Cameron Moll's Blog, page 13
September 13, 2011
Ethan Marcotte: The Boston Globe
Ethan Marcotte, who was an important member of a team full of important members, describing the anticipation leading up to the responsive overhauling of BostonGlobe.com:
It's been kind of a weird experience, talking publicly for the better part of this year about a site that hadn't yet launched. I mean, I was—and still am—incredibly proud of the small contributions I made, of the talented team I collaborated with, but still: talking about a site that hasn't launched yet? There's some part of me that's felt, well, odd about that. What if people's expectations aren't met? What if we can't deliver? What if the Internet gets hit by an exploding unicorn and we somehow don't finish the project because NO MORE INTERNET YOU GUYS….
While I'm impossibly proud of the new Globe site of today, I'm most excited about where it'll be tomorrow.
It's important to note that BostonGlobe.com is a spinoff of Boston.com, and the spinoff is a subscription-only site ($3.99/week). As Frank Chimero points out, which would you choose?
September 12, 2011
9/11 in Review
I'll keep this brief. I didn't have a chance to see any of the tributes yesterday (or the news reports for that matter), as I had prior commitments. So, I spent this morning reviewing the day's events and related material.
Following are some of the highlights from my review.
The Story of Michael Ragusa's Burial
You'll have Command+F or Ctrl+F and search 'ragusa' to find his story in this lengthy article, as I can't directly link to it. This was probably the most moving tribute I read leading up to yesterday. (Photo above courtesy of IBTimes.com.)
NYTimes.com Photos: Remember September 11
It's safe to assume The Big Picture will post its photographic roundup of 9/11 sometime soon (probably today), but until then, this NYT slideshow is an excellent substitute.
If you've got young children in the home, supplement their understanding of the events on 9/11 with this 5-minute educational piece.
Side note: I've extolled the virtues of BrainPOP here before, and I'll do it again. If your kids aren't watching the BrainPOP Featured Movie daily on iPhone or iPad, they're missing out. I came back from my trip to NYC after visiting with charity: water, explaining how they drill wells to reach underground aquifers. At that point, they stopped me mid-sentence: "Yeah, we already know about aquifers. We learned about them in a BrainPOP movie."
Found Artifacts at the 9/11 Museum
Beautiful storytelling. Can't wait to visit the museum in a few weeks. (Register for tickets here.)
Another lovely example of online storytelling, far more replete than the previous example.
I'm Glad We Didn't Have Facebook or Twitter on 9/11
Cord Jefferson, Senior Editor of GOOD:
When it was all said and done, when we were all done sharing our bilious aggression and dime-store punditry with our friends and followers, then would have come the saddest part: the online memorials. Unsure of what to do with the anger and melancholy that had welled up inside of us, many of us would have made our Twitter avatars and Facebook pictures cheap, simple images of "freedom," and offered up groan-worthy platitudes about democracy and the American way. Paris Hilton would have weighed in on the biggest terrorist attack in modern American history, and thousands of people would retweet her, mostly ironically. We would have thought that we were doing justice to our thousands of countrymen who had fallen. In reality it would have been simultaneously too much and not enough.
September 8, 2011
9/11 Memorial: Name Placement Based on Clever Algorithm
Linda Tischler, Co. Design:
When the National September 11 Memorial opens this fall … friends' names will be inscribed next to each other on the granite wall surrounding the Memorial Garden's fountains.
Their adjacency is product of a masterful bit of programming undertaken by the New York media design firm Local Projects, which took 1,800 requests from families of the 3,500 9/11 victims, and created an algorithm that let them be grouped by affinity: firefighters with firefighters, cops with cops, all the members of each of the flights, first responders, or just pals.
Hoping to visit this memorial (or at least get close to it) later today.
charity: water Birthday Event
Though I wasn't able to live blog/tweet as much as I hoped, yesterday's visit to charity: water's offices for their birthday celebration was memorable nonetheless. Here's a recap of the day in moving pictures shot by charity: water.
September 7, 2011
The New Design
Naz Hamid:
Let's say for a moment print design is on its way out — traditional mass magazines and publishing houses will shutter and move toward a screen-based medium. The current crop of designers coming out of school are ill-equipped to design for screens — especially screens that change as fast as they're released.
August 31, 2011
My Neighbor, Steve Jobs
Lisen Stromberg:
While Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal and CNET continue to drone on about the impact of the Steve Jobs era, I won't be pondering the MacBook Air I write on or the iPhone I talk on. I will think of the day I saw him at his son's high school graduation. There Steve stood, tears streaming down his cheeks, his smile wide and proud, as his son received his diploma and walked on into his own bright future leaving behind a good man and a good father who can be sure of the rightness of this, perhaps his most important legacy of all.
/via Hacker News
August 30, 2011
Designers vs Coding
Frank Chimero, a relatively recent convert to HTML/CSS:
Good design and good markup provide structure to content. Good markup is a fundamental part of good design: beautiful on the inside, beautiful on the outside.
Retiring Jobs' Number
Rob Cottingham:
The debate will rage for a long time over what piece of technology best encapsulates Steve Jobs' influence on our world: The iPhone? iPod? iMac? iPad? OS X and Aqua? But I'm going to argue for something a lot more low-tech: the turtleneck.
That, to me, captures the excitement Jobs both conveyed and sparked in others over his vision. It wasn't just another gadget or a feature or an online service; it was his ability to say, 'This can help you change things.'
August 29, 2011
HOW Interview with Yours Truly
Bryn Mooth interviews me leading up to this November's HOW Interactive Design Conference in San Francisco.
Speaking of, the early bird registration ends this Thursday, September 1. Save an additional $50 on top of that with discount code CAMERON.
Hope to see you in San Fran.
Jason Santa Maria: Five & Ten
Jason Santa Maria, describing his site's redesign (which launched on Friday):
I decided to not let the design of my site become a barrier to writing here. The most important thing this site does for me is give me a creative outlet to play and write. Anything that gets in the way of that needs to get the boot.
The result is a responsive, Tumblr-esque digest of things interesting to and written by Jason, with much more design sense than most Tumblr sites — including mine.
Well done.
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