PostsDesign Archive
Ubuntu’s Lost Identity
Ubuntu boot splash screen — old (left) and new
Ubuntu has a new logo and identity brand, and I really don’t like. Why through away the legendary friendly circle icon and replace it with a badly kerned wordmark?
Perfumes Named After Their Month of Release
Because content is king also in the business of perfumes. Inspired by Ubuntu Linux release cycle.
WordPress.com Redesign
Jeff has brought to my attention that folks at Automattic are testing a redesign of the WordPress.com front page.
Those arriving at WordPress.com front page are either from other blogs hosted on WordPress.com or search engines, and most of them are interested in creating a blog for themselves. Those who want to explore featured posts are mostly the existing users. Read more »
Is iPhone 3G “S” Slow or Small?
Is Apple really going in the footsteps of Microsoft by creating more and more version of essentially the same product? When seeing iPhone 3G S for the first time I immediately associated “S” with size Small.
These days no one considers a phone “smart” if it’s slow or doesn’t have support for 3G. So what does Apple exactly mean by saying iPhone 3G Speed? Where the previous versions slow?
How about calling it iPhone 4, 5, 6, … n.
Digital Britain and USB Flash Drives
Digital Britain logo
While the ideas behind the Digital Britain initiative are really great and noble, its logo is quite the opposite — what is the connection between a flash drive and an open access to information and its distribution networks?
Every letter in the logo is supposed to symbolize a node attached to Britain’s information network, which sounds like a good explanation until you put it on a USB thumb drive. Read more »
Tweaking WordPress Admin Header
One of the important ideas behind the WordPress 2.7 administration area redesign was to maximize the amount of information and input fields above the ‘fold’. While the current design does the job well, there is still some room for improvements. Read more »
Open Source Logo for Labeling Things and Ideas Made in Latvia
Do you create things and ideas here in Latvia? If so, let the world know where they come from — label them using this open source ‘Made in Latvia’ logo:
Design on April 2009
For future reference: this is how this blog looked on April 2009: Read more »
Bitstream Charter Typeface
Bitstream Charter is a glyphic serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter which I discovered only recently in Ubuntu 8.10 (it ships with X11). It is definitely one of the most beautiful serif fonts that I have ever seen. At first sight it looks similar to Liberation Serif but is more rounded and easier to read. Read more »
What Designers Do
Do you know what good designers do when everyone else thinks Helvetica is cool? They stretch and bend Times New Romans and Comic Sans. Thats because message is what is important, not the color or the typeface.
Comic Sans Design Challenge
What would you do if Comic Sans was the only typeface available? Read more »
We’re back with a free font suggestion — Liberation Sans
Why use Lucida Grande, Arial, Helvetica or Verdana if there is the fantastic Liberation Sans — created by Steve Matteson and liberated by Red Hat, Inc. under GNU GPL licence. Read more »
How Graphic is the Web Design, and How Web is the Graphic Design
Sorry for such a long heading, but it is the question which by itself is an answer to those trying to understand how the web design is different from the graphic design.
Designer and writer Armin Vit recently asked “[W]hat web sites could be considered landmarks for our profession?”. Ideally one should be able to name
A visual solution that not only enables, but also transcends, the message to become memorable in the eyes and minds of viewers.
He lists few examples from the field of graphic design: “Milton Glaser’s Dylan poster. Paul Rand’s IBM logo. Paula Scher’s Public Theater posters. Massimo Vignelli’s New York subway map. Kyle Cooper’s Seven opening titles”. Read more »
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike License
GNU GPL
