How Should We Define “Design”?

How Should We Define “Design”? by Gardi Amit

1. Is there truly a “new design” phenomenon?
2. Is any idea, whether it’s an initiative for social progress or a clever way to market movies, enough to be declared a work of design?
3. Can a construct such as a “process,” “business plan” or a “system” be work of design?
4. Lastly, are these metaphysical constructs always design or is there a threshold of beauty, a rigorous process, or another quality standard that must be met for something to be considered a design? In other words, is a ‘business plan’ always a form of “new design” or does it have to involve some level of good, “old fashioned” design to be considered more than an ordinary business plan? And, if the latter, what are the requisite elements that would distinguish one from the other?

Website Finger Hold

website finger hold

Jason’s Website Finger Hold Flickr post made me laugh. This is the de facto way designers present posters. Luckily, it looks just as silly to do it with a website: Website Finger Hold by Jason Santa Maria.

Helvetwitter

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If you like Jon Hicks’ Helvetireader and Ad Taylor’s Helvetical you should have a look at Helvetwitter. Josef Richter stripped Twitter down to its basics and created Helvetwitter.

About to travel through Switzerland?

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MySwitzerland.com is planning a TV shoot for Chuck Henry’s “Travel Cafe” (NBC4) and is looking for a US family with kids under 16, traveling in Switzerland anytime between September 19-24, who are willing to be interviewed. Reward: Swiss Passes 1st Class for the whole family for the time of their stay. Swiss Passes are the coolest thing ever when traveling in Switzerland. Really. Email me if you’re interested in this and I’ll put you in touch with lovely Michelle of MySwitzerland.

Cross Section Studio

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This identity and branding for Melbourne based Cross Section Studio made me look. Designed by Thomas Williams of Hunt Studio.

Pecha Kucha NYC on Monday

pecha Kucha

Monday September 14th, will be the next Pecha Kucha night here in the city at SOLAR 1! I will be out of town unfortunately, I wish I could make it. Check out the interesting line up of confirmed speakers.

I was invited to partake in the last NYC Pecha Kucha, here’s my 6min40second presentation.

Helvetical and Google Calendar

Helvetical

Helvetical Turns Google Calendar Into a Thing of Beauty

Turntable Calendar

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This Turntable Calendar has swissmiss studio written all over it. Too bad it’s sold already. The orange round houses 3 concentric disks, in black, which are printed with days and numbers. Simply turn the disks to the correct date. A beauty!

Baseline

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Baseline is a designer framework by ProjetUrbain.com. Built with typographic standards in mind, Baseline makes it easy to develop a website with a pleasing grid and good typography. Baseline starts with several files to reset the browser’s default behavior, build a basic typographic layout — including style for HTML forms and new HTML 5 elements — and build a simple grid system. Baseline was born to be a quick way to prototype a website and grew up to become a full typographic framework for the web using “real” baseline grid as it’s foundation.

(via @mullerbrockman)

Stefan Kanchev

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Stefan Kanchev (1915 – 2001) was one of the most prolific graphic designers to come out of Bulgaria. He’s designed numerous book covers, posters, postcards, advertisements, forms and envelopes, post stamps, labels and packages but he’s widely recognized for his excellent logo work. He’s considered one of the best logo designers along with Saul Bass and Paul Rand.

(via aisleone)

The United Steaks Of America.

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The United Steaks of America Slideshow. (My apologies to all vegetarians)

(via bblinks)

It’s Nice That Issue #2

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Following the success of their first sold-out printed publication, It’s Nice That announced Issue #2 which will be released on Thursday 1 October. Inside the publication you’ll find 128 pages of advertising-free content, documenting the best of the work they’ve featured on their site in the past six months in more depth, alongside a series of interviews and features written by current practitioners that have never been seen before. If you didn’t get the chance to see Issue #1, all the details and images can be found here.

Pickle

Pickle

Pickle by Bob McNamara. Made me chuckle.

A Dictionary Story

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Dictionary Story was originally a handmade artist book in an edition of 100. Because of the time they took to create and its limited availability they became rather expensive collectors itmes.

With your support Sam Winston hopes to produce a new and cheaper edition that everyone can afford. You can see & read the book here: dictionarystory.blogspot.com. Watch a video about the project here.

Paula Scher: The Geography of Design

In Paula Scher: The Geography of Design, Paula talks about how New York City influences her work. Documentaries by Nicolas Heller.

(thank you Nicolas)

DIY Notebook Lunchbag

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Neat looking DIY project over at Design*Sponge: Kate’s Notebook Lunchbag.

one year walk/beard grow time lapse

The Longest Way 1.0 – one year walk/beard grow time lapse from Christoph Rehage on Vimeo.

one year walk/beard grow time lapse by Christoph Rehage
November 9th 2007 – November 13th 2008
one year on foot – 4646km through China
unlimited beard & hair growth

(thank you christoph)

Designing with Psychology in Mind

Michael Jackson Medley

(via tim)

Short Video on Milton Glaser

Liked what Milton said about why he enjoys teaching.

(via andybons)

webtrendmap.com

webtrendmap.com

Oliver Reichenstein and his team of iA and Craig Mod just got a ‘wow’ out of me upon seeing the webtrendmap.com site. If you buy one of their fantastic Web Trend Map Posters you get an online account and can start your own custom map. Read more on their about page.

The Feast Conference

The Feast

The Feast 2008 was one of my personal favorite conferences I’ve ever attended and I am truly looking forward to The Feast 2009 on Thursday, October 1st, 2009. (Here are some notes of last year’s event.)

The Feast gathers the world’s greatest innovators from across industries and society to empower, inspire and engage each other in creating world-shaking change. A creative look at the world’s toughest problems, The Feast Conference presents the most innovative solutions, insights, and best practices as a catalyst toward action.

More than a conference, The Feast represents a bottom-up movement, so they are curating an audience as cross-disciplinary and diverse as their talks. But they’re doing something a little different — they ask those who can afford to pay higher prices to micro-sponsor The Feast, which allows them to offer $99 invitations to awe-inspiring vanguards whose brains get them where their wallets can’t.

See you there? For more information go to Feastongood.com.

swissmiss hearts Instapaper

Instapaper is hands-down my alltime favorite iPhone app (besides the obvious big players of Skype, Kindle etc.)

Usually throughout the day I discover long articles on the web that I don’t have time to read right then and there. I simply hit the “Read Later” Bookmarklet in my bookmarks bar which allows me to easily save them for later. I used to constantly print articles and then grab them before I leave the office, hoping my subway ride would be long enough to get through them. Those days are gone! Now I just pull up my Instapaper app when I am in the subway and eh voila! Try the free online version or the free iPhone App. And when you realize what a gem this app is, make sure to upgrade to the Pro Version. The additional features are well worth it and it costs less than a sandwich.

Instapaper is a brainchild of Marco Arment, a fellow Brooklynite and lead developer of Tumblr. Again, please support his amazing app by buying a Pro Account. And most of all, help spread the word! Thumbs up, Marco! You have a fan over here at swissmiss!

The Miniature Moustache Stick

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Yes, Yes, Yes (big smiles): The Miniature Mustache Stick