05.24.12 |
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The Gameological Society, a new gaming spinoff of The A.V. Club, interviews game designers on the challenges of establishing setting. There’s analysis here of three different games, each with widely different aesthetic and mood: Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Yakuza and Final Fantasy XII.
I especially liked the breakdown of Deux Ex’s futuristic Detroit setting, on setting the right balance of freedom for the player character:
The goal, then, isn’t to make the city big, but to make it seem big. It’s all about how you wrestle out that illusion of urbanity. “The player must feel like he has freedom of exploration, that he can be creative with the environment,” Jacques-Belletête said. “At the same time, we need to set limits and boundaries in the world and these boundaries must feel ‘natural.’ We think a lot about what these boundaries will be.”
The boundaries can be superficial. A police barricade, a boarded up door, a chain link fence that’s just too high to jump. Those boundaries can be masked, though, by any number of perceptual means. “A great trick to make the city feel bigger and livelier than it actually is with the sound. Having dogs bark in the distance, the echoes of police sirens, and people talking and babies crying when you get near windows of apartment buildings. The streets of our game don’t have cars moving in them. But with each opportunity we had, you can see moving cars in the distance—on overpasses, on the other side of fences, and other such places.”
05.24.12 |
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Designer Craig Mod:
This is an essay for book lovers and designers curious about where the cover has been, where it’s going, and what the ethos of covers means for digital book design. It’s for those of us dissatisfied with thoughtlessly transferring print assets to digital and closing our eyes.
The cover as we know it really is — gasp — ‘dead.’ But it’s dead because the way we touch digital books is different than the way we touch physical books. And once you acknowledge that, useful corollaries emerge.
Virtually all my reading these days is electronic but man, Craig has some amazing, gorgeous cover examples here.
(As an aside, can I just say how incredible FF Tisa looks on this page? Makes me start to question my own designs, in a good way.)
05.17.12 |
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The Interate podcast gets some big names in the app design world to pop on their show. This week was exceptionally big with Tweetie creator Loren Bricher. The episode touches on a lot of interesting subjects: the conservatism of Apple’s iPhone UI, Bricher’s preferred design tools, Blackberry 10 and more.
05.16.12 |
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This iPhone UI proposal is well thought out but it’s fundamentally too complex for most user needs. I found the extra bottom row of apps especially unnecessary; I’d bet if you were to look at user stats users rarely invoke the double tap app switcher for apps older than the four previously used.
However, major props for Verge forum user brentcas identifying two major problems with iOS 5. First, turning on and off WiFi, Bluetooth and brightness requires way too many taps in Settings given how in demand they are. In addition Spotlight searching should be more accessible; as users add more apps, sometimes an open ended simple keyboard search is ideal to cut through the complexity. I hope both issues are addressed in iOS 6.
05.15.12 |
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More proof that small design changes deliver a big impact.
05.14.12 |
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Michael Lopp, writing for Rands in Response:
Great design makes learning frictionless. The brilliance of the iPhone and iPad is how little time you spend learning. Designers’ livelihood is based on how quickly and cleverly they can introduce to and teach a user how a particular tool works in a particular universe. In one universe, you sport a handheld Portal gun that cleverly allows you to interrupt physics. In a slightly different universe, you have this tool called a cloning stamp that empowers you to sample and copy any part of a photo.
Awesome article. If you love design, this is an really smart read, illustrating how the goals of game and application designers have so much in common.
05.12.12 |
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As Rogie tweeted yesterday, lots of designers on Dribbble are going crazy with ideas for better looking weather apps. Here’s hoping some of these very clean, minimal works translate into better apps. (I’m a My-Cast user but hate the look of it.)
05.11.12 |
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Why an iPad mini won't work, part two: Marco Arment has issues with an overly crowded UI on a potential 7" variant. I agree and find the UI problems especially troubling for developers. A third iOS platform would foster fragmentation.
05.09.12 |
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Ars Technica’s design refresh is great. I especially dig the Noticia headline font; it gives a soft, approachable look when compared against other tech websites.
05.03.12 |
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As compiled by the FontShop editorial board. Each font is ranked with a description and series of images that illustrate the evolution of the font from its inception to modern times.