November 2008

Nov 27
PolaPremium
PolaPremium, the new home of instant photography. Oh, hell yes. Loads of film, cameras, and goodness.
Nov 26
Zoetrope
Zoetrope, a joint project between the University of Washington and Adobe to archive the web, make it searchable, and intelligently choose which pages to archive and how often to archive them, based on the frequency of updates. The project also includes the creation of an application to search through archived pages and compare them over time. This is seriously promising.
Nov 25
Subversion Client Roundup
Dan Mall on the state of Subversion clients, from a designer’s perspective. Conclusion: right now ZigVersion is probably your best option.
Questionable Characters
Questionable Characters, illustrators Ben Barry and Frank Chimero answer reader questions, often in delightful ways.
Space Alone?
NYU researchers find spacing to be the defining factor of what makes text legible, due to the universal principle of the Bouma law.
Nov 20
Frenzic
Frenzic, an awesome and addictive puzzle video game, is now out for the iPhone. This is one of the first iPhone games I haven’t been bored with after 10 minutes. From your friends at The Iconfactory and ARTIS Software.
Snow Angel Letterpress Cards
Simple and gorgeous letterpress holiday cards with blind printed snow angel. Great use of the medium.
Nov 19
The (Mostly) True Story of Helvetica and the New York City Subway
The (Mostly) True Story of Helvetica and the New York City Subway, a long and engrossing read on the history of typography in the NYC Subway.
Nov 18
Design by the Book
Design by the Book, a collaboration between design*sponge and the New York Public Library, who’ve invited five Brooklyn-based artists to draw inspiration from the NYPL’s collections to make… something! They’ll film the whole deal like an independent Project Runway for visual designers. Subscribe for free on iTunes U.
Designers Review of Books
Designers Review of Books, reviews of new (and sometimes old) design books. Just launched, but already looks very promising.
A List Apart: Issue 272
A List Apart: Issue 272, What will it take to make web video accessible by default? And can a 404 page do more than just tell users something went wrong? Articles by Joe Clark and Dean Frickey.
Nov 14
New bike racks in NYC
The New York City Department of Transportation announces the winners of their bike rack design competition. First place goes to Hoop, by Ian Mahaffy and Maarten De Greeve from Copenhagen. 5,000 of the winning racks are expected to be installed over the next three years. I love how they installed the 10 finalists in Astor Place to see how people used them.
Nov 12
Looking at Libraries
Valérie Madill re-imagines book organization in libraries by using large color coded labels that contain all pertinent book information.
Nov 11
Zombies Don’t Run
The dead and the quick, Simon Pegg (of Shaun of the Dead fame) pleads for some sanity in keeping our zombies of the shambling variety. I couldn’t agree more. (via CP)
Muppet Whatnot Workshop
Design, build, and buy your own personalized Muppet. So badass.
Nov 10
Art or not
Is graphic design art? You make the call.
Illustrated Horror Film Posters
Illustrated Horror Film Posters, Part 1 and Part 2. Many of these remind me of my childhood and nights spent with friends to have mini horror movie marathons. Lots of classic stuff like Death Race 2000, House, Dawn of the Dead, Re-Animator, Escape from New York, and tons of Jaws ripoffs.
Logo, Objectified
Evolution of the Objectified logo (design by Build) for Gary Hustwit’s upcoming documentary of the same name.
Nov 04
Forvo
Forvo, all the words in the world. Pronounced. So cool.
Nov 03
@font-face in IE: Making Web Fonts Work
Making Web Fonts Work, Jon Tan on the (sad) state of font embedding online.
Candy Code
Some kids employ a candy code while trick-or-treating to help others find the good stuff. Similar to the hobo code.

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On the Subject of Me

Jason Santa Maria is a graphic designer living and working in sunny Brooklyn, NY. More »


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Design Is History

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