Barnhard Blog

Inspirational Artists: Pascal Campion from Onyx Cinema, Inc. on Vimeo.

Getting better, by telling better. Less frustration, way more fun.

via-

One aspect of designing for the web that almost immediately offends designers is the lack of fonts that are considered safe to use. While it is true that there are only a handful of web safe fonts, the ones we do have at our disposal can be quite powerful and diversely useful. On top of that, CSS gives us a nice little thing called a font stack.

Web typography isn’t easy to get right, and this article is really helpful.

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WTF:
Two friends from Copenhagen living apart on two different continents. This is their candid, visual diary.

Website: Fuck you very much | Archive

Found on Ernst-Jan Pfauth re-designed tumblr: Dutchproblogger.tumblr.com

Learning From Microsoft: 10 Design Pitfalls to Avoid
Today we’ll look into the web design practices and trends of the single biggest name in software to see if we can learn anything about some mistakes to avoid in our own work.

• #1 Beware of Mandating Certain Plugins
• #2 Watch Your Resolution
• #3 Organized Clutter
• #4 Inconsistency
• #5 Clipart-centric Design
• #6 Misaligned Overflowing Text
• #7 Poor Alignment
• #8 Ad Clutter
• #9 A Lack of Breathing Room
• #10 Failing to Leverage Your Talent

Read more @ Designshack.co.uk [via]

In Hong Kong, because of the space, apartments are small and expensive. Gary Chang, an architect, decided to design a 344 sq. ft. apartment to be able to change into 24 different designs, all by just sliding panels and walls. He calls this the “Domestic Transformer.” [via]

Who needs turntables when you have cardboard? GGRP Sound has come up with a brilliant way to play records: with the record sleeve. The needle-embedded carboard package folds up to hold a 45rpm in place, making sound while you spin it with a pencil. Instead of outputting to a speaker, the vibrations go through the needle and into the cardboard, and the sound quality is not bad, from what we’ve heard anyway.

More & very cool site @ Core77

Why User Competency Matters in Social Design

Take an interest in what your users are good at. Take an interest in how they are good at being social with and through your service or application. Learn how to observe what users are doing and how their social habits vary. Think outside yourself and from the perspectives of other people.

Their behaviors may not give them away entirely, but if you develop a palette of personal and social skills that you can use to relate to people different from you, your design insights will be that much smarter.

Read the full post @ Mashable.com

Climate Change = Culture Change
Art is emotion.
And it is this very emotion which is lacking in the discussion

Dutch sculptor Ap Verheggen places huge sculptures on icebergs, inspired on Arctic culture that is changing because of climate change.

Website: Coolemotion.org
Coolemotion on Facebook | Twitter

Interesting, Easy, Beautiful, True?
I’ve been doing a few interviews to promote my book, The Visual Miscellaneum, and a question keeps coming up. “What makes good information design?”

Buy the book ‘The Visual Miscellaneum‘
Read more about the book: here

Click image to enlarge

This is a simple, good infographic that seeks to explain why traffic on freeways slows to a crawl without any apparent reason to drivers. By Stephen J. Beard and Rich Exner in The Plain Dealer. EDIT: Here’s a link to the original article, and a high-res PDF of the infographic.

Via website: Coolinfographics.com

This is mainly an experimentation with soft bodies using toxi’s verlet springs. The data refers to the evolution of the top 4 maritime empires of the XIX and XX centuries by extent. The visual emphasis is on their decline. More on that project here [via]

A lot of inaccuracies, missing data and missing continental empires: e.g. Dutch, USA, Chinese, Japanese and more empires are missing.
Still a very nice project!

If you would like to see more pictures of very small dwellings, check out Jay Shafer’s book. [via]

Nice compilation of how developments have furthered visual possibilities in film. Enjoy.

You can watch and remix the film at opensourcecinema.org

1. Culture always builds on the past
2. The past always tries to control the future
3. Our future is becoming less free
4. To build free societies u must limit control of the past

Immerse yourself in the energetic, innovative and potentially illegal world of mash-up media with RiP: A remix manifesto. Let web activist Brett Gaylor and musician Greg Gillis, better known as Girl Talk, serve as your digital tour guides on a probing investigation into how culture builds upon culture in the information age.

More @ www.ripremix.com [via]

Update: Interested? Then also watch Lessing

Just again, because remix culture is awesome. (lyrics & via)

A chair is perhaps one of the simplest concepts that allow us as human beings to relax. Though they are some of the oldest and simplest objects mankind has designed, some designers have thrown out even the basic concept of the chair in lieu of more unique modern thinking as these examples show.

Read more @ Furniturestoreblog.com

Frustrated at the lack of innovation and, well, slickness of Facebook, Australian designer Barton Smith took it upon himself to create an entirely new look for the social networking behemoth.

Focused on creating a more streamlined interfact, and enhancing the user experience and absorbability of content, Smith has created a video and designed screenshots for core areas of the site.

He explains his goals and the benefits:

Found on ‘The Next Web‘

More great (and not so great) comics @ XKCD [via]

Never Ending Sun

One week of never ending Sun near the poles.

Found on: YouTube

Liquid Space 6.0 is an interactive space which physically becomes bigger, smaller and brighter in relation to human behavior. This interactive fusion of mechanisms, embedded electronics, sound and LEDs creates a real-time dialogue with its visitors. Liquid Space 6.0 has its premier show in Japan and evolves its behavior towards the visitors; creating an embryonic co-existence. From: www.studioroosegaarde.net

Yesterday I enjoyed the Rotterdam Museumnacht, tried to Narb it but my internet connection failed. Since today I can’t Narb the V2_Liquid Space 6.0 exhibition any more I herewith give you a Youtube clip of it. It was absolutely the best piece of art I saw yesterday.

The Citroen DS came out on top when “Classic & Sports Car” magazine asked a jury of the world’s leading car designers to nominate the best-looking cars ever.

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Desktop applications, Web 2.0 sites, Rich Internet Applications, Web sites and Web Applications. The line between them is blurring, and Balsamiq Mockups can help you design any and all of them. Above you can find a sample mockup that were created with Balsamiq Mockups, for inspiration. It did not took more than a few minutes to create.

More examples here

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Tokyo Undressed is a very nice photo blog of Rikki Kasso [tip from Tijs].

Interview: Read the rest of this entry »