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Radiolab’s Making the Hippo Dance

If you don’t listen to WNYC’s Radiolab, you’re missing out. It’s seriously one of the best podcasts/radio shows I’ve ever listened to. It’s a show that delves into science using artful audio production techniques to sweeten the listeners’ experience. Recently the show’s hosts, Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, gave a talk explaining the creative choices they make producing one of their segments. Listen to the episode here.

There are many designers, painters, and poster artists getting a lot of exposure on the internet nowadays. Dave Kinsey is one of the few who seems to stick above the crowd with his own style. I am particularly drawn to the blend of screen printing/painting techniques in each of his pieces. They ride the line between drawing and painting in a lovely way that really gets me going. His influences are also a good mix of classical Eastern cultures and modern street culture. Combine that with a strong use of color (mostly a vibrant red), and you’ve got a set of winners. Now if I could only afford to collect all of these lovely prints.

If information is power, the dissemination of information is the most powerful tools a designer or artist can wield. I’ll step down from the Obama-style opener and ask you to consider something most of us look at every day: weather maps. More specifically, hurricane trackers.

Since hurricanes Katrina and Rita, hurricane trackers have become much more than a news item. For most people in the southeastern part of the U.S., they’re very much tools of survival, often being updated faster than a news report can be delivered.

Much of the software I write is for performance systems for artists, a situation where UI really matters. Small things like the coherence of the UI color space can really help a user feel more at ease with the interface, and thus create their best work. It also helps if your software doesn’t look like [...]