Design Feaster: the Design Feast Blog

Designer’s Quest(ionnaire): Community Activist Designer Justin Kemerling

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Burgos) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:51:00 +0000

The Designer’s Quest(ionnaire) is a Design Feast initiative that describes and captures a designer’s perspective in a succinct format. Established in 2004, The Match Factory “was designed to be a place for creative expression. A place for people to share their passions, opinions and projects, and to exist in a space together where they can learn from each other and grow in exciting new directions.” One of The Match Factory’s affiliated projects is Power To The Poster, “a graphic design democracy project” that addresses the issues of our time. The link between these two projects of design activism is Justin Kemerling who pursues the role of “community activist designer.” His thinking about design strives toward the goal of common good and positive social change. Read more about his insightful take on design and designing.

Previous Designer’s Quest(ionnaire): Designer and Singer Jussi Gamache

A Recent Design Lecture, An Opportunity to Doing It Better

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Burgos) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:07:00 +0000

I recently lectured to a class at Harrington College of Design. The class dealt with “Design Issues” and was taught by Alma Hoffmann. I was referred to her by a mutual colleague, Jeffrey Jensen, who happens to also be a fan of Design Feast. After my poor presentation to a “Design Ecology” class at the Art Institute of Chicago, I had no inclination to do the “lecture thing.” But when the opportunity came to present to Alma’s class, it was a strong hint to reconcile my bloated overpass to the “Design Ecology” students.

Before, I aimed for broad coverage of topics, resulting in a thin lecture and diluted focus. This time, I strived for a compact set of topics that were essentially tips. Tips on being and staying creative; some about being and staying professional. Graphic designer Frank Chimero said, “Tips are easy. And shallow.” Frank’s absolutely right. This was why personal experience backed up each of my tips. The sole hierarchy dictating these tips was when I wrote them. Tips can drip a lot. They were kept to a handful such as these:

Honesty is the best policy.
Not engaging the web is stupid.
Defending your thinking is hard.
Referrals rule.
The cool people are those who build an audience
and care about them.
Good designers write.
Honoring your spouse, parents and loved ones is more important than anything.

The format of tips enables a presentation. It proved to be in an ice-breaker in what to share in a lecture. Making them sound enlightened was an easy temptation. I gave into it, resisted, then backed out and honed in on ones that were worded in a straightforward way.

To supplement my presentation, I brought along one of my rare design books for show-and-tell. It never hurts to bring in presentation-props. In this case, the prop was Bauhaus teacher Herbert Bayer’s “World Geo-Graphic Atlas” published in 1956. The book’s wealth of information-design demonstration mesmerized the audience. Like the Q&A following the lecture, the object provided another Q&A in itself.

Afterwards, I solicited feedback directly from the audience. One student replied: “Personally I thought you did a great job. Thorough reinforcement of the concepts and practices you presented.” Alma expressed, “It was WONDERFUL!!!”

The only gripe dealt with my pace of delivering the presentation: “…you pushed right through your 10 tip title screens, was trying to keep notes and some of them just flashed before I could get them down.” Slowing down is hard once one gets into starting the presentation and talking it through. I’ll try to treat transitions as pauses in the next opportunity to speak to an audience who proved captivated this time.

Speaking of the audience, Alma’s class consisted of only two students. I assumed that there would be more. But I’m glad that this assumption was debunked. No matter the size of the audience, whether the members consist of two or two thousand, each deserves the presenter’s complete attention. One’s lecture, including the Q&As and props, is only a success when the audience is a success.

Designer’s Quest(ionnaire): Designer and Singer Jussi Gamache

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Burgos) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 16:16:00 +0000

The Designer’s Quest(ionnaire) is a Design Feast initiative that describes and captures a designer’s perspective in a succinct format. While listening to an episode of National Public Radio’s “All Songs Considered,” I was hooked to the electropop sound (which appears as bonus tracks in video games Guitar Hero and Rock Band) of Boston-based indie band Freezepop whose lead vocalist is Liz Enthusiasm, the pseudonym of Jussi Gamache. She is also a graphic designer with not only a portfolio of music but also art direction. Read more about her insightful take on design and designing.

Previous Designer’s Quest(ionnaire): Designer/Researcher Jaime Barrett

DesignThoughtLeader.com Recently Refreshed!

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Burgos) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:48:00 +0000

After the launch of design job board Design Engage, I went on to my next new year’s resolution for 2009: Converting my static site for my self-published book Thought Leadership by Design into a blog.

In contrast to how I began Design Engage, no story for this web-based project. It was straight dive to getting the site into a new blogging state. I sketched what this could be:

With the help of the designer-developer search engine CollabFinder (a web-designer search resource called Haystack has been launched by 37signals), I discovered Megan Coleman, who specializes in designing and customizing blogs. Recognizing the design nerdery of WordPress, I had already settled on using this platform and was on the search for a template to modify. A minimally-looking template. This wasn’t an easy search. I was pleased to discover the WP theme Statement. Nothing slick, it was plain and clean.

The blog postings are thoughts on design. One detail that I take pride in is the rotation of displayed quotation marks accenting each design-related quote:

I recently added Hazen Sans Light designed by Shawn Hazen and plan to incorporate more quote marks of other typefaces. This is proving to be a good way to inject some appreciation for typeface design into the interface.

Out of curiosity, including learning from working on Design Engage, I wanted to use a web-based organization tool. Before the project’s start, I was using Backpack to manage information for my blog writing projects. A newly shared page (detail below) was created in Backpack to keep track of interface iterations, manage the project’s to-dos and document anything else. Megan used Basecamp to schedule the project’s goals and timeline.

Working on a renewed Design Thought Leader site with Megan was a good experience. Though she was on vacation when I contacted her in December 2008, she replied. Her prompt responsiveness made a very good first impression, even before meeting in person the following month. And it was a rapid project. Within a month-and-a-half, the refreshed site of Design Thought Leader was up and running.

Design Thought Leader is an extension of the thoughts on design section at Design Feast. It’s fun collecting how people describe design and designing. So many insightful nuggets spanning the disciplines of design and lots to learn. Served regularly, one design thought at a time.

Designer’s Quest(ionnaire): Designer/Researcher Jaime Barrett

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Burgos) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 01:22:00 +0000

The Designer’s Quest(ionnaire) is a Design Feast initiative that describes and captures a designer’s perspective in a succinct format. It was the book “Three Big Questions,” from motivational speaker David Phillips, which led me to Jaime Barrett. She designed the publication about finding one’s mission, vision and purpose—and her portfolio of craft and culture quickly had me hooked. She worked at strategic design consultancy Ziba Design and is a Designer/Researcher at design office Pinch, both in Portland, Oregon. Read more about her insightful take on design and designing.

Previous Designer’s Quest(ionnaire): Graphic designer Lottie Crumbleholme

Design and Metals: Steampunk, Braun, The High Line, Architect Renzo Piano’s Modern Wing

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Burgos) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 03:37:00 +0000

In December 2008, I began writing about the intersection of design and metals. Taking a cue from Eric Baker’s sequences of found images that he regularly posts on the blog Design Observer, here’s an array of clickable images from recent stories concerning metal as a design medium:

Blogger’s Quest(ionnaire): Karen Templer of Readerville, Note:books and Salon

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Burgos) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 01:30:00 +0000

The Blogger’s Quest(ionnaire) is a Design Feast Initiative. In contrast to the Designer’s Quest(ionnaire), the focus here is on those engaged in the blog medium—why they do it and what tools they use. This sixth installment features Karen Templer, web designer and developer who is also a writer and editor. She created online community Readerville (2000–2009) for “readers, writers, librarians, publishers, critics and anyone else who loves books” and its companion service Note:books which was renamed Noting:books, under new management. She currently is on staff at e-zine Salon and blogs at Collapse and Delight. Her sustained web-based publishing experience may help your entrance into the blogosphere or further inform your current work in it:

Why did you create a web site of regular entries?
With Readerville, I had for years been listing interesting links on the front page and posting those (and far more of them) to the forum, where everything was fodder for discussion. In the past couple of years, it began to make more sense to do that in blog form, to take advantage of the archiving and permalinks and so on, and to move a part of the dialogue onto the front page. Three years ago, when my husband and I began renovating an old house, I set up another blog, which I call Unfrumpy, to document the process on behalf of faraway friends and family who wanted to see what we were doing, and to have a record of it for ourselves. And more recently I started a more idiosyncratic little blog at Posterous, called Collapse and Delight, where I try to post things I’m currently thinking about or inspired by.

What web-based solution did you select and why?
Last summer, I rebuilt Readerville using ExpressionEngine, and I loved learning the template language and working with it. It allowed for an incredible amount of freedom in how the site was structured and styled and archived. Unfrumpy is a barely-customized TypePad blog. And part of the inspiration for the Posterous blog was that I wanted to try out Posterous, which is completely brilliant. (It says a lot that there’s zero customization available and I don’t mind in the least.) I am keen to learn WordPress because I routinely hear great things about it and would like to know how it compares, from a developer’s perspective, to EE.

What is your definition of a good blog and what are three good blogs that you frequently visit?
For me, a good blog is one that really represents the personality (or personalities) behind it and that makes me strive to be smarter and/or more creative. So the blogs that really make me envious are not any of the big powerhouses but smaller, more personal blogs of smart/creative people. Examples off the top of my head being Peter Mendelsund (Jacket Mechanical), who makes me miss working in the graphic design trenches, and Katie Rich (Katie Did), who makes me want to dust off my sewing machine. And then there are blogs like that of Mark Athitakis (American Fiction Notes), who is not only smart and pleasant and well-read and tuned-in, but has come up with a fantastic taxonomy for his posts so that they add up to a tremendous index of author-related content from all over the web.

How do you create content for your blog?
I’ve been spoiled by Posterous and want to use only it right now. To create a post, all you do is type an email: your subject line is the post title and the message is the post. You can drag photos into the body of the message or include them as attachments. If you attach multiple images, it automatically creates an ingenious little gallery. If you include a YouTube link, it automatically embeds the video. All sorts of things like that. And you can set it up to auto-post to your other blogs or Twitter or just about anywhere you like. You determine where all it gets posted by the address you send the email to. Everything in life should be so simple and elegant.

So these days it’s a pretty simple process. I find something I want to share or comment on, I whip up an email, and I hit send.

How do you stay organized and motivated to contribute to your blog?
I use Evernote to keep all of my thoughts organized—not just blog-related thoughts—and motivation is rarely a problem. For me, the problem is time. And with Readerville having run its course and us not working on the house at all right now, the two blogs that have been my focus no longer are. Which leaves me trying to define for myself (after the fact) what it is I want to do with Collapse and Delight, my Posterous blog. Especially in the era of Twitter and Evernote. I think a lot about what I really want to share that can’t be shared on Twitter; what I really want to record publicly rather than just save to Evernote for myself; that sort of thing. So I struggle with that more than with organization or motivation.

For those aspiring to make a web site composed of regular thoughts and/or images, what is your advice?
Keep it simple. Too many people try to do too much and wind up not being able to sustain it.

And similarly, don’t post just for the sake of posting. I cringe every time I see some “pro” telling people they have to post a lot or they’ll lose readers or page rank or whatever. I’m one who thinks it’s more important for posts to be useful or interesting than it is for them to be frequent. I’d rather visit a blog once a week and have it be really worth the visit than to see five or six or 32 new posts in a day that aren’t really worth my time. If you take a few days between posts, I’ll have plenty of other stuff to look at in the meantime. And if, when you do post, it’s interesting, I’m sure to stay subscribed to your feed, no matter what. Of course, if it’s meant to be any variety of professional venture as opposed to a personal blog, the pressure to be interesting more often will be greater.

Hopefully you have a clear idea what it is you want to accomplish with your blog and good reason to believe you’ll have something interesting to offer on a regular basis.

What is your quest in blogging?
I guess I’d say it’s to respond to inspiring (or exciting or infuriating or provocative) things out in the world and bring them to other people’s attention. To see what we each think.

Read the previous Blogger’s Quest(ionnaire): Austin Kleon, Writer who Draws

Growing Design Webliography DesignFeast.com now has Search

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Burgos) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 15:33:00 +0000

The headline may sound lackluster, but it took awhile for Design Feast to be equipped with a way to search its content. I simply didn’t know how to do this myself when starting the site in 1999. Likewise, content was thin back then, as I began the curation of noteworthy, web-based content related to design.

Design Feast currently showcases 1,503 sites, further supplemented with original content like the Designer’s Quest(ionnaire)—making a search capability sorely needed. As a friend related in a past email:

You need a search function on Design Feast ;-)

I’m glad to finally say that the newly added (top bar) search makes it possible not only to comb through Design Feast, but also to visit affiliated sites.

My web-developer buddy Minna Kim Mazza, who co-built the Design Engage job board site, also built this new search capability. I’m really satisfied with the way it turned out and hope you will be, too. The plan is to carry it over to the Design Feast’s upcoming redesign. As Design Feast’s content grows, I’ve been thinking how to improve the site’s interface and interaction. So a redesign is currently in progress behind the scenes, with the goal of launching a refreshed version within the next few months. More about this in upcoming posts. Speaking of redesign, there’s been a lot of that going around lately: from Design Observer’s site to National Public Radio’s site to the site of the LA Times.

Thanks to everyone who visits Design Feast! Rest assured that future Design Feast visits will continue to reward visitors with a growing collection of diverse design content, creative voices and projects, as well as improving features and functions.

Finding Typographic Matter at a Furniture Repairer’s Workshop—and Digressing in a Good Way

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Burgos) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 04:27:00 +0000

One of the wooden chairs that surround my dining table recently broke (the hard way, by force of gravity). I finally seized weekend time to get it fixed and discovered a conveniently located wooden furniture repairer via Yelp.com. Like finding typographic matter during my trip to New York City last January, another revelation awaited me amidst the repair shop’s arrangement of distressed chairs, tables and dressers: Several pages from mid-century modern furniture manuals.

It appeared that the spine and covers were gone—don’t know why nor how and assuming that it was more usable to have them dispersed, in order to work on separate projects simultaneously. But the spreads themselves had a layout that was refreshing to see. Though the justification alignment of text had holes in spacing, the incorporation of photographs, penciled renderings, solid background colors, and in particular, diagrams piqued my interest:

Indulging in the book spreads led to another find residing close by—A handbook about the construction of mobiles:

The furniture repairer mentioned that it’s a new hobby. He admired, as I do, the work of Alexander Calder.

Further panning the furniture repairer’s workshop, I fixated on an “old-school” pencil sharpener. I expressed my liking for it, more engrossed in its geometry than the streamlined form of electric pencil sharpeners:

The furniture repairer then showed me another pencil sharpener, matching in mechanics but presenting a different shape. His reviving of furniture matched his fondness for other objects sharing the same timeline. Perhaps our nostalgic chat, beyond the original intention for my visit, was a superficial digression. But I think it benefited the comfort level between a new customer and a business owner desiring new business.

If there’s a tendency to express curiosity over objects—whether they are books or manual pencil sharpeners, and if that curiosity is appropriate—it’s a tendency that should be nurtured. It could cultivate a shared interest, or in this case, incite multiple points of fascination. This impulsive string of discoveries was a celebration of culture, printed and sharpened, in this encounter.

I left with an impression of like-mindedness. On my drive home, I felt, with confidence, that the broken chair was in capable and compassionate hands.

Designer’s Quest(ionnaire): Graphic designer Lottie Crumbleholme

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Burgos) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 15:02:00 +0000

The Designer’s Quest(ionnaire) is a Design Feast initiative that describes and captures a designer’s perspective in a succinct format. I discovered Lottie Crumbleholme at blog Monoscope where her Lost Skills Depository project (detail above) was featured. This series of booklets, printed on salvaged paper, “encourages people to extend the life of well-loved clothes by providing them with simple instructions for basic sewing techniques used in mending.” The meaning and matching form of this work instantly had me hooked. Lottie is “interested in developing ways of communicating messages that encourage people to adopt more environmentally sustainable behaviour.” Read more about her insightful take on design and designing.

Previous Designer’s Quest(ionnaire): Graphic and web designer Julie Oya

Your SXSW 2010 Vote: Panel Submissions by Duane King, Austin Kleon and Steve Portigal

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Burgos) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 12:28:00 +0000

The first south by Southwest Music Conference and Festival (SXSW) was held in Austin, Texas in 1987. The event diversified in 1994 with the addition of film and interactive conferences. Since then, SXSW has become one of the largest music, film and interactive festivals in the U.S. For the anticipated 2010 event, three highly creative people (and Twitter buddies of mine) submitted ideas for panels, now open for public voting. The move embodied the SXSW Interactive Festival’s credo: “brings together the world’s most creative web developers, designers, bloggers, wireless innovators, content producers, programmers, widget inventors and new media entrepreneurs.”

Duane King is the half of Santa Fe-based BBDK, a design, brand development and marketing communications group. He founded and sustains Thinking for a Living, an “ever-growing platform dedicated to the concept of open source design education.” King also participated in the Designer’s Quest(ionnaire).

His submission for SXSW is called Where the Sidewalk Ends and reflects on “how personal projects will take you where you want to go.” In addition to King’s insights, this panel discussion will also include illustrator, graphic designer and writer Frank Chimero, typographic blog AisleOne’s Antonio Carusone, art director and designer Shane Bzdok, and creative strategist, designer, speaker, interaction developer Ian Coyle.

Austin Kleon is a writer, cartoonist and designer whose forthcoming collection of witty Newspaper Blackout Poems will be available from HarperCollins in February 2010. Leon also participated in the Blogger’s Quest(ionnaire). His panel submission is called Visual Note-Taking 101, which is focused on learning “practical techniques and ‘tricks of the trade’ from modern visual note-taking masters: how to write, sketch, and diagram ideas live, in real time, as you hear them.”

Steve Portigal is the founder of Portigal Consulting, which brings together user research, design and business strategy to help companies discover and act on new insights about their customers. To coin a phrase, as Steve put it, he is passionate about the “stuff of a culture—its products, companies, consumers, media, and advertising.” His panel submission is called Culture Kicks Our Ass: How To Kick Back, which will “explore the different cultural challenges that breakthrough products must overcome.”

Being one of many regular visitors to King’s, Kleon’s and Portigal’s projects and pursuits, their willingness to share what their learning and practices is simply awesome. I put in my vote for their panel submissions. I strongly encourage you to do the same at the Interactive programming proposals of the SXSW 2010 PanelPicker.

Image source: SXSW.com

Filmmaker Stanley Kubrick’s Loyal Subjects: Typefaces, Stationery and Boxes, Lots of ’em

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Burgos) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 14:05:00 +0000

Who knew that the great film director Stanley Kubrick was also a type director? In 2004, The Guardian’s Jon Ronson was given special access to Kubrick’s Childwickbury Manor near St. Albans, north of central London. Ronson met with Tony Frewin, Kubrick’s assistant from 1965 until the director’s passing in 1999. Kubrick’s organic and intensive work style resulted in just 13 films and three documentary shorts, but also a large archive of research material which reside in an extensive array of boxes, filing cabinets and storage cabins.

When Ronson took a break from mining Kubrick’s archive, he noticed a note attached to Tony’s postal inbox. The note had POSTMAN typeset in Futura Extra Bold. Frewin revealed that it was Kubrick’s favorite typeface among others: “He liked Helvetica and Univers, too. Clean and elegant.” The following exchange, reported in Jon’s article, between Jon and Tony is brief but telling, typographically speaking:

“Is this the kind of thing you and Kubrick used to discuss?” I [Jon Ronson] ask.

“God, yes,” says Tony. “Sometimes late into the night. I was always trying to persuade him to turn away from them. But he was wedded to his sans serifs.”

Tony goes to his bookshelf and brings down a number of volumes full of examples of typefaces, the kind of volumes he and Kubrick used to study, and he shows them to me. “I did once get him to admit the beauty of Bembo,” he adds, “a serif.”

Ronson later meets Jan Harlan, Kubrick's executive producer and brother-in-law, who proclaimed that “Stanley loved typefaces.” Harlan disclosed Kubrick’s other passion—stationery:

“His great hobby was stationery. One time a package arrived with 100 bottles of brown ink. I said to Stanley, ‘What are you going to do with all that ink?’ He said, ‘I was told they were going to discontinue the line, so I bought all the remaining bottles in existence.’ Stanley had a tremendous amount of ink. … He loved stationery, pads, everything like that.”

What housed Kubrick’s typographic matter were his boxes, custom-designed by Kubrick himself. He wasn’t satisfied by boxes sold at stores and was compelled to create one better suited to his needs.

The University Archives and Special Collections Centre, University of the Arts London, inherited the Stanley Kubrick Archive in March 2007. Over 1,000 boxes whose eclectic contents—scripts, photography, correspondence, research, etc.—etch a hard path of filmic care and creativity.

Kubrik’s reputation for ruthless and devotedly painstaking film editing has become legendary. And it’s become clear that his attention to detail extended to typefaces and stationery. Clearly, props and actors alike, including typefaces and stationery, were recipients of the filmmaker’s exacting experience, and sometimes treated like elements of a chess game. As Kubrick noted, “You sit at the board and suddenly your heart leaps. Your hand trembles to pick up the piece and move it. But what chess teaches you is that you must sit there calmly and think about whether it’s really a good idea and whether there are other, better ideas.”

Kubrick’s path of boxes and their contents is evidence of the filmmaker’s rigorous pursuit of “better ideas,” with typefaces and stationery playing supporting roles.

Designer’s Quest(ionnaire): Graphic and Web designer Julie Oya

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Burgos) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 17:25:00 +0000

Image courtesy of Julie Oya

The Designer’s Quest(ionnaire) is a Design Feast initiative embracing the perspective of a designer in a succinct format. Born and raised in Vancouver, Canada, Julie has lived and worked in London, Toronto, Vancouver, and New York as a motion graphics artist, graphic and web designer, knitter and crocheter, and photographer. Read about her insightful take on design and designing.

Previous Designer’s Quest(ionnaire): Paul Buck and Ela Kosmaczewska of Zerofee

[G1 Report] Android Apps, Stephen Fry’s Review

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Burgos) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:15:00 +0000

It’s been awhile since my previous G1 Report. Since then, I think there have been 2–3 system upgrades. With each I was a bit nervous: seeing an icon representing upgrade and the progress bar filling in a few bits at a time. But eventually, in due time, a respectful one, the upgrade was complete. Would have been nice to see a bit count or time stamp besides the icon and progress bar. Afterwards, no summary of changes displayed; but doesn’t matter, because I don’t read them.

One notable change was the added user-interface elements to Gmail, including checkboxes that trigger related controls to Archive, assign a Label, or Delete an email. Also, in its default list form, a smidgen of the message is viewed only if the subject header happens to be a single word. Good little touches of making more controls visibly upfront, and packing more data in an already small space.

I was told, from someone at a mobile product maker, that applications are the value of mobile devices. Sounds obvious (as the iPhone commercials dictate), but I haven’t gotten used to exploring the Android Marketplace. And I should. Strategic News Service forecaster, Mark Anderson, reported his number-two hunch for 2009 which was:

“Similarly, the big news in the mobile world won’t be a slicker, newer cellphone—it will be smart phone applications. We’re talking billions in downloads,” he said. “In addition, because of their low cost and high volume, smart phone apps have the potential to replace mobile advertising – unless it can be ‘dragged through’ on an app.

One of my resolutions for this year is to play more with Android apps, considering there are some 5,000 at this writing, compared to the iPhone’s 25,000-plus applications, which more than justify its tagline “Apps for everything.” There’s only one app that I’ve downloaded and frequently access. It’s “Note Everything.” In creating a new note, three modes are offered: Regular text, freeform Paint, and Voice. Nifty. Double-tapping on a new note, set to regular text input, displays a virtual keyboard—a surprise, because a physical keyboard is already handily available. The virtual keyboard functioned well, but I’m still hooked on the sensation of a physical version.

Another discovery was a review by actor and writer Stephen Fry (with Hugh Laurie of the comedic duo Fry and Laurie). Here a are a few cherry-picked bits:

“When I saw pictures on the web I thought, as did many, that the ugly stick had given the G1 a damned good thrashing, but in the hand and up close it’s much better than I expected. It has a gentle, somehow retro form factor that I find comfortable and appealing without eliciting screams of desire.”
“The Market is where Android will prove itself. At the moment there is nothing even close to the number of programs that the App Store can boast, but the G1 is all about the future.”
“There is a lot wrong with this phone, yet to my mind none of that fundamentally matters. These imperfections may make you delay your immediate purchase of an Android phone, but they needn’t. Chances are that with a good contract (T-Mobile are the G1’s only network in the US and the UK so far) you will be on a free upgrade path anyway. “
“Unlocked phones seem unnecessarily expensive in Europe, where customs imposts make the device close to prohibitive for most pockets. One can bet that the G2 and G3 will better bear the luscious fruit of Open Source development before very long. Meanwhile, the G1 stands as a reasonably priced and impressive first shot from HTC and Android. “
“The whole system can only improve and when it does it will truly give the iPhone a run for its money. Especially if Apple stays as tightly closed as they are now.”

Fry’s review is informative and a delight to read. It’s especially a good read coming from someone who doesn’t fit the stereotypical bill of a critic of information technology. Refreshing.

DesignEngage.com: A Career Springboard for Beginning Designers

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Burgos) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:30:00 +0000

I often recall from my undergrad days both the difficulty and mystery behind landing a design internship, including out-of-school work. Today the web, of course, is a wonderful channel for announcing and promoting design internships by way of job boards. I’d long considered creating one as a companion site to my design webliography Design Feast.

I’m glad to announce that I have made that idea into a reality with Design Engage, a job board dedicated to opportunities for those just entering the field, no matter their design discipline. Employers can post design internship details along with junior and freelance design opportunities.

Simplicity is often anything but
A web-based job board may seem an easy concept, but the road to realization took considerable time and effort. My first challenge was describing my intent—what the website is and why. I wrote a story relating the site’s service, confined to one page:

It’s not easy to find information about design internships, whether it’s in graphic design, fashion design, industrial design or user experience design. Whatever the discipline, domestic and international design students face a seminal challenge in their academic career, and must find stepping stones to greatly jumpstart their professional careers.

A dedicated web resource is needed to make design internships more findable for and by design students, undergrad and grad, participating in any design program, anywhere. Design Engage gives employers an exclusive space to share their design internship opportunities. New employers can be inspired by this new, dedicated space for them to establish and formalize a design internship program. Likewise, Design Engage serves the design community by advancing and promoting the design workforce, and helping an ever-growing number of aspiring designers realize a critical first step toward career success.

Writing the site’s story was a get-it-out-of-my-system move. But the site evolved as the project progressed, because the result became not only focused on design internships but also junior and freelance design opportunities. It’s satisfying to write the site’s what and why. Then there’s the how. The next challenge was finding a web developer. I did the keyword search and ultimately found Minna Kim Mazza of Blue Agate (her web design business) at LinkedIn. I would have first used CollabFinder in my search but discovered this service later.

We began working on Design Engage last March. I kicked off with a couple of digital sketches in black-and-white, and color came later. I knew which essential pieces of content and interactions were needed. The sketches, done in InDesign, were handed over to Minna for her translation:

Sketch of home screen

Sketch of job posting form

Sketch of published job ad

You’ll notice that the original title was “Designternships.” I was trying to be clever. Incited by a web-developer colleague who stressed typing correctly, I changed it to Design Engage.

Again, a job board isn’t conceptually challenging, but making it wasn’t so simple. It came with many details and re-testing, mostly concerning the online forms—what they say, how they look, how errors are checked and displayed, and how they integrate with PayPal. Speaking of which, another major area of work was the data input flow into forms (a two-step process), plus the proofing of payment information for job ad postings. Yes, I could have simply directed the “Purchase and Post” button to launch a PayPal interface, but I wanted payment process to cohere to the site’s visual design. Though I did think about taking out the PayPal integration, which would have greatly reduced work, having it as a part of the site ultimately feels good.

Proofing and testing takes communication, a lot of it
Sounds like a no-brainer, but the conceptual ease of an online job board leaked into how little time I thought that proofing and testing might require. The reality is that it took several months since the first live iteration on July 14, 2008.

Whenever Minna notified me about a revised iteration, I would review and send feedback within the body of an email, typically as a Word document. When the interface versions and interactions grew more refined, screen captures were marked up and sent as PowerPoint docs.

In retrospect, 200+ emails later, something like Basecamp or Backpack (which I use now, posting to come later) would have better managed our communications. But Minna and I made do with email.

Working with a small team is the best
Minna and I met only once, to introduce our selves. Afterwards, we worked on the project. One of the best qualities of working with a small team—in this case a team of two—is directness, particularly if the web developer is direct. Minna’s no-nonsense delivery was appreciated. There was another highly integral team member, Tom Printy, who smoothly handled the PayPal integration and online form intereactions. Working with a small—or even tiny—team makes work less cluttered. It doesn’t get much more manageable than simply dealing with two people.

Today may seem an ill-timed moment to debut a job board. But I believe in the importance of opportunities, particularly internships (among other options), for designers. I believe in the generations of designers. Beyond the philosophical justification, identifying the right go-to time would have delayed the work and wasn’t important, at least in this case. The best time is early and often—in other words, right now—to “getting it real.”

Realizing Design Engage was and still is fun, as I commit to its growth and changes. This success is coupled with the great pleasure of finding a reliable web development team in Blue Agate’s Minna and Tom. But the ultimate reward is the DIY-attitude combo of Nike and show Fashion Runway’s host Tim Gunn: “Just do it.” Only then, “Make it work.”

Blogger’s Quest(ionnaire): Austin Kleon, Writer who Draws

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Burgos) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 12:30:00 +0000

Image courtesy of Austin Kleon

The Blogger’s Quest(ionnaire) is a Design Feast Initiative. In contrast to the Designer’s Quest(ionnaire), the focus here is on those engaged in the blog medium—why they do it and what tools they use. This fifth installment features Austin Kleon, writer, cartoonist and web designer. A collection of his Newspaper Blackout Poems is forthcoming from HarperCollins in February 2010. He’s drawn cartoons for clients such as Austin City Limits and South by Southwest. He works a day job designing websites, and lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife Meghan and their dog Milo. His sustained experience with blogging may help your entrance into the blogosphere or further inform your current work in it:

Why did you create a web site of regular entries?
When you’re a writer in college, you have the ultimate luxury: a captive audience. Your teachers get paid to read your writing and your classmates pay to read your writing. And then, suddenly, you get out of college, and nobody gives a crap anymore. So you start a blog!

What web-based solution did you select and why?
I use Wordpress for my blog because it’s free and endlessly hackable. I use Tumblr for an online scrapbook because it’s effortless to use, and hackable enough that you can make it look like the rest of your site.

What is your definition of a good blog and what are three good blogs that you frequently visit?
David Foster Wallace said that his non-fiction pieces were “occasions to watch somebody reasonably bright, but also reasonably average, pay far closer attention and think at far more length about all sorts of different stuff than most of us have a chance to in our daily lifes.”

The same could be said for good blogging: someone reasonably bright, spending a lot of time thinking and posting a lot about their obsessions.

I had a teacher once who passed out our mid-term papers to the class, walked up to the blackboard, and wrote in big chalk letters on the board, SO WHAT?

Then she said, “Ask yourself that next time you write something.” Good blogging passes the So What? test!

Three amazing bloggers:

Roger Ebert—The man writes as though he doesn’t have a lot of time left, which means he writes about the important stuff that he can't cover in a movie column. His post on Death (who else blogs about death?) was one of the best pieces of writing I’ve seen, period.
Steve Brodner—A cartoonist of the highest caliber: you can see his thought process alive in his drawing.
Hugh Macleod—A no-B.S. cartoonist. His blog is a perfect mix of words and images. He has helped me figure out how to go about life as an artist more than any other blogger (Hint: keep your day job).

How do you create content for your blog?
Almost all the content on my blog comes from a non-digital source:

I’ll make one of my newspaper blackout poems and scan it into the computer
I’ll draw in a sketchbook or on an index card and scan it into the computer
I’ll be reading a book or a magazine and I’ll illustrate it with a mind map, or it will spark an idea about something I want to write about

This might be blasphemous for a blogger to say, but I don’t like spending more time in front of a computer screen than I have to. The good stuff comes from your hands and your head. (The cartoonist Lynda Barry says, “In the digital age, don’t forget to use your digits!” A blog is just a delivery system—a way to get eyeballs looking at your stuff (and minds thinking about it).

How do you stay organized and motivated to contribute
to your blog?
I recently hacked my Wordpress template to show a Visual Archive of my posts throughout the year. After a number of posts, your output can get kind of abstract, so I like being able to look at my output visually as a little kick-in-the-pants to make something new.

For those aspiring to make a web site composed of regular thoughts and/or images, what is your advice?
I drew a cartoon once called How To Blog:

Step one: wonder at something
Step two: invite others to wonder with you

You should wonder at the things nobody else is wondering about. If everybody’s blogging about apples, go blog about oranges.

Aspire to be the blogger who is linked-to, rather than the linker.

And for crying out loud, don’t do it just to make a buck. Do it because you love something and you want to share it with the world.

What is your quest in blogging?
To win friends and influence people. ;-)

Read the previous Blogger’s Quest(ionnaire): Joanne Molina of The Curated Object

Relearning from Paul Rand

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Burgos) — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 13:00:00 +0000

Duane King, co-founder of Santa Fe-based design group BBDK, is the creator of Thinking for a Living, an “ever-growing platform dedicated to the concept of open source design education.” He invited me to guest-write for the blog of this excellent resource. I wrote about fundamental and persistent lessons that feed creativity from one of my former teachers. Read Relearning from Paul Rand at the Thinking for a Living blog.

Designer’s Quest(ionnaire): Paul Buck and Ela Kosmaczewska of Zerofee

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Burgos) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:35:00 +0000

Image courtesy of Paul Buck and Ela Kosmaczewska

The Designer’s Quest(ionnaire) is a Design Feast initiative embracing the perspective of a designer in a succinct format. Paul Buck and Ela Kosmaczewska are founders of Zerofee, “An Ethical Design Agency.” They “create visual identity and design for print and digital media, but not for irresponsible brands or companies. “ Read about their principled and insightful take on design and designing.

Read the previous Designer’s Quest(ionnaire): Web designer Megan Coleman

[Easier said than practiced] Quotes about Legacy

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Burgos) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:20:00 +0000

“When people say, what do you want your legacy to be, I, you know, I started out as assistant manager of the truck fleet. I don’t give a lot of thought to legacy”
—H. Lee Scott, who stepped down last month as Wal-Mart’s CEO (via NPR’s Wal-Mart CEO Stepping Down After 9 Years)

“Legacy is better than currency. Every business decision that I’ve ever made, every one of them, was always based on my long-term legacy ... It can’t be about the dollars you’re putting into your pocket. ... I much rather have a million friends right now than a million dollars. ... Everything has to start with how is this going to impact my global legacy? When you make legacy decisions, instead of quick-cash decisions or mid-range cash decisions, you’re going to win every time. ... Your social equity is far greater than your financial equity.”
—Gary Vaynerchuk, Proprietor and Host, Wine Library TV (via his Legacy is greater than Currency video)

“I was worth about over a million dollars when I was twenty-three and over ten million dollars when I was twenty-four, and over a hundred million dollars when I was twenty-five, and it wasn't that important because I never did it for the money.”
—Steve Jobs, Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO, Apple, Inc.

Double Fresh Scoop of the Designer’s Quest(ionnaire): Web designer Megan Coleman and Blue Agate’s Minna Kim Mazza

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Burgos) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:35:00 +0000

The Designer’s Quest(ionnaire) is a Design Feast initiative embracing the perspective of a designer in a succinct format. Megan Coleman is a freelance web designer and small business owner. Minna Kim Mazza is principal of Blue Agate, an independently owned and operated Web services company. Read about Megan’s and Minna’s insightful takes on design and designing.

Previous Designer’s Quest(ionnaire): Antonio Carusone of AisleOne

Blogger’s Quest(ionnaire): Joanne Molina of The Curated Object

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Burgos) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 13:00:00 +0000

The Blogger’s Quest(ionnaire) is a Design Feast Initiative. In contrast to the Designer’s Quest(ionnaire), the focus here is on those engaged in the blog medium—why they do it and what tools they use. This fourth installment features Joanne Molina, Editorial Director of The Curated Object, a “non-profit media project interested in the exhibition and display of decorative arts, design and objects and those who find our engagement with them compelling.” Her sustained experience with blogging may help your entrance into the blogosphere or further inform your current work in it:

1. Why did you create a website of regular entries?
Well, it’s a bit of a long story. I actually have an academic background. My graduate degree is in philosophy with a specialization in aesthetics. Even though I didn’t pursue a career in academia, education is still very important to me. When I ended up in the publishing world, I realized there wasn’t any online source offering a comprehensive listing of decorative arts and design exhibitions. I thought, why not? It was very important to me that The Curated Object offer something relevant—not just promote what I, personally, consider to be the best new objet du jour.

In terms of thinking about a preference for particular objects, it’s important to remember that Taste is rooted in a complicated socio-historical axis and can’t simply be understood through “timelessness” and “universality.” So, in terms of my project, I wanted to avoid making explicit or even implicit claims about the inherent aesthetic value of an object. I think people are curious and given the opportunity want to explore and have the capability of making their own judgments. Honestly, I want people to go to museums, galleries and other public spaces to think about the “things” that surround them and discuss—it’s that simple.

2. What web-based solution did you select and why?
I chose TypePad and also use Go Daddy for my domain because both have superb customer service.

3. What is your definition of a good blog?
It’s so easy to dismiss the weblog but in my opinion a good blog offers an expertise, service or just a form of creative self-expression and allows one to have a meaningful dialogue not possible with print publications. I have had the amazing fortune of receiving a ton of support and kind words—from museums, curators and design lovers from all over the world. I’ve had the pleasure of assisting museums and galleries in the promotion of their exhibitions and that is a wonderful feeling. We need more public spaces where artists, craftspeople and historians can show the world their genius. To be in their service is humbling.

4. How do you create content for your blog?
I rely on museums, galleries and any other cultural institutions that have relevant projects and exhibitions. Readers can search by country, city and the opening date for exhibition. As long as it’s design-oriented (this includes graphic design) I am game—so send me your information! I’m always looking for contributors…

5. How do you stay organized and motivated to contribute to your blog?
I’m the first to admit that it takes a lot of time, but what’s motivating me these days is the lack of funding for cultural institutions in the US. I’m also inspired by the generosity of people like Nate who support other bloggers. We all know how the late nights feel. And given the scope of my project I feel like I am always a bit behind.

6. For those aspiring to make a web site composed of regular thoughts and/or images, what is your advice?
Think about what you really want to accomplish and how your project will impact others—and talk with other bloggers. It’s amazing how connected we are and how people find solace in just one kind comment. After a particularly hard day I had an immediate boost of energy and inspiration when I got a lovely letter from a sweet man in Paris who read my blog and took the time to write a nice note. Also: return the favor!

7. What is your quest in design?
I don’t think I have a quest insomuch as I have an interest in how art, language, the history of taste, history, beauty, philosophy—and the sordid and amazing lives of objects—all structure our relationships with others. Objects act out all the time and revolt against us, so I think listening carefully might be my quest.

Read the previous Blogger’s Quest(ionnaire): The Geek Girls Nancy Lyons and Meghan Wilker

More Flickr Fascination with Typography and Color

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Burgos) — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 15:00:00 +0000

Once something is discovered, it’s discovered even more. Since the previous post about the typographic stimulation that Flickr helps spread, it was a pleasure to discover other galleries that keep up with the diversity of typographic matter: typecase: by Depression Press, and Paper Ephemera showcase an eclectic array of typefaces and compositions. These give way to lists: Vandelay Design compiled 99 Flickr Groups for Design Inspiration and David Airey shares 30 inspiring Flickr groups on typography.

Complementing type is color, as seen in Idée Labs’s Multiclr Search Lab which provides a visual search of Flickr sets.

With all this Flickr activity, compelled by all things typographic in nature, one can afflict Flickrosis, getting overloaded with Flickr Fascination. There’s a lot of typographic matter and it can feel excessive. But it’s comforting that such a body of content exists to challenge one’s threshold of indulgence.

[Dose of Design Activism] Nine Planets Wanted!

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Burgos) — Sun, 31 May 2009 12:00:00 +0000

View of props and displays. Source of the installation’s information was the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report 2007/2008

Design firm Zago created an installation that appeared in the United Nations Lobby. Called Nine Planets Wanted!, visitors were encouraged to interact with data about emissions of carbon dioxide in order to “take measure of the inverse relationship between responsibility for climate change and vulnerability to its impact.”

Resembling the form of a carbon dioxide atom, twelve beanbags were situated throughout the installation

Thanks to Jenna Robles, Project Manager at Zago, for the pictures.

The Family that Crafts Together, Sticks Together: e.m. papers

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Burgos) — Sun, 24 May 2009 14:41:00 +0000

When designer Eleanor Reagh met artist and fellow designer Molly Parks, a creative partnership was born. Re-launched after a 10-year hiatus as e.m. papers, the duo designs and produces a delightful line of printed products, ranging from greeting cards to calendars. Their Happiness Bookmarks (below) offer motivational tips on boosting one’s quality of life, in addition to saving the last spot of reading.

But Eleanor and Molly are not the only ones partaking in crafting paper-based goods. As mentioned on their site, Eleanor’s father Pat and her Aunt Elizabeth are also involved in the business. Pat is a letterpress printer based in California; Elizabeth is an artist and designer based in New York. Did I share that Eleanor lives and works in Germany? Though a small operation, it’s global. Most of all, it’s a family affair.

Related posting: Four Brothers, Webapp Style

“Hypercriticism” about My Recent Design Lecture

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Burgos) — Sun, 17 May 2009 13:00:00 +0000

I was recently invited to lecture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago by a colleague, Adam Kallish, who teaches a course called “Design Ecologies.” The lecture consisted of two parts—presentation and then a workshop—and was given to graduate students of the course.

Notes of a graduate student during the presentation

I began working on the presentation several weeks in advance. I essentially captured words, phrases, and websites that piqued my interest, and that I thought would interest the class. Along with these notes, I made slides in PowerPoint (some, if not many of you, especially Keynote users, are cringing). Each slide was something from my captures or an interpretation. Being a believer that slides are talked to, rather than a form of dictation, most of my slides were solitary words or pictures intended as triggers for me to pipe up on what was shown.

There was back and forth with Adam about the presentation’s content. 37signals’ Backpack was used to store and organize our exchanges and control presentation versions. The presentation date came. I talked, participated in the workshop afterwards, and then left. I honestly didn’t know how I did. A few weeks later, Adam shared the feedback, which wasn’t in my favor.

Lessons Re-learned
I was naturally disappointed with the unfavorable response, but something funny happened—I was elated with the criticism. Actually, not “elated,” but, in essence, pleased. If you could see my face, it would be straight. Rather than dismissing the students’ feedback as counterproductive, I decided to convert it into lessons—good ones for anyone who is passionate about presenting. They’re especially good lessons for me, someone who doesn’t make it a practice to be on the “lecture circuit.”

Critique 1: “His talk seemed a bit scattered. Maybe the nature of scouting out trends. It seemed a little overly broad and hard to relate to what we’re doing here.”

Working on Design Feast increases my embrace of people and projects across design disciplines. I couldn’t help but take on the quality of everything-ness, because design is an immense body of thought and practice. Exploring design as everything or engaging the phenomenon of everything is a lot (but not too much). The course’s esoteric title of Design Ecologies speaks to everything, like an ecosystem. The course’s overview is filled with an ever-everything voice. This does produce a scatterbrain effect, but I tried to condense my showcase of creative people and their projects to these tips:

Pick an idea, not any idea—One that you’ll stick with for awhile.
Just do it and mostly DIY.
Give yourself the opportunity to get passed along.
Generate content, lots of it, because content is plastic.
Practice patience.

Yes, I could have sharpened the link between showcased designers and their projects with these tips in order to help ease the translation of why (am I highlighting these people and projects) to what (tips). Better translation and focus now and next time.

Takeaway: A former teacher of mine always prescribed to take the content of your presentation and cut it in half. Sound advice. I didn’t edit enough, to the point that tackling a sliver of everything becomes diffused.

Critique 2: “The thing that frustrated me most is that he was not prepared in knowing who his audience was. I have found this frustrating with almost all of the speakers, in fact.”

When the workshop commenced, I expressed interest in seeing student projects. Adam responded that there was going to be a final showing of graduate work. Perhaps this would have been keen at the start, to help my understanding—“knowing”—of the audience and more accurately “target” my presentation. Assuming that graduate design students are designers themselves—who can make connections, however slight—was an incorrect assumption in this case.

As a step to improve future presentations, a more thorough orientation of future speakers may be done.

Takeaway: Never hurts to go beyond first impressions, treating the initial description of the audience as merely preliminary.

Critique 3: “I was most bummed about not talking about trends since his talk was titled ‘Design Trends’ in the course overview and then he dismissed the notion of ‘trends,’ which confused me. Then I was disappointed that he didn't touch on the online videos we watched ahead of time.”

There’s that word again: Trends. I was stumped when asked about other trends besides “Web 2.0” technologies. In retrospect, it’s interesting how trends are quickly associated with technology. The aforementioned tips were my take on “trends” that I identified. Then again, I view them as more than ephemeral trends. They’re recurring truths, to me.

Regarding the online videos, this list, in its sequence, was provided a week before the presentation and workshop:

A Loft Filled with Dirt, the Man Who's Cared for it for 19 Years
The New York Earth Room and Its Caretaker
The Universal by Blur
Twyla Tharp on the Subject of Motivation and Creativity
SOS by 16mm
Hillman Curtis’ Artist Series: Lawrence Weiner
New York 2008
Elizabeth Gilbert: A different way to think about creative genius
Designer’s Quest(ionnaire) by Shawn Hazen

These diverse videos helped me galvanize the tips. I was also stumped about being asked why I chose these videos, because the values of persistence and self-discovery flowed throughout them, particularly the interviews with innovative choreographer Twyla Tharp and author Elizabeth Gilbert. So I was surprised to be asked why they were chosen. I assumed that the graduate students would pick up the demonstration of creativity, especially from the candid interviews.

The act of making connections (however slight) between design-related subject matter and one’s way of thinking-and-doing echoes here. Must everything be spelled out? Yes and no. I steered toward the latter because I assumed that the students would glean what was self-evident to me. Herein lies the lesson: Be sensitive to audience sensibilities, which, as related in the previous critique, I didn’t adequately know.

I’m wondering if the graduate students apparent desire for trends, though forward thinking, minimizes what’s fundamental: Namely, to embrace a good future with the help of design. Chasing the next trend sounds like a blind-spot for what’s here and now—whether these be words, images, colors, textures, raw materials, etc., and the guts and imagination to engage these elements.

Takeaway: Parallel to previous takeaways, clearly articulate the connection of what is being presented and how it relates to the sensibilities of the audience, even a design-oriented one.

Critique 4: “I think it’s not very good practice for a presenter to continually put down the quality of his own presentation. I have no doubt that he worked hard on it, but the fact that his work didn’t really translate shouldn't have been something he was so eager to disclose.”

I thought I was being provocative, in a good way, by being brutally honest—because speaking about design in the vein of everything is tough—but such honesty disqualifies one’s content. Therefore, another to-do for me: Content must breed confidence.

Takeaway: Honesty, in the form of self-deprecation, is not the best presentation policy.

The criticism was thoughtful and I anticipate that their post-graduate work will match, even transcend, such thoughtfulness. In particular, comments about making clear transitions amongst diverse topics within a presentation are well taken. Ensuring clarity is always a moving goal.

Trying to be hyper-proactive on criticism
Expectations were not fully met in this instance, but it tees up the next opportunity to better meet the expectations of another audience in a different place and time. Criticism can be tough, but it offers an upside in learning.

Here’s to a better presentation in the future. Because, as technologist and writer John Siracusa put it in his article Hypercritical, “Every day is a new chance to do something a little bit better, to find something wrong with what you're doing and understand it well enough to know how to fix it. If this is not your natural proclivity, you may have to work at it a bit. I think you'll be pleased with the results…but not completely, I hope.”