Tag: Design - Page 2 - UNDERDOG of PERFECTION

Dollar ReDe$ign Project

Sure, it’s true that I’m often perhaps too willing to disregard tradition and take things in a brand new direction without adequate regard for the past, but I for one am ready for a radical redesign of American currency.

I’m not extremely well-traveled, but I have been to Canada, Australia, and several countries in Europe — pre-Euro. So I’ve seen a reasonable assortment of international currency and ours is by far the stodgiest, most old-fashioned, and frankly, boring-as-hell. So much more could be done with our currency, in terms not only of creativity but of incorporating new high-tech means (or some not-so-new, since Australia’s been integrating clear plastic in its currency since at least when I visited there in 1995) of confounding counterfeiters.

Alas, the redesigns we’ve seen in the past 15 years or so have been conservative, timid, and way too reluctant to break with the past. But Richard Smith’s Dollar ReDe$ign Project hopes to change that… or at least to allow us to fantasize about a world where American currency is cool-looking.

I agree with Ministry of Type that the following designs, by Michael Tyznik, are among the best, and they’re something that I could actually see some country using on its currency. Too bad it probably won’t be ours. (Not that American presidents and landmarks would make sense on another country’s bills, but you get my point.)

Upon closer examination, I also like how the designer has eliminated the $1 bill, replaced it with a $200 denomination, and bumped each president (or statesman) up a notch (Washington on the $5, Lincoln on the $10, etc.)… with the exception of Benjamin Franklin, who, in deference to P. Diddy, must remain associated with the $100 bill.

Grant leapfrogs from the $50 to the $200. Wait… he’s on the $50 now, right? I don’t see a lot of currency these days, and rarely anything larger than what’s dispensed by an ATM. Oh, and I see Hamilton has been replaced by Jefferson for the new $20. A debatable decision, but at least it’s not Aaron Burr.

There’s also a nice civics lesson, in the form of the Bill of Rights, written on the backs of the notes.

Cool wedding design

I’ve never really thought anything about weddings was “cool.” Sure, our wedding was fun… at least the reception was, especially the 6-piece jazz combo. That was the part I insisted on (and I sat in with them, demonstrating that I had reached the limit of my abilities as a saxophonist).

But “cool?” Well, no, not really.

Then I saw the invitations (and everything else) from Cabel Sasser’s wedding.

I was already impressed with Cabel just for the greatness that is Transmit. Plus, when I lose my registration code (which seems to happen always), the message I get back from Panic at least appears to be sent personally by Cabel himself. Nice touch.

Anyway, back to the wedding. I consider myself a creative person (after all, it is my job, at least to some extent!) but I don’t think in a million years I’d have come up with something this creative and, well, cool for wedding invitations. Then again, maybe if we hadn’t gotten married straight out of college we’d have had more time to come up with something. Still, this would be hard to top. I love the invitations. The combination of the techie pixel-style art and the tactile, “old world” feel of the letterpress printing is brilliant.

Bleeding-edge web design, circa 1994

A recently-departed (as in left for another company) coworker stopped by my desk on his last day to drop off a backup CD I had burned back in 2001. Today I popped it into the drive to see what curiosities lurked within. I was delighted to discover one of my trademark “Miscellany” folders, with a bunch of random stuff in it. Unquestionably the most interesting artifact was a screenshot of Microsoft’s website, as it appeared in 1994.

I’m simply at a loss to explain this design. Clearly ~~many~~ ~~most~~ all web designs from that early need to be cut a little slack, and I doubt any of them have truly aged well. But even through that lens, this site is inexplicably hideous.

I’m certainly not the first person to look back in time and mock this design, of course. But “usability guru” Jakob Nielsen used it in an article he wrote back at the time, and it’s still lingering on his site with a new introduction written in 1997. (Frighteningly enough, if the conclusion I draw from my brief perusal of the ~~long and boring~~ highly usable article is correct, he’s actually praising this design.) Personally I think Nielsen’s views are overrated, and that if he really knew as much about usability as he is supposed to, his website would look a lot different (and he’d also realize he no longer needs to cater to the bandwidth limitations of those running 28.8 kbps modems — but I digress; besides, these guys rip into him much better than I care to). But it’s still an interesting look back in time.

New site design (partially) implemented

My guilt over slighting those regrettably still stuck using Internet Explorer 6 finally got the best of me, and I decided to do a new site design that doesn’t completely break down in that (outdated) browser.

Well, that’s not really the reason I did it. I wanted to take a new approach that allows for more customization of the presentation in different sections of the site. But I made it IE6-friendly while I was at it. The new design is based on another color scheme called “Salamander” that I found at Kuler. (Sorry, I’d link right to the specific color palette but, guess what, it’s Flash. Boo.)

It’s not finished yet, but I wanted to put the necessary pressure on myself to keep working on it until it’s completely done. So now that it’s far enough along to be presentable to the public, I’m rolling it out.

Most of the cool site-specific graphical headers are still missing, so it’s falling back to a generic presentation with a nice garish green band at the top. Certain other fine details are also still missing in the CSS, but I’m getting there.

Eventually there will be more dramatic changes to the page structure: the home page will be more of a “portal” than just a dump of the most recent blog posts; different sections of the site will have different content in the sidebar, etc. But this is a start.

New t-shirt design: 1974

I’ve just added a new t-shirt design to my Born in 1974 shop on CafePress. This new design pays tribute — in a suitably retro cheesy style — to the glorious year of my birth.

And while you’re there (since I know you’re on your way at this very moment to buy one), don’t forget my other retro-ish designs, Seven Days without Pizza Makes One Weak and Old Old School (featuring a truly “old school” media format).

Checking Wikipedia, I discovered some celebrity birthdays of note: I was born a week after Jenna Fischer (Pam from The Office) and 11 days before Lark Voorhees (Lisa from Saved by the Bell.) I’m also within a month or two of Kate Moss, Tiffani Thiessen (another Saved by the Bell alumna), Christian Bale, Seth Green, James Blunt, Mark-Paul Gosselaar (more Saved by the Bell), Jenna Jameson, Da Brat, Victoria “Posh Spice” Beckham, Penélope Cruz, Jewel, Alanis Morissette and Derek Jeter. And that’s just in the first half of the year.

Sheesh. And my greatest claim to fame is the freakin’ Chewbacca thing.