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The Art of Distinction in Web Design

I really enjoyed this article on designing distinctive websites.

“Distractions in a design lead to a breakdown in communication and can confuse users, paralyzing their ability to quickly determine what to focus on or where to go next.

Distinctive design alleviates this by putting forward a few fundamental principles which appeal to the user’s needs. Effectively at their core, it underlines the ideal that highlighting content based on importance rather than its position is beneficial and worthwhile.

What is distinctive design? It’s a simple goal to make important information visible.

Principles of distinctive design include:

• Not giving prominence to objects unless it has a real need to attract attention
• Limiting the importance you give to all content within the page to avoid diluting the strength of the important content
• Deemphasizing less important content
• Taking the time to help guide the user’s eyes through the page to ensure content is read in the right order
• Avoiding too much information on the page to reduce the noise
• Ensuring that what you display fits the ideas you wish to convey”

Mostardesign Studio

Fontshop recently added Mostardesign studio to their roster of type designers. I love their portfolio, the work is displayed perfectly. Their view on typography is amazing, “Typography is our favorite playground”. Mostardesign Studio is a French based studio, established in 2004 by Olivier Gourvat.

What Type Are You?

I love Pentagram! I love this video! You need to try this!

 

Kinect & Milo

Super creepy stuff here, but it’s kind of interesting.

This makes me want to drop $150 on a Kinect and learn OpenFrameworks.

Tennis

I’ve rarely been exited about albums, but something about Tennis is different. I love her haunting voice and the throw back melodies. Their full length album will be released in 2011.

Legacy of Letters

A friend of mine shared this video with me and I must say it’s beautiful. I love the craft that goes into calligraphy and the science behind the strokes. I had an enlightening moment during this video — as he was creating the letters I fully understood that this was how one used to communicate with type. It really sunk in for me. In the 21st century, I just press a key and the letter form is created, back then there was so much preparation.

We are taught now to have a concept or driving force behind our work, back in calligraphy land it was just the form and craft. It’s interesting how teachings change with technology.

I just finished listening to WNYC Radiolab’s short on “What does technology want?”. Essentially this guy’s thesis is that developments in technology are a sum of the concepts and inventions that came before it. This is why when there is an invention, there are usually several people who have the same idea around the same time. For example, with Thomas Edison’s light bulb there are apparently 25 other people who invented the light bulb around the same time. I don’t think I’m doing this episode justice. I think you should listen to it here.