$100m to figure out what you’re doing…

It’s no small secret that Twitter is the Internet’s largest growing social networking app/thingy. Micro-bloging was all the craze a few months ago when we got reports off every major news network of what soandso said on their Twitter account. Recently I was talking to an old friend of mine and bemoaning the idea that Twitter was actually a useful tool. He stated that you get out of it what you follow, he follows some very particular famous folks that lead what most would deem interesting lives. However when taking a survey of the Twitter landscape one can’t help but to see the spam/scams and generally banality of day to day living. At least traditional blogging can be construed as some form of news or at minimum an Op-Ed piece. But with only 140 characters its hard to really say anything of substance outside of a string of emoticons and LOLs, and thus my mind bending frustration with Twitter begins…

This morning I was linked to an article from Network World with the headline ‘Twitter is Dead’. Music to my ears, but really after reading I didn’t find the damning report that Twitter has ran out of money and is now belly up floating adrift in the gigantic pool of dead internet apps, but quite the opposite. While the author of said article thinks that Twitter is marked for death the reality is that people are funneling money into it (during an economic downturn mind you) to the tune of $100m to figure out a business plan. While I think its nice that the creators of the tweetverse hatched the idea without worrying about how to pump it’s users for money, its also laughable that it has grown to the point where sustaining the app/creating a business model costs around $100m. So the next time that a person signs up for Twitter and boarashly proclaims that s/he is going out to the grocery store to buy lemons remember that some investment capitalist thought that somehow, someway banal news and celeb induced stalking could generate profit 140 characters at a time…

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Stumbling, it’s awesome.

Stumbling, it’s awesome. In a society of media junkies, new and informative ways to gorge ourselves on delectable content are always welcome. And when that new fount of fun co-insides with work it’s even more diverting. Stumbleupon.com is my latest foray into media addiction, having accumulated almost four hundred “favorites” in as little as a month. Ranging from web design tools, to photoblogs, to funny videos, to top ten lists, to photoshop tutorials, to recipe sites, I can definitively say I’m hooked.

It is encouraging to see that such a community exists, as through stumbling I have found some resources that I use on a regular basis. Such as; www.bittbox.com ,   a great place to start on a search for free textures, and www.psdeluxe.com, with some awesome blog posts and lists on creative tools for todays’ savvy designers.

Oh, and a few favorites:

awesome fridge magnet:
www.onemoregadget.com/photoshop-magnet-kit-for-a-design-nuts-fridge/

awesome packaging:
www.krftd.com/special_report/transparent-mystery

awesome product design:
www.recyclart.org/2009/07/lighting-made-of-galvanized-iron

awesome public art:
www.yawoot.com/post/3206

awesome illustration tutorials:
www.tutorial9.net/resources/15-of-the-best-character-illustration-tutorials-online

awesome photoshop tutorial:
www.psdtop.com/blog/basic/understanding-blending-modes/

another awesome photoshop tutorial:
www.digitalartform.com/archives/2009/06/custom_halftone.html

awesome posters:
www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/09/30-typography-posters-that-youve-probably-never-seen-before/

awesome museum:
www.moma.org

awesome tech:
www.dvice.com/archives/2009/08/color-picker-pe.php

-john

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3rd Ward: Fall Solo Show Submissions Opening Soon

So, I’m not a big one for picking news items out of other people’s blogs. Hell, if I wanted a blog like that I could just write a robot to go around finding blogs by tags and dropping them into our blog without regard for stlye, ingenuity, display, or the fact that some people get pissed off when you rip off their content; especially when you remove their links (I’m talking to you planet-x.com.au). Still, I think I’ll go and rip some content anyway.

To give credit where credit is due; you should checkout Design Glut, I know I’ve already recommended them in the Sexy Links section, but they wrote the story on 3rd Ward so they should get the credit. Their original story is here.

3rd Ward is a member based design center for professionals in my old stomping grounds of Williamsburg Brooklyn.  Their beginnings sound much like ours. Durring their early days they engaged in menial labor to make ends meet, and worked out how to live with each other (in leu of being overnight super stars). Our parties have been less successful at paying rent than theirs were, in fact we rarely exceed breaking even, but que ser a ser a (perhaps we should serve cheaper beverages). Today 3rd Ward is a thriving company. They provide freelancers with a place to work: with photo studios (bah we have one of those, oh 4 you say, well then), a shop (we have access to one), and a degital media lab (ha ha we definitely have a state of the art one of those), and they do a bunch of classes (okay I think I have 3rd Ward envy). Apparently they were approached by someone to open a location in Detroit, humm not the worst idea ever.

Anyway, one cool thing about 3rd Ward is that they put on solo and group shows for artists. They have open calls for artists nationwide. This is my primary reason for writing this post. If you don’t read Design Glut, and you aren’t aware of 3rd Ward, you might miss a stellar opportunity. Check out their Fall Solo Show: Open Call for Artists this October, and perhaps you will become a 3rd Ward discovery. Or, on second thought, don’t; I mean I’ll be submitting and who needs the competition.

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Working on grokllc.com V2 - Menu(s)

There’s a certain dilemma that I face whenever something is finally finished, created, uploaded, etc. I’m never fully happy with it. I find myself going back to it and saying, “Well, what I should have done was this…” or “Maybe we could have added this element in lue of X.” Point being is you are always your biggest critic.  During the last parts of work on the 1st grok site I started to think about what the next one would be, “what’s wrong with the 1st one?” I think John asked, my reply, “Nothing, everything, there’s a mountain of things I would like to explore that we just can’t, less me start from scratch.” At that time we were pretty much a week behind getting the 1st site finished so I had to shelf my ideas till a latter date and time.

Welcome to a latter date and time.

This is the roots from which the tree has sprung. While this looks like the scribbles and rants of someone that should be committed to an institution, it makes perfectly good sense to John and myself. What this says about us…well I’m not entirely sure, we’ll save that post for a another time.

The original idea, if its in there, was to create a site that had both ease of use as well as having some artistic interactivity. By creating vector based art that not only changes through the user’s choices but also anchors all the information that the site has to display we thought we could create something that would be not only pleasant to look at but would also reflect something about us from a stylistic standpoint. From that launching point, one of anchoring vectors, John had the idea to strip the design down even more so that when a user navigated around they would be creating their own unique background, this was latter platformed to the idea that we could present nothing but white space and user navigation would be akin to ‘cutting’ through the background to reach other layers, much like when you tear a parts of a page out of a magazine you still see the page you’re on but also the one below it.

At this point in time the only work that’s been put into bring that idea to fruition is some simple menu creation, here’s a few examples cropped down, think of them as part of a much larger white page.

V2 Mk1

V2 Mk2

V2 Mk2b

Don’t ask how these things were reached from the madness that was scrawled on that piece of paper, its a mystery to everyone. The menus right now are very rough around the edges, however I think the color schemes are growing on me. Anyway, as things begin to evolve and take more of a concrete shape I’ll be back with an update and perhaps even more illegible sharpie drawings.

-Adam

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Adding a Little Green to the Industry

We were checking out Gray & Partners, a new start up advertising and design agency out of Boston. They have made it clear they prefer to work with companies that are committed to ‘going green’. To introduce themselves they delivered irises to green companies they are interested in at the 2009 Going Green Conference. One of the companies they highlight on their site is Planet Tran, a transportation service that employees exclusively hybrid vehicles.

Of course there are issues to consider when it comes to hybrids. While great for the environment because of low carbon emissions, their is the drawback that the production of hybrids has a greater environmental footprint than that of normal vehicles. The main concern comes for the destructive impact of the mining of certain minerals used in the production of hybrid batteries. However, responsible companies like Toyota are doing their part to try and lessen the impact of battery production by doing things like offering a $200 bounty for to make sure all ‘used up’ batteries come back to the company, and being responsible about the cleanup of waste.

To spite these concerns it is nice to see people in the industry trying to do something for the environment. As designers we often do not realize the impact that our own production has. If you are interested in ‘going green’ you can do just a few little things to lessen your carbon footprint like; turning off computers when not in use, getting media printed on recycled paper, and making sure your company has recycling bins. A little bit goes a long way.

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Emigre No. 70: The Look Back Issue

Emigre Rocks it Hard Checkout Their Look Back Issue!

Check it out it is a wonderful collection of Emigre, and we here at GROK love Emigre. The normal full collection is somewhere areound $100 but this is $49.95  (or $36.38 when preordered from amazon) and you get the poster, and some music & videos on a CD.  Preorder it with amazon or get it through gingkopress

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CoreDogs is The Newest Sexy Link

CoreDogs, developed by Professor Kieran Mathieson of Oakland University, is a great way to learn about the back end of web design and ebusiness.  The site is intended to teach you how to be a “Weber”; it helps you become someone who has the skillsets to handle some of the tech, and gives advice on how to become a better e-business person. CoreDogs is as much a study in a way of thinking, as it is a teching tool for web designers. In today’s fast paced ebiz world you should at least have a bit of an understanding of the backend, even if all you do is create nice layout PSDs for coders to deal with (trust me the coders will appreciate it). CoreDogs is simple and interesting, it takes a goal oriented approach to teaching and it is easy to use. Kieran is allways working to improve it and I’m sure wouldn’t mind a few more testers.

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Help Kill IE6

IE6 is the most useless browser that is still around today.  According to w3schools.com 13.6% of us are still using this shadey excuse for a browser. You cannot write a decent stylesheet for your site, without having to write another one just for IE6. This really gets in the way of web design. We must destroy this menace. Please go to ie6update.com and get a script you can throw inside your body tags to ask users to upgrade to ie6. The script is none invasive and will not force them to upgrade.

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Sexy Links Updated With Catagories

The GROK Hatchery Sexy Links page has been updated to include catagories and more links of interest. New Links include:

• Design Glut
• BittBox
• Design Shard
• The Daedalus Project
• Eyetools Eyetracking Research
• Engadget

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What does grokking mean to us?

When we claim to grok something, we are claiming to understand something completely; holistically if you will. However, this is a simplification of the definition. For a better understanding of the definition we must go to the source of the word. In Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, there is a passage in chapter 21 where the character Dr. Mahmoud attempts to define the word grok. Mahmoud is cast as a semanticist (and surgeon), and thus is able to approach defining such an illusive concept as grokking from a studied and scientific perspective. While many of the definitions in Heinlein’s tour de force are metaphysical and elude understanding on a purely analytical level, the character Mahmoud puts forth what seems to be one of Heinlein’s only attempts to give you a dictionary definition. In answer to the question, “Do you grok ‘grok’?” Mahmoud says:

“No. Not really. ‘Grok’ is the most important word in the Martian language - and I expect to spend the next forty years trying to understand it and perhaps use some millions of printed words trying to explain it. But I don’t expect to be successful. You need to think in Martian to grok the word ‘grok.’ Which Mike does and I don’t. Perhaps you have noticed that Mike takes a rather veering approach to some of the simplest human ideas?”

This would seem to suggest that the word grok has an ineffable quality to it. However, Mahmoud continues to express that this concept of thinking in Martian is not unlike language barriers that we suffer between cultures of our own species. We think in language and thus our thoughts reflect the limits and limitless possibilities of our native tongues.

“English is the largest of the human tongues, with several times the vocabulary of the second largest language - this alone made it inevitable that English would eventually become, as it did, the lingua franca of this planet, for it is thereby the richest and the most flexible - despite its barbaric accretions … or, I should say, because of its barbaric accretions. English swallows up anything that comes its way, makes English out of it. Nobody tried to stop this process, the way some languages are policed and have official limits … probably because there never has been, truly, such a thing as ‘the King’s English’ - for ‘the King’s English’ was French. English was in truth a bastard tongue and nobody cared how it grew - and it did! Enormously, until no one could hope to be an educated man unless he did his best to embrace this monster. Its very variety, subtlety, and utterly irrational, idiomatic complexity makes it possible to say things in English which simply cannot be said in any other language. It almost drove me crazy … until I learned to think in it - and that put a new ‘map’ of the world on top of the one I grew up with. A better one, in many ways - certainly a more detailed one. But nevertheless there are things which can be said in the simple Arabic tongue that cannot be said in English.”

“…But the Martian language is so much more complex than is English - and so wildly different in the fashion in which it abstracts its picture of the universe - that English and Arabic might as well be considered one and the same language, by comparison. An Englishman and an Arab can learn to think each other’s thoughts, in the other’s language. But I’m not certain that it will ever be possible for us to think in Martian (other than by the unique fashion Mike learned it) - oh, we can learn a sort of a ‘pidgin’ Martian, yes - that is what I speak.”

The very existence of Mike as he is portrayed in the novel demonstrates that grokking is not outside the realm of human understanding. We can draw parallels between what our language will allow us to express and this infinitely complex concept. It is also important to remember that the word ‘grok’ was pioneered in reality by a human, and thus has limits of definition restricted by his own language (however flexible and less effective those limitations might be for a writer of Heinlein’s caliber).

“Now take this one word: ‘grok.’ Its literal meaning, one which I suspect goes back to the origin of the Martian race as thinking, speaking creatures - and which throws light on their whole ‘map’ - is quite easy. ‘Grok’ means ‘to drink.’”

In this simple statement we find the heart of the definition as we can understand it. Heinlein uses the sharing of water between individuals as a bonding ritual in the book. One must ask the question; why water? It is not simply that the Martian’s inhabit a resource poor world where water is precious in so many ways. This would be an over simplification of the significance. It would bring water down to the level of a highly sought commodity with ritual significance, similar to how it is valued by the Fremen in Frank Herbert’s epic Dune. Let us then consider the properties of water and why it is so intrinsically linked to grokking. To do this we can look to a simple quote by the famous martial artist and movie star Bruce Lee

“Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.”

What we are suggesting here is that the act of drinking is more a metaphor for taking something into one’s self and joining with it, than it is a simple synonym for grokking. But, once again this definition is limited.

“But Mike would also have agreed,” Mahmoud went on, “if I had named a hundred other English words, words which represent what we think of as different concepts, even pairs of antithetical concepts. And ‘grok’ means all of these, depending on how you use it. It means ‘fear,’ it means ‘love,’ it means ‘hate’ - proper hate, for by the Martian ‘map’ you cannot possibly hate anything unless you grok it completely, understand it so thoroughly that you merge with it and it merges with you - then and only then can you hate it. By hating yourself. But this also implies, by necessity, that you love it, too, and cherish it and would not have it otherwise. Then you can hate - and (I think) that Martian hate is an emotion so black that the nearest human equivalent could only be called a mild distaste.” Mahmoud screwed up his face. “It means ‘identically equal’ in the mathematical sense. The human cliché‚, ‘This hurts me worse than it does you’ has a Martian flavor to it, if only a trace. The Martians seem to know instinctively what we learned painfully from modern physics, that the observer interacts with the observed simply through the process of observation. ‘Grok’ means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the process being observed - to merge, to blend, to intermarry, to lose personal identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science…”

This statement is (if you will excuse our arrogance) what we try to model our actions around when we attempt to grok design. Whether in designing something ourselves, or in assessing the design of others, we try to fully understand the motivations, the creative process, the limitations of the person who is creating or has created a work, and the many other massively complex aspects of any design. The simple questions one might ask at a critique such as: “Is this technically sound?” “Do we find the use of color interesting?” “Is the use of negative space effective?” are not enough. Sure we analyze things using the rules that have been set down through the long practice of creating in the many different aspects that design takes on. However, we are not bound by these rules,  and believe no one should be. The question of;  “Is this person creating a ‘good’ piece?” results in a subjective answer whether or not our approach is formulaic. To completely understand design, one must understand the limits of ones own perceptions, and attempt to overcome them. The mind must be like water. It is a process which has mixed results. Often grokking something in fullness is illusive, and perhaps unattainable. The creators of a design may be too alien in thinking for us to grok them and their work. But, we strive to grok, and in so striving, we believe, we bring a unique perspective to the analysis, and creation of art.

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