The Book of Change
“The Yijing 易經 or Book of Change is one of China’s oldest books and a corner stone of Chinese philosophy. It tells us how to understand change, how to find out what kind of change we are in right now, and how to deal with it. …”
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How we speak
“How can we tell what is real and what isn’t? Ludwig Wittgenstein said that it was all about language. If we want to understand what we can know, then we must look at how language works. …”
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A lightbulb is not an idea!
“Why do some images support a text better than others? Let’s start with a quick example: Creativity is the ability to imagine something that isn’t there — yet …”
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Life-friendly design!
“Let’s not sugarcoat this: diseases, hunger, and our inevitable death have been a strain on our relationship with nature. We needed some distance. …”
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5 more drawing exercises
“The following exercises are a bit more advanced than the ones in the “Quick beginner’s guide to drawing”, and I hope you find them equally fun! …”
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Seeing vs. reading
“An ancient feud rages at the very core of your creative endeavour: The rational logical you and its fuzzy intuitive rival are in constant dispute. …”
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Make me think!
“Until recently everyday objects were shaped by their technology. The design of a telephone was basically a hull around a machine. The task of the designers was to make technology look pretty. …”
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A quick beginner’s guide to drawing
“The basic craft of drawing is about two things: you learn to control your hand and to see. …”
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Stop taking pictures and start drawing!
“Some drawings look fresh and alive while others … don’t. What is their secret?. …”
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Don’t change the subject!
“Many creatives know this phenomenon: They start a new project on a promising topic with excitement, but when they can’t come up with an original idea instantly — they lose interest. …”
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Why lies thrive in mass media
“It is fashionable to be outraged about lies in mass media. News agencies, corporations, and — God forbid! — even politicians all seem to mislead us. And they get away with it! How is that possible? …”
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Is it worth the trouble?
“In 1942 Albert Camus wrote a book called “The Myth of Sisyphus”. It is about the one truly important philosophical problem: Given the circumstances of our existence, shouldn’t we just kill ourselves? …”
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But what do you want to say?
“There is this forbidden question which many people would love to ask when confronted with a piece of art. And it goes something like this:
‘What does the artist want to say with this piece of art?’ …”
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Now I get it!
“This article is a quick summary of a basic design course. It addresses a simple question: How do you design interactive systems that are easy to understand? Well, it all comes down to two things: structure and process. …”
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Interaction Design is dead!
“The digital revolution was a gold rush for curious minds. Nobody knew what digital media actually was, only that it was about to impact our lives profoundly. It was unknown territory waiting to be filled with new artforms, designs and ways to understand the world. …”
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Is it good enough?
“Almost any creative person I know has to deal with heavy doubts in their process. And to a certain extent this might be an unavoidable part of our artistic lives. But I might at least pull one painful thorn out of your side …”
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Contradict yourself!
“We like people to stay consistent for a simple reason: It is easy for us. When people stick to their opinions they are more predictable. And guess what: they want you to be consistent as well! …”
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Again?
“These days a lot of designers develop „smart“ things that promise to enhance and empower our minds, productivity and wellbeing. I personally like to shift the focus from making the things around us smarter to making ourselves smarter. …”
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Is Perfection Boring?
“When we see something imperfect, our perception wants to figure out what is going on — we get curious. On the other hand, when something is too irregular or “crappy” we ignore it as irrelevant noise. …”
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Don’t think big!
“One of the biggest mistakes you can make in your creative project is to pick a topic which is too big. …”
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Dealing with complexity
“We are constantly dealing with incredibly complex systems in our daily lives. …”
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Everybody is a layman
“In our age of distributed labour everybody stands on the pillar of personal expert knowledge in some particular field and as soon as one moves a centimetre beyond this small area one is just as clueless as the next guy. …”
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