One Plus One Equals Three

Faith in I.D.

This post is blatantly promotional. ID (The International Design Magazine), which, no doubt, many designers will be familiar with, especially those of you in the US, is very often a most interesting read. I look forward to its arrival every month. The current thematically-based issue is quite exceptional and there's a mountain of insightful writing and commentary about design's interface with religion and 'faith' from around the world. And it's a very open, liberal and appealling exploration of the 'intertwingledness' of religion, myth, evolution and design amongst various cultures. A great issue—there's some wonderful content here (even for an avowed non-religious person such as myself).

Australians should note that a somewhat second-rate evolutionary theorist, around when Darwin was formulating his theory of evolution, postulated that a possible evolutionary sequence involved amoeba evolving to shark to dinosaur to platypus to kangaroo (looks like a big Red to me) to monkeys to man. He was of course completely wrong (or was he?)—but it's a nice idea that could be entertained by many Australians.

Drawing from Life: The Journal As Art

by Jennifer New 
New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2005.

I never used to keep journals. As a student I was never a great drawer in the classical, figurative, realistic sense of drawing and thought 'why bother?'. I usually got good marks for my design projects, but my life drawings always drew snickers and snippets of muffled laughter from other students as we would wander around the drawing studio admiring our drawing efforts after class. My life drawings were vaguely anthropomorphic and somewhat reminiscent of the human form but the subtle sweeps of line and texture that help make a good drawing always seemed to elude me. My drawings always looked like thick stick figures with sinewy flesh embellishments. Or as a classmate put it: sticks'n tits or sticks'n dicks.

I now do keep journals, but they're not really what you would call drawing-based. They're more an amalgam of 'stuff': doodles, notes, scribbles, phone numbers, addresses, urls, photocopies and bits and pieces gathered from here and there. I find I often refer to them at the start of a new project, to get the creative 'juices' flowing. If there was ever a fire at my studio, they may not be the first thing I grab, but I would run the risk of singeing my rear-end to make sure they didn't go up in smoke.

Review: Train of Thoughts

Train of Thoughts: Designing the Effective Web Experience
by John C Lenker Jr
Indianapolis: New Riders, 2002.

My copy of John C Lenker's 'Train of Thoughts: Designing the Effective Web Experience' came with a stickered endorsement by the AIGA saying 'Stimulating Thinking about Design'—and indeed it is. It's a big broad-shouldered book that tackles Web design, psychology, information architecture, usability and... trains. The content of the book is timely, most interesting and is essential reading for designers of Web sites. But the form of the book (which has attracted its fair dose of criticism) seems to ignore many of the 'effective design' recommendations espoused by Lenker in the book.

The Magazine on the Wall

Is Not Magazine is published bi-monthly, is large format (1.5m x 2m) and is found on walls throughout inner-city Melbourne. That's right: walls.

And each issue is not identical. You can start to read an article that continues in another location. There's a crossword to fill in. Participate in some 'Flash Fiction' with your camera equipped mobile phone. Photograph this particular 160 character 'Is Not' story – read it later, or if you're so inclined, maybe even text your own story to the editors to publish in the next issue of 'Is Not' (due out in early June).

'Is Not' recontextualises concepts that may be more often found on the web and plays with them in the print domain – and across a geographic location. Interactive concepts such as: non-linearity, hyperlinks (in this case physical and geographic rather than virtual) and an ability to build and establish community* are core ingredients of this groundbreaking – or should I say, wall-mounted – magazine.

MouseRoar: Tully Jimson I Live Here? The Age (Melbourne) Magazine

A big shiny thing dropped out of my newspaper today. It's called 'theage(melbourne)magazine'. Made me shudder. Made me think I was living somewhere nice and antiseptic like, say, Singapore (nice food, great people, but...) not somewhere as interesting and diverse as ol' Melbourne town.

'theage(melbourne)magazine' is big, (170 pages: 70 or so of these are ads) and it's, er, really, really, er... nothing. It's 'nothingness' coupled to its 'bigness' makes it look like it comes from (note: I do not answer emails, I screen all my calls and have no fixed abode): Sydney.

MouseRoar: Tully Jimson Respect The Bean

Observed in ID Magazine's Annual Design Review 2004:

"Packaging: Best of Category: Traveler Plus Lid.
You're josted on the way out of Starbucks (A) and your latte sloshes onto your pants (B). You deposit a cup in your car's drink holder (C) and by the time you get to work coffee has dripped down the side and puddled in the well (D). Or you leave a steaming cup on your desk when you duck into a meeting and when you return, all the heat has escaped through the lid's hole (E)."

Huh? Who does this? Why on earth would you choose to drink coffee this way?