Design

Google, but for colors

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This is an interesting idea. Still early days, but I do see some potential here.

Jump to the site and type in a word or phrase. Picular will return with a palette of colors, each with the specific hex code of that color.

If you click on the color’s hex code, that code will be copied to the clipboard. If you hover over the image mini-icon (bottom right corner of a color), you’ll see the image from which that color was picked.

The results are uneven. For example, type grape and you’ll see see an orange color that was clearly not from the grapes in the image, but from a stem in the background.

But that aside, I do see some upside here. Very interesting idea.

Vector icon speed runs, an incredible resource

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Marc Edwards continues to add to his library of vector speed runs. He mostly works in Illustrator, but the techniques translate into most object drawing applications. Bookmark and pass along.

Here’s a link to an Imgur album with the complete set of images. Be sure to tap the load more images button at the bottom of the page to see them all.

Stephen Hackett publishes extensive screenshot library of every Mac OS since the Mac OS X Public Beta

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Stephen Hackett, 512 Pixels:

These images came from the OS, running on actual hardware; I didn’t use virtual machines at any point. I ran up to 10.2 on an original Power Mac G4, while a Mirror Drive Doors G4 took care of 10.3, 10.4 and 10.5. I used a 2010 Mac mini for Snow Leopard and Lion, then a couple different 15-inch Retina MacBook Pros to round out the rest.

This is simply remarkable work. Here’s a link to the screenshot library home page.

One vivid memory this brings to mind: I was working at Metrowerks, makers of CodeWarrior, and I had the chance to play with the first beta of Mac OS X. It was jarringly different. Finder windows used this multi-column browser approach, very different from the disclosure triangle, single-column of the original Finder. The colors were different, the window controls were skeuomorphic, had depth to them.

To be honest, I thought the beta was ugly. But over time, I got used to the change, and grew to love the power, functionality, and especially, the accessible Unix underpinnings of the new Mac OS.

Remarkable stepping through all these screenshots, watching macOS subtly evolve over time.

The little things

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Reddit user ltethe:

I’ve been a dedicated Mac guy for… I don’t know… Near 30 years? But lately I’ve pooh poohed some of the latest Mac features…

Haptic feedback, touch ID, Touch Bar…

It’ll take me a few years, but inevitably, I’ll get a new model Apple product, and the new tech is bundled in… And… Those features turn out to be waaaaaayyy cooler than I thought.

Interesting read, especially regarding Touch Bar. One of the things I love about Apple’s design sense is the thought that goes into each element. It’s delightful when a new feature shaves a bit of time off something I do on a regular basis.

For me, a perfect example of this is my Apple Watch unlocking my Mac. This sort of thing is Apple at their best.

Good little writeup. Heartfelt.

An entomologist rates all the ant emoji

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This turned out to be fascinating. A bunch of company-specific ant emoji, all critiqued and rated.

Gonna share three with you:

  • Apple: Beautiful big almond eye, realistic and full of expression as she gazes gently at you. Elbowed antennae and delicately segmented legs and body. Gorgeous pearlescent sheen like she is glowing. This ant moisturizes. This ant is round and huggable. This ant is a star. 11/10.

  • Samsung: This ant has an unexplained, double-jointed thorax, and no evidence of a waist. Her four-footed pose suggests that she a centaur rather than an ant. Centaur ants would be cool. I’m not sure what was intended here. 2/10.

  • Twitter: Were you even trying. 0/10

Follow the link to see the reviews in place with the emoji images. Great!

Glass phones are about to get really, really cool

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Karissa Bell, Mashable:

During a press event at the company’s Sunnyvale, Calif. facility Wednesday, the company showed off new designs that add realistic textures to its glass. It’s called “Vibrant” Gorilla Glass, and it was first introduced in 2016 with the promise that phone makers could print high resolution images directly onto it.

But its latest prototypes take the concept to the next level. The technique combines the printed images with etched glass that’s designed to mimic the feel of different textures, such as wood, rock, polished marble, or even snakeskin. The result is glass that doesn’t look or feel anything like glass.

This is pretty cool stuff. Not clear if Apple will adopt this new glass, but I imagine the design team is hard at work experimenting with it.

Here’s a link to Corning’s Vibrant Gorilla Glass product page.

More on Apple’s AirPods World Cup branding coup

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The video embedded in this tweet shows the Brazilian soccer team on their journey, last month, to get to the World Cup. As you watch the video, keep your eye out for AirPods. They won’t be hard to spot, which is the point.

https://twitter.com/CBF_Futebol/status/1002901686141243392

There are many examples of this, no matter what team you follow. And, as I pointed out in this post, this is one of the few times that the inability to show a product logo (all logos from non-World Cup sponsors must be covered up) makes no difference at all to that product’s recognizability.

A real branding coup. [H/T Matt Abras]

The winner of the World Cup is Apple

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Mike Murphy, Quartz:

FIFA has pretty strict rules around what it calls “ambush marketing,” where a brand pays players to wear or use its products before or during World Cup games, even though that company has not paid to be an official World Cup sponsor. It’s why any player you see wearing Beats headphones before a game, for example, has the company’s logo taped over.

Apple is not a World Cup sponsor, so no Apple logos on any player gear. But check out all the photos. Even without a logo, there’s no mistaking those AirPods. Apple’s design work here is so distinctive, no logo is needed.

Jony Ive’s favorite color is orange

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[VIDEO] Before I watched this video (embedded in the main Loop post), I was skeptical, could only think of a few cases of orange used in a modern Apple product design. But wow, there really is a lot of it.

How Apple can fix 3D Touch

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Eliz Kılıç:

3D Touch is missing the most obvious thing to be mainstream. Visual cues.

This. So much this. There is nothing in the interface that signals to a user that a particular element will respond to force/3D touch. The only way to tell is by trial and error. And then, once you’ve figured it out, you have to remember what works, or trail and error all over again.

And what’s great about this writeup is that Eliz not only identified the problem, but came up with an elegant solution. Check the last three images in the article, see if you can tell which controls are force touchable?

Eliz tied this up with a bow, handed it to Apple. Here’s hoping someone is listening.

Peter Cohen: Apple, the iMac, and whimsy

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Peter Cohen:

The iMac debuted 20 years ago this week. It’s not hyperbole to say that it’s the computer that saved Apple and set the stage for Apple’s ascendance to becoming the biggest tech company in the world. All that said, Apple’s lost something in the translation – while the iMac is still a fixture in Apple’s product line, it lacks some essential qualities of that first model. Its personality has changed. The iMac has gotten harder. It’s lost the sense of whimsy, fun, and wonder that made the first iMac such a joy to use.

This is an interesting point. In my mind, it’s very difficult for a company to grow to massive size and maintain the joie de vivre of their smaller self.

I hope that Apple finds an opportunity to go full circle with the Mac yet again. It probably won’t be the iMac, but I hope that some future Apple device, whether it’s a phone, tablet, laptop or desktop machine, or some hitherto unimagined gadget, regains that sense of whimsy and wonder we’ve seen before. Something to help us emotionally connect with it and that essential Apple user experience in a way that’s different, and less invisible, than how we do today.

Part of the issue is growth but, as Peter points out, part is the focus on minimalism, ascetic design. Will that pendulum ever swing back to bright colors, skeuomorphism? I kind of miss that.

The original iPhone and an oral history of Iron Man’s original heads-up-display

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The original Iron Man still ranks among my all-time favorite Marvel movies (especially the lead up to the in-cave creation of that first prototype suit). If you are a fan, this oral history is an enjoyable read.

But this one bit is especially interesting for Apple folk:

Kent Seki (visualisation/HUD effects supervisor): There were many rules and driving philosophies we established along the way that led us to the final product. I remember in an early discussion in post-production with Jon Favreau. He pulled out his iPhone, which was a new thing at the time. He said, ‘I don’t want to tell you a specific graphic to make for the HUD, but I want it to feel intuitive like my iPhone.’

And:

Dav Rauch (HUD design supervisor): The iPhone had just come out like literally a week or two before the meeting with Jon – and I got an iPhone and Favreau had gotten an iPhone. When I was down there we kind of geeked out on our iPhones, and we were talking about what we liked about the iPhone because he was really inspired by it. He was like, ‘What I love about this thing is it just kind of does what it should do, and it kind of does what I want it to do and it’s very intuitive and it’s very simple.’ We opened it up and I was looking at the transitions in an iPhone. I’m like, ‘These transitions are so simple and they’re just like zooming transitions, or wipe transitions. There’s nothing fancy about this phone, but what’s fancy about this phone is that it works and it works really well.’

Good design is a virus.

[Via Apple Insider]

New typeface with embedded braille, aiming for Tokyo Olympics

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Kosuke Takahashi:

Currently, we rarely see braille implemented in the public space since it takes additional space and sighted people consider it not important. Braille Neue addresses this issue by making braille easy to use for sighted people. By spreading this typeset I believe more people will get acquainted with braille.

I love the concept and the execution. Follow the link, check out the font images. Not the first time this idea has surfaced, but if this becomes part of the Summer Olympic Games official signage, it will get a lot of exposure.

Wikipedia adds major page feature: Link previews

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If you have a Mac or PC, open your browser and head over to a Wikipedia page, like this one on the Mona Lisa.

Hover over a link and you should see a brand new behavior. Instead of a tool tip (a tiny snippet of text), you should see a fairly substantial preview of the linked page. This is a huge improvement.

From Wikimedia:

This seemingly cosmetic change may seem far from revolutionary, but has been built through careful and vigorous A/B testing; scaling APIs to Wikipedia levels of traffic and a change to how we build our code (blog post to follow). Our testing shows that the feature makes it easier and more efficient for Wikipedia readers to interact with our content and get more context about a topic on Wikipedia.

And:

The goal of page previews was to decrease the cost of exploration for each blue link you come across, allowing readers to satisfy their curiosity or clarify a confusing or unknown topic without the burden of opening a new page and navigating back to the original.

More reading on this change: How we designed page previews for Wikipedia — and what could be done with them in the future.

A few stats from that last article:

  • Nearly ~28 percent of Wikipedia’s traffic comes from clicking on internal blue links. a.k.a going down the rabbit hole
  • Blue links account for ~230 million page views per month
  • ~2 million links get hovered per minute across all Wikipedias

I love Wikipedia, I think this is a wonderful move. Note that if you don’t see the previews, check to see if you are logged in. If so, head over to Preferences > Appearance and click Enable in the Page Previews section.

New iPad and Apple Pencil in hand. Now what?

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I just got a new iPad and Apple Pencil.

First things first, the new 9.7″ iPad (AKA, the education iPad, or the sixth-generation iPad) is terrific. If you are moving from a previous 9.7″ iPad, there’s nothing but plusses here. A brilliant screen, faster processor and, best of all, Apple Pencil support.

As you might expect, the first thing I wanted to do was make some pretty pictures, put the Apple Pencil through its paces. I played a bit with Apple’s built-in apps, and was able to use the Apple Pencil as a pointer in all the ones I tried, and for simple drawing (freehand line drawing using Markup) in some. But nothing really scratched that artistic itch, though Notes came the closest.

So I turned to Serenity Caldwell, iMore’s artist-in-residence. Pop over to the main Loop post for a bunch of useful links.

Interactive map shows history of San Francisco place names

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The linked map is interesting, both for the specifics on San Francisco’s history, and for the interface itself. I’d love to see this concept spread to other cities.

To use the map, zoom in, then tap/click on any highlighted road or feature. Nicely done.

[H/T Eric Vitiello]

Naomi Campbell interviews Jony Ive

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This British Vogue interview starts slow, with some pretty softball questions, but does ease down an engrossing path, especially so if you are interested in design.

Two callouts. This first, on designer Azzedine Alaïa:

He was the consummate craftsman. I loved the physical studio in which he worked, I loved the way, and how directly, he worked – his process. I was in utter awe watching him, and I loved that he let me watch. I thought that was so generous. It was incredible to see the way that he understood material, and the way he would be frustrated with material and so create new ones. And then these beautiful forms would emerge.

And this, from the very end, on hiring a new team member:

The main thing is how they see the world. Ultimately, Steve’s legacy is a set of values and, I think, the belief in trying. Often the quietest voices are the easiest to overlook, but he was brilliant at lis-ten-ing as well as leading and speaking. A lot of com-munication is listening – not just lis-ten-ing to figure out what you want to say in response.

Good read.

The tragic story behind the man who helped create Tetris

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Damien McFerran, Nintendo Life:

Chances are, you know the name Alexey Pajitnov. Arguably the most famous game designer to come out of Russia, he gave the world Tetris, which is regularly referred to as one of the greatest video games of all time.

However, the name Vladimir Pokhilko might be less familiar – despite the fact that he is often credited as co-creating the game alongside Pajitnov, and would later work with him on other video games. While Pajitnov continues to live off the fame of his most famous creation, Pokhilko has faded into history.

A quick read, well worth your time if you are interested in the history of video games. Tragic indeed.

It’s time for a complete Home App makeover

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John Voorhees, MacStories:

Home is both too complex because of the way it splits things into rooms, zones, groups, scenes, and automations and too simple because it lacks features like robust state awareness and, in some places, timers. However, the problems with the Home app run even deeper. They are compounded by a generic UI and complex navigation.

Read John’s post to really get a sense of his point. Or just spend some time trying to edit the HomePod’s now playing queue.

All this said, it is early days still, both for HomeKit and HomePod. Even though HomeKit dates back to iOS 8 (a bit more than two years ago), I see it as still early in the adoption cycle, still in its infancy. As more and more people start using HomeKit compatible gear, the use cases are becoming better defined.

John makes the case that it is time for Apple to re-roll the interface.

Apple puts up gorgeous, animated WWDC graphic

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Take a look, on the highest resolution screen you have. Beautiful work.

What’s it all mean? Are there clues in this art? The most common thing I’ve heard (and what sprang to mind for me, instantly) is a design language for Augmented Reality.

This from John Gruber:

Now, if we want to play Cupertino-ology, does the graphic offer any hints about planned announcements (like, say, a unified cross-platform set of UI frameworks for Mac and iOS) or it just a cool graphic?

That’s an interesting take.

Gorgeous virtual, spinning view of Canada’s vertical $10 note

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UPDATE: As pointed out in the comments, click/tap the Spin button 20 times for a throwback surprise. AWESOME!!!!

This is incredible. Gorgeous. So very much worth your time.

The design of the bill is top notch. And the web page implementation does it justice.

Funny to see such detail exposed to the public in this way. Contrasts with the river of rules that limit how money is shown in the US.

The woman on the new $10 note is Viola Desmond. From the Bank of Canada press release:

Viola Desmond was selected for the new $10 bank note by Minister Morneau following an open call to Canadians to nominate an iconic Canadian woman for the next redesigned bank note. A successful Black Nova Scotian businesswoman, Viola Desmond defiantly refused to leave a whites-only area of a movie theatre in 1946 and was subsequently jailed, convicted and fined. Her court case is one of the first known legal challenges against racial segregation brought forth by a Black woman in Canada.

I love the choice of Viola Desmond, and I love the vertical design.

[Via Snaggy]

Have a look at 157 new emoji, coming this year, and a Super Villain issue

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[VIDEO] Enjoy the run through of the new emoji.

One thing that I did find puzzling about this video (embedded in main Loop post): About 30 seconds in, you’ll see emoji for Super Villains and Super Heroes. The difference? Super Villains wear pink and purple. Super Heroes wear red and blue.

Not crazy about this path. Associating specific colors with good and evil is, to me, the first step down a bad road. Maybe make the Super Villains distinctive in some other way?

To be clear, these were mockups crafted by Emojipedia, not from Apple, so hopefully the final Apple versions will follow a different path.

Apple’s emoji crackdown

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Jeremy Burge, Emojipedia:

WhatsApp used Apple emojis on Android for years, and only recently created its own emoji set for use on Android and the web. Slack, too, offered Apple emojis on all platforms until today.

Whether these changes were due to pressure from Apple, or a growing realisation that this might not be the right way to go about cross-platform use, we don’t know for sure.

Other apps such as Signal and Telegram continue to use Apple emojis on Android.

That’s Android. How about using Apple emoji in your iOS app?

Last week app developer Sam Eckert reported that an update to his iOS app BitTracker was rejected by Apple due to lack of compliance with its guidelines for trademarks and copyrights.

Specifically, emoji use in BitTracker was called out as being problematic in both the iPhone app, and a small ? Chart Decreasing emoji used in the watchOS app was also an issue.

Jeremy goes on to show more examples of app rejection, and Apple’s inconsistency in using emoji in their own teaching materials.

At the very least, Apple is sending mixed signals. It’d be good to have a clear sense of what will fly and what won’t in terms of using Apple emoji in your own app.

Woman runs through landscape of iconic album covers in Pandora ad

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This ad (embedded in the main Loop post) ran last year, but I just encountered it this weekend, thought it worth sharing.

I feel like the days of iconic album covers are all in the past. It’s not that the covers are any less creative, it’s more that I tend to get my music via links or as part of crafted playlists.

At the same time, album art went from 12″ album covers, to less than 5″ for a CD cover, down the the tiny thumbnails we have today.

No matter, enjoy the ad.