What do you call yourself?

A week ago I was listening to the live version of  "Lets Make Mistakes" podcast from Muleradio.net and a woman emailed in to say she needed some design experience so she could do more in-house. It was more of how to I get started question and where do I look for training.  It got me thinking a lot so I sent in a question to Mike and Katie in the hopes it would get answered.  

My question was this:  

What do you call a person - who asks the correct questions for problem solving, can do wire frames and flows of how something should work, knows how to make sure you are not complicating things when trying to solve a design problem but perhaps is not the the person doing the Photoshop, InDesign, PHP programming or any other hands on aspect of the job? 

Are they a designer? creative? or something else?

The episode is apaply titled "Abandonment Issues and Identity Crisis". This is something I have struggled with for years as to how to place a moniker on some of the work I do, and to do it in a fashion that will not anger other "hands on creative people".  

According to Mike using the term Designer is fine.  And he goes on to provide nice examples and definitions of how and why that is the case. The question comes in at 17:05 in the podcast.  You can listen to Episode #50 here.

Jonathan Ive: simplicity isn't simple - Telegraph

Best line ever from Jonathan Ive 

simplicity isn't simple

Today Sir Ives Jonathan was officially knighted.

(Via. Jonathan Ive: simplicity isn't simple - Telegraph)

Update on May 23, 2012 at 12:35 PM by Austin White

Updated post to reflect the proper naming convention. Thanks to Michael at Macfilos for preventing me from looking like an ignorant American !

Dieter Rams on Good Design as an Advantage

Fast Company's CoDesign newsletter featured a piece on "Dieter Rams On Good Design As A Key Business Advantage".  If you are a fan of design and believe in how it can make a difference to your company this is one article you should read.

It also features his Ten principles of good design that I think are still amazing today. He has designed so many products that have stood the test of time.  Definetly one of my top 10 favortite designers.

Streaming new music from iTunes

I am a music fan. There was a time not too long ago that I was buying 2–3 albums (digital downloads) a week. Before that it was CD and cassettes. Over the last couple of years my buying habits have tapered off a little. A song here and there but nothing crazy. It has nothing to do with money - it has to do more with being uninspired by the music that is being put out. Lackluster, unoriginal, uninspiring are words that come to mind to me.

I still look at iTunes on Tuesdays to see what if there is any new music that might be interesting in some way. Admittedly I have an eclectic listening list so I hope I can find something. Last night while browsing I noticed a pre-order options for the new John Mayer album. His music varies in tone and popularity but I have always respected him as a guitar player.

The one thing that was different that I have never seen before was the ability to stream the album in whole before purchasing. You could always listen to the preview tracks of an album but there were always the .30 second to 1:30 minute samples depending on the length of the song. Click on the stream now allows you to listen to the album in entirety. Perphaps this has been there before and I never saw it. My other thought is this could be a small response to applications like NPR music which do something similar. Its availble for streaming for a linited time so if youa re interested check it out.

Inconsistent Experience

Advertising is a part of our everyday life. TV, newspapers, magazines and websites all have some type of advertising. For the most part I am ok with it as long is it is not over the top and intrusive. Fortunately there are several apps that help you read articles without ads like Instapaper.

I use a Reeder on my Mac to subscribe to a number of blogs. Some RSS feeds have ads within them. Its not my favortie thing but it is certainly something that does not bother me.

Recently I was going through some feeds and came across an article from Cult of Mac that really interested me. Cult of Mac does not have ads within their feeds which makes it even better.

Reeder Image

I clicked on the preview in Reeder and the full page came up.The few normal static ads are there and I was expecting them.  So far so good.

Redder Preview

Wanting more information I clicked on the link that allows you top open the full page in Safari.

Open in Safari from Reeder

This is where I got shocked. When I opened the page I was greeted with a video ad that is in the middle of the page. During the 30 seconds that ad is playing you can not scroll on the page, read the page at all or bounce out of the ad altogether (there is no option to skip this ad). I found this to be a horrible and jarring expereince. If you go directly to the website you do not see the video at all so why it was forced for users coming from RSS Readers makes no sense at all and puts a bad taste in my mouth.  If you are going to advertise, you shoudl try and do it in the most thoughtful and consistent manner possible.  This fails.