Ten principles of good design:

• Is innovative - The possibilities for innovation are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for innovative design. But innovative design always develops in tandem with innovative technology, and can never be an end in itself.

• Makes a product useful - A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional, but also psychological and aesthetic. Good design emphasizes the usefulness of a product whilst disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.

• Is aesthetic - The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products are used every day and have an effect on people and their well-being. Only well-executed objects can be beautiful.

• Makes a product understandable - It clarifies the product’s structure. Better still, it can make the product clearly express its function by making use of the user’s intuition. At best, it is self-explanatory.

• Is unobtrusive - Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user’s self-expression.

• Is honest - It does not make a product more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept.

• Is long-lasting - It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable design, it lasts many years – even in today’s throwaway society.

• Is thorough down to the last detail - Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the consumer.

• Is environmentally friendly - Design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment. It conserves resources and minimizes physical and visual pollution throughout the lifecycle of the product.

• Is as little design as possible - Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.

These are nicely presented on Vitsoe

I used to love Tumblr. .

now it won’t paste a simple photo + tag line.

I’m bored…

Time to revisit Wordpress and maybe Posterous??????

Adobe CS3  was quite sweet, got the job done

But… CS4 is sooooooo sloooow…

What do I do now???

Is it just me?? I thouht an upgrade would make things better… surely this can’t be called an upgrade if it’s so slow??

HELLO Adobe??? anyone home?? do you like getting the dozen os so bug reports I send - EVERY DAY????????

Just found this.

It reminds me of the typefounders books I used to use to cast off type before sending it to a typesetters (and crossing my fingers that the typesetting would come back as I expected from my markup). Wow! is seems ridiculous now, that typographers used to do this… I’m sure hard core book typographers still know how to do it. 

The things we used to do before Desktop Computers came along!!!

I’m coming over all nostalgic. (Although I don’t want to go back there).

this post has now been reworded, it is now a bit more balanced… good job!