July 2008

Infinite OZ | Tin Man | SCIFI.COM – a beautiful immersive experience. Like living paintings you fly through…

A dump truck that’s a work of art. Amazing.

Notes from A Technique for Producing Ideas

[A tiny book](http://www.amazon.com/Technique-Producing-Advertising-Classics-Library/dp/0071410945/ref=ed_oe_p) lent to me by a friend, which can be summarized in far fewer words still. The insights, however, are as strong as any. The book is a 20-minute read, and someone even [typed it out online](http://tech.moosaico.com/docs/getting-ideas/). It’s worth reading for the examples, though most of the content can be summarized as below….more

Shoreditch tricycle race benefits social entrepreneurs – D’oh! It’s the week after I leave London…”it’s a pedal powered race of epic proportions, mixing the glamour of Monaco, the endurance of Le Mans and the idiocy of adults attempting a street race on children’s toy tricycles”

Nike Ultimate Ignition SS V-Neck – there’s something cool about taking something really simple to a performance extreme. Like a t-shirt.

Tony Blair on his role in world events – Surprisingly humble: “Truthfully, the British prime minister has limited power to affect this. Maybe 80 years ago he did. The only way I affect it is by persuasion. And by giving people a sense of strategy and a plan. No one outside the US president has…more

Notes from Expertise in Design

[Victor Lombardi pointed](http://noisebetweenstations.com/personal/weblogs/?p=2214) to a [research paper on design process](http://oro.open.ac.uk/3271/1/Expertise_Overview.pdf) (PDF) with some interesting findings. Excerpts and notes below. ### Notes Interesting distinction of exploration methods; I’ve found myself using both: > Novice behaviour is usually associated with a ‘depth-first’ approach to problem solving, i.e. sequentially identifying and exploring sub-solutions in depth, whereas the strategies…more

“Happiness consists in finding out precisely what the ‘one thing necessary’ may be, in our lives, and in gladly relinquishing all the rest. For then, by a divine paradox, we find that everything else is given us together with the one thing we needed.” – Thomas Merton

A design company posts their business plan online – Nice philosophy: “So what about people stealing our ideas? Well, the ‘how’ of how we do it isn’t as much of a competitive advantage honestly…It’s just technology, and eventually everyone gets the same stuff anyways. It’s really about people and process.”

Two Things Design Experts Do That Novices Don’t: design lots of different concepts and reframe problems to be solvable. Cites two interesting studies, How designers work (a Ph.D. Dissertation) and Expertise in Design (PDF).