20 Excellent Blogs for Those Who Love Design

Whether you’re a web designer, a print designer, or a photographer, you probably share a common trait with me and other creative types - a love for all things design related.

Smart Design's Dan Formosa on the Power of People, Simplicity and Gossip

He was on the design team that developed the first IBM computer. He worked on design for the OXO Good Grips kitchen tools and Ford's SmartGauge.

The White Box Talk

Picking up where he left off last year, frog's Chief Creative Officer Mark Rolston explores new directions in mobile technology and design at the 2009 Emerging Communications Conference in San Francisco on Thursday, March 5.

Eco-friendly ‘airliner + cityloader’ freight transportation concept

The concept of airliner + cityloader Transport Efficiency 2020 offers the separation of long and short distance transportation freight traffic.

Antares Lift: Carry your bike inside your place

If safe parking space to park your bike outdoors is still a problem, have a look at the latest foldable bicycle that you can effortlessly fold and carry inside your place.

Twitter Mania

Twitter has just turned three but it it’s still the most talked about webapp in ages. That’s because people are constantly coming up with ways to extract, arrange, and present its data. Take a look at some nicely designed 3rd-party websites that harness its power.

Google designer leaves, blaming data-centrism

Douglas Bowman, Google's visual design leader, is leaving the company after finding the company's reliance on detailed Web page performance data too confining.

Palm Pre vs iPhone 3.0: A Feature-by-Feature Comparison

The Palm Pre is going to be a hot item when it launches this summer--possibly hot enough to tackle the iPhone.

Can a USB Drive be sexy?

Ask Charles Wood of Worrell Design and he’ll say hell yes! TDK Trans-it Edge makes other USB sticks look like fashion rejects. Given that storage devices are seen as a impulse purchase, the packaging was as important as the drive itself. With this in mind he designed the packaging simultaneously with the drive.

SXSW 2009 PepsiCo Zeitgeist Twitter Visualizer

The Tweetsphere is already quite crowded with aggregate and visual interfaces (think Twitter Blocks, Tweet Stats, Tweet Volume, Twitter Meter, Tweetpad, Twitter Counter, and many more), but this one seems to stand out in terms of its interactive and real-time tracking features, maybe conceptually similar to those found at Digg Labs.

Mood & Anxiety Disorders Institute

How does an organization with a mission of educating the public about complex mental health issues—from depression to post-traumatic stress disorder—create the most effective online experience to get information into the hands of the people who need it the most?

Disruptive Mobility Roundup: Mobile Banking, SXSW, and the User Experience of Money

Intriguing: Zippi Cash will let you search online transactions and eBay sales to find out how much stuff lying around your house could actually be worth. Coming soon to the iTunes App Store.

Qatar by aesthetics architects

The building's design draws its inspiration from the ability of cacti thriving
in a desert. the energy efficient structure features sunshade panels that open
and close according to the sun's intensity, as well as a botanic dome adding
to its green rating.

Coasting Bicycle Design Strategy For Shimano

Designing a new path to growth in the bicycle industry.

MAEVE

The interactive installation maeve (MACE-Everyville) provides visual and tangible access to the social and intellectual networks behind architectural projects. The installation is part of the 11th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale.

Some big design challenges

What are the 10 big design challenges in the social sector?

The Design of Search

Cuil uses design thinking to create a better search experience.

Building an innovation nation

The global recession is commanding most of the attention of business executives and government leaders. But they should not lose sight of innovation: managers know that the future of their businesses depend on it, and government leaders understand that the long-term growth prospects of cities and nations are tied to it.

A post consumption economy

If the financial crisis was caused by the over-consumption of things we couldn’t afford, cheap mortgages for instance, and the environmental crisis is being caused by the over-consumption of things we can’t afford, the earth’s resources, and the health crisis is being caused by the over-consumption of things we can’t afford, calories, then it points towards there being a bit of a problem with endless consumption.

Can the iTunes App Store Be Saved?

Or can it simply be replaced?

“Smart” devices may help dementia sufferers remember to shut off stove, live at home longer

“The whole objective is to enable people to stay at home as long as they can,” says Bruce Carey-Smith, a BIME design engineer. The system reports the wealth of information it collects—from potential problems to successful interventions—to health care providers. “It’s about supporting—not about replacing—the role of care staff,” Carey-Smith says.

The Worldbuilder Interface

This lovely short film presents an original scenario for a future interface to virtual world making. Like the famous Apple Navigator film from decades ago, or ATT's You Will series of ads, or the Minority Report's scene of transparent gesture interface, this fictional depiction is convincing and inspiring.

Usability Analysis of Apple.com: Why is it so Good?

As designers, we all have been influenced in some way by Apple, whether it be their brilliant OS, stunning industrial innovation, or the trends they have started in web/application design. Apple focuses a lot on usability. This can be seen in their products, and Apple.com. It is important for Apple.com to be a usable site, because it leaves a good impression on users, and they will therefore be more likely to buy products from Apple.

Don Norman: The three ways that good design makes you happy

In this talk from 2003, design critic Don Norman turns his incisive eye toward beauty, fun, pleasure and emotion, as he looks at design that makes people happy. He names the three emotional cues that a well-designed product must hit to succeed.

The U.S. Is a Failure at Innovation

Bruce Nussbaum’s (B-week) wrote a post with the title “The U.S. Is A Failure At Innovation.” Whether is design-driven innovation, technology-driven innovation or business model innovation, US is still the leader. Let us review.

Creative Destruction

The mobile industry was built on change. Now what?

Driver Experience Design

Equally important to what we drive is how we drive.

27 Visualizations and Infographics to Understand the Financial Crisis

If there's anything good that has come out of the financial crisis it's the slew of high-quality graphics to help us understand what's going on. Some visualizations attempt to explain it all while others focus on affected business.

Plastiki: Message in a bottle raft

British adventurer and bank dynasty heir David de Rothschild plans to sail from San Francisco to Australia--in a boat made from discarded soft-drink bottles.

Zero Mouse is both trendy and lightweight

Something different in mouse design.

A Tale Of Two Customer Experiences

Customer experiences with Apple and HP.

DJ Needs A Phone Too

Are you one of those musically inclined people who love to jam at the drop of a hat? Designer Jose Tomas DeLuna thinks that there is a market for the creative music junkies who like to mix their music on the go. As a result he has conceptualized KRE8, which is mobile phone but has plenty of musically enhanced features. It’s a device that bridges musical creativity and communication.

First Impressions of Kindle on iPhone

Walt Mossberg offers his thoughts on the Kindle on the iPhone.

Early Razorfish Explorations in Designing Gestural Interfaces

Until recently, the closest most of us got to experience gestural computing interfaces were in futuristic Hollywood films like Minority Report. But with the advent of the iPhone and Wii, gestural UI is now common place — and in its infancy.

In 2019 I will be 44...

When Microsoft decides to imagine the future, it never fails to impress. Not only do you have some of the smartest people envisioning what’s possible, but they also invest so much into communicating these ideas through sights and sounds which the production value can be compared to most blockbuster sci-fi films.

Industry Trends in Prototyping

Prototype is one of those words that can mean something different to everyone. In the world of designing interactive products and services, prototype is generally defined as some representation of a design idea.

Designing The Virtual Wallet

PNC Financial Services Group provides retail banking, corporate and institutional banking, and asset management services to more than 2.9 million people across the East Coast. Eager to make lifelong customers from the emerging Generation Y market, PNC came to IDEO to develop and refine their financial service offering for these 70 million young, tech-savvy consumers.

Open-Ended Learning

A survey of outstanding K–12 schools underscores the compelling ways that architects and designers respond to the changing nature of education today.

IDEO’s Ten Tips For Creating a 21st–Century Classroom Experience

In recent years, IDEO has spent a lot of time and effort thinking about education. The firm’s work with Ormondale Elementary School, in Portola Valley, California, helped pioneer a special “investigative-learning” curriculum that inspires students to be seekers of knowledge.