Category Archives: Design

Unnatural Design Processes

“For many years web design was an unnatural paring of graphic design, software design and product design, all of these disciplines assumed that there was an endpoint that was “done”” - Karl Long
You already know I agree with Karl. In my experience, the practitioners that really ‘get’ web design compare it more to urban planning, [...]

Sevnthsin Wants an Interactive Designer

Sevnthsin, Minneapolis-based interactive agency, is looking for a full-time interactive designer.

Fun With Error Messaging

A while back I was window shopping online at Ikea when I came across their Error message. Instead of feeling frustrated or angry, I was delighted to see this:

Minnesota Electronic Theater 2006 (UPDATE)

Just heard this was going on Thursday.
http://www.met2006.org/
Sounds like a Fun Free event.
I rarely hear much from the SIGGRAPH chapter here in the cities, but this sounds like they are active. I’d be interested to see what type of work falls into such a broad ”Computer Graphics” category. I assume it’s mostly 3D, but I’d bet there are a [...]

Massive Change

If you’re in or travelling to Chicago anytime before January 1, 2007, then you should head on over to the Museum of Contemporary Art to see their feature exhibition Massive Change.
This exhibition focuses on the design and planning of culture and civilization. It is very powerful in its message and it raises many questions about [...]

AIGA Minnesota’s New Clothes

The Emperor has no Clothes as they say. AIGA Minnesota has a new site up. It is refreshing to see them move to a site more open for public feedback, and open in it’s content. Feeling more weighty than before, and less “fluffy”.
It’s caused a bit of stir in the anouncement, and as usual some [...]

MN Architecture Redesigns

Friday night the wife and I had a rare evening sans kids. What do parents do sans kids? We enjoy an evening at the book store *not* in the kids section.
Scanning the magazine rack I noticed an impressive new MN Architecture, published by the AIA-MN. Turns out that after 25 years, they felt it was [...]

Scientific Study Says 50% of Product Returns are Caused by Complexity

One of the ideas that have been floating around in my head lately is that customer experience is becoming a primary differentiator in the desirability of a product. And now science says that’s right!
According to an article in Reuters, a Dutch scientist found that half of all product returns are because customers can’t figure out [...]

Any Design Firms in Minneapolis ‘Get’ Web 2.0?

Yesterday over lunch, we wondered if there were any web design/development shops in Minnesota that ‘got’ Web 2.0. You know - highly-iterative, publish early & often, AJAX, open source, etc.
According to the Web 2.0 Innovation Map, the answer is ‘No’.