Interface Inspiration from 37signals on Vimeo.

These dudes are so brilliant it really grates my cheddar. I can’t wait to look for my own interface inspiration in real world objects. I wish more web designers would do things like this, I’m bored by the huge portions of the web that are just remixes of the same tired layouts.

Via Signal Vs. Noise.

Big internet day for me today! Our house is on Design*Sponge! What a fun collaboration this was, Angela Finney-Hoffman (my Post 27 partner in crime) came over to help up hang some of the art and do some organizing and styling. And then our incredibly talented camera-head friends, Brian Guido & Julia Stotz took the pictures. I’m seriously pinching myself, I never thought our things could look so good. Also major high fives to Anne Stark Ditmeyer from Pret a Voyager & Design*Sponge for having us. Thanks, thanks, thanks. friends!!

Here’s some outtakes and some photos D*S didn’t publish, including one stereo & vinyl collection which is a particular favorite of mine.
 

Vintage magazine organizers, endearingly named after countries. Always make me ponder their previous & worldly life before they held our magazines. The little figurine buddy hanging out on the edge of the photo is by Friends with You. Instead of installing curtains or using the standard mini-blinds, we covered these bay windows with semi-transparent fabric. It’s adhered right to the glass with straight liquid starch (Sta-Flo). We rent so this will come off with a sponge & water once it’s time to move. 

Vinyl collection is almost exclusively inherited from our parents & grandparents. Runs a wide gamut from musicals, barbershop & oldies, jazz, disco, to more modern folk and electronica. Plays on a mint-condition 80′s Technics turntable with round speakers, also vintage. The speakers are unfortunately more style than substance and this shows in the quality of sound. I love how unique they are though so maybe we’ll one day get to commission a modern remix on them (sorry, couldn’t resist the pun!).

Make sure you hit up the whole tour on Design*Sponge for the full rundown on the rest of the space!

Unplanned blog hiatus; so lame I know. Does writer’s block ever announce its arrival? Or perhaps it was a social media hangover from last week’s Pinterest debates. Regardless, it’s passed finally. It was these album covers that jostled me out of the funk, discovered after spending several hours internetting researching today. I’ve posted similar Jazz album artwork before, but I may even like these classical covers more. Why precisely they grab me so, I don’t even know, just feels like running into an old friend. Plus, I have a hard time believing there’s any chance the music inside could disappoint. More on Symphonie Fantastique, the same folks who run Project Thirty-Three, which is also well worth the visit for more like this. Via But Does It Float.

I didn’t think Pinterest was for me until one of my oldest friends, one who knows me better than almost anybody, called me out for not using it. As in, you’re crazy for not taking advantage of this resource…

That was six weeks ago and already it’s grown my traffic by a measurable amount (thanks, analytics). Better still, Pinterest – currently one of the fastest growing sites in the world – ranks as my #3 traffic source, right after organic google searches and direct visits. Pinterest is also ad-free at the moment, though there is the occasional and unintrusive sponsored/for sale pin. On Pinterest, there isn’t obsessive self-broadcasting and self-documentation; it’s just about curating and collecting cool stuff. The tone is more “isn’t this awesome?” rather than “look what I had for lunch.”

My friend, she was right.

Yet, I can’t unplug my brain from the rest of the negativity surrounding Pinterest. Snide pie charts mocking women who use Pinterest, wisecracks and reassertions against Pinterest are regularly cropping up in my feeds, and tech analysts and the media (Reuters + AOL, MSN Money) sure as heck don’t know what to make of the women flocking to this tool. And, as we know about online culture, these types of things can easily trigger and rapidly escalate to a place that is counterproductive. I’ve been watching this unravel, doing nothing with the hope it will blow over. I’m not doing nothing now.

Scoping out Pinterest’s home page, I totally understand the backlash. The topic is the day’s most popular content, pulled out of the context of that user’s particular stream. There’s no theme or structure otherwise. Individually, they aren’t inherently bothersome and most likely represent only a fraction of a user’s tastes. But put them together and collectively they are a hot mess of confusion, which doesn’t reflect the real experience of actually using the site, nor the amount of depth it offers. Instead it reads like a Barbie doll or a Cathy comic: exaggerated, out of proportion, and not indicative of reality. This makes it all too easy for the casual visitor to swiftly make their exit without need of return. Ew, indeed.

Still, every social network has its turn-offs. None is perfect; all have flaws and breakages. But it’s as though Pinterest must be bulletproof in order for it to be taken seriously. Which is silly. If any start-up waited until they were fully formed to launch and build users, there wouldn’t be any of them! That’s simply not how start-up culture works.

All of this boils down to the core idea that the site is somehow less worthwhile because women got to it first. It’s as if Pinterest needs a tagline: “No, really, it’s NOT just for women!” This conversation wouldn’t be happening if Pinterest’s early adopters were dudes, no doubt. Who knows if it would even still exist if Ben Silbermann & his team hadn’t decided to offer the first batch of invites to female design bloggers. Yet, he did and – stop the presses – it’s a big stinking deal because it’s never occurred to the world that a group of women can be early adopters of a technology. And as history tells us, women-folk bucking trends always seems to ruffle feathers.

Sure, Pinterest is dominated by women’s interests right now. Who says the site can’t grow and change? Who says there aren’t some open-minded guys out there who are willing to wade past the make-up tutorials and cupcake food porn to balance the playing field? Curating and sharing content is clearly not a behavior that will go away anytime soon, who knows, maybe Pinterest will fade into the background as similar sites like Gimme Bar and Dropmark emerge. (Both are still in beta, which means they are exclusive, still developing features, and can’t even begin to touch Pinterest’s growth yet.)

I don’t even really care how it plays out, I just don’t want it to be segregated and I don’t want to feel like I have to justify using a tool that is so obviously working for me & many others. Use it or don’t use it, but ragging on what doesn’t work for you is pretty declassé if you ask me. Capisce? Good. Now, how’s about we get back to getting inspired, making stuff, and sharing stuff shall we?

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Like the eye candy? Well, there’s plenty more, I don’t think I need to tell you where. #1 is Tangerine Dream by Jim Lambie, pinned by Chloé Douglas of Plenty of Color, #2 is a vintage tattoo, pinned by My Love For You, #3 is vintage buttons pinned by Christen Carter.

Thanks to Elizabeth Giorgi at The Mary Sue for inspiring this and supplying many of the sources. And also to Kate Singleton for directing my attention to this in the first place. Hugs + high fives, sisters.

I’m not sure I have much in the way of the freshest content today, still ruminating about Alt, I suppose…Just trying to think of ideas on what else I can bring to the table with my content…What else to make, do, think. The choices are as wide as the horizon, but aren’t in focus quite yet. Barbara & Michael Leisgen’s Mimesis series of feels about right today then. Dreamy, 1970′s analog photos with just the right amount of whimsy.

Via Today & Tomorrow.

BACK! Did you miss me? I missed you terribly, but I have to say I am glad for the break. Never before have I had such little interest in committing content to the web. I just couldn’t seem to find a way through all my crap and stress to contribute something useful to the fray, something that didn’t seem like thought shrapnel. And apparently an absence for the better part of two weeks makes it feel like I have to start all over again too. That’s okay though. Starting comes easily to me.

In the meantime, between working 12-14 hours a day at an agency, managing my own clients, dealing with a dead (if only temporarily) computer, I also had a show at Post 27! I barely talked about this event, my biggest regret of this whole holidaze-craze season. I was so wrapped up in making the work that I just didn’t have it in me. I needn’t have worried though, to my shock and awe, because it was a success! We sold over half the work, which has never happened to me before!

Heaps of gratitude to Veronica Corzo-Duchardt & Post 27, the other two-thirds of this show. Without Veronica’s Neche Collection test prints, screenprinted notepads & tags, or Angela’s usual furniture & display skills this would not have come together. Together we all got to craft office of our dreams, even if it just existed for one night.