Building for Tomorrow
Filed under Input and tagged Ideas on September 26th, 2011
I have long thought that a mark of true craft was the ability of an object to endure — and perhaps even flourish — with the passage of time. Baseball gloves, fine furniture and violins become more distinct and reveal the hidden genius of their construction as they age. Your experience with them is richer for their having been used before. It’s troubling to think that those of us who build objects for the web don’t share in this tradition.
I want this to change and I’m not sure how it can, but this seems like it might be a step in the right direction: Future Friendly.
Gerd Arntz
Filed under Input and tagged Design on August 12th, 2011
Gerd Arntz was a German modernist who created over 500 icons, or isotypes, with the ambitious goal of clear communication to the illiterate masses, newly liberated by socialism. In collaboration with Otto Neurath, they strove ‘to overcome barriers of language and culture, and to be universally understood’ to facilitate the communist revolution. Not exactly my politics, but the man was a master semiotician.
They have a wonderfully curated collection over at the Gerd Arntz Web Archive.
On Making
Filed under Input and tagged Quotes on August 3rd, 2011
Don’t try to be original, just try to be good.
Paul Rand
