(really) entrepreneureal

I came across an amazing site today from designer Dustin Curtis.  It’s a personal look into his thoughts, life, and design work.  Part portfolio, part blog (even though he has a separate blog), part expose and manifesto, it’s an amazing work of art that kept me captivated for over an hour.  An hour.

An hour.

For someone firmly embedded in the Gen-Y I-have-a-2-second-attention-span mindset, that’s amazing.

The interesting part for me is that it highlighted the tension inherent to personal design sites: on the one hand, they need to showcase a designer’s personality, her work, her approach, and her success.  And sometimes the best way to do this is to act like everything but a portfolio site – lots of personal flavor, random musings, and beautiful (often non traditional) design elements. On the other hand, the site is generally supposed to generate awareness around the designer’s work, with the overall hope that this awareness (through cross linking, comments, forwarding, etc.) will eventually lead to paying work.

So it has to look like a duck and sound like a duck, but bark like a dog.  What gives?

I’ve noticed a trend of late in web design: a shift toward edgier, more unconvential navigation, with a distinct injection of humor, sarcasm, and playfulness.

Let’s take a look – first up is Neutron, a San Francisco branding firm:

OK, this is a branding firm (so we can expect it to be edgier), but in many ways Neutron is flouting the basic tenets of “good” web design: clear language that users expect (and understand), a standard columned layout – all of which make it clear what a user is supposed to do next (i.e. click here, scroll over this or whatever). It gets clearer when you mouse over the text, which is almost impossible not to do (and this is good):

Click on the link, and things start to look more normal.  Standard blocks of text, a more sectioned layout…

But look a little closer, and the quirkier side of the company starts to show through:

Note the non-standard language: “What is” instead of “About us”, “Where is” instead of “Contact us” (which is where we usually find the requisite google map), and best of all… Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday was the first time I voted in an election (ever).  Upon leaving the polling station I felt an overwhelming sense of pride, belonging and engagement that was entirely new to me.  Sure, I’ve felt pride before (watching my sister graduate highschool), belonging (every family reunion) and engagement (volunteering at the YMCA), but never on this scale.  I had a strange urge to run down the street shouting “Hooray for democracy!” (”and don’t forget to vote Obama..”).  Why, then, am I left feeling like elections in America are done all wrong?  That they are divisive, prolonged, and unecessarily difficult?

What would the perfectly designed election look like?

This is obviously a huge question – with an equally sprawling answer.  Where to start? In the run up to E-day we have to contend with a crazy campaign trail that seems to last years (which it does) and sucks millions our of our pockets.  Hell, it even takes up precious TV and Radio airtime, which you know probably pisses off a whole legion of couch surfers.  Then there’s the legislative system (not exactly an easy fix) and the electoral college; the media storm both prior and during the election, which can significantly affect electoral results…the list goes on and on and on.

Where to start, indeed.  Stay tuned for more as I gather my thoughts.