Journal

When the web was young, or at least when I was, websites had a very simple core. The essential ingredient of the web is text, and that combined with some special interpreters is what makes the whole thing work. As I grew up, I started to learn more about something called a CMS, or content …

This past week I was visiting some family members and I had an encounter that forced me to very quickly remember my role in the world. The people I was visiting are getting married next year, and they asked me to design a save the date card for them. They had invitations, a color scheme, …

Ever since brushed metal, Apple has struggled to bring texture to the desktop. A prevailing opinion among many hyper-geeks is that textures like leather and linen have no place in a digital world. It has been argued that virtual interfaces have no connection to the physical world, and therefore trying to simulate those experiences is …

Recently I was met with the task of having to reinstall my operating system from scratch. This is something I have been known to engage in for fun, so the actual work didn’t bother me at all. What it did do, however, was get me thinking more and more about how our documents are stored …

Creativity has long been a mystery for science, but examining how the brain compensates when there are deficits may give us some insight into the process. The story of Anne Adams was recently featured on Radio Lab. Anne was a lifelong scientist who, for no obvious external reason, developed an intense desire to produce visual …

It was the first day of school, and B approached the campus carefully, not knowing what to expect. B grew up around a standard set of icons, and in order to fit in, he decided to be standard as well. He maintained a thick vertical stroke, complemented by two horizontal arches. On a normal day, …