A must-read post for designers, and he references a book I’m embarrassed to say I don’t own yet, Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud:

The image on the left is a face of a specific person. The image on the right is the concept «face»; it could be any person. When designing user interfaces, we rarely ever want to show a specific entity; typically, we want to convey an idea or a concept. Details can easily distract from that idea or concept.

This post has many great chunks to quote, here’s one:

You want a non-tyrannical Apple? Rather than striving to weaken Apple so that it can be devoured by its brawny-yet-mindless competitors, do something constructive. Experiment with GUIs which
don’t trace their descent to Xerox PARC. Forever renounce the idiotic practice of copying
Microsoft, that cheap imitation of a cheap imitation. If you are creative, create. Otherwise, strive to find a strong-willed Jobs figure gifted with good taste, and become his loyal servant. This is how we get quality products, everywhere from architecture to operating systems. There is no other way. Creativity requires a mind, and a herd has none.

A few weeks ago I took my 2004 Jeep Liberty into Manhattan Chrysler/Jeep to get an oil/oil filter change. During the change they usually alert me to any other issues they think should be addressed with the car. Sometimes they’re minor, sometimes they’re major.
This time they told me my front brake pads were extremely worn down, and they recommended I get them changes. I asked for an estimate.
The estimate they gave me was in the neighborhood of $400.
Now mind you, my brakes weren’t broken. The rotors, pads and calipers were in perfect working shape. I just needed new brake pads. My father taught me how to change brake pads back in high school, so I knew that new pads cost around around $40 for a pair so instead of giving my money to Jeep, I decided this was a great opportunity for my father and I to do them ourselves.
We started working on the car around 10AM and finished around 3PM. My father recommended we turn the rotors down while we have everything taken apart. Turning the rotors down just means that you sand them down to provide a smooth, even surface for the pads to press against. More surface area, better braking.
In the end, this was the cost breakdown:
new brake pads (2): $40.00
turning down rotors (2): $40.00
total cost: ~$80.00 (plus my dad’s and my labor)

I didn’t see the iPad Keynote live yesterday, but I watched it last night via Apple’s site.
I’ve also been digesting all the feedback I’ve been reading across my favorite blogs and news sites:
frog design used the iPad launch to toot it’s own horn about the prototype tablet they designed in partnership with Apple back in 1983 (to their credit, it was ahead of it’s time).
Over at Subtraction.com, Khoi Vin doesn’t think it’s going to save publishing. I don’t think it’s go save publishing either, because it wasn’t invented for that purpose. Your product or service needs to be innovative in order to be profitable on an innovation device like the iPad.
I’m with Gruber on the name – it should have been called “Canvas“, not “IPad”.
Like me, DesignAday correctly notes that the iPad is evolutionary, not revolutionary. People expected revolutionary yesterday. We got evolutionary. This is a good thing.
Om Malik seems to dig it and raises an interesting thought:

So in many ways, today is a brand new day for content creators and owners alike. For if we’re smart, all of us — from large media giants such as Fox to upstarts like my little company — will figure out how to build a new magazine/news experience that leverages the iPad’s powerful processor, great graphics, stunning display and most importantly, Internet connection. In fact I’ll go out on a limb and say that today may be the day we start to rethink how we build web sites.

Gizmodo says no thanks due to no multitasking. I’m going to say it – I think multitasking within the mobile computing world is hugely overrated. There I said it. I’ll expound more on this point in a separate post.
Adobe announces the ability to develop iPad applications with Flash. We already knew iPhone app development was coming with Flash CS5, so this is obvious.
…more links to come.

“What we’re about isn’t making boxes for people to get their jobs done, although we do that well.”

iCooly (via swissmiss)

Dreamball (via Subtraction)

Mast Humidifier by Shin Okada (via PSFK)

There’s a great interview with Bruce Sterling at The Well (via NoahBrier.com).
It starts out:

For the eleventh time, Inkwell rings in the New Year with a visit from Well
member Bruce Sterling, to address the State of the World and Things Various
and Sundry. Bruce used to write novels when there were bookstores, and used
to write for magazines and newspapers when magazines and newspapers existed.
Nowadays he travels a lot when trains are running and when airports aren’t
clogged by security theater. [emphasis mine]

What first caught my attention, before I even hit the interview, was a word the interviewer used in reference to the bullshit we endure at the airport – security theater.
And that’s exactly what all those metal detectors, fluid requirements and jackets-and-shoes-off procedures are – theater.
Airports don’t provide security, but the appearance of security.

When evaluating one’s own work, a designer should continually ask herself why. Why did she use that color? Why did she place a particular element in that exact spot? Why is it that specific size? Perhaps these were intuitive decisions, but there was still a reason behind them. Understanding those reasons will make a designer more confident in communicating the solution to others, leading to more trust from clients and other collaborators.

• Jack Moffett

influencer (photo credit ricrodrigues.com):

Apple Store, grand opening 15 May 2001
influenced:

Microsoft Store, grand opening 22 October, 2009

One of the earliest references to the phrase “riding shotgun” in print occurred in the 1905 book The Sunset Trail, by Alfred Henry Lewis[1] The expression was used to refer to riding as an armed guard in the front of a stagecoach, next to the driver (this would usually have been on the left, as stage drivers traditionally sat on the right, near the brake).

via Wikipedia and Yahoo! Answers