design

Oh yeah, there's a sugar pill for that.

Everybody knows about The Placebo Effect™.

That's what happens when you think you're taking a medicine that will help you, and it does help you—but it turns out that it was a sugar pill, not a medicine at all.

It was discovered by a clever, desperate nurse during World War II. She was running out of morphine to give an injured soldier, so she lied. She told him he was getting drugs, but he was really getting saltwater.

And it worked.

Oh yeah, there’s a sugar pill for that.

Everybody knows about The Placebo Effect™.

That’s what happens when you think you’re taking a medicine that will help you, and it does help you—but it turns out that it was a sugar pill, not a medicine at all.

It was discovered by a clever, desperate nurse during World War II. She was running out of morphine to give an injured soldier, so she lied. She told him he was getting drugs, but he was really getting saltwater.

And it worked.

It's Time to Redesign the Sales Page, Part 1

Before the Redesign

So you've got this product. So I've got this product.

It's totally unique, the only entry in its field, and everybody knows it. It's a rookie entry into an extremely crowded (if not particularly well-differentiated) field. Almost nobody knows it exists.

Screw Interface Patterns

Allow me to begin by saying that this is an opinion piece. I'm not doing research into the matter, but rather boiling down trends—the good and bad—as I see 'em.

And they're mostly bad. Otherwise it'd be boring.

A Pattern Language

Pattern obsession has come to user interface design by way of software architecture, by way of a book about real (brick and mortar, natch) architecture written by a man named Christopher Alexander.

Keep digging deeper.

The same thrill, the same awe and mystery, comes again and again when we look at any question deeply enough. With more knowledge comes a deeper, more wonderful mystery, luring one on to penetrate deeper still. Never concerned that the answer may prove disappointing, with pleasure and confidence we turn over each new stone to find unimagined strangeness leading on to more wonderful questions and mysteries -- certainly a grand adventure!

Are you thinking, or are you farting?

Thinking is supposed to be a question mark. But most people treat it like a period.

Headology vs First Sight, Second Thoughts

Terry Pratchett's always written about witches and, by extension, the essence of humanity.

Visualizing Data: the Sampras & Federer Title Race

With Roger Federer’s recent win of the 2009 French Open, he is now tied with Pete Sampras for holding the most Grand Slam titles — fourteen. Although the two athletes have arrived at the same destination, how do their respective journeys compare with one another? With this question fueling my curiosity, I set out to create a rich visualization of the data to add some depth to this story.

The final product is available as follows. For additional notes about the techniques used to create these graphs, keep on reading.

How we tap the Twitter Zeitgeist for SXSW, Internet Week & More

In March, we built the ground-breaking SXSW Zeitgeist for Pepsico. It's no longer running—SXSW is over, natch—but there are some videos, in case you didn't see it.

Pepsi wanted to "do something cool around Twitter/SXSW" and we delivered the concept, design and execution. (And boots-on-the-ground troubleshooting.)

Design: Ease of Control, or Challenge of Relationship?

You'll have to forgive me, cuz I'm trying hard to find a way to wrap my head around a concept in my head so I can express it.

The test everything trend in design bothers me. Or to make every decision based on the numbers. Or to focus on problem-solving. Or patterns.

I'm trying to formulate a good way to express *my* approach to design, but when I try, people don't understand. I'm aware this is a problem on my end, not yours. But I'm gonna keep trying.

This is a quote from a comment on an article on BoingBoing:

Hacking the Washington Capitals Logo with Illustrator

While on a recent plane ride, I embarked on a self-imposed quickfire challenge to use Adobe Illustrator to design the text “@davidpots” (my Twitter username) in the style of the Washington Capitals logo. I was armed with only 45 minutes and a vector version of the Capitals logo; no internet connection would be at hand for additional assets (such as fonts, etc).

By the end of the plane ride, things worked out great:

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