Spotted these advertising tags on the Singaporean trains (MRT). They have little cut-outs at one end to enable them to hand on the overhead hand rails.

Here’s an example of how good signage ought to be done.

The designer has considered the contexts of use: people who are driving past or looking for the bank from a distance (the logo appears on the edge of the awning for maximum distance visibility), and those on foot (the logo appears closer to normal human height under the awning).

The designer also …

Here’s another example of design done in piecemeal isolation; divorced from the wider context of its application, the environment in which it is deployed. The design in question is the street signage of a set of townhouses all of which share a single street entry. The failure of this design affects multiple households.

Front street, there is actually no visible signage. As you drive past, you …

I Googled my phone number recently and found two of my selves on ZoomInfo.

The pages were apparently assembled from details harvested off the net with their “patented semantic search technology”. Pretty neat, and pretty spooky:

Eidesign / Prussia.Net Zern
Vermillion Consulting Zern

It is interesting that they have identified me as two identities – a consultant and a designer. Self-analysis opportunities aside, …

Do cats have molars? What are the implications of an anecdote like this on teaching and learning?

Facts and raw data can be had easily.
The memorisation/regurgitation of such is perhaps of decreasing importance. Perhaps it is only sufficient to remember tags/markers/keywords, so as to enable the retrieval of info in greater depth when required.
These skills will become more important: research, critical analysis, thinking, synthesis…

The …

At first glance, this poster ad looks like it is advertising soap.

It is actually for muesli bars.

It is interesting how a few seemingly innocuous and minute factors can add up to a larger mis-communication.

The cascading stream with the white foam in the background could say clean and fresh.
The shape and size of the box is reminiscent of a box of five soaps.
The tan …

I went McDonald’s website recently to look up the nutritional information for their Deluxe Brekkie Roll – which I have developed a soft spot for.

The site has certainly come a long way since I last visited years ago. The current incarnation is without a doubt a beaut piece of Flash “experience” work. The transitions and animations are fluid and smooth – fun …

Stilgherrian’s great post on calling Jason Calacanis a “prick” is a fun and worthwhile read on many fronts.

It is also a great real example of authenticity.

Jason Calacanis made some comments on a blog post which he later edited after receiving loads of negative responses.

Fire people who are not workaholics. don’t love their work… come on folks, this is startup life, it’s not a game. don’t work …

I came across this website which really how not to do a first contact experience on the web.

Here’s the engagement process:

1

When I first arrived, there was a blank area in the middle of the page. So I started reading the text on the right.

2

Suddenly this Flash element appeared, and pushed the text off to the right. How rude!

Now I couldn’t read …

A 3D graph can be deliberately subverted to skew the perception of the information it contains. By simply increasing the perspective, you can give artificial emphasis to a particular slice of the chart, to make that slice appear larger as it were.

Note how very different the perception of the size of the green slice is relative to the other slices on each of the charts …