The Sketchbook of Susan Kare, the Artist Who Gave Computing a Human Face -
I’ve recently rediscovered how brilliant the interface design was of the early Mac. So much was done in so few pixels. A lot of this credit goes to designer Susan Kare, who designed many of the icons that have become standard practice on the Mac to this day.
Apple to Introduce Unusual Software -
A review from 1987 of Apple’s then new software, Hypercard. You could swap out a few names and you got a template for pretty much any review of Apple software. 24 years later, it’s amazing how little changes.
It also reflects how whenever new software of technology comes out that truly changes the game, it is always initially met with skepticism and misunderstanding. Hypercard, for those unfamiliar, was a tool for anyone to be able to create databases and “cards” that linked to each other. It was very much an influence on what we know as the World Wide Web, so it was pretty important to computing in retrospect.
“During that ascent, Forstall accumulated enemies, particularly during the long, arduous process of creating the iPhone. Around 2005, Jobs faced a crucial decision. Should he give the task of developing the device’s software to the team that built the iPod, which wanted to build a Linux-based system? Or should he entrust the project to the engineers who had revitalized the software foundation of the Macintosh? In other words, should he shrink the Mac, which would be an epic feat of engineering, or enlarge the iPod? Jobs preferred the former option, since he would then have a mobile operating system he could customize for the many gizmos then on Apple’s drawing board. Rather than pick an approach right away, however, Jobs pitted the teams against each other in a bake-off.” — BusinessWeek has a really insightful article about Scott Forstall, the head of Apple’s iOS division. This snippet really had me interested and wondering at just what the iPhone could have been had Apple gone down the enlarged iPod route.
I think everyone knows the impact Jobs made on technology and our culture. I’m not going to rehash it here completely. All the work at Apple in creating the Mac, then starting NeXT (which became the platform that Mac OS X is based on), running Pixar and creating some of my favorite movies, returning to Apple and creating the iMac, iPod, and iPhone is really close to me and had a great influence in my profession as a designer.
On one side, it is silly to mourn the passing of a great business man, which is what he was, but Steve Jobs drove his company with great passion and strong values. The attention to designing a product and technology from top to bottom based on giving people joy in using it is a value I hold in my job, and is something that has always been apparent in Apple products. Apple has always (at least when Jobs has been around) sold their technology as something that enables people, gives people the ability to use an otherwise foreign machine like a computer. That could be discovering great music on iTunes, organizing photos from your wedding in iPhoto, editing a vacation video in iMovie, or talking to grandma on FaceTime. Compare this to the rest of the industry which sells their technology based around gigahertz, screen size, network speed, and other cold hard data. These are the ideals that Steve Jobs, and hiring like minded and talented people, brought to technology… that is meant to be for making people’s lives better. I think that is something we can all learn.
Steve Jobs wasn’t someone that a lot of us knew in person, so it feels weird to be dragged down by this news to a point. If you work in technology, the best thing we can do now is to learn from his philosophy and principles and apply that in our work.
So, I thought I would list all the Apple products I have used or owned over the years, that shaped me into doing the creative technology work I do now.
This pretty much sums up what I was just saying…
OK, here we go with another round of Recent Musical Findings! A few months has passed, and in that time there’s been a lot of new music I’ve been listening to. Once again, this isn’t stuff that is necessarily brand new, but is some new to me.
I discovered this wonderful band from the “Mountains” mix from the playlist sharing site designers.mx. If there is a common theme with this set of picks, it’s that I have been really partial to a certain type of music that feel real and grown of the earth. It has melody, natural sounding rhythm, and a certain texture to the vocals and lyrics that you don’t hear a lot in the mainstream. It’s hard to pin it down for me, but The Acorn really embody this sentiment.
I love music that builds up, it teases the big hook. It’s an essential part to any good songwriting. In this song, “Model Son”, the wobbling guitar gives way to a collage of crunchy sound, handclaps, and layers of vocals.
The previously mentioned bands are great, but every so often I discover a band that really sticks with me. It’s usually a band that speaks to me on more than just the music, but the aesthetic and attitude towards their craft. John Roderick from The Long Winters seems like someone who really cares about making great music after hearing him on the 5by5 show Back to Work. This song “Cinnamon” is exactly the kind of song I wanted to hear when I discovered it. In fact, that whole album When I Pretend to Fall is excellent.
I’ve been aware of Sufjan Stevens for awhile, but only have recently got around to checking out his music. I like it, but I am digesting the music and putting a context on it that I can relate to. His music definitely very different from the other picks featured in this post. I get a sense of Christian overtones in his lyrics, but I don’t want to pin it down if I am wrong on that. It will grow on me over time, but there is something there to bring me back. This track “Concerning the UFO Sighting over Highland, Illinois” is really really beautiful and mysterious without being too self-indulgent.
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” — Steve Jobs
National Parks and Monuments Visited -
I have been putting together a map with all of the National Parks and Monuments I have visited throughout my whole life. Not surprisingly, the majority are on the west coast and southwest US. I hope to make this page into something bigger with photos and descriptions at some point as well. For now, these are all the locations.
“A designer is only as good as how they understand the constraints.” — Katie Gillum on Let’s Make Mistakes
“It’s like nobody sings unless they want to be Britney Spears. That’s stupid—we should all sing in bars three nights a week if we like it and get paid as professional musicians. Who says you have to be a superstar? I hate the whole “rock-star programmer” thing where you have to make the next Facebook.” — Matt Haughey on ambition in the tech industry. He’s one of my Internet/Web heros and there’s a really great article about him in the Willamette Weekly
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