Creativity Top 5: Week of July 1, 2013
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What exactly is skeuomorphism?→
/The Economist explains:
The term skeuomorph was originally coined in 1889 to refer to an ornamental design derived from the structure of an earlier form of a particular object. In a paper on the subject Dan O'Hara, a philosopher of technology, gives the example of pottery jugs from Zaire, the handles of which are shaped in imitation of handles of traditional jugs customarily made of cord. The design of the handles thus survived the change of material. Other examples would be car seats made of plastic, but textured to imitate leather; plastic spoons moulded with patterns to provide an echo of engraved silver; or imitation wood-grain printed on furniture or flooring. Mr O'Hara argues that, strictly speaking, the term skeuomorphism refers only to those vestigial elements in nature or artefact that survive from an original form, even though they are no longer required. At its broadest, this definition extends to the levers and dials in a modern aircraft cockpit, for example, which no longer connect to systems directly, but instead are merely inputs and outputs of a computer that actually controls things. Such controls are skeumorphs because they are holdovers from the days before computerised aircraft, and have been left in their original form for the benefit of pilots, who are used to them working in a particular way.
So can a digital depiction of something properly be called a skeuomorph? It is more accurate to refer to it as a visual metaphor that calls to mind a physical skeuomorph without really being one. The iPhone's notification panel, with its imitation linen effect, was not descended from an object that was once made of linen. The switch that, say, allows you to switch an iPhone into Airplane Mode is not an on-screen replacement for what used to be a physical switch. In the early days of graphical user interfaces, designers employed familiar devices, such as folders, trash cans and other objects commonplace in the office. The result was that operating systems ended up being littered with depictions of things that had never existed inside a digital device; the on-screen "trash" icon is not the vestigial remnant of an actual trash can that was once part of the computer, which is why it is really a metaphor, not a skeumorph. (That said, as computer graphics became more detailed, the original blocky icons gave way to more detailed depictions of trash cans, folders and so forth, which are arguably skeuomorphs of visual metaphors.)
The Week's Links: June 28, 2013
/All the links posted on social networks this week:
- The One-Minute Trick to Negotiating Like a Boss ➞
- What Kids Are Reading, In School And Out ➞
- The 4 Weapons Of Exceptional Creative Leaders ➞
- The typewriters of famous authors. ➞
- The Gripping, Mind-Blowing, Thrilling Evolution of the Movie Trailer ➞
- Coffee vs. beer: Which drink makes you more creative? ➞
- A Visit to MillerCoors' Real-Life Research Lab ➞
- Tim Carmody on the Past, Present and Future of Reading ◉
- Defry Your Burnt Brain: 4 Quick Ways To Unplug In The Afternoon ➞
- Attention Must Be Paid ◉
- 5 Actual Facts About the Science of Dreams ➞
- 15 Weird Sample Dialogues from Old English Textbooks ➞
- Design Observer: 50 Books/50 Covers 2012 Winners Announced ➞
- Perfect pitch may not be so 'perfect' ➞
- Neil Gaiman prepares for social media 'sabbatical' ➞
- Gareth Kay: Brand Building in a Digital Age ◉
- Who Benefits from Arts and Cultural Districts? ➞
- This is great: pictures of people around the world, reading. ➞
- AJ Jacobs: The Importance of Self-Delusion in the Creative Process ◉
- Habit Change = Identity Change ➞
- How to Build a Collaborative Office Space Like Pixar and Google ➞
- 3 Tips on Overcoming Learning Plateaus from David Foster Wallace ➞
- What Leap Motion And Google Glass Mean For Future User Experience ➞
- The World's Best Commercials, 2012-13 ➞
- How To Be Prolific: Guidelines For Getting It Done From Joss Whedon ➞
- Bertrand Russell: The First Media Academic?: A Retrospective of His Influential Radio Appearances ➞
- Herb Lubalin and Expressive Typography ➞
- Today's Google Doodle in honor of Antoni Gaudi is fantastic. ➞
- MoMA Pays Tribute to Le Corbusier ➞
- How did I not know about this blog: Photoshop Secrets ➞
- The Art of Animation, Motion Graphics, Tech Gone Wrong & Why They Go Viral ◉
- Color management and UI design ➞
- Joss Whedon: 'I kept telling my mum reading comics would pay off' ➞
- David Ogilvy: 10 Qualities of Creative Leaders ◉
- 22 Iconic Music Logos Explained ➞
- Your Hidden Censor: What Your Mind Will Not Let You See ➞
- Laughter and the Brain: Can humor help us better understand the most complex and enigmatic organ in the human body? ➞
- 10 Literary Restaurants for Hungry Book Nerds Around the World ➞
- MIT Technology Review: Introduction to the 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2013 ➞
- New Canadian research finds reading a literary short story increases one’s comfort with ambiguity. ➞
- Cannes 2013 Recap: See All the Grand Prix Winners ➞
- The full spectrum of elements, a reimagined periodic table from LIFE magazine, circa 1949. ➞
- Some visual fun: Shattering Flowers & Fruits with Liquid Nitrogen in Super Slow Motion ➞
- Traditional Japanese Art Created Using Excel Spreadsheets. What? ➞
- The Theory Behind Social Networking & Dijkstra's Algorithm (MIT Video Lesson) ◉
- Physicists on money. Exactly what the title says. ➞
- George Lois and Lee Clow on the Simple, Complicated Future of Advertising ◉
- In case you've wondered what's inside Google Glass, here is a teardown. ➞
- Some of the mashups are amazing: Mashing Up Old and New Famous Faces ➞
- New Canadian research finds reading a literary short story increases one’s comfort with ambiguity. ➞
- Ghostly Pictures: What Phantom Limbs Can Tell Us About Your Brain ➞
- Sizing Up Big Data, Broadening Beyond the Internet ➞
- Saul Griffith's Top 3 Tips to Successfully Launch a New Technology ➞
- Behind the Scenes on Successful Viral Video Advertising Campaigns ➞
- Doctor Performs First Google Glass-Equipped Surgery ➞
- 6 Reasons Why Ballet Dancers Make Awesome Employees ➞
- How typeface influences the way we read and think ➞
- Beautiful: Spectacular GIFs of Flickering City Lights at Night ➞
- Why Lucas and Spielberg see Hollywood at the edge ➞
- 3,000 Classic Books in a tiny USB ➞
- Eight Ways of Looking at Intelligence ➞
- Za'atar: A Spice Mix With Biblical Roots And Brain Food Reputation ➞
- By Creatives, For Creatives: A Travel Guide App For The Globe-Trotting Creative ➞
- The Secret Science of Scalping Tickets ➞
- Why Do We Think We Don't Sleep Enough? ➞
- 50 Great Movies You Can (Legally) Watch for Free Right Now ➞
- Kinect and Classical Music: A Match Made in Disney Heaven? ➞
- TED-Ed: What color is Tuesday? Exploring synesthesia - Richard E. Cytowic➞
- Yoga is better for your brain than exercise, study finds ➞
- Emily Post's Internet Etiquette: How to Behave in a Digital World ➞
- Loved this, you should watch it: The Invisible Made Visible presented by This American Life ➞
- 50 Years of Space Exploration ◉
- When a Web-based artwork becomes technologically obsolete, does updated software simply restore it or changes it? ➞
- Seven Questions to Ask Your Data Geeks ➞
Recommended This Week:
Attention Must Be Paid
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It seems like every week someone tells us how the internet and the digital age are overloading our brains. Sure, sometimes it feels like we're being fed more information than we can handle, that we're paying attention to the wrong things. Are we giving our brain a fair shot?
Another great episode of It's Okay To Be Smart exploring some science that show how paying attention can be a bad thing, and then some science about how paying attention can be a very helpful thing.
Related:
The original Simons and Chabris experiment
The cocktail party effect
The illusion of attention
How is the internet changing our brains? (Harold Rheingold and more)
Sherry Turkle - Alone Together