Critique Wall.com

Over the last two years (has it really only been two?) I have enjoyed watching the different campaigns unveil and update their websites. Each site has been unique but each also contained similar elements. Several times, I purposed to write a comparison review of the sites but that never made it past some initial research.

Located at the top of the Adobe's Almaden Tower in San Jose, CA, is a LED semaphore. This semaphore was build as a large public art display by New York artist Ben Rubin.

Made up of 4 large wheels a slot or line in the middle, the semaphore was able to represent up to 256 unique characters. When the semaphore began transmission on August 7, 2006, Adobe turned it into a contest. The contest that Adobe sponsored was to decode what message was being sent via the semaphore. In addition to the visual message, they also broadcast an audio transmission over a low-power AM transmitter.

This year's HOW Design Conference was (also) 16 hours a day of design and creative inspiration.

More How Conference Photos

Allan Haley, type guru and prolific typography author (see More About Allan Haley below), spoke to the Orlando AIGA chapter. Haley appears to know more about type than I know about most other subjects combined. But the focus of his presentation was on the power of non-font typography or words created without the use of digital fonts.

This is an amazing ad for a French energy company, Areva. In only 45 seconds, it does a wonderful job of explaining a very complicated process. You can also see what went on in making the ad too.

Hat tip to information aesthetics.

I was reading on nytimes.com and absentmindedly double-clicked a word in the article body. Up popped a window with the definition of the word I clicked on. Turners out that every word in the article body has that feature. It's a great way to be able to expand your vocabulary when you are reading online.