Things like this Flickr set make me feel pressure to have gorgeous creative notebooks. I feel like if I don’t, then I’ve somehow failed, or I’m not doing it right.

A while back though, I gave myself permission to use my notebooks for “junk.” Not for finished art. Not to frame. Not to brag about. But to really quickly get ideas out of my head, and thought through in a visual way.

My notebooks aren’t going to be in a museum 500 years from now like DaVinci, and that’s ok. My brain kicks out lots of ideas and 90% of them are bad. I use notebooks to record and sort those ideas, most of which aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.

Giving myself permission to treat a notebook like a tool, not something precious, has been a good thing in my life. Do you have self conscious thoughts like this that keep you from being more productive?

Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there, and isn’t vital. It might not seem important to everyone, but background information is the core of every single project we work on. I found this out recently when I was trying to be articulate during a project… it turns out it didn’t matter how eloquent I was; I didn’t 100% grasp what we were doing. I could have said the same thing eight different ways and it still wouldn’t have made sense. The biggest communication barrier was that I didn’t even know I was missing information. But then someone connected those dots, filled me in.

It was my missing link.

Suddenly I was able to put the pieces together, and it made all the difference. So next time you find yourself in that situation- either you or with a co-worker- it might help to take a second and make sure everyone’s on the same page… and essentially working toward the same goal.

I’m ashamed to say I wasted a lot of my formative years learning Actionscript, keyframe animating, and some BS catchphrase called R.I.A. design.

I bought the Macromedia pitch pretty wholeheartedly. While Zeldman was preaching standards, I was still obsessed with the idea that the internet would turn into something like an interactive television.

I still think it might, eventually, but we’re further away from that now than ever. I’m glad the industry caught its breath, and a dose of sanity about interface design, but I miss “motion design.”

Flash became aggressive when Adobe took it over. Like PDF before it, Flash turned away from being a simple content delivery platform, and started to turn into a market cornering “business development initiative.”

Creative people, myself included, want things easy. We want to be enabled to do things quicker and better. We are often willing to trade freedom for productivity, and the enabling of creativity.

I wasn’t one of the first to start feeling the handcuffs Flash was putting on us, but I felt them just the same. It’s too bad. I bet I’m not the only one who remembers how Flash used to feel. How empowering it was to play with animated interactivity. To create immersive interaction beyond the page refresh and “submit” button.

Today we’re starting to get interactive animation in the form of javascript libraries. It’s really great, and it’s better for the future- but its not the same. Adobe, you missed the boat… So much excitement around a platform, and now the only time Flash comes up seriously in a conversation its about video,  spinning logos, or why it crashed.

We go so far out of our way these days to avoid Flash, the other day we were talking about how the animated gif ought to be used more.

That technology dates back to the early 90’s.

(Client’s name,)

You’ve probably heard us mention Jumpchart in bits of our conversations- here’s a little more information on it as we move forward.

When putting together your website, there are certain steps we take as a studio to make sure we give you the best finished product possible. The first step is figuring out what order your site’s pages will go in, and what content will go on which pages. The next steps include designing and programming. Jumpchart is an online tool we use specifically for the first step of this process.

It gives us visual access to what the site will look like from a navigational and content point of view. We understand it can be a little tricky to imagine your site without design incorporated, but Jumpchart helps us optimize the layout and content of your site: the backbone. It gives us a really solid foundation to build on.

Here’s what will happen: You’ll receive an invitation to the Jumpchart we created for your site. When you accept the invitation you’ll be able to see progress we’ve made, as well as make your own suggestions in the comments section. You can even edit content on the actual pages. It’s like a meeting room between us- but we don’t all have to be there at the same time!

If you have questions, please let us know- we’re all about collaboration and communication.

Thanks!

I really like Wes Anderson films for all sort of reasons I can’t quite describe. But scenes like this go a long way towards explaining it.

“Apple would prefer not to do this,” McQuivey continued. “But it just doesn’t have the leverage it once did. Apple can’t dictate terms or position itself as a digital savior.”

Read the entire Media Maverick story here.

If you manage to make it to the bottom of the article, you’ll be rewarded with this gem: “By pioneering (the apps), Apple is stuck doing what’s right for consumers.”

(head explodes…)

“Old-school Usability espouses the idea that user activities are onerous tasks that they want to get out of the way as soon as possible. While this is true in some cases, usability is now widely understood to be more of a hygiene factor – something that can cause dissatisfaction if missing, but its presence cannot take you beyond lack of dissatisfaction.” - 90percentofeverything.com

The story about how Betty Crocker made their product more complicated in order to make it more interactive, and emotional. Really great stuff.

via Swis Miss

-Jef Raskin

Well how are we supposed to do our jobs if we’re not at the flippin’ monitor? If your work day is anything like mine- everything takes place at the computer, leaving you few options. On that same note, our team works remote a lot of the time, so in order to communicate effectively, we need to be available… via e-mail, chat or Skype. That doesn’t leave much time for me to escape to the gym.

Turns out you don’t have to do that much exercise to tip the scale in your favor, according to this other Newser.com article.

“Some studies say exercise in any dose has little effect on risk of disease, depression, and premature death; others say only very rigorous exercise helps; others say even a walk a few times a week reduces the risk of early death. But what scientists do agree on is that the biggest difference is between no exercise and a little exercise: Moderate activity benefits the sedentary more than a stepped-up workout benefits the athletic.”

It can be difficult to tear yourself away from those beautiful cascading style sheets, or reordering the nav on your newest app’s interface (or in my case, writing about those things), but if you’re not there to finish/maintain your project, what then? Try to take a few minutes each day to get up, take a stroll down the hall to talk to a buddy, wander around the office while you’re on the phone, or walk the couple blocks to lunch instead of driving or cabbing it.

If your job literally requires you to chained to a chair during the day, here are some things I do before and after the usual workday hours to compensate.

• Get up 15 minutes earlier than usual and stretch. It gets your blood pumping and loosens your muscles.

• Go for a morning walk/jog around the block, down to the corner newsstand for the paper, or down to the mailbox. Nothing strenuous. Take the dog. He’ll love it.

• Take the stairs up to the office instead of the elevator. Do it.

• Have gym clothes with you at all times so you can take any opportunity to workout that presents itself.

• Realize that 15 minutes of exercise is better than nothing at all. Even if it’s crunches in your living room during the commercials of your favorite T.V. show.

• Do what you can with the attention span given to you… but these days it’s nearly impossible to get bored while exercising. You have your iPod, possibly a workout buddy, a million televisions stationed around most gyms, and the best form of entertainment of all: people watching. This can also be a good time to let your imagination run wild.

The results of your minor efforts could be… well… dramatic.