Oct 11
Jigar PanchalLinks, Mac OS X, iphone / Mobile
Apple first started advertising its products in the late 1970s.
The 80s showed a wide variety of ads, some of which served to convince consumers that they should purchase a computer, and specifically an Apple.
These ads were text-heavy and light on images, as were many computer and technology ads from that era.
Apple ads really came into their heyday during the 1990s, with the “Think Different” campaign, which became very popular as they featured a number of famous people.
Here’s a stunning compilation of some of Apple’s most notable advertisements from the 70s until the present day, including a few videos ads.
With the launch of the iMac in the late 90s, Apple ads became much more artistic and, for the most part, focused much more on showcasing the product and used very little text compared with earlier ads.
It’s also worth noting how the ads changed as the hardware changed. For more on the evolution of Apple’s hardware, see The Evolution of Apple Design between 1977-2008 which takes a look at the changes from a hardware perspective.
Most recently, Apple has focused on television advertising, most notably with its Mac vs. PC ads. The company had done TV ads prior to that (starting with the ad based on George Orwell’s “1984″ during the 1984 Super Bowl), but mostly in conjunction with print campaigns.
Current Apple ads seem to follow two veins: advertisements for their computers generally have a white background and put the emphasis on the product being advertised; ads for the iPod line generally have bright backgrounds with silhouetted figures. Most of Apple’s current advertising seems to be on TV these days. You can watch most of the recent ads on the Apple website.
1970s
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Oct 11
Jigar PanchalDesign Art, Design, Interprete dDesign
The subject of what separates art and design is convoluted and has been debated for a long time.
Artists and designers both create visual compositions using a shared knowledge base, but their reasons for doing so are entirely different.
Some designers consider themselves artists, but few artists consider themselves designers.
So what exactly is the difference between art and design? In this post, we’ll examine and compare some of the core principles of each craft.
This is a subject that people have strong opinions about, and I’m looking forward to reading the various points of view in the comments.
This post isn’t a definitive guide, but rather the starting point for a conversation, so let’s be open-minded!
Good Art Inspires. Good Design Motivates.
Perhaps the most fundamental difference between art and design that we can all agree on is their purposes.
Typically, the process of creating a work of art starts with nothing, a blank canvas. A work of art stems from a view or opinion or feeling that the artist holds within him or herself.
They create the art to share that feeling with others, to allow the viewers to relate to it, learn from it or be inspired by it.
The most renowned (and successful) works of art today are those that establish the strongest emotional bond between the artist and their audience.
By contrast, when a designer sets out to create a new piece, they almost always have a fixed starting point, whether a message, an image, an idea or an action.
The designer’s job isn’t to invent something new, but to communicate something that already exists, for a purpose.
That purpose is almost always to motivate the audience to do something: buy a product, use a service, visit a location, learn certain information. The most successful designs are those that most effectively communicate their message and motivate their consumers to carry out a task.
Good Art Is Interpreted. Good Design Is Understood.
Another difference between art and design is how the messages of each are interpreted by their respective audiences.
Although an artist sets out to convey a viewpoint or emotion, that is not to say that the viewpoint or emotion has a single meaning.
Art connects with people in different ways, because it’s interpreted differently.
Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa has been interpreted and discussed for many years. Just why is she smiling? Scientists say it’s an illusion created by your peripheral vision. Romantics say she is in love. Skeptics say there is no reason. None of them are wrong.
Design is the very opposite. Many will say that if a design can be “interpreted” at all, it has failed in its purpose.
The fundamental purpose of design is to communicate a message and motivate the viewer to do something.
If your design communicates a message other than the one you intended, and your viewer goes and does something based on that other message, then it has not met its requirement. With a good piece of design, the designer’s exact message is understood by the viewer.
Good Art Is a Taste. Good Design Is an Opinion.
Art is judged by opinion, and opinion is governed by taste.
To a forward-thinking modern art enthusiast, Tracey Emin’s piece “My Bed”, which was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1999, may be the height of artistic expression.
To a follower of more traditional art, it may be an insult to the medium. This goes back to our point about interpretation, but taste is more about people’s particular likes and dislikes rather than the message they take away from a piece.
Design has an element of taste, but the difference between good and bad design is largely a matter of opinion.
A good piece of design can still be successful without being to your taste. If it accomplishes its objective of being understood and motivates people to do something, then whether it’s good or not is a matter of opinion.
We could go on discussing this particular point, but hopefully the underlying principle is clear.
Good Art Is a Talent. Good Design Is a Skill.
What about the creator’s abilities?
More often than not, an artist has natural ability. Of course, from a young age, the artist grows up drawing, painting, sculpting and developing their abilities.
But the true value of an artist is in the talent (or natural ability) they are born with. There is some overlap here: good artists certainly have skill, but artistic skill without talent is, arguably, worthless.
Design, though, is really a skill that is taught and learned. You do not have to be a great artist to be a great designer; you just have to be able to achieve the objectives of design.
Some of the most respected designers in the world are best known for their minimalist styles. They don’t use much color or texture, but they pay great attention to size, positioning, and spacing, all of which can be learned without innate talent.
Good Art Sends a Different Message to Everyone. Good Design Sends the Same Message to Everyone.
This really falls under the second point about interpretation and understanding. But if you take only one thing away from this article, take this point.
Many designers consider themselves artists because they create something visually attractive, something they would be proud for people to hang on a wall and admire.
But a visual composition intended to accomplish a specific task or communicate a particular message, no matter how beautiful, is not art. It is a form of communication, simply a window to the message it contains.
Few artists call themselves designers because they seem to better understand the difference. Artists do not create their work to sell a product or promote a service. They create it solely as a means of self-expression, so that it can be viewed and appreciated by others. The message, if we can even call it that, is not a fact but a feeling.
What Do You Think?
Depending on how you look at it, the difference between art and design can be clear-cut or hazy. The two certainly overlap, but art is more personal, evoking strong reactions in those who connect with the subject.
Sep 12
Jigar PanchalLinks, Work
Management is a vast subject, with several sub-categories, such as product, team management and project management. While all are interesting topics, this article focuses mainly on team management and offers some useful tips and ideas to promote discussion and help improve the performance and happiness of your teams.
There seems to be in creative sectors a fear of management and a great divide between creative and “business” people. This is often because the people doing the managing are not business-minded or business school graduates but are rather designers or developers. Managers in creative industries tend to be staff who have moved up within the company; for example, a junior designer who reaches mid-level, then senior, and eventually ends up running their own team; or a developer who works for himself but gets a series of major contracts, and before they know it they are the Managing Director of a small company. This type of team has many benefits but also some downsides.
Some of these ideas are not new or indeed particularly innovative, but they are often overlooked or even ignored. Below is a selection of key items for discussion within your team. The snippets cover a variety of topics to help managers in creative industries who may not have a managerial background. You may agree with some suggestions and not others, but the aim is to gain a basic understanding of key issues so that you can look at how to improve your team. After all, if you spend all your time producing great work and no time creating a great team, the first will be harder to achieve. More
Aug 05
Jigar PanchalWork, Yahoo Store, iphone / Mobile Download, FREE, Leopard, Mac, OS X
(Edit, to draft, un-top, Slurp)
Take a look at the 2009 Lifehacker Pack for Mac OS X – DOWNLOAD FREE!.
Like our 2009 Lifehacker Pack for Windows (and its predecessor), the Mac version has the same goal in mind: to provide Mac lovers with a single, handy list of the best free applications that you’re likely to use on a regular basis.
Note: You can head directly to each application’s download page from the [Download] links and see what we originally wrote about them at the [LH Post] link.
Productivity
Internet/Communication
- Firefox:
All debates about security, memory use, or compatibility amongst the web browsers aside, Firefox can adapt to nearly anyone’s browsing habits through a range of adaptations. Whether that’s an extension/add-on (and here are our top 10 picks), a Greasemonkey script (again, our 10), or some deep-down about:config tweaks, Firefox can probably be what you want it to be.
[Download] [LH Post]
- Adium:
Pronounced like “stadium”, Adium is a free, powerful multi-protocol instant messaging client that connects to everything from AIM and Google Talk to Facebook Chat, MySpace Chat, and everything in between. Adium is extremely customizable, works like a charm, and brings way more options to your chats than the OS X standard, iChat.
- Postbox:
If you’re not using your email’s web interface, use this. It’s basically Thunderbird, the open-source email client we’d previously included in our Lifehacker pack, but remixed with stronger, almost Gmail-like powers. It finds and indexes all the attachments in your email account, groups together conversations with similar subject chains with the “Gather” command (like Gmail’s conversations), offers tabbed inbox and message views, and lets you organize emails under your own chosen “Topics.” It’s also got built-in easy setup steps for Gmail and other webmail systems-in other words, everything we’re waiting to see Thunderbird implement.
[Download] [LH Post]
Utilities
- Unarchiver:
OS X’s default Archive Utility handles a lot, but the first time you come across slightly more unusual (but still very common) archive types like RAR, you’ll notice it stumble. The Unarchiver handles ZIP, TAR, RAR, 7Z, StuffIt, and several more obscure archive types without flinching.
[Download] [LH Post]
- Transmission:
The most popular BitTorrent client for OS X, Transmission rolls virtually every feature you’d want out of a good BitTorrent application into one clean, easy-to-use package. You can even remote control your BitTorrent downloads with Transmission, or get clever and start new BitTorrent downloads at home from any computer with Dropbox (mentioned below).
[Download] [LH Post]
- AppTrap:
One of the best parts of OS X is that uninstalling an application is as simple as deleting it, right? Yes, but not exactly; often simply deleting the file leaves your computer with old junk files sitting around that used to belong to the application you just deleted. AppTrap automatically detects when you’re deleting an application, looks for associated files, and automatically deletes them for you along with the app in question.
[Download] [LH Post]
- Burn:
OS X comes with Disk Utility—a very nice burning application plus some—out of the box, but it’s often used only for more advanced ISO burning, disk formatting, and other heavy-lifting type activities. Burn, on the other hand, is a simple, user-friendly CD and DVD burning application that does data, audio, video, and disc copying with aplomb.
[Download] [LH Post]
Multimedia
- VLC – Got a video or audio file to play? VLC probably plays it. Don’t like how heavy Quicktime is? VLC is lighter. Want it free, working on any system, and have it show album art from your tracks? Done and done.
[Download] [LH Post]
- iTunes:
We’ve seen stronger competition for your music management in OS X this year than ever, particularly with the recent release of Songbird, but right now you’re still better off sticking with iTunes on your Mac. Not only does it integrate seamlessly with your various iPods, but it also integrates with most of your Mac’s iLife applications and other Mac apps. So while you’d better watch out for the competition, iTunes, you’re still the favorite for music.
[Download] [LH Post]
File Backups/Syncing
- Dropbox:
Put simply, Dropbox makes synchronizing your files across Windows, Mac, or Linux systems a very simple, almost magical process. Put a copy of what you’re working on or want saved in your Dropbox folder, and it’s synchronized to your account, which has 2GB to start with, and gets bigger if you recommend friends. When you’re at another one of your own computers, your Dropbox updates and grabs those files. If you’re at someone else’s system or on a smartphone, head to Dropbox’s mobile-friendly site and grab what you need. It’s not quite a backup tool, but it is one of those utilities that makes a lot of old habits—thumb drive copying, CD burning, emailing attachments to yourself—seem unnecessary.
[Download] [LH Post]
- Mozy:
If Dropbox is where you stash the stuff you’re working on or enjoying at the moment, Mozy is the backup service that saves everything for when your system goes black on bootup. The free accounts for Macs (and PCs) offer 2GB of free online space, and with the really smart filtering tools, you can have Mozy crawl your whole system and back up financial documents, Excel sheets, and any file with “Steve” in it. If you spring for a monthly unlimited plan, Mozy is a smart whole-system saver—one that doesn’t eat bandwidth when you’re using it, and works when you’re not working.
[Download] [LH Post]
If you were to compare this pack of software with our
Lifehacker Pack for Windows, you’ll notice a fair amount of overlap. That’s because, luckily for all of us, in many cases free, cross-platform software is thriving. In other instances, we didn’t include a Mac version because the system default is already a very solid choice. (For example, where we recommended Foxit Reader on Windows for lightweight PDF duties, we’d just suggest the built-in Preview in OS X). Other utilities, like
Texter, don’t have a completely free Mac alternative (though we do very much like
TextExpander, which has a free trial beyond which it turns nagware).
Things change daily in the world of free software, and we by no means believe that this list is absolutely definitive, so if you’ve got your own I-can’t-believe-they-didn’t-include-X must-haves, tell us all about them—and share any other thoughts on our list—in the comments. Happy downloading!
Read original post!
Jun 16
keyuriPersonal
An elderly carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer-contractor
of his plans to leave the house building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife enjoying his extended family.
He would miss the paycheck, but he needed to retire. They could get by.
The contractor was sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor. The carpenter said yes, but in time it was easy to see that his heart was not in his work. He resorted to shoddy workmanship and used inferior materials. It was an unfortunate way to end his career.
When the carpenter finished his work and the builder came to inspect the house, the contractor handed the front-door key to the carpenter. “This is your house,” he said, “my gift to you.”
What a shock! What a shame! If he had only known he was building his own house, he would have done it all so differently. Now he had to live in the home he had built none too well.
So it is with us. We build our lives in a distracted way, reacting rather than acting, willing to put up less than the best. At important points we do not give the job our best effort. Then with a shock we look at the situation we have created and find that we are now living in the house we have built. If we had realized that we would have done it differently.
Think of yourself as the carpenter. Think about your house. Each day you hammer a nail, place a board, or erect a wall. Build wisely. It is the only life you will ever build. Even if you live it for only one day more, that day deserves to be lived graciously and with dignity. The plaque on the wall says, “Life is a do-it-yourself project.” Your life tomorrow will be the result of your attitudes and the choices you make today.
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