laodan's favorite design pages, page 1

Last login: 10 hours agoLaodan: laodan is a guy from Milford, Pennsylvania, USA.; Likes 1,599 pages, 24 videos, 8 photos • 228 fans • Received 65 reviews; Member since Aug 08, 2005

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The Science of Information Visualization: A Sketch | EagerEyes.org: Oct 31, 2007 1:26pm 1 review science, art, design, visualization
http://eagereyes.org/Theory/SketchOfInfoVisScience.html; The Science of Information Visualization: A Sketch via information aesthetics, in EagerEyes.org by Robert Kosara
According to one definition(ref), engineering is making things based on scientific principles - as opposed to the intuitive making that defines a craft. Information visualization (InfoVis) is practiced like a craft today, based mostly on practical examples, but not on theoretical basics. Here is a sketch of not only InfoVis as an engineering field, but InfoVis as a science. We could model the science of InfoVis after physics, a well-established science. If we assume that we already have the engineering part, then there's also theoretical physics, experimental physics, and computational physics. The Science of Information Visualization: A Sketch Visualization is at the center of my understanding of the visual arts. I approach visualization from an artistic perspective while Robert Kosara is more in tune with the definition given by Zachary Pousman, John T. Stasko and Michael Mateas in their paper "Casual Information Visualization: Depictions of Data in Everyday Life": "Information visualization has often focused on providing deep insight for expert user populations and on techniques for amplifying cognition through complicated interactive visual models". In my understanding visual arts have filled a societal function since their inception at the dawn of tribal culture till high modernity turned artistic productions into "commodities". That function was to illustrate the worldview of the men of knowledge of the day for all to share. The difference between my personal approach and the "scientific" approach of Kosara and others resides in the nature of what is visualized. Art in my understanding addresses a global vision of reality as it is understood at a given time while "scientific" visualization refers to the illustration of micro observations realized at the end of the vertical tunnel of observation by any given science. The distinction is thus between a visualization at the macro level of reality at the attention of all citizens of a society and a visualization at the micro level of reality at the attention of the specialists of all of those particular micro levels: the scientists. Zachary Pousman, John T. Stasko and Michael Mateas posit to expand the scope of scientific visualization from a specialist related field to the population at large. "Instead of work-related and analytically driven infovis, we propose Casual Information Visualization (or Casual Infovis) as a complement to more traditional infovis domains. Traditional infovis systems,techniques, and methods do not easily lend themselves to the broad range of user populations, from expert to novices, or from work tasks to more everyday situations. We propose definitions, perspectives, and research directions for further investigations of this emerging subfield. These perspectives build from ambient information visualization , social visualization, and also from artistic work that visualizes information". But that definition does nothing more than propose to vulgarize some aspects only, of micro observations realized at the end of the vertical tunnel of observation by any given science, towards "the masses". Let's remark that what would be vulgarized would be those aspects only that have a direct bearing upon the daily life of all. But how are those selections of scientific micro-observations reaching us all? I suspect that the capital invested initially in the researches at the micro level wants to find an outcome to that investment in the form of a surplus or to say this in a more common language in the form of a benefit. In that case "Casual Information Visualization" is no more than the designer form of commodities. Art does not operate at that level.

Feng-GUI - Feng Shui for Graphic User Interfaces: Jan 23, 2007 5:55pm 33 reviews design, web, freetools
http://www.feng-gui.com/; Feng-GUI - Feng Shui for graphic user interfaces. in feng-gui.com
The way people look * The ViewFinder algorithm creates a Saliency attention heatmap. The salience map creation is based upon neuro-science studies of visual Attention, Perception and Cognition of humans. Or in English: What people are looking at? * The ViewFinder Heatmap service captures a snapshot image of the requested website and generates a visual attention heatmap. * Heatmap - from dark blue through green to red, describing the temperature heat of the image heated by human eyes. What Can I find with ViewFinder heatmap? * Which areas of the page are getting most of the attention. * Which areas are being ignored. * Hotspots - Highest points of attention. Feng-GUI

Try it on your own site and discover the dispersion of attention points...

OpenBusiness & Blog Archive & Discover a Crowdsourcing initiative - CrowdSpir…: Jan 23, 2007 8:42am 1 review design, open-access
http://www.openbusiness.cc/2007/01/22/crowdspirit-introduction/; A Crowdsourcing initiative - CrowdSpirit in OpenBusiness by Lionel
CrowdSpirit - a start-up based in Grenoble in the French Alps. "Our strategy is to tap the world-shaping potential of "You" for higher value tasks than just sharing videos! Our business model is simply to design innovative electronic products by "you" for "you" and to reward the best "you" based on the products sales revenues & in practice "you" will be made by a community. CrowdSpirit will provide the means for this community to design, invest, produce, market, distribute and support the products that make business sense. To conclude, the community will assist and participate in every step of the product cycle and will earn money from these products based on each person's contribution." Discover a Crowdsourcing initiative - CrowdSpirit Part 1. Discover a Crowdsourcing initiative - CrowdSpirit Part 2. Discover a Crowdsourcing initiative - CrowdSpirit Part 3. CrowdSpirit

Wow! The Open society model is definitely making strides. From Open Source to Open Access to Open Science to Open Business and now to Open Design... Check also the following articles: The Future of Ideas is freely accessible Free online -- in French Paul Heald's free data about free culture Free Pdf

256 Pixels - a daily favicon design challenge: Nov 13, 2006 4:00pm 1 review design
http://256pixels.com/; 256 Pixels via Sya / She Dreams in Digital, in 256Pixels.com
Every day there is a new challenge at 256 Pixels. The challenge is to create a favicon (you know, those little images associated with a website that show up in the browser's URL bar, in the bookmarks, and the window tab) that represents the word of the day in a 16 x 16 pixel square. 256 Pixels
.....................
Great to post yr own favicons or to download some made by others for yr own use... I like to view their daily entries. Only problem the site is soooo slow...

Untitled Document: Nov 13, 2006 1:11pm 1 review art, design
http://www.sfcovers.net/Magazines/ASF/; Science fiction magazine covers in SFcovers.net
Astounding/Analog has attracted most of the top SF cover artists over the years, as one would expect of the magazine that for long had the highest circulation of any SF title. Like Fantasy & Science Fiction, however, most of the covers were done by a relatively small band of favoured artists - certainly until the 1970s, though it has distributed its favours more widely in recent years. By far its most prolific artist was Frank Kelly Freas, whose output for ASF spanned nearly 50 years. His first cover appeared on the October 1953 issue, his last on February 2003 and he did 126 in all. This means that he did more than 20% of all the covers over those five decades, and nearly a third of them through his most productive period in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Science fiction magazine covers Astounding (1930) changed its name to Analog in 1960
Aug 1930 by Wesso
Dec 1950 by Timmins
May 2004 by Hardy

Great archive. Interesting to see the evolution in cover designs over the last 75 years. Strangely not so huge a change after all... except for the horrible bar-code in 2004.

Designed in China: Oct 9, 2006 9:04am 1 review economics, graphic-design, design, innovation
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_41/b4004412.htm?chan=globalbi...; Designed in China in BusinessWeekOnline by Jessi Hempel ... academia rushes to respond to China's dictate that innovation must be a priority. The country is trying to move from "Made in China" to "Designed in China," and many believe that design education is a part of that equation. There are more than 400 programs in China alone right now, with an estimated 10,000 designers graduating every year. URL: Designed in China

The Western advantage in "industrial culture", of which design is one aspect, won't last long... This means that the world is bound to undergo a "cultural revolution" without precedent. For 500 years modernity has been driven by Christian Europe and later by Christian USA. This is what is on the verge of change... and this is also one of the radical and determining factors announcing post-modernity...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/style/tmagazine/08trawthorn.html: Oct 8, 2006 7:20am 1 review arts, art, design
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/style/tmagazine/08trawthorn.html; Is It Art? in The NYT Style Magazine by ALICE RAWSTHORN Whatu2019s the difference between design and art? The question has cropped up again and again since a Marc Newson chaise longue sold for just under $1 million at Sothebyu2019s this past summer. ... In ye olden days the distinction between art and design boiled down to the beaux-arts prejudice: art = good, design = bad. Art, or so the argument went, was superior to design, because artists were free to express whatever they wished u2014 which, back then, was likely to be beauty u2014 in work they made themselves. Designers, on the other hand, faced numerous creative constraints, from meeting their clientsu2019 needs and ensuring that whatever they designed would fulfill its intended function to delegating production to someone else. ... In the last century, those distinctions eroded. Artists became less inclined to express ideals of beauty, in favor of using art to explore political and emotional concerns. The conception and process of producing art became as important as the work itself, which was increasingly made by someone else, not the artist. The technology of design, meanwhile, became so sophisticated that designers could assume the artistu2019s role of creating beauty. Can you think of a contemporary painting or sculpture that is lovelier in the old-fashioned aesthetic sense than an iMac? URL: Is It Art? URL: Design Fall 2006

Alert confusion! It seems as if for ALICE RAWSTHORN art was only a question of form: creating beauty... Jeez what a poor understanding of something that played so big a role in all human societies since their inceptions. No word indeed of this societal functionality of art in this article. Only superficial talk about what had better been called decoration...

dynamic textile patterns - data visualization &visual design - information aesth…: Sep 22, 2006 8:05am 2 reviews graphic-design, design
http://infosthetics.com/archives/2006/09/reach_textile_patterns.html; dynamic textile patterns in Information Aesthetics several pieces of everyday worn clothing that reveal or create patterns based on environmental conditions (e.g. sunlight, temperature, wind). for instance, a scarf changes the pattern on the textile surface (using thermochromatic ink) & even heats up when it detects that it is cold outside. a carrying bag lights up in dynamic grid-like patterns depending on local sounds, using electro-luminescent film & synthetic fabric. these prototypes explore properties of person-to-person communication, proximity, & environmental sensitivity as expressive properties that can be worn. URL: dynamic textile patterns URL: lumalive textile garment URL: sound reactive equalizer t-shirt URL: emotional wardrobe URL: Reach URL: 'IT+Textiles'

I don't know where this leads. Are we going to let technology decide for us the look of what we wear? If this were the case it would be a loss of our personality and we could soon appear as interchangeable numbers... But there could well be some very interesting uses in the public domain.

BIOONE Online Journals - The nest architecture of the Florida harvester ant, Pog…: May 27, 2006 11:50am 1 review architecture, environment, design
http://www.bioone.org/perlserv?request=get-document&doi=10.1672%2F1536-2442(2...

About Halliburton: May 15, 2006 7:17pm 1 review architecture, environment, design
http://www.halliburtoncontracts.com/about/index.html; As seen on Halliburtoncontract's site: "Halliburton solves global warming" ... but it seems all that was a hoax by the YESMEN (thanks skykam)... Hillarious. This is not a joke. Here is proof that Halliburton recognizes that global warming is a fact. But I was stunned by their idea about how to solving the problem... After seeing that it was a hoax my stunned reaction evaporated... but look at the HOAX/NOT A HOAX discussion on Dave Barry's site, it temains hillarious. """ Most scientists believe global warming is certain to cause an accelerating onslaught of hurricanes, floods, droughts, tornadoes, etc. and that a world-destroying disaster is increasingly possible. For example, Arctic melt has slowed the Gulf Stream by 30% in just the last decade; if the Gulf Stream stops, Europe will suddenly become just as cold as Alaska. Global heat and flooding events are also increasingly possible. In order to head off such catastrophic scenarios, scientists agree we must reduce our carbon emissions by 70% within the next few years. Doing that would seriously undermine corporate profits, however, and so a more forward-thinking solution is needed. At today's conference, Wolf and a colleague demonstrated three SurvivaBall mockups, and described how the units will sustainably protect managers from natural or cultural disturbances of any intensity or duration. """ URL: Halliburton solves global warming URL: The YESMEN URL: "Hoax/Not a hoax!"