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Are you the person who writes the script?

In a time when organizations of all types and sizes increasingly speak through the code of their marketing and legal representatives, it occurs to me that finding ways of communicating with clients, customers, and prospects in more personal ways will gain greater value as we move forward.

What can you do to break through the ugly wall of impersonality? Figure out ways to do it and you'll be a big step ahead.

I hope this helps,

Chuck

Have you seen my InDesign Ideabook?

315 template files in 19 different categories -- Everything from brochures, newsletters, and direct mail to packaging, calendars, and books (one CD works with both Mac and PC). Use two or three files and you'll pay for the entire book and disc...

For Adobe InDesign   Here

For QuarkXPress   Here

What makes a good logo? Ask ten designers and they'll give you twenty different answers. But this interview of Michael Bierut by Vox offers an interesting perspective from someone who has had great success designing them.

Thanks to Jeff Fisher for pointing us to it.

What makes a truly great logo...   Here

From Vox.com: The accompanying article...   Here

Bierut, of course, has been a partner at Pentagram Design since 1990...   Here

What would that website look like with different typeface?

Webtype specializes in licensing typefaces for website from top foundries such as Font Bureau, Okay Type, and Underware. Curious? Their Font Swapper lets you type in a url and preview how that website will look with their fonts.

Pretty cool.

The Webtype Font Swapper...   Here

They also have an excellent gallery of type use cases...   Here

Is it possible to determine if a photograph is memorable?

Today I point you to a paper authored by A. Khosla, A. S. Raju, A. Torralba and A. Oliva that was presented in a poster session at the International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV) (December of 2015).

The paper, "Understanding and predicting image memorability at a large scale," poses that, "We tend to remember and forget the same pictures and faces as each other. This suggests that despite different personal experiences, people naturally encode and discard the same types of information."

So is it possible to determine memorability? The author's MIT website includes this overview:

"Progress in estimating visual memorability has been limited by the small scale and lack of variety of benchmark data. Here, we introduce a novel experimental procedure to objectively measure human memory, allowing us to build LaMem, the largest annotated image memorability dataset to date (containing 60,000 images from diverse sources)."

Thanks to Ken Cheetham for pointing us to it. Here are some connections to explore.

Test your own photographs using the experimental procedure...   Here

An overview: Understanding and predicting image memorability at a large scale...   Here

The paper includes the parameters... (4.4MB PDF)  Here

The Atlantic Monthly: What makes unforgettable images so memorable?...   Here

From PetaPixel: This algorithm can tell how memorable a photo is...   Here

While we're here, you might find some of the other papers of interest...   Here

"Grave Stones cut in any of the Hands by John Baskervill"

This is the story of a not-terribly-scientific readability experiment conducted by Errol Morris in a column he wrote for the New York Times a few years ago. It's all about at very readable typeface-Baskerville-and the pursuits of its talented, quirky, complex designer, John Baskerville.

"Amongst the several mechanic Arts that have engaged my attention," Baskerville said, "There is no one I have pursued with so much steadiness and pleasure as that of Letter-Founding. Having been an early admirer of the beauty of Letters, I became insensibly desirous of contributing to the perfection of them. I formed to my self Ideas of greater accuracy than had yet appeared, and have endeavored to produce a Sett of Types according to what I conceived to be their true proportion."

Have you read any worthwhile articles on readability? If so, I welcome you to point us to them.

Hear, All Ye People; Hearken, O Earth (Part 1)...   Here

Hear, All Ye People; Hearken, O Earth (Part 2)...   Here

The original questionnaire...   Here

An article about the questionnaire: Can a font make us believe something is true?...   Here

One more...   Here

For typoholics

I thought this was interesting. Never saw it when it came out...

Creative Characters, The MyFonts interviews, Vol 1   Here

The next design challenge

Imagine approaching a retail display and, instead of searching your mobile device for information about included products, you could choose to receive information about it on that device, maybe get a coupon for it, via a "beacon" attached to the display.

That's what beacons and "the physical web" are about. Kinda.

It is fascinating and frustrating how often and how profoundly we must change what we design for each change in the marketing market. The first challenge is to keep up with what's happening. To that end, a multifaceted introduction to the physical web...

Scott Jenson: Building the Physical Web together...   Here

Jenson's blog...   Here

From PHY.net (a web-based tool used to manage Physical Web beacons): 2016: Could this be the year of the Physical Web?...   Here

From Google Developers: Beacons: A platform for marking up the world to make your apps and devices work smarter by providing timely, contextual information...   Here

From Apple Developers: iBeacon for Developers...   Here

Beacons and Physical Web Essentials by Kevin Benedict...   Here

From Terracoding: A Museum iBeacon Application...   Here

Illusion illustrations

Erik Johansson mixes reality with fantasy using tools and talent.

Example 1...   Here

Example 2...   Here

Example 3...   Here

A video analysis of the process...   Here

A big collection of resources for UX designers

As they describe it, "The most common methods and deliverables produced by UX Designers as they craft amazing experiences for other people. For each item on the list you'll see additional links with some of the best practices available in the industry."

UX Methods and Deliverables...   Here

UX Tools...   Here

UX Events...   Here

UX Books...   Here

Fabricio Teixeira's website...   Here

Caio Braga's website...   Here

Bruno Oyama's website...   Here