Posted by Tim Leberecht - January 1, 2009
2009 will be a year of major uncertainty. The doom and gloom of the economic downturn, the deterioration of mass markets, the pervasiveness of the digital lifestyle, a host of explosive political conflicts, and the fragmentation of traditional societal institutions are causing anxiety and propel a new search for simplicity and non-economic value systems.
read more comments (2)
Posted by Tim Leberecht - December 31, 2008
Location matters. Black Swan-author Nassim Nicholas Taleb finds "living in big cities invaluable because you increase the odds of serendipitous encounters – you gain exposure to the envelope of serendipity." That's particularly true for romance. People move to big cities not to advance their careers, party, escape, disappear, be a star, and so on. The chick-flick fan that I am, I remember very well that candid line from Sex and the City (the movie): "I came to New York City to fall in love." Exactly. "Anyone who's predicting the decline of big cities has already met their spouse," writes Clay Shirky.
read more comments (2)
Posted by Tim Leberecht - December 26, 2008
In reviewing this year’s design highlights, I came across a quite disturbing set of seven portraits originally presented at the Dutch Design Week this Fall. Corpus 2.0 by Marcia Nolte illustrates how the human body could adjust itself to the design of products, including a hole in the lips for smokers (above) and an extended shoulder for holding a phone (below). Product design as body enhancement.
read more comments (0)
Posted by Tim Leberecht - December 23, 2008
frog design was asked by Newsweek magazine to provide ideas and design direction for “resurrecting the Republican brand,” featured in this week's (December 29) print issue. frog was one of four "hot (and nonpartisan) design firms" that Newsweek invited. Besides frog, the full-page feature presents concepts by Pentagram, Razorfish, and The Groop. The article is not available online (yet) so check it out at a news stand (and support print media!).
read more comments (2)
Posted by Tim Leberecht - December 23, 2008
When Twitter made its first big appearance (at SXSW Interactive in 2007), it was a relatively small community of techies and web 2.0 geeks. Now it's mainstream and keeps growing at an explosive rate. HubSpot, the developer of Twitter Grader, just released its "State of the Twittersphere" report. The report reveals that an estimated 5,000-10,000 new Twitter accounts are opened every day.
read more comments (1)
Posted by Tim Leberecht - December 11, 2008
I wrote this post a year ago for a different outlet but I thought it might be worth revisiting (and slightly updating) in light of the upcoming "derby of derbies" -- El Clásico -- between FC Barcelona (Barca) and Real Madrid this Saturday (yes, I'm talking about a soccer game). The duel of these two archrivals is historically loaded with enormous psychological, cultural, and political significance. This edition is a special of specials: Barcelona is leading the table with nine points ahead of Real Madrid, and the upcoming clash can potentially give the Catalan outfit a comfortable cushion during the winter break.
read more comments (9)
Posted by Tim Leberecht - December 10, 2008
"On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the full text of which appears in the following pages. Following this historic act the Assembly called upon all Member countries to publicize the text of the Declaration and "to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories."
read more comments (1)
Posted by Tim Leberecht - December 8, 2008
In these days of the Distributed Internet you don’t need to launch portal sites that vie for new audiences, you’re better served leveraging existing applications to provide new functionality for venues that already attract a fair share of eyeballs (or even cultivate their own communities).
read more comments (2)
Posted by Tim Leberecht - December 7, 2008
read more comments (3)
