Gabe’s site has an all-new look, and I must say, it is pretty damn handsome.
Category: Design
Make Your Own Brushed Metal
Got a logo you like, but want to make way better? Add some Brushed Metal to it.
Here’s how to do it in Photoshop, courtesy of Brian Ashe:
- Filter –> Noise –> Add Noise: 100%, uniform, monochromatic
- Filter –> Blur –> Motion Blur: 30px
And, poof: it’s the early 2000s, all over again:
On QuickTime 4 and the Interface Hall of Shame ⇢
This is the best thing I’ve read on interface design in a while.
via the comments on TUAW’s post linking to my post here.
Google Glass Through History ⇢
The Hitchcock one is my favorite.
On Smartphone Widgets ⇢
HTC’s Drew Bamford, writing about the work that went in to Sense 4:
During our research, a few consistent patterns emerged:
-Most people don’t differentiate between apps and widgets.
-Widgets aren’t widely used – weather, clock and music are the most used and after that, fewer than 10% of customers use any other widgets.
-Most of you don’t modify your home screens much. In fact, after the first month of use, approximately 80% of you don’t change your home screens any more.
The Worst Apple Print Ads of All Time ⇢
Linus Edwards has complied a list of doozies.
A Skeuomorphic-Free iOS 7 ⇢
Rene Ritchie at iMore:
Skeuomorphism – the use of real world design in a digital context – has been a target lately. At the extreme, it’s held up as an example of iOS being boring, outdated, and bereft of innovation. In more reasonably terms, it’s looked at as something that can be useful, but has perhaps been overused. I’ve gone on record as saying I think there are far more important things Apple needs to do in iOS 7 than wiping the world clean of skeuomorphism, both here on the site and in a podcast rant. But let’s imagine for a moment it is on the agenda. That Apple’s new head of all design, hardware and software, Jony Ive, was set to impose a new, unified, Aluminium theme. That, just like the Scarlet Witch in House of M, he whispered “No more Skeuomorphs.”
So Much Aqua ⇢
Man, Mac OS X 10.0.3 sure was stripey.
Hartmut Esslinger’s Early Apple Designs ⇢
Hartmut Esslinger worked at frog design when the group was working with Apple in the 1980s. He’s opened up the vault to share some early Apple prototypes. There is pretty wild stuff in here.
Lukas Mathis, on iTunes 11 ⇢
On Ignore the Code:
You can’t make a complex application simple by adding a veneer of simplicity on top of it. in fact, that will just add to the confusion, because now you’re sending the user misleading signals about what’s really going on. Apple promised a «dramatically simplified new interface». They were right; the interface does look more simple. Unfortunately, this just makes the rest of iTunes all the much worse.
iMac mini ⇢
This is an impressive hardware mod.
Inside the new iMac ⇢
I’ve taken every single generation of iMac apart, and I can tell you, this thing is a very different beast inside.
Using glue to hold the LCD in place is lame, and I worry about how iMacs that have been taken apart several times will fare. That said, with just one fan (instead of the previous machine’s 3) and so many SSD options, the new machines have far fewer moving parts, which are always more prone to failure. That said, Apple’s choice to use laptop hard drives makes me sad.