Graham Hicks

Union Square

Union Square
Originally uploaded by gmh.

Just testing this Flickr's 'blog this' feature.

I'll be changing some things around here sometime soon. This whole blog thing just isn't really working out.

I suppose I should actually update this site sometime, no?
Well, there were a few "inspirational" things I've run into recently that should be worth sharing. First of all, Naoto Fukasawa came back to IDEO to share some of the work he has done since starting his own company. He also talked about his process and explained his idea of "Design Dissolving in Behavior."
It was great to see that Fukasawa takes pictures of the city, finding the little beautiful things that people create, consciously or not.
I was also glad to hear that he is trying to get the �0 products to be sold in Europe and the States.

Anyone in San Francisco should check out Beautiful Losers at The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The security guards didn't seem to like my camera, which seemed a little contradictory since much of the show was celebrating DIY, democratized art, yet a simple snapshot (and even carrying a skateboard apparently) was not allowed. I was able to take a few clandestine shots.

The new McSweeney's is pretty amazing too. It brings a lot of Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics to life (not that Understanding Comics is particularly dull on its own).

Last week I found this book. It has a beautiful cover, but a creepy title. Poor bunnies.

Design seems to have been getting a good amount of press recently. IDEO is on the cover of BusinessWeek (you can buy the issue on newsstands, read the article online or download the issue from Zinio), Pentagram was featured on the Discovery Channel as it designed a barbecue, and the next issue of Fast Company will showcase 20 "Masters of Design." Hopefully all of the publicity helps to further convince businesses of the value of design.

There seems to be a recent influx of blogging from some leaders at big design firms as well. Michael Beiruit has Design Observer, Erik Spiekermann has his bilingual Spiekerblog and Nathan Hale, Chief Technologist at frogdesign, has recently started Flowdelic.

Continuing with the Mac geek theme, last weekend I followed the instructions on Applefritter and removed all of the white paint from the inside of my old iBook. I replaced it with a map of France from an old Michelin altas.

I like the map, but thought I could make it into something a little more interesting. A few ideas are below, click on the image for a large version.
If you have any ideas, here's the PhotoShop file I was using: 8.9mb zip. You'll probably need a fairly recent version of PhotoShop.

UPDATE: Thanks to everyone for the response. I've posted a few more images of the iBook here since the ones above aren't that great. I also wanted to note that Apple has changed the way they manufacture iBooks so that they no longer have a transparent shell (probably due to the extra cost and higher failure rate of painted clear plastic). That means this kind of modification isn't possible on any recent version, but there are some companies that sell iBook "skins" or re-colored iBooks.

SkyBook

Pretty Colors

White Stripes. The area between the stripes is left transparent.

Little Black Book. This might not work since parts of the plastic are a bit frosted (I'm not exactly sure why).

Blue Book

Buildings.

Sidewalk.

Glow. Anyone know where to get glow-in-the-dark spraypaint?

Inverse. Of course, I'd have to set my desktop picture to an image of the back of the screen.

Paul Smith-ish.

More stipes. This time created by wrapping the pixels from the edge of a photograph.

Camoflauge. Good for hiding from the conductors on the train.

Part one of Geeky Things to do with Expos�, an iSight and Grab.

I spotted these at Amoeba this weekend. Could dismembered arms be a new trend in album art?

On the left is Spiritualized's Amazing Grace and on the right is Spoon's brilliant Kill the Moonlight.

The two typefaces I designed for Test Pilot Collective have been added to MyFonts.com, which means that I get my very own official type designer webpage.

Just in case you were wondering, Graham Hicks sounds as good as ever. No that's not me.

There's been a lot of talk about the new iPod mini's size and colors and price, but I think of of the more interesting parts is being overlooked. The new wheel+button configuration seems to be an excellent improvment over the current version of the full iPod. I've found that with my iPod (the orignal one with buttons surrounding the movable wheel, how quaint!) I will often not lift my thumb from the wheel when pushing a button, but instead roll or slide my thumb across the wheel to hit one of the buttons. The "iPod with dock connector" version doesn't allow this since it's buttons are above the wheel and have no tactile feedback, but the iPod mini's wheel seems to have been created with just this behavior in mind, allowing the user to scroll and select in the same space.

Sorry about the lack of posts here recently. For some reason it seems that I like to post on the 6th of each month. Anyway, here are a few interesting things I've seen recently:

A New-york-times-registration-required article about the making of the iPod.
Harpers.org redesigned by Paul Ford.
An interesting synopsis of the discussion around the Semantic Web.
Naoto Fukasawa's InfoBar cell phones are now available in Japan.
The work of Mark Lombardi.
Dia:Beacon looks like an absolutely amazing place.
More product info at �0.

I'd never heard of it before, but the Dublin Spire seems like a pretty stunning monument. Apparently, it is the first major monument in Dublin that is not about memorializing an injsutice, but is instead meant to help people look to the future.

How's this for adaptive design? Instead of buying clothing, just get some felt and velcro squares and build your own clothing (or whatever else).

Actually, now that I think about it, it's more adaptable design than it is adaptive.

It looks as though Naoto Fukasawa's latest collaboration with the Diamond, Inc. is the creation of a company called �0 (Plus Minus Zero). Their aim is to create household items with a "spirit of fun" in much the same way that the Without Though series has (Without Thought 4, Without Thought e-Fashion, Without Thought 2?). I love Fukasawa's description of some of the reasoning behind the designs:

Rounded edges (R) are artificial creations. Squaring off the rounded edges of a piece of timber is something that we do even though we know that the edges will become rounded, either through human hands or through the process of weathering. We entrust this rounding of the edges to nature. We decided on the adoption of R2.5 � which is similar to the rounding of edges (R) that occurs naturally � as the �0 design range�s base language because it is close to the natural R created by human hands. Your fingers automatically reach out to rub over the rounded edges of the warm, unpainted pale wood.

Product Art, their first set of products, should go on sale before the end of the year.

Back in 2001 German art collective Fursr (creators of the PainStation) developed a "board game" called His Master's Voice. The game has no rules of it's own, but players can control small spheres on the game board by singing or whistling. Each ball will listen for a specific pitch, and rolls around when it's pitch is sung. Watch the video of some people trying it out.