We got an email through to Clearleft from someone pointing out a certain similarity between our website:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adactio/8719586981/
…and the website for a company called Kent Web Host:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adactio/8720710854/
Hmmm …perhaps Clearleft were unconsciously influenced by Kent Web Host!
Just to set the record straight, I gave them a call.
Tagged with phone call clearleft web design kent web host influence inspiration
The interconnectedness of all things, or finding compassion in TCP/IP.
http://2012.dconstruct.org/conference/hammersley/
Ben Hammersley is the Prime Minister’s Ambassador to Tech City, but don’t hold that against him. He’s really quite a fascinating and charming gent and not at all a smarmy politician.
When he’s not running marathons in the Sahara desert, Ben is a writer, broadcaster and journalist. He reports on the effects of the internet on society, foreign policy, business, and culture …not just on his blog either; his writing has appeared in proper dead-tree publications like The Times, The Guardian, and Wired UK (where he is Editor at Large).
5by5 - The Cocktail Napkin #49: A Love Affair With Failure
Tagged with 5by5 5x5 5 by 5 five by five creativity ideas interview web design art inspiration
[From July, 2010]
"Merlin Mann and I cover a lot of territory, from creative failure to creative modality and how being in the wrong mode at the wrong time might bring on that failure."
Jeremy talks with video producer Michelle Vargas about giving good advice to 15 year-olds, putting good stuff into the world to get good stuff back, mentorship and setting up a video playhouse for the purpose of acting in the moment.
Tagged with 5by5 5x5 5 by 5 five by five creativity ideas interview web design art inspiration
Trying to define or explain inspiration is really difficult. Inspiration is an essential phase in our design process as it is where the creation is ignited. How can inspiration be triggered? Are there ways to find out how inspiration works? How can we break a creativity block? There might not be black and white answers to these questions, but by sharing some analyses with practical examples we might find inspiration easier.
Tagged with inspiration design creativity naconf
Have you ever had a spontaneous creative triumph, perfectly in sync with your team?
A passionate believer in improvisation as a design skill, Hannah’s session will talk about the importance of this technique in her own design process and what lessons can be borrowed from improvised music.
From the jazz masters to the humble basement band practice, musical concepts such as timing, structure, rolls and expression have many lessons for designers creating an off-the-cuff interface.
Hannah will explore how the methods of music translate for a design/development team, as well as sharing personal stories and techniques for those times when you need a bit of a jam session.
http://2010.dconstruct.org/speakers/hannah-donovan
Originally from Canada’s icy north, Hannah Donovan is creative director at Last.fm, where she’s worked for the last four years. Before moving to London, she designed websites for Canada’s largest youth-focused agency, working on brands such as Hershey, Heineken and Bic. Hannah also plays the cello with an orchestra and draws monsters.
Freud popularised the term, “The Narcissism of Minor Differences”, to describe how adjacent villages—identical for all practical purposes—would struggle to amplify their tiniest distinctions in order to justify how much they despised one other. So you have to guess how much he would have enjoyed design mailing lists. And, Perl.
Truth is, to the untrained (un-washed, un-nuanced, un-Paul-Rand’d, and un-Helvetica’d) outsider, discourse in the design community can sometimes look a lot like a cluster of tightly-wound Freudian villages.
So, how is the role of design perceived by the people who are using the stuff you make? What role (if any) should users expect in the process of how their world is made and remade? What contexts might be useful in helping us turn all of our obsessions into useful and beautiful work?
Can an Aeron chair ever be truly ‘Black’? Will there ever be a way to get Marketing people to stop calling typefaces ‘fonts’? And, when, at last, will the international community finally speak as one regarding the overuse of Mistral and stock photos of foreshortened Asian women?
By leveraging his uniquely unqualified understanding of design, Merlin will propose some promising patterns for fording the gap between end-users and the unhappy-looking people in costly European eyeglasses who are designing their world.
Is there hope? Come to Brighton, pull up a flawlessly-executed mid-century-Modern seating affordance, and we’ll see what we can figure out together. One village to another.
http://2010.dconstruct.org/speakers/merlin-mann
Merlin Mann is best known as the creator of 43folders.com, a popular American website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.
Why is it that some projects never rise to the level of the talent of those who made it? It’s oft said regarding good work that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. But sometimes the whole is less than the sum of its parts—a company or team comprised of good people, but yet which produces work that isn’t good.
In his session, John will explain his theory to explain how this happens—in both directions—based on the longstanding collaborative art of filmmaking. Learn how to recognise when a project is doomed to mediocrity, and, more importantly, how best to achieve collaborative success.
http://2010.dconstruct.org/speakers/john-gruber
John Gruber writes and publishes Daring Fireball, a somewhat popular weblog ostensibly focused on Mac and web nerdery. He has been producing Daring Fireball as a full-time endeavour since April 2006.
He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and son.
Web typography has come a long way, but how do you find inspiration to push your designs forward online? Letters can say far more than the words they spell.
In her session, Samantha will look at the lettering surrounding us everyday, tapping into the way it makes us feel. If you don’t already get emotional about which font to use, you will, looking at letters in a whole new way and learning how to translate those feelings into your web designs.
http://2010.dconstruct.org/speakers/samantha-warren
Samantha Warren loves big concepts as much as she loves badass typography and thrives on telling interesting stories through usable interfaces. She has written articles for .net Magazine, regularly speaks at industry events and is on the Board of the Art Directors Club of Washington DC. When she is not doing any of the above you can find her enthusiastically teaching typography and web design at the Center for Digital Imaging Arts at Boston University.
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