
I’ve been a long time user of services such as Instapaper and Readability, and that’s because it’s so hard to read on the web. Small and bad typography. Loads of ugly and irrelevant advertising. Rows of “Share this” buttons in every post. Overally, really bad design.
It seems to me that if people wasted their time on creating better content and less on making their...
September 2010
1 post
Seriously, go to Build. It rocks. →
It was November 2009 when I arrived in Belfast for my first conference, Build. I wasn’t sure what to expect. And well, it completely blew my mind. It was amazing. I clearly remember Tim telling me:
After your first conference, you get hooked and can’t stop going to conferences.
He was so right. Conferences rock. It’s worth the money and time you spend. Well, you should go...
August 2010
6 posts
Frank's advice →
Frank Chimero sums everything he knows as advice to graphic design students. This one was particularly interesting to me:
If you can’t draw as well as someone, or use the software as well, or if you do not have as much money to buy supplies, or if you do not have access to the tools they have, beat them by being more thoughtful. Thoughtfulness is free and burns on time and empathy.
And this...
Frank Chimero's “The Back Side of Your Gullet” →
A series of posts by designer, illustrator and teacher Frank Chimero, about visual culture, consumption, and nourishment. It is wonderfully written, and it’s easily one of the best things I’ve read all year.
It’s about the unceasing and unstoppable quest for greatness, the never-ending and quasi-neurotic search for fun and delight in consumption and living, the disappointment...