I've been following the launch and critique of Apple's iPad very closely in recent months. This is largely due to the fact that I'm designing an app for a client of mine. Some of the critique and praise seems very compelling to me; some is based on poor logic and overblown expectations; most is a mixed bag.

I recently downloaded the digital version of Wired Magazine. Having already seen digital publications by Time, The Wall Street Journal, and others, I found Wired's app to be head and shoulders above the competition in nearly every category. The pagination was intuitive, and the translation from relatively busy printed pages, to sparser iPad pages, was handled well. The two methods of navigating the table of contents was a nice touch. The videos were arresting and the interactivity (one can touch numbers in a list to view different blocks of copy while staying on the same page) seemed a natural choice.

The downsides I saw were, first and foremost, the enormous size. The file weighs in at about 500 megabytes. In the time it took to download the app, I could have headed over to the nearest bookstore, purchased the print edition, and driven back home. The second drawback was interactive 3-D elements, which were hard to control.

But overall, this is a step very much in the right direction. I'm excited to see how the medium will grow, and I'm excited to be a part of its development.

I came across a review I'd like to share here that is, to my mind, another mixed bag of good and bad critique. The author shared my annoyance with the file size and interactive drawbacks. You can read the review here.

I did take issue with some of the author's complaints about apps such as the digital Wired. He dislikes the lack of zoom and font control, and even considers them necessary courtesies for users. But if you think about how the most enduring technological device of all time is handled—i.e., the book—the user is given no control over typography, neither size nor typeface. And nobody complains about that fact. It's a given that someone has designed the end product, and it is immutable. This is as it should be. In the age where everyone is an author, editor, and critic, people have lost trust and respect for professionals whose livelihood revolves around the clear presentation of information. It's the designer's job to make text legible for anyone. It's also the designer's job to choose typefaces suited to the message. And if that choice is made public, watered down to a small handful of ubiquitous options, then people lose the ability to differentiate between a good reading experience and a bad one. All we know is that we're increasingly agitated.

This is a case where I think the masses are very much in the wrong about how best to consume information.

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/mercy/

Art is fundamentally a survival device of the species. Otherwise it wouldn’t be so persistent. It wouldn’t be in every culture. We wouldn’t know about it… 

How does art help you survive? It helps us survive by making us attentive. In a simplistic way, when you go past a forest and you look at it and you say, ‘that looks just like Cézanne.’ And you realize Cézanne has made you see the reality of the forest in a way that you never could have seen before. He’s made you attentive. Every work of art that you care about makes us attentive. And if it doesn’t do that—it ain’t art.

Read more here: http://www.idsgn.org/posts/glaser-on-art-and-obama/ about Milton Glaser's long career, and his recent (well-earned) award of the National Medal of Arts.

KCM is celebrating their 30th anniversary in financial investment management, and required a legacy mark to commemorate the event. The logo will be used on their website and on various print collateral throughout the rest of the year.

A simple typographic solution seemed the best fit, one which compliments their current identity but is able to stand on its own. Working closely with Randall Morris of www.sleepworkeatworksleep.com, we traded ideas back and forth and came up with several strong solutions that were presented to KCM. The client's final choice is shown first. Overall, I'm very happy with the results.

(download)

Click here to download:

New_Work_Kennedy_Capital_Manag.zip (69 KB)

For a long time, I've resisted blogging. Much as I enjoy writing, I've always found the blog platform to be an insatiable vortex which pulls even the most selfless and humble into pointless, narcissistic ramblings. But I've come to see the value in writing about design, and cataloging the lessons I'm learning from running a business. My hope is that the things I post here will be of real value to someone.

Ever since I discovered graphic design in college, I wondered how designers went from depending on someone else for their dinner to going solo—and making it profitable. Last year I finally scratched that itch and started to experience for myself the pain and pleasure of self-employment. Metagramme has been in business for almost exactly one year, and I'm figuring it out as I go. It's been a good year, but a tough one. In a way, this blog is a sort of baby book to record my teethings, bruises, and first steps.

This is where I'll post the latest news and views from Metagramme. You'll be able to watch and wince first hand as I waffle between referring to the studio as "we" or "I." I'll share the studio's latest work; practical knowledge I glean from stumbling through the early stages of running a business; and my thoughts on design, communication, arts, ethics, and culture in general. I might even share the work I'm not so proud of, the stuff that won't be seen on my sleek and shiny studio website (found at http://www.metagramme.com and incidentally overdue for a total redesign). I may link to other people's writings and work from time to time, but I'll try to avoid becoming a mere bulletin board for other people's ideas.

One thing I promise you, dear reader: you'll never read about my dirty socks, the bacon I had for breakfast, or the strange sounds coming from my neighbor's basement.

So here goes nuthin'.