resources
design background and project resources - send me any good ones you find.
- Design is all about thinking and planning. The design (of anything) is not the thing itself. An architect's design for a building is not the building.
- All design is grounded in a basic concept. Good design is grounded in a clear concept. Bad design is muddled thinking made painfully clear.
design context resources
design overview build your understanding of design and the design processes ∧
What is design?
All designers have a fundamental design concept that underlies their work. Whatever the specifics of an individual project this fundamental design concept, along with the specifics of any given project, serves as a basis for judgement of their work. This articulated fundamental design concept then is translated into an appropriate design process.
What is your fundamental design concept? This is your 'meta' (overall) concept (understanding) of design. As we move through this semester start to build, articulate and refine your own concept of design; your design language. This is something you do for yourself. It is a journey you decide to undertake. To get started begin to understand the most important general concept basic to all areas of contemporary design - the user.
In the past, particularly for visual designers, there was the maestro designer and design seemed more a subjective concern than an objective process. But, in the last few decades, designer's in many fields have shifted away from such abstract concepts as "form and function" to focus on the user; the term user has other labels such as viewer, participant, audience, collaborator, informant, etc. to name just a few. Designers in many design disciplines have contributed to the evolution of our understanding of design and the design process; e.g. John Chris Jones, Christopher Alexander, and but the real sea change in understanding the design process was largely driven by the work of Don Norman As John Maeda (president of RISD) has written,
“The radical suggestion of Norman was to not worry about form or function, but to concentrate instead on the person faced with using a designed product. By mapping a product to a user's mental model (ascertained through cognitive analyses) of the situation, a more successfully usable product would occur.”
Spend some time discovering and defining your personal concept of design. The decide how you will design for your user. See, Personas, ethnographic research,
spend a little time discovering design,
Remember there is design with a small d (downstream design) and Design with a capital D (upstream Design). Go for the upstream.
- Design at TED
- Tim Brown urges designers to think big
- « Tim Brown says the design profession is preoccupied with creating nifty, fashionable objects -- even as pressing questions like clean water access show it has a bigger role to play. He calls for a shift to local, collaborative, participatory "design thinking. »
- John Maeda on his journey in design
- « Designer John Maeda talks about his path from a Seattle tofu factory to the Rhode Island School of Design, where he became president in 2008. Maeda, a tireless experimenter and a witty observer, explores the crucial moment when design met computers. »
- David Carson on design + discovery
- « Great design is a never-ending journey of discovery -- for which it helps to pack a healthy sense of humor. Sociologist and surfer-turned-designer David Carson walks through a gorgeous (and often quite funny) slide deck of his work and found images. »
- There are many more talks on Design
- Design terms to understand,
Just research/discover what these terms means and how they are of use to you - User-centered Design
- Emotional Design
- Design Methods
- Design Patterns
- AGILE
- SCRUM
- Personas
- Scenarios
understanding the real world design process,
- Designing a Unified Experience: Bringing Interaction, Visual, and Industrial Design Together
by Kim Goodwin at Usability Marathon 2 - Kim is the Vice-president, Design and General Manager at Cooper
- While you're exploring/discovering the Cooper site take a look at the 'Careers' section and notice the qualities listed for interaction designers and visual designers
- Spend a little more time discovering some of the work of Alan Cooper on Personas and read Andrew Hinton's Boxes and Arrows article. "Personas and the Role of Design Documentation: How it’s less about deliverables, and more about design"
Referenced on wikipedia Personas - IDEO
- Work at IDEO - review some of the case studies.
- Living Climate Change - Imagine life in 20 or 30 years…
- Patterns - Design insights emerging and converging - be an author
interesting new initiatives
- The Why Factory
- T?F, The Why Factory, is a new think tank at the Faculty of Architecture Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. T?F concentrates on the production of models and visualizations for future cities. ANYWHERE. It researches possible directions of our urban futures: The Future City Program.
- The Logo Factory
- Logo design packages in 24-hours.
the world out there...learn what's happening in the real world ∧
Design is always accomplished in context. The fundamental concept in the world of contemporary design is that design - the planning - of anything, object or experience, is grounded in the user's experience of the designed product. The short version of that is all significant design efforts start by developing a deep understanding of both your client and their users and end with planning/designing a "great" experience for the user. Explore experience and emotional design
There are many refinements along the way such as should the user be labeled something else? For example, partner, collaborator, colleague, etc. The words you use to phrase the project to yourself and client are important in setting your concept of the problem at hand, but are not usually fundamental to the process you will follow - the user by any other name is still the user of what you design.
If you plan to be a professional designer understand the basic reality that in all likelihood, 1) You will either move into an integrated design firm, or, 2) become and in-house designer for a "full-service"company. Individual single focused "design" firms are simply going away. Understand why that is the case.
Design always lives in the real world, in a global reality.
Deepen your understanding that reality and you deepen yourself as a designer,
Design news sources,
- Businessweek
- Other general sources,
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- Find other news sources you find interesting and send them to me I'll add them to this section.
Other news sources - think design in context. Don't be parochial, look across the spectrum and around the world,
starter project resources + your contributions
general web designer resources design to meet web standards ∧
Start by using the W3C standards, - About Web Standards
- If you need to refresh your html and css skills experiment with these tutorials,
Send me the urls of standards, examples, and/or tutorials you find helpful. I'll add them to the listing below. Use this email form
Helpful bogging sites,
blogging resources share helpful information about blogging∧
Start by developing a plan, i.e. a project brief, for your blog. Will your blog be a part of your overall web presence, will it be your single point of presence on the Web? Who is your target audience? How does a blog fit into your professional goal(s)?
Remember blogs are all about content and frequent updating. Note: You can make an entire website in Wordpress.
Send me the urls of examples, tutorials, plug-ins, blogs that you find helpful. I'll add them to the listing below. Use this email form
Helpful bogging sites,
portfolio examples and resources portfolio environments∧
Start by developing a plan, i.e. a project brief, for your portfolio. Will your portfolio be a part of your overall web presence, will it be your single point of presence on the Web? Who is your target audience? How does a blog fit into your professional goal(s)? Remember you can make your entire web portfolio in Wordpress.
- Portfolio Communities
Send me the urls of portfolios and portfolio environments you find helpful. I'll add them to the listing below. Use this email form
Helpful bogging sites,
content management systemslearn an open source environment ∧
The focus of this project is on the back-end. For example themeing Drupal sites tutorials, tutorials for setting-up and managing the CMS package, etc.
Start by understanding your options Content Management System Software Review - 2009
Send me the urls of tutorials, examples, and techniques your find helpful. I'll add them to the listing below. Use this email form
Helpful CMS tutorials and examples sites,
the mobile web the hottest trend∧
The focus of this project is on developing for the mobile web. The resources bank we build here will be dependent on the specifics of your project. Start be doing a little research into the mobile web. Think of designing for mobile devices rather than websites or Web applications. For example, if you are a stylist do a little research/discovery into pre-implementation styling and testing. Don't forget the basics of Paper Prototyping It's still the best way to start a prototyping effort.
If you are interested in design and implementation for the mobile web then do a little research/discovery into some of the development environments and standard in wide use,
Send me the urls of tutorials, examples, and techniques your find helpful. I'll add them to the listing below. Use this email form
Helpful tutorials, examples, and trend information about designing for the mobile web,
adobe ace certification review the certification materials at adobe∧
Certification. This is focused on Adobe ACE certification.
Start by digging deeply into Adobe's Certifications site. Everything you need is right there. Build-out your study environment from there.
Send me the urls of other resources, services, tutorials, examples, and techniques your find helpful. I'll add them to the listing below. Use this email form
Helpful bogging sites,
below the line javascript, ruby on rails, java, etc. ∧
This project is open. You must clearly define and articulate the project brief. Below-the-Line can include anything from a stylist's interest in deepening their experience with CSS to a more technically oriented person diving into Ruby on Rails for Web applications development, to a Flash designer deciding to explore Open Source alternatives. Shape your project.
Thus, the resource bank for this project depend entirely on the specifics of your project brief. Specifically what do you want to learn. How does that fit into your professional goal(s). Here are a few places to start,
- other paths,
Send me the urls of other resources, services, tutorials, examples, and techniques your find helpful. I'll add them to the listing below. Use this email form
Helpful bogging sites,
a few more resourcesa little more... where ideas come from∧
These are resources that lie outside of the usual designer's craft skill, e.g. application capabilities and asset implementation, project management, design methods, design patterns, etc. They are about ways of thinking and doing that often inform the designer of new trends and the larger context of their work, even sources of inspiration.
A few places to begin to see outside the div,
General ideas and innovative thinking,
- The Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders lecture series
- What do entrepreneurs find most interesting? From Stanford University. Look for innovation.
- Tina Seelig's, Stanford Technology Ventures Program's Executive Director, recent talk, The Art of Teaching Entrepreneurship and Innovation
From her book, "What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20" - Guy Kawasaki - ? Google him. His advice to break the cycle is to think different, polarize people, and find a few soul mates. Get Up and Get Going!
Be a Mensch
- Tina Seelig's, Stanford Technology Ventures Program's Executive Director, recent talk, The Art of Teaching Entrepreneurship and Innovation
- TED Talks
- Some of the most interesting people on the planet; many of them designers. Send me "talks" you find interesting and I'll add them to this list.
- Hans Rosling's recent talk at TED, Asia's rise -- how and when Remember to check back on 27 July, 2048.
- Tim Brown's, CEO of IDEO, May 2008 talk at TED,
On Creativity and Play
- Covari's Actionable Insights blog
- The “Agency of the Future” will not be an Advertising Agency – it will be a Marketing Solutions Company
sample of job listings - prepare yourself
- Thad Mcilroy's The Future of Publishing
- Always interesting articles about the publishing world.
- A few more TED Talks
- Jeff Bezos on the next web innovation
- TED talks on Innovation, "A listing."
- Some interesting articles:
- "Web Design is Dead", from webdesignfromscratch.com
- Send me more interesting articles you find.
Use this email form
