dogwonder

All night Disco party

est. June 9, 2007

Loving the application Disco. The app is very god, making burning very easy , yet for me it’s the ‘smoke’ feature. When the application is burning a disc virtual smoke emits from the top of the app. I felt rewarded for burning a disk by the simple mechanism of displaying a virtual representation of the process.

It seems there may be more instances of this given the rumour that Apple are going to announce similar features in Leopard.

Core Animation will allow programmers to give their applications flashy, animated interfaces. Some developers think Core Animation is so important, it will usher in the biggest changes to computer interfaces since the original Mac shipped three decades ago.

From: Wired – Kiss Boring Interfaces Goodbye With Apple’s New Animated OS

I for one am somewhat excited at the concept of pliant, responsive applications. I think that with features such as this I can see a lot of web based apps migrating back to the desktop.

Here are some screengrabs I cooked up.

Disco - Smoke

Sir John Charles Walsham Reith, 1st Baron Reith would disapprove

est. June 7, 2007

Josef Muller-Brockmann

est. June 5, 2007

I love the work of the Swiss designer Josef MÃ¼ller-Brockmann, his ability to create visually appealing designs from simple techniques is stunning. This style is (I hope) something I try to achieve in my design approach, described as ‘objective, radically minimalist geometric design’ MÃ¼ller-Brockmann was a ‘leading practitioner and theorist of the Swiss Style, which sought a universal graphic expression through a grid-based design purged of extraneous illustration and subjective feeling.’

Although I also love over-elaborate designs, my heart will always veer towards the simple and minimalist (in my likes and design style), not because I don’t like decoration, there is plenty of space for decorative designs, but I just feel that when attempting to communicate a message that the message is the most important part of the design that should be enhanced not overawed by the visual stimulus around it.

From the man himself:

In my work, however, I have always aspired to a distinct arrangement of typographic and pictorial elements, the clear identification of priorities. The formal organisation of the surface by means of the grid, a knowledge of the rules that govern legibility (line length, word and letter spacing and so on) and the meaningful use of colour are among the tools a designer must master in order to complete his or her task in a rational and economic manner.

What I try to achieve in my work is to communicate information about an idea, event or product as clearly as possible. Such a down-to-earth presentation is barely affected by present-day trends. But it is not so much a question of making a statement that will be valid for all time as of being able to communicate information to the recipient in a way that leaves him or her free to form a positive or negative opinion . . .

JMB