Winning by Design: The Methods of Gordon Murray A Research Paper by Nigel Cross & Anita Clayburn Cross A case study of the working methods of one particularly successful designer in a highly competitive design domain - Formula One racing car design. Gordon Murray was chief designer for the very successful Brabham and McLaren racing car teams in the 1970s and 1980s. His record of success is characterised by innovative breakthroughs, often arising as sudden illuminations, based on considering the task from first principles and from a systemic viewpoint. His working methods are highly personal, and include intensive use of drawings. Personality factors and team management abilities also appear to be relevant. There are some evident similarities with some other successful, innovative designers You need to make the step forwardDrawing the bitsLike designing things for the first timeWonder PlotsI never have engineers that aren't designers+7 More design
Of Note: Better Text Annotations for the Web An Article by Brandon Dorn www.viget.com Show image 0 Show image 1 Generally speaking (and ignoring questions of styling, API availability, etc.), an ideal Web annotation pattern follows these principles: Annotations appear in close visual proximity to the primary content. Their design neither distracts from nor hides the primary content. The preceding principles are followed regardless of screen width. The only pattern I’ve found that meets these criteria is FiveThirtyEight’s. ...As it turns out, FiveThirtyEight didn't invent this pattern. It likely originated in medieval illuminated manuscripts which contain “interleave notes” — comments written literally between the lines. readingwwwaccessibility