March 2009
51 posts
Flawed Design by Stabilo (via Matt)
WatchMicrosoft gets more aggressive with their latest “I’m a PC” ad. Honestly I think this is a lot more successful than their previous attempts, but the admission of “I’m not cool enough to be a Mac person” is a strange one. It was obviously intended to be a jab at Mac snobs, but they’re still reinforcing the Apple brand as “cool” in the process. ...
copy/paste character →
Great site for copying and pasting all of the ¥¶ƒ© characters that you can never remember shortcuts for.
Serious Drawings, the Book →
Marc Johns is releasing a 144pg full-color hardcover book of his sketches this Spring—yoink.
“I can’t prove that all cretins are liars, but anybody who says you...”
– Merlin Mann
October by The Elevator Division
Mrs Eaves XL →
Emigre has released a new version of Mrs Eaves, undoubtedly one of the most beloved serif fonts of the past decade. It features a bumped-up x-height and shorted descenders which will work a lot better in tight quarters.
OnlyBurger is the joint venture of two chefs from Durham (Sam Poley of Restaurant Starlu & Tom Ferguson of Durham Catering) whose sole aim is to wander around Durham in a truck selling “the only burger you’ll ever want to eat.”
Carpe Durham absolutely raved about OnlyBurger, but before I had a chance to try it they got in a wreck and had to shut down for a while. Now they...
What does $1T look like? →
Hmm. As I see it they could spare a few bucks for me then.
Sketchbooks are pretty essential to how I work—they’re always where I start before ever reaching for a mouse. After a long stint as a happy moleskine user I’ve switched to Coudal Partner’s fantastic Field Notes Brand notebooks, and after a year with them I can safely say I won’t be going back to moleskines.
Field Notes take nods from agricultural memo books, and are...
Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout →
A delicious stout aged in oak bourbon barrels for a year (and cellared for another). It’s a touch sweet with strong vanilla, coffee, and chocolate tones—smooth and creamy. It’s brewed in short batches and a few places around the Triangle just got some in. Pick up a 4-pack before they’re all gone (fair warning: ~$18-22 for 4).
Hardwood Floors by Annuals
Literally, A Web Log →
A hilarious blog devoted to the misuse of the word “literally”
Design Iteration
Tonight I rolled out a new revision of my blog design. The main reason for the change is tumblr’s 500px width restriction on images, which put a dampener on my wider 8-column layout. Now in its place is a 6-column grid structured off of the image width, and I feel like that’s the right move until tumblr gives us more width options.
I also took this opportunity to clean up some of...
On the New Facebook Layout
After spending some time with the new Facebook homepage I came to a unexpected conclusion: I hate it. That’s not a fringe opinion it seems, but even though I usually distance myself from public knee-jerk it’s still there. I just don’t enjoy using the site as much.
There are plenty of UI nitpicks I could write about, but for me the problem is deeper than simply executing an...
Wonderwall (cover-ish) by Ryan Adams
“Life is like Tetris. You rack your points up, then you die.”
– Aaron Sittig
Those that know me well know about my deep mancrush on Alton Brown. Alton is the host of Good Eats on the Food Network, as well as several, other, great shows. I think above everything else Alton’s analytical but goofy personality strikes a chord with me, and that’s why Good Eats is always on at our house.
Good Eats is a cooking show that goes beyond recipes to really dissect the...
Forever's Not So Long →
Great 12min short film by Garrett Murray and crew—it seems like there’s nothing he can’t do (design, code, act, produce).
Last night Cass and I saw Watchmen (it’s always interesting to be married to someone who is arguably more excited about every comic book movie that comes out than I am), and my verdict is: fantastic.
I decided not to read the novel before the movie because that usually ruins the movie for me, and I think that was the right choice. I can’t talk much to the authenticity of the...
“If my calculations are correct SLINKY + ESCULATOR = EVERLASTING FUN”
– <TRON> (via bash.org)
Geeky Music Charts →
These are hilarious.
WatchThis is mainly for Matt—Reggie Watts is vocal artist that crafts entire songs from live samples of his voice. Very awesome.
Anamanaguchi - Dawn Metropolis →
One of my favorite new CD purchases. Shaun Inman said it best: “Anamanaguchi is what Blue-era Weezer would have sounded like if they replaced Rivers with an NES.”
Dr. Manhattan + Snuggie (via 104 Ways to Hilariously Ruin the Watchmen Movie)
Okay it’s time for a pet-peeve rant, and today it’s people who make a big deal over “I’m good vs. I’m well.”
I really hate it when grammar nazis make a big deal over answering “How are you?” with “I’m good.” They’ll either answer you with a passive-aggressive “I’m doing well,” or they’ll go so far as...
Dull Life by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Evan Marcotte - Fluid Grids →
Great ALA article today about building fluid grids.
Last year I made the move from Wordpress to tumblr for my blogging needs, and it has been a great one. As much as I love the interface I never really got into the social features of the site, but that has changed immensely since my inclusion in tumblr’s design directory.
In the weeks that followed I got more traffic and followers than this site has ever seen, and today I hit a humble...
Today I decided to take a look at cufón, a font-replacement script based on the HTML canvas element instead of Flash. I have to say I’m really impressed by it. The implementation is simple, the replacement performance is snappy, and the results are great—I changed http://justinbelcher.com over to Swiss 721 Thin.
I only have a few minor quibbles—one being unselectable text,...