Tag Archives: design

Reviews

The TRIX human-powered carving trike

From Gizmag:

“April 21, 2006 The first prize at the 10th International Bicycle Design Competition in Tapei is a rip-snorter. A brief look through our powered three-wheeler portfolio shows we love trikes and the carving concept of steering in particular. The TRIX uses rack and pinion steering to offer a carving-like experience to human-powered trikes, removing the utilitarian feel of the flat turning arc of a rigid frame and replacing it with pure fun without removing the intrinsic cargo-carrying benefit of the three-wheeler. The steering also means a tighter turning circle and significantly improved maneuverability as it can slalom between obstacles and lean into curves like a motorcycle. As it is ideally suited to negotiate narrow, or congested streets, TRIX is ideal for city centre life and can be adapted to transport goods or become a space-age rickshaw with a single, front-seated passenger…”

This is one cool bike! Here is the link.

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Thoughts

Chad's Design For Television (1960)

From A-HAA!: “Remember those matchbooks that said ‘Draw Me!’ on the front? They advertised a correspondence course called ‘Famous Artists’. Everyone made fun of ‘draw Binky the Skunk any size but the same size’ – but the truth of the matter was that the Famous Artists Course was no laughing matter – it was one of the best art instructional courses ever created…”

Read the entire post for some great background info on Chad Grothkopf, one of the great animators. Here is the link.

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Thoughts

The Lambretta Twist

Here is the link to a wonderful video from the 60s, advertising THE moped of the hour, called the Lambretta.

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Thoughts

Possible problems with the MacBook Pro?

Apparently there are problems with the new MacBook Pro, such as overheating, loud cooling fans and whining sounds from the CPU/circuits. It doesn’t happen in all of them, and people are pretty happy with the machines that are working fine. But this is something to watch out for, in particular if you are thinking of plunking down some hard-earned cash for it. To their credit, Apple is doing what they can to fix the defective machines. I suppose glitches are to be expected when one switches to a smaller form factor AND an entirely new CPU. Here is the link.

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Thoughts

Designed by Braggadocio

I do web design and development consulting in my free time. I always strive for quality and originality in my designs. It never fails to amaze me how people always fall for cheap, imitative designs, simply because they’re flashier.

These “web designers” promise more traffic, more exposure, better looks, more and better everything, and of course they don’t deliver on any of those things, except on the surface. Yes, the designs may be flashier, and buttons might move, or the top banner might be in Flash, and it might do something that’ll make the site owner go “Wow”, but that’s all empty. It doesn’t do anything for the site’s substance, nor does it do anything for the search engines, because the site hasn’t been properly coded for them. Or, they’ll design the site in Frontpage… The telltale signs are easy to spot: _vti files are everywhere, the page weight is large, and the graphics just aren’t that good. But people fall for this stuff!

It never fails to amaze me… It leaves me speechless, really. I compare the bragging with the product delivered, and I can see the wide gap between what’s been promised and actually created. Yet the site owners don’t see it. How can I make them see where the real value lies?

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