1. ⁘  ⁘  ⁘
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  3. Abbott, Edwin A. 1
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  6. aesthetics 19
  7. agile 30
  8. Akasegawa, Genpei 3
  9. Alexander, Christopher 135
  10. Alexander, Scott 5
  11. Ammer, Ralph 6
  12. Anderson, Sam 1
  13. anxiety 9
  14. Appleton, Maggie 5
  15. Arango, Jorge 4
  16. architecture 110
  17. art 86
  18. Asimov, Isaac 5
  19. attention 17
  20. Aurelius, Marcus 14
  21. Bacon, Edmund 1
  22. Barragán, Luis 1
  23. Barrett, Sarah R. 1
  24. beauty 58
  25. Beck, Kent 1
  26. Beddoes, Thomas Lovell 1
  27. Beneyto, Carlos 1
  28. Bertaud, Alain 1
  29. blogging 22
  30. body 11
  31. boredom 9
  32. Brander, Gordon 1
  33. Branwen, Gwern 1
  34. Bray, Tim 2
  35. Brooks, Frederick P. 22
  36. brutalism 7
  37. building 16
  38. bureaucracy 12
  39. Burnham, Bo 9
  40. business 15
  41. Cage, John 2
  42. Camus, Albert 13
  43. care 6
  44. Caro, Renan Le 1
  45. Centers, Josh 1
  46. chance 11
  47. Chang, David 1
  48. change 16
  49. Chapman, David 1
  50. childhood 6
  51. Choi, Roy 3
  52. choice 8
  53. Churf, Young 1
  54. Ciechanowski, Bartosz 1
  55. cities 51
  56. Cleary, J.C. 8
  57. Clegg, Gordon 2
  58. code 20
  59. collaboration 18
  60. collections 31
  61. color 23
  62. commonplace 11
  63. communication 31
  64. community 7
  65. complexity 11
  66. Compton, Michael 1
  67. connection 24
  68. constraints 25
  69. construction 9
  70. content 9
  71. Cooper, Muriel 1
  72. Copland, Aaron 1
  73. Corum, Jonathan 2
  74. craft 66
  75. creativity 59
  76. Crichton, Michael 1
  77. crime 9
  78. Critchlow, Tom 5
  79. critique 10
  80. Cross, Anita Clayburn 10
  81. Cross, Nigel 12
  82. css 11
  83. culture 13
  84. curiosity 11
  85. cycles 7
  86. Danielewski, Mark Z. 4
  87. darkness 28
  88. data 8
  89. Dawidjan, Ryan 1
  90. death 38
  91. Debord, Guy 6
  92. decisions 10
  93. DeCorah, Katy 1
  94. design 131
  95. details 31
  96. discovery 9
  97. Dondis, Donis A. 1
  98. Donnelly, Kate 2
  99. doors 7
  100. drawing 23
  101. economics 13
  102. Eden, Terence 2
  103. efficiency 7
  104. Eisenman, Peter 8
  105. emotion 8
  106. ending 14
  107. engineering 11
  108. Enslen, Brad 1
  109. ethics 14
  110. euphony 38
  111. evolution 9
  112. experience 14
  113. farming 8
  114. Farnaby, Thomas 1
  115. fashion 11
  116. Favreau, Jon 3
  117. features 25
  118. feedback 6
  119. Few, Stephen 2
  120. Fishburne, Tom 1
  121. flaws 10
  122. food 16
  123. form 19
  124. Foulston, Marie 1
  125. friendship 6
  126. Froes, Hugo 1
  127. fun 7
  128. function 31
  129. games 13
  130. gardens 26
  131. Garfield, Emily 4
  132. Garfunkel, Art 6
  133. geography 8
  134. geometry 18
  135. goals 9
  136. goodness 12
  137. graphics 13
  138. Guston, Philip 1
  139. Hansen, Tully 1
  140. happiness 17
  141. Harper, Thomas J. 15
  142. heat 7
  143. Hido, Todd 1
  144. Hill, Dan 2
  145. history 13
  146. Hoff, Melanie 1
  147. Hoffman, Yoel 10
  148. Hofstadter, Douglas 6
  149. Hohne, Courtney 2
  150. Holzer, Jenny 1
  151. home 15
  152. html 11
  153. humanity 16
  154. humor 6
  155. Hurst, Mark 1
  156. hypermedia 22
  157. i 18
  158. ideas 21
  159. identity 33
  160. images 10
  161. industry 9
  162. information 42
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  164. innovation 15
  165. interaction 10
  166. interest 10
  167. interfaces 37
  168. intuition 8
  169. invention 10
  170. Isaacson, Walter 28
  171. iteration 13
  172. Ive, Jonathan 6
  173. Jackson, Steven J. 14
  174. Jacobs, Jane 54
  175. Johnson, Rian 2
  176. Kafka, Franz 2
  177. Kate, Maya 2
  178. Kaufman, Kenn 4
  179. Kaufman, Charlie 2
  180. Keith, Jeremy 6
  181. Keller, Jenny 10
  182. Kelly, Kevin 3
  183. Kerouac, Jack 1
  184. Kingdon, Jonathan 5
  185. Kiriakakis, Kostas 1
  186. Kleon, Austin 13
  187. knowledge 29
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  190. Kramer, Karen L. 10
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  204. loneliness 12
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  206. Lovell, Sophie 16
  207. Lu, Ryo 1
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  209. Luu, Dan 8
  210. Lynch, David 1
  211. Magnus, Margaret 12
  212. making 77
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  214. Marr, David 1
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  216. material 39
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  219. McConnell, Ivana 1
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  221. meaning 33
  222. media 16
  223. melancholy 52
  224. memory 29
  225. Menking, Amanda 1
  226. metaphor 10
  227. metrics 19
  228. microsites 49
  229. Miller, J. Abbott 10
  230. minimalism 10
  231. Miyazaki, Hayao 30
  232. modularity 6
  233. morality 8
  234. Mudford, Trys 1
  235. Murray, Gordon 2
  236. music 16
  237. Müller, Boris 7
  238. names 11
  239. Nanda, Neel 1
  240. nature 51
  241. networks 15
  242. Neustadter, Scott 3
  243. Newport, Cal 1
  244. Nielsen, Michael 1
  245. Nietzsche, Friedrich 1
  246. Nilsson, Magnus 2
  247. notetaking 35
  248. novelty 11
  249. O'Connor, Siobhan 1
  250. objects 16
  251. Oh, Jung-mi 1
  252. order 10
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  254. Orr, Eric 1
  255. Orwell, George 7
  256. Ott, Matthias 4
  257. ownership 6
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  259. patterns 11
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  265. Perrine, John D. 9
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  279. practice 10
  280. problems 31
  281. process 22
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  283. productivity 12
  284. products 21
  285. programming 9
  286. progress 16
  287. Prokopov, Nikita 2
  288. Pye, David 42
  289. quality 26
  290. questions 8
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  294. reality 13
  295. Reichenstein, Oliver 5
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  297. Rendle, Robin 12
  298. Renieris, Elizabeth M. 1
  299. repair 28
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  301. Reveal, James L. 4
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  318. silence 9
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  321. Simmon, Robert 1
  322. simplicity 14
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  324. Sloan, Robin 5
  325. Smith, Justin E. H. 6
  326. Smith, Cyril Stanley 29
  327. Smyth, Hamish 1
  328. socializing 7
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  336. Spolsky, Joel 1
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  358. Trombley, Nick 44
  359. truth 15
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  362. typography 25
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critique

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  • Scholars and critics

    Let us take a look at how one of these scholars or critics goes about his work. Let’s say he is going to write a commentary on a particular painting. If he is not a man of intuition, certain features will characterize his approach. First he will try to place the painting genealogically, or he will try to define the painting by assigning it to a particular school. He feels uneasy unless he succeeds in doing this.

    But more than anything, he is extremely wordy. He seems incapable of speaking of beauty without innumerable layers of adjectives.

    Yanagi Sōetsu, Seeing and Knowing
    • critique
  • Starved for good journalism and criticism

    Imagine for a moment if Kimmelman–or any architecture critic–was also a practicing architect, building enormous commissions for corporations at the same time he writes his columns. If this were the case, you’d probably come to one of two conclusions: either the writer in question was not a serious critic, or that the art form itself is not very serious. You might also stop to think how much poorer we would be without the contributions of his independent voice to the discussion of the craft.

    That is exactly the situation that the design profession finds itself in today. We are lucky to have designers actively sharing knowledge, but we’re starved for good journalism and criticism.

    Khoi Vinh, Design Discourse is in a State of Arrested Development
    www.fastcompany.com
    • architecture
    • critique
    • design

    ...the idea of someone spending their days writing reviews of brand identities, design systems, app experiences, and the design of new products seems far-fetched.

  • On Criticism

    People are being counted on to do specific pieces of the puzzle. And the most important thing I think you can do for somebody who’s really good and who’s really being counted on is to point out to them when their work isn’t good enough, and to do it very clearly, and to articulate why, and to get them back on track. And you need to do that in a way that does not call into question your confidence in their abilities, but leaves not much room for interpretation.

    Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview
    • design
    • work
    • critique
  • One Designer's Response to Khoi Vinh's Complaint

    An Article by Brandon Dorn
    medium.com

    There is a place for discussing technique, for which forums like r/Design, Designer News, and the like are well suited. Yet expecting these platforms to provide insightful, serious critical discussion is like going to McDonald’s for an artisanal sandwich. Sure, they may advertise that, but that’s not really what you’re getting.

    1. ​​Conway's Law in action​​
    1. ​​Design Discourse is in a State of Arrested Development​​
    • critique
  • The dying art of the hatchet job

    An Article by Dorian Lynskey
    staging.unherd.com

    I find that the act of disagreeing with a sharp takedown sharpens my appreciation of the work in question. If I have to think a bit harder about what I like and why I like it, that’s fine by me, especially when it’s something that has been almost universally acclaimed.

    ...It’s not that I long for an epidemic of gleeful brutality but I will always cherish the right of critics to express their hate, hate, hate in the ultimate service of what they love, love, love.

    • critique
  • The McClusky Curve

    An Article by Shawn Wang
    www.swyx.io
    Image from www.swyx.io on 2022-02-11 at 5.45.18 PM.png

    He coined this thing, which I call the McClusky Curve… So if you go first, you want to either be first in the cycle or you want to go later and add a very differentiated, deeper, in depth take that nobody else has where you’re adding value to the conversation.

    But if you go anywhere in the middle, you’re just in the noise.

    ...I think this is the fundamental tension to staying relevant to the discussion, and therefore growing your readership. Your creation process needs to generate some mix of timely vs insightful, yet of course the worst of all is to try to do both and end up with neither.

    • content
    • critique

    Quoted content from Sonal Chokshi.

  • Discourse in web design

    An Essay by Jason Santa Maria
    v5.jasonsantamaria.com

    A website is its own, singular thing. We know it isn’t a book, a TV show, a film, or a song, but our language is limited to talking about it in those restrictive boxes. A website is a mix of all of those things, and none of those things. It is influenced by place and time. A website changes with age. It can evolve and regress.

    It was then I wondered if the problem wasn’t that web design lacked its own Emigré. What if we actually lacked a shared language to critically discuss web design? Art, architecture, and even graphic design, have critics and historians that give context to new work through the lenses of culture and important work from the past.

    • www
    • critique
  • Downsides of the internet

    An Essay
    blog.royalsloth.eu

    The type of nitpicking behavior that I mentioned earlier, is especially problematic since it often causes the loss of writer’s authenticity. With time, these criticisms cause one of the following:

    • The writer stops publishing their work.
    • The writer stops reading comments and minds their own business.
    • The writer learns their lesson and sands off their edges in order to fit better in the society du jour.

    The larger the writer’s audience, the more likely it is for the writer to pick the last option and tone down their voice. You can experience this first hand when reading the essays of prominent bloggers. Their early work is usually interesting and fun to read, which naturally brought a large audience to their doors. But the more the show goes on, the more they will waffle around the topic, since with a large enough audience every thought will be misunderstood and nitpicked mercilessly.

    • writing
    • www
    • critique
    • personality
  • A distinct and complementary stance

    Each person in the pair takes a distinct and complementary stance toward the design problem as they work together. One generates solutions. That is, one individual materializes solutions to the problem at hand for discussion and iteration. The other synthesizes the proposed solutions.

    Gretchen Anderson & Christopher Noessel, Pair Design: Better Together
    • ideas
    • critique

    Anderson and Noessel refer to these roles as gens and synths, respectively, which sounds more than a little cyberpunk.

  • Design Discourse is in a State of Arrested Development

    An Essay by Khoi Vinh
    www.fastcompany.com

    [Designer News] is good, useful content, but most of it is written by designers themselves. Taken as a whole, it’s also a useful illustration of something vital that our industry lacks: balanced, insightful, independent writing that critically evaluates the profession.

    1. ​​Starved for good journalism and criticism​​
    2. ​​The allure of clicks​​
    1. ​​Undoing the Toxic Dogmatism of Digital Design​​
    2. ​​One Designer's Response to Khoi Vinh's Complaint​​
    • design
    • critique

See also:
  1. design
  2. www
  3. architecture
  4. ideas
  5. work
  6. content
  7. writing
  8. personality
  1. Khoi Vinh
  2. Brandon Dorn
  3. Yanagi Sōetsu
  4. Jason Santa Maria
  5. Gretchen Anderson
  6. Christopher Noessel
  7. Dorian Lynskey
  8. Steve Jobs
  9. Shawn Wang