Twitter is unquestionably the “it” social network/micro-blog/indescribable web app of the moment, so it’s gratifying to see that local officials in certain cities are embracing it as a way to keep the public updated.  CNN reports that police and fire departments in cities nationwide are using the service to rapidly disseminate information to the public:

“We think the police department has an obligation to get information out to the community through whatever means or mechanisms we have at our disposal,” said Lakeland Police Assistant Chief Bill LePere. “Traditional media releases, expecting the local print media to pick it up and run it in the newspaper tomorrow, is 24 hours too late.” … Public safety officials are finding the use of sites [like Facebook and Twitter] to be not only speedy, but also a convenient way to distribute press releases, Amber alerts, road closings and suspect descriptions.

Twitter is an ideal platform for this kind of rapid information dissemination, and it’s easy enough to use that even the non-tech savvy can get on board.  I applaud the police and fire departments that have chosen to use these tools, and I encourage more to jump on board.

In my day job, I try and keep myself from complaining too much or too often, mainly because my boss has a decidedly different definition of “frustrating” than me.  He (who, incidentally, is not a designer, and would be the first to admit it) spent the first part of his professional life working for oil companies.  He was sent all over the place–he spent time on actual oil rigs in rickety laboratories, and not infrequently he’d have to drive 50 miles to get to the only functional telephone for miles.  If I’m being particularly verbal about my daily struggles, he’ll occasionally remind me that my difficulties aren’t all that bad (relatively speaking!) by saying things like “That’s frustrating?  No, no… frustrating is [insert various perilous oil-related story here].  Frustrating is [insert an increasingly improbable-sounding oil story here]. Etc.”

Given his background, I can appreciate that his definition of frustration clearly involves a degree of physical brawn and time waste that I don’t have to deal with.  But, in my own defense, I think it’s also fair to say that he, as a non-designer, may not fully see the amount of sheer brainpower, effort, energy, refinement and polishing that goes into designing a successful interface. Continue Reading »

I saw these very strange-looking “Do Not Lean on Door” decals on the subway some time ago, featuring some bizarre inconsistent typography, and Gothamist got to the bottom of it.

Says an MTA spokesman:

We did have a recent problem with a car builder who took it upon themselves to manufacture and apply subway car decals without the prior approval of NYC Transit. The cars were delivered to NYC Transit with the wrong decals. They have since been instructed not to do so going forward, and those that were applied in error will be replaced with NYC Transit approved and manufactured decals.

The world is awash with brands and logos.  Most of them are adequate–they get the job done but aren’t terribly memorable.  Some are ugly as sin, some are downright incomprehensible, and some aren’t much more than clip art or the result of a typeface chosen at random from the default set in Windows XP.  But sometimes logos and brandmarks become more than just a pictogram–they actually become icons.  That is, they become instantly recognizable, and in many cases they endure for years and years; they become timeless.

Obviously in some cases (even amongst the logos I’ve posted above) there are periodic updates here and there–the “BMW” typeface has changed over the years, for example, and the Apple logo used to be in rainbow colors (and, interestingly, the IBM logo used to be solid), but these logos have never been radically altered from their original forms.

Sometimes, though, companies unintentionally (and sometimes very intentionally) wreck their longstanding corporate identity when they modify their logos, and I can’t quite figure out why.

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A few weeks ago I attended what I had hoped would be a very informative and very enjoyable event called “The Dinner Party” that was thrown by the New York branch of AIGA.  The speakers scheduled were the principals of AvroKO (designers and owners of my favorite restaurant Public and a large reason that I decided to attend), chef Dan Barber (of Blue Hill), pastry chef and molecular gastronomist Will Goldfarb, and designer Matteo Bologna (of Mucca Design).

By all rights, it sounded like it should have been a lively discussion, especially considering that the moderator was Christine Muhlke, a deputy editor of T: The New York Times Style Magazine, who (at least on paper) seemed like she should’ve been an ideal person to get these disparate voices conversing with each other about the extremely multifaceted topic of “food and design.”

I am extremely sad to report that the event was less than a success.

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