Would you believe the 2006 Design That Touches the Heart Show is now online? Believe. We’re pleased with this first ever offering of design (and even some art). We hope that it will encourage and inspire you to send in your own work that touches the heart. If we receive enough additional entries, we’ll add them to the 2006 show.

Thanks to all who participated. Enjoy.

>> 2006 Design That Touches the Heart Show...... Keep reading

It’s been about 12 hours since well known designer Joshua Davis stepped off the podium at CRE824, and I still have a hangover—a design hangover. Despite the big name speakers and high powered resumes, this conference left me encouraged in some small ways but with a sense of despair overall. My expectations were probably too high. I had hoped to be inspired by the depth and passion of these design divas. What I saw was quite different.

Let’s start with the good stuff first. Did you know that the “hottest” designers don’t know everything about the software they are using? Or that they started just like you and I with little to no knowledge and taught themselves? Yep, that truth came through again and again as speakers recounted their personal history. Shaun Inman, the grand pooh bah of CSS is self taught. Joshua Davis is much the same on the software he uses. So, there’s hope for me yet! Start small they said, put something out there and build on it. Don’t try to learn everything the software does before you start the first project. Seems obvious, but I needed to hear it again.

Several start up business insights were shared by the folks at Emma...... Keep reading

After spending 14 years in the federal government (the Department of Defense to be exact), I’ve suffered through thousands of poorly designed Power Point presentations (several of them my own). Many of you may remember when Power Point became the ubiquitous presentation software of choice for anyone trying to sell anything to anyone. We’ve all endured spinning thingies, flashing text, blinding color schemes and obnoxious sound effects. And to what end? Often the presentation fails to communicate due to poor design, and we find ourselves in a room full of sleepy heads going up and down like oil pumps on the Texas plains. I wondered if anyone would ever figure out how to present information that was visually precise and helped the boss/client/whomever make an informed decision. Then I stumbled across Xplane, “an information design firm that develops visual maps and stories to make complex business issues easier to understand.”

Xplane shows the power of design to communicate complex issues visually. They take hordes of ugly Power Point slides and background papers and transform the information into a visual story that gets the point across in half the time with twice the power. Check out the before and after shots. Stunning. And who said illustration is dead?

I love what they do. Why? This type of ...... Keep reading

I don’t often come across a presentation like this one by Belief that delves so deeply into the heart and soul of creativity and design.This Quicktime video is a live enactment of Belief’s inspiration session presented in New York City at Promax/BDA 2004. Belief’s Mike Goedecke and Kane Roberts are the voices. If you have an hour for lunch (and you’ll need it for this 45 min session) and a broadband connection (massive streaming download), then I’d suggest that you watch it. I got a lot out of it and will watch it again to really understand what they are saying. There are a few commercials they use as examples that are obscene (like two chairs and then two robots having a sexual encounter) and some very dark video clips. But buried in this presentation are some nuggets on the heart and soul of design. Can you help me dig them out?...... Keep reading

While studying in Taiwan several years ago, I was struck by the workspaces there—large open rooms filled with row upon row people hunched over ’50s styled desks. I wondered how anyone was able to work with folks talking in your ears from all sides. If it weren’t for the amazing speed and efficiency of the Taiwanese people, I suspect nothing would have been accomplished in this type of environment. So, when I returned to the States and entered the working world, I was pretty happy to receive my plot of desk on the cubicle farm. But over the years I increasingly sensed that my once lovely cubicle was nothing more than a rat hole in a giant corporate maze. No matter what I or my coworkers did to rearrange them and make them personable, cubicles came to symbolize our feeling of being a cog in someone’s profit making machine.

Not long ago I stumbled across this fascinating article on the cubicle’s history and an interview with the original designer. It seems the problems I saw in Taiwan’s office environment were common in the post-industrialized US until the early 1960s. Then along came former University of Colorado fine arts professor Bob Propst, who designed the first modular office furniture (ironically dubbed the “Action Office”) that would serve as a “vehicle to carry other expressions of identity.” ...... Keep reading

My sister-in-law went to see Christo’s The Gates this past week in Central Park. After seeing her photos (thanks Nita), I was struck by how The Gates create a doorway between the seen and unseen worlds. Christo’s Gates caused me to connect with many spiritual things I’m sure he never intended. As I viewed the photos of the orange colored gates lining the park with people walking under them, I was reminded of the Scripture, “fling w...... Keep reading