And that is exactly what has changed. The way I create content. Stuff I want to write about on my blog (not sure it is a blog anymore too, probably just a journal) is what I already do intertwined with certain long form posts when I need to talk about something in the open.
I do not want to manage 3 blogs, where on one I post about my personal stuff, another for design and another for tech and startups. They are all my passions and together make me, so it makes a lot more sense for me to have them all in one place.

In light of that I have been exploring options of a new blogging platform that makes it as easy for me to quickly snap a picture from my mobile and post about the amazing typography on the street sign I just saw as it does for me to sit back at night and write in a minimal interface like IAWriter or Ommwriter.
I am not even sure I need a hosted solution anymore. I would be happy to have my site powered by Dropbox if there were such a solution.

So here is what I would like from my ideal setup:

• Be able to write in a text editor of my choice OR the writing interface is minimal
• Has a great mobile app that is almost as powerful as the web version. If that means cutting on features of the web versions, so be it.
• Allows me to quickly post from any page on the web scrapping relevant content like text, videos, photos etc from that page a la Tumblr.
• Allows native cross-posting of stuff from other social networks like Foursquare, Instagram, Flickr, Twitter. I would prefer this to be inherently built in the app in a fashion similar to Storify so that I can quickly choose a picture I just uploaded to Instagram and make it the latest post on my blog.
• If there is a possibility of using Dropbox as a storage solution, so be it.
• Uses Twitter/Facebook as the only medium of comment.

I have been trying to look for such a solution for some time and have not found any. If at all there is something that is in the interwebs that can make me do this, please let me know. I honestly do not want to spend time on creating such a setup from scratch or hacking WordPress to do it.

I should have written this letter long time back, when I had a chance. When I had hope that there was this slight possibility that you would read this and maybe slighter possibility that you would reply to it. I never did.

I was too afraid to never hear back from the one person who I looked upon as an idol. A figure who through his years of actions had set a guidebook for me to reference when life threw a puzzle I had no answer for. Now I know, that fear of grief was nothing compared to the hollow sinking feeling when I know you will never read this. When I know that the guidebook’s last pages have been written and there are no more comebacks, lessons and magical things to come.

I have never met you or seen you in person. The closest we might have come tangentially would be when you spoke of Pulse, the company I was to later work at or when you and others at Apple had decided to give Pulse the Apple Design Award while I had just joined them. For every other moment of my life I have come only as close as using a Mac or the iPhone or the iPad and wondering if I could ever tell you how thankful I am for all these creations.

Had it not been for you, I would not be a lot of things I am today. It was my first MacBook that inspired me to become a designer. It was my first Apple blog that got me into blogging. It was my first iPhone that made me get into photography. It was your 2005 speech at Stanford that made me take the final plunge into the world of design and leave a conventional career behind. It is my first iPad with which I write this. However, you will never know and I will never have that elated feeling for which I wanted to do great work all my life so that one day Steve would take note.
For someone who I never knew personally you have sure touched my life on so many levels. I do not think I have it in me to cry for losing a person in my life but the closest I could ever come to that I did when I heard about you. You had set out to create a dent in the universe you ended up changing it for all of us.

Steve, Thank You!

Take into account the very need of Google OS based device since the announcement and keeping in view the growth of the Android platform since. When the announcement was first made, like everyone else I was very excited but today I would read about it in my RSS Reader and never care about it the next moment. That is the best and the worst things about the web. No matter who you are, things will change and even the best laid plans will falter.

In light of this knowledge, let us take a look into a small app that is gradually redefining the landscape of the way people share and click photographs. I am referring one of my most used apps on my iPhone, Instagram. Even if you have not used it yourself, I am sure you have seen it in bits and pieces via the links left by one of its 3,00,000 users (in less than 1 month of launch). If Twitter and Flickr were to have a love child, it would be Instagram.

What is it that has made Instagram such an overnight success. The number of photography apps in the App Store is endless, then what made it such a quick hit among masses? What is the secret sauce that founders Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom seem to have figured out?

What problem does it solve?

For any app, the first and most important question to ask is “what problem does it solve”. The how comes later. Instagram solves the problem of sharing our moments effortlessly with the world and in a way that makes us look creative. I have talked about tapping the ego of the user and Instagram taps into our inherent urge to be creative (hipster if you may). In one click it allows me to explore the world of people who are not only far more creative but also share brilliant photographs despite the limitations of the device and the app (if you question this, have a look at Dan Rubin’s Instagram timeline).

Unlike Flickr where the focus is porting over friends and family from other network or seeing what they are uploading once in a blue moon, Instagram founders understand that there are only a billion other ways to do that. So they went ahead and solved the more complex problem of sharing moments effortlessly and also seeing what others share, no matter whether they are friends or family or someone I have never heard of before.

Call it Instagraphy if you may!

Remember the time when all that blogging meant was writing long thoughtful pieces and along came a little blue bird that went by the name of Twitter. The landscape of blogosphere changed since then and today microblogging as a term is limited to only the social media fanatics. For the rest of the world, it is sharing opinion and views. Whether I do that in 140 words or write a novella about it should not really matter.
In a similar fashion, in a world of HD cameras and brilliant lenses, instagraphy bring photography to everybody and at all times. Every decent mobile phone is now equipped with a camera that can save a moment forever. Till now the moment was normally captured and forgotten. It was only when you ever took out the cable to sync your photographs or cared to email them to yourself that that moment was shared. With Instagram, it all happens effortlessly. Sharing photographs over multiple networks is a magical potion that Instagram has brewed very craftily (second only to the now banned Campl.us).

The retro charm at no extra cost

Instagram has a set of filters that you can apply to your photographs and it all works like a charm. The process is streamlined and the filters beautiful. The end result is a photograph that not only can be shared easily across multiple social networks but is also worth sharing and gaining some street cred for being a creative hipster.
There are other apps like Hipstamatic that do this, but personally I believe it takes skeuomorphic design to another dimension where the charm of photographs comes at a heavy price of unnecessary waiting for animations like the changing of lens or the smaller viewport to click photographs. If I were ready for that investment, I would rather go buy a retro camera than use your app!

Community

The early adopters of Instagram were designers or photographers and all sorts of creatives. Add to that the easy access to Popular photographs which are regularly updated, Instagram has the perfect tools to grow a community. The app had 100,000 users in the first 6 days (a feat that took Foursquare 6 months to complete).
The easy (though a bit confusing) way to import friends via Twitter makes it work like a charm. There is no extra effort that needs to be made to be involved in the community. The Like button comes to the rescue at times when we are too bored to comment on that awesome shot we just saw.

I do not know what lies next for Instagram. I do not know if they have given it a thought, but they seem to have tapped into a big market that is yet unoccupied or at least in its infancy. With carefully built extensions for desktop and other mobile devices, they might very well be on their way to be the next Flickr or Twitter or maybe something completely new and unheard of. After all evolution and progression are inevitable on the web.

PS: As a self initiated project I redesigned the interface of Instagram recently. Have a look at it while you are around.

“It’ll be glorious! My goal, isn’t for readability or usability but for CSS Galleryability.” (via @maxvoltar)

*Though the chances of that happening are seriously one in a billion or more like trillion.

What Tim tweeted some months back made me wonder, how often I have been guilty of this. In the end it is not they who we are designing for, also it is not the clients (though we have a different set of obligations towards them). If you are a designer then the one and only thing you need to think of is how usable, accessible and aesthetically pleasing it is for your users. If the aesthetics come at the cost of usability, screw them. If the accessibility comes at the cost of usability (of the super core user group of your product), screw it too.*

At the same time, we as designers must learn to not jump up with our own sets of suggestions even when we do not have the slightest of idea of the project. Time and again this has happened over at Dribbble, yet we have learnt to forget it. Give suggestions, give advice but make sure you add in your own premise of assumptions made based on what you think the project is about.

As purveyors of design, it is our interim duty to ensure that the craft that we practice is not tainted by peer-pressure.

Some time back we had the pleasure of listening to Kevin Rose from Digg and Wefollow talk at the FOWA, London and he talked about certain methods he used to increase his user base from 1 to 1,000,000 users on Digg. His talk gave us some real insights and one of them was EGO. He talks of building features that tap the users’ ego and self-esteem and this in return means greater participation from the user within the community.

As Kevin rightly mentioned on Boagworld, that this is more of a “taboo” topic of discussion and often marked as something “we should not do”. However, if we look closely almost all the popular web apps have tapped this “ego” of the user in one way or the other.

What is EGO?

Who does not like being on top of the Leaderboard?

While the traditional reference of Ego can be applied to this situation, I would like to refer to it more as “rewards” in term of the “social” status of the user. Now these rewards could be points, badges, some rank system or anything else that can be thought of that eventually ends up making the user feel “special”. This feeling of being special and “ahead” of other members of the community adds a very unique aspect of community status that users often run after.

Now these rewards or “ego-taps” as I refer to them are not a new concept or idea. They have been and are being utilized in our web apps even today. Let us look at the various means in which they are being implemented in various popular web applications today.

Karma Points in Forums

I am sure we can recall the “Karma” points that many forums often associated with their members based on their participation in the community. Such “action-based” rewards are the first degree of rewards which reward your ego for your actions. These actions and rewards have a direct first order relation wherein you perform an action (which benefits the community and web app in some way) and you get points. Over a period these points are collected and they give your “Karma” or Ranks on the forum. Your ranks could then be unlocking doors for some actions like kicking spammers etc that you can perform.

Retweets (Twitter) /ReBlogs (Tumblr)/ Likes (Facebooks)

The second type would be the Retweets, Reblogs and Likes that we see on popular social networks like Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook. These are not directly related to your actions but indirectly related. Who does not like to see their tweets RT’ed? Who with a human heart does not want to see people clicking whatever they post on Facebook with a Like and then comment on it. These are indirect social rewards that a user gets for generating good content for the community. Good content is what you wanted in first place so that more users can come to your community, right?

Completely Indirect and the Best method I have seen yet

I would give it to Twitter for integrating the Social Status so well in their service that it is now a measuring factor of the utility of a human soul (how ironic!). I have seen people following users blindly by seeing the Follower count alone thinking if so many others are following them, they must be “good”. For the owner of an account it gives them the idea of an audience that is out their and listening to them (while it may be possible that they are all spam followers owing to the nature of the users tweets).

When you integrate Ego so well in your product that it does not seem like an additional or dispensable feature but an intricate part of the service, you can be sure you have a killer product at hand.

Conclusion

These are just some of the many ways in which you can use the human nature for your advantage and at the same time make your users happy. For all the blogs out their how about adding a comment leader-board to your own site and see its effects! Feel free to suggest other ideas that you have come across and other opinions that you have over this topic.

Earlier today Drew Wilson (@drewwilson) released the 3rd version of his ever popular Pictos Vector Icon set, only this time the icons were no longer Vectors but Dingbat fonts. Enter the magic of @font-face and you have a great set of web fonts that you can use to display icons anytime anywhere on the web as long as the browsers support @font-face. However, the issues with using such a solution are multi-fold and the discussion on Twitter between some of the prominent designers seems to justify my concerns with the approach. Follow along as I share my concerns and also the possible solution for each issue.

Semantic Web

Problem

“It’s not about just getting the icon in there, it’s about giving it semantic value too.” – Jason Santa Maria

The first major issue is that the very semantic nature of the web is killed once you follow this approach to show your icons. Using a “f” to show an RSS icon right in the middle of a semantically marked page throws things a little off balance. This issue was raised by both Jason (@jasonsantamaria) and Jon Hicks (@hicksdesign). We have reached where we are in web and semantics today after lots of wasted trees and years. Let’s not simply throw everything down the gutter to enjoy the beauty that @font-face brings on table. So is there a solution we can come up with.

Solution

Indeed! One of the most basic solution is presented in one of the examples (Example 2) on the Pictos site itself. One can smartly use the Content property of CSS to produce content before or after an HTML element on the page. Shaun Inman shows the example as under:

<span><i>RSS</i></span> .icon i{display:inline-block;text-indent:-9999px;} .rss:before{content:"f";}

However, keep in mind that the CSS generated content is not read by most screen readers which brings us to the question of accessibility.

Accessibility

Problem

The issue of accessibility is best expressed by Scott from Filament Group in this blog post about Dingbat Webfonts.

A dingbat font basically maps images to the standard character map, meaning when their used alongside content on a web page, sighted users will see an icon in place of certain alpha-numeric characters in the markup. However, for users on screen readers and other assistive devices, the base characters (capital and lowercase letters, numbers, and standard symbols) are still read aloud. For example, if a dingbat font replaces, say, the letter “A” with an arrow icon, a screen reader still reads aloud the actual letter, regardless of its icon appearance.

Solution
I could cite some of the accessibility solutions provided by Scott but I would suggest that you read the post in its entirety along with the comments and then come back. (Link)

File Size

Problem

This is not really a complaint for just Pictos but any such arrangement that causes the user to download an entire font for just a few icons. I mean how often would you come across a situation where you would need even 50% of those icons on one page. So the bandwidth tradeoff is not a very suitable situation to be in. However, like any other scenario the choice has to depend on the usage and the intended audience. Sooner or later you will find the break even point in your requirement. But is there really nothing that you can do before that? Well, of course there is.

Solution

This solution was suggested by Jonathan Snook to the issue of large font files that are requested while using @font-face for very few glyphs. The idea is using a service like FontForge that lets you trim the font file to suit to your needs. I am not sure if this will help but you can also use Font Squirrels @font-face Kit Generator to choose only Uppercase, Lowercase or just the Numerics of the Pictos set.

Windows and Aliasing

Problem

The whole issue takes another dimension when you think about how these well crafted icons would be displayed on a PC. While they are crisp and nice on Mac, the poor support for anti aliasing in Windows would mean that a chunk (depends how big it will be for your site) will not be seeing these icons in their full glory. Now I have not downloaded the font myself so that I could test their appearance in Windows so this is mostly speculation.

Solution

Once again this is mostly speculation but I would love for someone to try the Text-Rendering property with Geometric Precision.

text-rendering:  auto | optimizeSpeed | optimizeLegibility | geometricPrecision | inherit

Unicode

Just when you thought that there could be no more issues pending, Jon Tan lets the cat out of the bag pointing us to Unicode Characters. The thing is that many of these icons are already a part of the Unicode Mapping (mostly in Misc Symbols). For example the Anchor represented by “a” in Pictos is already a Unicode Character represented by “⚓(#x2693)” and “⚓(#9875)”, so why not use them instead?

Tip: You can press Cmd+Alt+T or go to Edit > Special Characters in most Cocoa Apps on Mac to show a character palette to access Unicode characters.

Update 1: Opentype has shown a great way to map Dingbat Webfonts into Words so that the accessibility is not hampered. Have a look at it here.

Update 2: Drew published his on thoughts on the issues of Semantic Web with Pictos here.

Update 3: Jon published his own thoughts and a bit more detailed analysis of possibilities with Unicode.

While I salute the ingenious approach of Drew for what he has done, I am not so sure if benefits come at a bigger price. For now at least, @font-face driven icon sets are not my cup of tea. I would love to hear your suggestions and views about the topic.

The notion that you’re trying to control the process and prevent error screws things up. We all know the saying it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. And everyone knows that, but I think there is a corollary: if everyone is trying to prevent error, it screws things up. It is better to fix problems than to prevent them. And the natural tendency for managers is to try and prevent error and over plan things.

What the hell is wrong?

Our entire social eco-system is so focused on results that we are sometimes misguided and often overlook the journey for the end. I remember a quote from my English teacher who used to say “Never overlook the trees for the woods or the woods for the trees”. It is a balance that I strive for in my life even though I am naturally inclined to look at the bigger picture and not just the results which are vulnerable to time.

Think-Screw-Iterate-Screw-Iterate-Succeed

However, letting people know that it is OK to make mistakes is the way companies should run. It is only when one knows that the mistakes will not cost them the job is when employees are free to explore ideas. Sometimes those ideas lead to great revelations and results, many times just a spoof from the test tube. But it is only at the cost of these spoofs and goof-ups that some of the best discoveries are made.

Also it is not just about making startling discoveries but also about putting yourself on the line and exploring the boundaries. Thinking out of the box has its own cost and that comes up in the form of screw-ups. So when you tell your people to think outside the box, think creatively, or the hottest trend buzz called “design thinking” keep in mind that they are equally likely to screw up. Let them have that freedom to be able to make mistakes. For when you give them that creative license, it is that great ideas start flowing.

Beneath all the charm of Robert Downey, the razor sharp action scenes from Scarlett Johansson and the electrifying music of AC/DC lies a movie that fails to carry the legacy of Iron Man to the sequel.

Having said that the movie is still a must-watch summer bonanza. There are too many things in the movie that one should not miss. Be it the sporadic action sequences or the music, the movie will not let you down. Despite all this the reason I say the movie fails to carry the legacy is because of the story. It is the same age old Iron Man vs “wannabe Iron Man”. For the fans of excess, there is the second Iron Man with Don Cheadle under the hood.

Characters

We as viewers and fans witness Downey as a smug for the first half hour where he is narcissism personified in all his glory. This role paves way for a vulnerable and weakened character of Tony Stark, which only Downey could blend into without a twitch. If there is one reason you need to go and watch the movie it would be his performance.

If you need a second reason, I would say it to be Scarlett Johansson kicking butts in tight suits.

Micky Rourke’s character Ivan Vanko somehow fails to make an impact as the badass villain. I would call it a flaw in the storyline and the direction that fails to exploit the character to its full potential.

Action

To be honest, the only reason I go to watch cartoon character movies is for the action. If it were for the drama or the romance, there are far better means to entertain my senses. So in terms of action in Iron Man 2, I am honestly dissapointed. The only time the adrenaline seems to be building is the climax of the movie. Also if watching Formula 1 cars explode is your thing then you have a full fledged orgasm in store for you.

“As designers, artists, and creators of a better, accessible and functional world, we strive for this perfection based on good taste. It is our taste that sets us apart on path to success.”

If you are reading this, you probably already know me through Twitter, Facebook or one of my blogs. However, in the unlikely event that you do not, I would recommend you to check the About page and if you like the vibes then feel free to connect with me.

Idea

“Perfection (in design) is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but rather when there is nothing more to take away.”
-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

This personal adobe in the interwebs has been long in the making. At first I had this idea of a single page showing all my nodes among social networks in one place. But then, thanks to Tim Van Damme, it became a trend and I was too afraid to follow it in fear of being bashed out (needless to say, I was wrong). That gave way to the idea of a full fledged portfolio. However, with the frequency of posts at Inspiring Pixel going down to once a month due to lack of time, I decided it was time to have a medium that allows me to publish my views on things I am very passionate about (read Web, Design, Apple and Geekery) without forcing me to jeopardise my other commitments. This led to the addition of the Journal aptly titled “Incoherent Thoughts”. The integration of Pangaea, my Tumblr Blog was only a matter of time.

Design

As mentioned, I worked with the design backwards, removing all that I can from my initial iterations untill there was nothing “removable” left which did not have a functional or emotional role to play which could not be further compromised. So while the design may appear as bland or boring to many, underlying it is a simplicity that has grown over me during the design phase. I had made the colorless version and left it in my design folder for a month or so. It was only when I reopened it that I knew at that instant that this was the design I would go ahead with. The reason for the decision to go forward with it was also supplemented by the fact that I like to think of it as characteristic of my design skills. Hopefully with time and experience I can do justice to the colors. The design is based on the 960px grid though some elements have been aligned against the grid as an when needed. I wanted the site to be different from anything that is out there while at the same time being a mirror of my true personality, and I sincerely hope I did a decent job at it.

Typography

Before you jump to see my font stacks, my line heights in the CSS 0r even the very basic aliasing of text on Windows, please read this with patience. I am no expert at typography. Having said that, I know a thing or two and I have applied those to the maximum of my abilities in the design. The native font stack uses Adobe Caslon Pro, Hoefler Text, Garamond, and Baskerville before falling to Times New Roman in case of unavailability. The exquisite typography was something I could not part away with due to its aesthetic value if you may say so. At the same time, I use Georgia as the default body text for posts with no exclusive styling (like this one) to enhance readability. Also with all the magic of @font-face somehow traditional or rather overused fonts like Georgia and Times have a new place all of a sudden.

Why Art Direction?

I am a designer, however not a full time one. I am in my last month of graduate studies as an engineer after which I shall be working with some great folks as an Associate Analyst at Dunnhumby. This means I work on projects and designs more out of my passion for design than the very need for it to support my livelihood. Having said that, while it is good for the blissfulness of soul and sanity of mind, it also means the flow of work is not regular. As any designer would tell you, being out of touch with designing is a bad thing, a very bad one indeed (unless you are having a burnout). So to maintain my promiscuity with design and give a platform to my thoughts, art direction was the way to be. I know people have been catching it like flu with a new art-directed blog coming up every week, but for my case it is the best way to stay in touch with design and expand my horizons as a designer. So forgive me if the post I design is not upto your taste or if it is just not readable in your primitive browser.

Imperfections

While I have released the site, I know there are many folds to be ironed, especially in terms of design. I know the Search in the footer looks hideous, just like I know that the logo on the top has 1 pixel blur as compared to the border in the navbar or that the “T” and “K” in the logo are not perfectly aligned due to mismatching serifs. Speaking of logo, fellow designer Naina Redhu has been kind enough to create a logo for me in return for a web design and I am really excited about this exchange deal. I also know that the site does not validate or that the design breaks on an iPhone (I am yet to find a solution to this). So while I am aware of these imperfections and probably many more which I shall hope to receive from you in the comments, please stick around while I iron these out over time.

Request

I am here to learn as much as I can. So if there is a bug you find, or an example of bad design you see on this site, please feel free to guide me in the right direction. I am just getting started and I am sure most of you out there know a lot more than me and it feels safe to be watched over by such a great community. I would also appreciate if you leave your feedback about the design of the site in the comments and spread the word around. Ah! I almost forgot, do check the 404 Error Page.