Earlier this week I started thinking about what makes a designer. The question had crossed my mind many times, but hearing it discussed by a design outsider gave me a different perspective on the idea. The design outsider in question was film director Gary Hustwit, being interviewed on the Spark podcast about his new film [...]
One of the most intriguing things about the web is spotting connections between disparate sources. Every once in a while, I will find a subject or idea crop up in a bunch of different places in an oddly organic way. This very phenomenon happened a few weeks ago when I spotted a few stories discussing [...]
Reading the reports on this year’s proposed city of Toronto budget is kind of frustrating. But I’m not frustrated by the budget itself, rather the slew of city councillors who feel the need to criticize the plan without offering any suggestions or alternative solutions. However the whole situation did get me thinking about how design [...]
Next to design, my most passionate interest has to be music. I listen to music as much as I can and always enjoy recommending new music to others. In the last month or so I have been hearing some great new stuff that I wanted to share, so I thought I would assemble a list [...]
Last weekend’s ChangeCamp kicked off a week full of intellectual stimulation. After Saturday’s intense one-day session, I attended a User Experience Design workshop at Ryerson on Wednesday and went to the Jane Fulton Surri Lecture at OCAD on Thursday. Obviously enough the week was really inspiring and got me thinking a lot about design and [...]
Around 140 people gathered at Toronto’s MaRS Centre early Saturday morning to answer the question, “How do we re-imagine government and citizenship in the age of participation?” The question was the impetus for ChangeCamp, an un-conference event. Being my first un-conference, I approached ChangeCamp with a little apprehension. While the democratic intent of the event [...]
Regular readers will remember that in October I mentioned I was going to be making some changes to my blog. Since then I have been thinking about and exploring some options and am now pretty close to moving into this so-called “new phase”. Without further ado, I present you with some ideas I hope will [...]
I just finished watching the hour long video of PSFK’s “Good Ideas in Digital” discussion panel. If you have a spare hour and are interested in advertising, design and/or marketing in the digital realm, it is time well spent. Piers Fawkes moderated the panel discussion between Claire Hyland, Johanna Beyenbach, Mike Arauz and Noah Brier. [...]
Journeys allow us to explore, they allow us to discover; they can be arduous at times, and full of surprises and fun at other times. Most importantly, journeys provide us with an understanding of ourselves and our relationship to the world. The journeys themselves are often the least difficult part; more often it’s finding the [...]
The second half of October was a pretty busy one for me. I ploughed through three articles for designboom, two of which are up now. I have also been twittering more, thanks to twitterific and I haven’t really had much to talk about here. One of the reasons I have been at a loss for [...]
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