// jeremy johnson // creative thinking

Unlucky 13

Here’s a photo of me getting hustled by my co-worker Stephen. It’s that unlucky 13! ;-)

The iPhone is to Nokia, what OSX is to Windows 3.1 (23 hours a day // jeremy johnson)

Today I played with the iPhone for about an hour in the store. In person it’s better than anything you’ve read. I don’t understand how Apple got the phone to be so “snappy” (aka. responsive). You can switch tasks, watch videos, scroll around on a website, all without any lag. It’s amazing for a phone. I’ve used Sony, Nokia, Blackberry, Palm, and LG phones. None which come close to matching the iPhone’s responsiveness and overall aesthetics. My current E62 takes 5+ seconds whenever I click on a application, and the multimedia features are about useless.

It’s really like going from Windows 3.1 from 1994 to Apple’s OSX in 2007. They both have “windows”, let you use multiple applications at the same time, both have calculators, and both let you type Word documents - but once you get past the list of features and actually use it - it’s obviously a world of difference.

The one thing that was holding me back from getting an iPhone was the lack of corporate email support, but after playing with it today, that seems minor…

Time to Leave? (metrolifestyle.com)

Exit

The EXIT sign at the Nasher Sculpture Center - Dallas, TX.

The Midway (metrolifestyle.com)

Midway

I’m already thinking about this year’s Texas State Fair. Can’t wait to take the kiddo.

Client have you down? (23 hours a day // jeremy johnson)

I had someone ask me if I had any advice about situations where clients were trying to ruin a project. I’ve had more then my fare share of these - as I’m sure many designers have. Maybe it’s something as simple as adding a ugly logo, or maybe it’s something more serious that hinders the usability or usefulness of the site. Whatever it is, maybe this list of ten ideas will help:

Communicate your a highly skill professional and they are paying you for your skills as a designer and a consultant. Let them know you keep up on all trends and did competitive research - you know what you’re talking about Use the analogy of architect vs. bricklayer, you’re playing an architect role (you have the experience and skills) - if they want a bricklayer you’ll point them in the right direction Let them know you have many clients and don’t like to take work where you’re not taken seriously and maybe it’s time to help them find someone else (if you don’t need the money…) Request some “testing” on your design (this is a gamble) - enough good feedback will squash any “i’m not sure” feelings Ask them what they feel the current design is not communicating to the audience, take notes and revise the design (away from the client) Focus in on one of the changes they are requesting and try to fit it into the design, that may make them loose focus on the other changes (”This change was a good idea! the other did not really work in the design”) Let them know you’re into the whole experience of the site you’re creating, and you feel like these changes will hurt their business (or the usability of the site, the page load times, etc…) If you have a contract, talk about how the changes will effect the development and it’s adding more scope to the project. (Again) If you don’t need the money, walk away. Let them know you don’t like to work this way and you’ll be more then happy to try and find them someone else who could help - but not anyone you like

The Beauty is in the Details (metrolifestyle.com)

Fast Cars

Grapevine recently was host to the Italian CarFest. The CarFest had a large collection of Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Maseratis, and Alfa Romeos. Lots of drooling and dreaming :-)

You can view all of my photos from the CarFest on Flickr.

Gold Plated Cheese (23 hours a day // jeremy johnson)

Everything Danger Mouse touches turns to gold. The most recent CD i’ve been enjoying is Gnarls Barkley / St. Elsewhere (released this month). Gnarls Barkely is the combo of Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse. Together they put together a soul/funk/R&B/hip hop/beats extravaganza that can’t really be labeled (and therefor can’t really sell well…).

He is also behind DangerDoom which is a Danger Mouse/MF Doom/Adult Swim mash-up. Yes, you even hear from Space Ghost.

Never before have I tracked down a producer to see what’s hot in music. Everything he’s involved with turns out really great. But enough gushing…

If you haven’t checked out Danger Mouse head to the website to listen to some samples.

Apple knows better… (23 hours a day // jeremy johnson)

My .mac is up for renewal and I’m not going to renew this year. I just received this email:

Thank you for being a member of .Mac! Your .Mac membership is set to renew on October 07, 2006 PDT; however, the credit card information you provided when you joined .Mac may now be invalid or out-of-date. Please check your credit card information in your Account Settings to update it (if you want to renew) or to remove it and uncheck auto-renew (if you do not). We appreciate your attention to this matter.

Now the problem with this is you can’t remove you’re credit card info (like the email says) - and if you can’t remove your credit card info, because then the form won’t validate - you can’t un-check auto-renew either.

So here’s me trying to un-check the auto-renew option…

Quotes on why Design matters in applications (23 hours a day // jeremy johnson)

Sometimes it’s hard to convince developers that Design (and all the little details associated with Design) really matter in an application. Maybe the application you’re working on is focused on efficiency and someone on your team feels like visual design is just getting in the way. You’ll hear things like “We don’t need any colors” or “there’s no need to make it look friendly or fun”. The feeling is consumer applications should stay worlds apart from business applications.

Well, I obviously disagree and went searching for some quotes to support the importance of visual design in productivity applications:

?Sometimes, in web application design, it feels like every pixel matters. This isn?t just a question about the application?s aesthetics. Visual design can have a huge impact on how the application communicates its use.?

http://www.uie.com/articles/usability_challenges_of_web_apps/

–

“?you can use visual design to communicate key concepts to your users. By addressing the question “What is this?” we communicate usefulness. By addressing “How do I use it?” we communicate usability. By addressing “Why should I care?” we communicate desirability. Clearly this communication goes beyond mere styling and “looking good”.”

http://www.guuui.com/posting.php?id=1799

–

?It’s rare for software to win an industrial design award. But that’s just what happened this week when the Industrial Designers Society of America announced that Microsoft’s Center for Information Work has won a Gold 2003 Industrial Design Excellence Award (IDEA).?

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2003/jun03/06-27IDEAAward.mspx

“Is there a point at which productivity software won’t require further innovation?

I don’t believe there’s an end. Human ability and behavior will continue to adapt and transform, and we will invent entirely new and novel ways to accomplish unforeseen goals and missions. We believe software can inspire that change in people and the way they behave, and in turn software has to adapt to that change. So, just as there are no limits to human creativity, there really are no limits to productivity software. ”

Interview with Designer: http://blog.biznik.com/2006/01/25/why-design-matters-nadja-haldimann-on-beauty-identity-and-visual-language/

–

?The visual design of a website bears the responsibility of communicating the possibilities, limitations, and state of interactions. It tells users what they are seeing, how it works, and why they should care. The better at communicating we are, the easier it is for our users to use and appreciate the websites we design.

However, the wrong message may be sent to users when visual elements are applied without an understanding of the underlying interactions they are meant to support. Visual styling that obscures or clouds crucial interaction options, barriers, or status messages can have a significantly negative impact on user experience.

You can think of visual design as the ?voice? of interaction design and information architecture, and therefore directly responsible for the usability of a website.?

http://blog.sessions.edu/featured-interviews/luke-wroblewski-the-hardest-working-man-in-web-design/

–

?46% of respondents said that design was the most important factor in establishing credibility.?

http://www.donloper.com/web_design/why_design_matters_on_the_web.html

–

?Is Beauty the new usability attribute??

http://www.humanfactors.com/downloads/oct05.asp

–

Any more good ones out there?

Chihuly (hearts) Children?s (metrolifestyle.com)

Chihuly Glass

This past October I made a trip back to my home state of Indiana to visit some family, and while there we got to visit one of my favorite places - the Children’s Museum! It’s been a couple of years, and they’ve now partnered with Chihuly for a wonderful installation. You can view more of my photos from the Museum in this Flickr set.

A Million Little Pieces (metrolifestyle.com)

A Million Little Pieces

No, not the book. A million little pieces of Legos. This was a little corner of the convention center in Austin during SXSW.

Tintin makes it to America! (23 hours a day // jeremy johnson)

You may or may not know I’m a huge Tintin fan. Mostly unknown here in the U.S., he’s a mega-star overseas (kind of like David Hasselhoff). I have a collection of Tintin collectables, including a Tintin Swatch watch, coins, figurines, and a stuffed Snowy for Owen.

Make sure to Tivo this tonight!

Why does the comic strip The Adventures of Tintin, about an intrepid boy reporter, continue to fascinate us decades after its publication? “Tintin and I” highlights the potent social and political underpinnings that give Tintin’s world such depth, and delves into the mind of Hergé, Tintin’s work-obsessed Belgian creator, to reveal the creation and development of Tintin.

view: PBS POV “Tintin and I”

Market Square, San Antonio (metrolifestyle.com)

Market Square, San Antonio

A great place for shopping and photography. I love the bold colors of the Mexican culture.

Internetfamous.net Interview (23 hours a day // jeremy johnson)

Paul over at internetfamous.net interviewed me on a variety of topics… Check it out!

Finally! OSX+Intel+Adobe= Woot! (23 hours a day // jeremy johnson)

Today’s the day… The app l spend the most time in (besides good old Firefox) has turned universal. PhotoShop CS3 is here.

I’ve posted some screenshots on my flickr account. So far so good, it’s faster - has some nice UI changes, and it’s faster. Did I mention it’s faster? My MacBook Pro is loving it!

Age of Steam (metrolifestyle.com)

Age of Steam Railroad Museum

What is it about trains? Something very mysterious and romantic about them - at least here in Texas where they are not used for commuter travel… My two year old is currently CRAZY about trains, so we took him to the “Age of Steam Railroad Museum” in Dallas. He naturally loved it and I loved the chance to shoot some photos (too bad it was a cloudy day!).

Google Indexes more of my life… (23 hours a day // jeremy johnson)

more_google

My Google services in Gmail just got a little longer. What’s next? Word Processor? Files Storage? Media Center? Google, what would I do without you?

Grape Stomping in Grapevine, Texas (metrolifestyle.com)

Grape Stomp

Would you drink this? I jumped in myself and it actually felt pretty good - maybe like a mud bath might feel?

Interested in working with me? (23 hours a day // jeremy johnson)

I’m looking for a “t-shaped” person to help expand my small User Experience team. Someone who is smart, web-savvy, and can handle multiple projects while evangelizing customer experience.

Our team is busy envisioning unseen solutions to complex design, business, and technology challenges. We’re trying to change the culture of a billion dollar travel company one prototype at a time. Our focus? How things should be, not how they are.

Like a startup, we have a small, passionate team and things move fast. Unlike a start-up, you don’t have to worry about 80 hour weeks, burnrates, or poor benefits. The company I work for has 9,000 employees in over 45 countries and a long successful history behind it.

Our campus is located in Southlake, TX (minutes away from an Apple Store!). And we enjoy working in the best suburb in Dallas/Ft. Worth area (no, really, it’s cool for a suburb).

We’re looking for the right people: Folks passionate about interaction design, information architecture, front-end development, design research, new technologies? in general ‘making things work for people’ (our mantra).

Sound interesting? (No, really I’m fun to work with!)

Let me know: http://www.jeremyjohnsononline.com/connect/

Clouds on Cars (metrolifestyle.com)

Clouds on Cars

The Texas sky set against the finish of this classic Jaguar. This was taken at a small Classic Car Show in Keller, TX. Check out all the photos in my Flickr set.

Were you at SXSW? (// pixelimpact)

This past week I traveled from Dallas to Austin for SXSW Interactive. While photography is not a big part of the conference, everyone has a camera. I’ve never seen so many DSLRs in one place.

It’s a great place to get excited about new technologies and hear from some of the smartest people in the industry. Flickr was there in force (with other Yahoo properties) and checking out some flickr tags like: sxsw06, sxsw2006, sxswi, sxswi06, sxswi2006 you can get a picture (many of them) of what it’s like.

It’s all about you (// pixelimpact)

This site is not in English so I’m not really 100% sure what’s going on, but I like how they have this guy’s photo (is it his site?) on every page. It’s oversized and in black & white and brings a stark contrast to the large amounts of whitespace. Each page has a different pose, and depending on your monitor resolution sometimes floats behind the text on the screen. This is a great idea for a personal site (if that’s what this is…).

visit: http://www.arne-berggren.no

Girls and Guns (// pixelimpact)

serialno3817131

Did you know at the age of 18 in Israel you are placed in a “national guard” like program for two years (boys and girls both)? I didn’t:

The life of an eighteen-year-old girl in Israel is interrupted when she is plucked out of her environment at an age when sexual, educational, and family values are at their highest exploration point. She is then placed in a rigorous institution, where individuality becomes a secondary matter, making room for nationalism. ???I solemnly swear???to devote all of my strength and to sacrifice my life to protect the land and the liberty of Israel,??? repeats the newly recruited soldier during her swearing-in ceremony. She enters the two-year period in which she will change from a girl to a woman, a teenager to an adult, all under a militaristic, masculine environment, and in the confines of an army that is engaged in daily war and conflict.

This is a great photo-essay of a little-known (at least in the US) part of Israeli life.

Visit: http://www.serialno3817131.com/

Melts in your mouth… (// pixelimpact)

Tired of those $1000 lenses? Why not make your own? Matthew Wheeler is using ice to create his own lenses - with some chilling (sorry…) effects.

While I try not to get water anywhere near my camera, this is definitely a great way to take some creative photos with a twist.

Take a look: Make fire with the power of ice!

Zohar Studios (// pixelimpact)

Not exactly sure what’s going on here, but when you combine photography with aliens and cavemen, you have a winner. Artist Stephen Berkman has a very interesting collection of Ambrotypes containing strange men, creatures and other oddities.

Worth a look: http://www.stephenberkman.com/

Updating the Photobooth Experience (// pixelimpact)

It’s about time someone decided to update the photobooth in a creative way and artist Keetra Dean Dixon did just that:

The booth is presented in semi-public spaces as a typical photobooth holding no denotation of it’s unique qualities. Users enter the booth, pose for 2 shots & exit as usual. During the developing process, the photos are “analyzed” & customized with forecasts consisting of patterns, symbols & messages.

She has a large collection of photostrips collected from this photobooth. It’s part art, part reality TV, and part great design.

Take a look: http://www.fromktoj.com/photobooth/

One Hundred from Millions (// pixelimpact)

Out of the millions (billions?) of photographs taken over the years, which would you pick for the top 100 photographs that changed the world?

LIFE magazine did just that, and the collection covers movie stars, war and hope - all in a great collection of journalistic photos from all over the world (and space). Above you’ll see the first photo ever taken - that’s one that definitely deserves to makes the list…

visit: 100 Photographs that Changed the World

More than Retouching (// pixelimpact)

Taylor James photographic retouchers has some amazing advertising photography. But what makes the website for Taylor James truly interesting are the a couple of step-by-step case studies that show the process. I’d say it more photo creating then photo retouching!

Visit: Taylor James photographic retouchers

Japan Underground (// pixelimpact)

No, not another street racing game for your Playstation, but a photographic essay on the underground of Japan. From the book “Deep Inside” photographer Joe Nishizawa takes you under with nothing but a 35mm Canon and comes back up with some amazing photos.

pingmag has a great interview with Joe, check it out!

Photos as Building Blocks (// pixelimpact)

Photosynth

“What if your photo collection was an entry point into the world, like a wormhole that you could jump through and explore??? ”

Sounds like something you’d be interested in? Microsoft thinks so (and after watching the video so do I).

Being able to recreate a scene with a series of photos is nothing new, “photo-stitching” software has been around for some time. But Photosynth takes this to a whole new level.

Just watch the video and drool…

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// jeremy johnson // creative thinking