So I saw an illustration of coffee talk in which the rims of the coffee cups were actually chat bubbles, and wanted to try it for myself. Creative commons attribution licensed, use as you wish but please attribute me: John LeMasney via lemasney.com
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So, at the request of Steve Garwood, a famous and resourceful New Jersey Librarian, I decided to rework the eighties-era Library Logo. I felt the same way as Steve: The Library logo below is something I align with, philosophically, in that when I see it, I love it. I’d like to get a tattoo of it. I think of it as an extension of who I am. At the same time, I wish it was more contemporary in nature, reflecting some of the curvature and relaxation of iconography of the 21st century. In order to keep the general look and feel of the logo, I used the original logo as a starting point, and simply moved elements to shape the new logo. The color is the same. The major difference between the two is a difference I see every time I walk into a library today: a more prominent presence of laptops. When I think about the key ways that libraries have changed, and how they continue to change, I think about the way that the libraries I love most are less about books and more about learning, community, service and sharing. Very often, technology is employed to that end in libraries. Here is the original logo for comparison, after an insightful brief history.
“The image debuted in its official capacity in the 1982 ALA publication, A Sign System for Libraries, by DeVore and Mary S. Mallery, and was the cover story of the September 1982 issue of ALA’s member magazine, American Libraries. DeVore’s original design scheme for the image (similar to the image shown below) was an opaque white silhouette against a blue (specifically, PMS #285 blue) background.” ~ National Library Symbol History & Implications | Walking Paper – http://goo.gl/d6mQiL
I wanted to mention and thank both Steve Garwood, who inspired the rework, and Jane Ferrick, who gave good insights about my figure’s original posture, and the specific appearance of the laptop, both improved. To be honest, before Jane’s suggestions, my figure was practically laying down and using an ultrathin laptop, which appeared as other things. There is also an interesting echo in the laptop of the book in the original symbol.
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Tonight, I just wanted to play a bit with a word: bibliophile. It’s such a beautifully rhythmic word, and while I tend to read more screens than physical pages, I feel like I can align myself with the word.
In Inkscape, I found a good hefty font in Chunk Five, typed out the letters, and converted the word into a path. I ungrouped it, as text to path always groups the letters. Then, using the node tool, I extended the serifs to the left and right wherever they had room to move. Originally, I did not cross over the dots for the i’s but after playing with the serifs going through the dots, I decided I liked it. I hope you did too. 🙂
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I decided to make a color study as a landscape. I think of it as a particularly African landscape.
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Technology and the Arts Special: Art All Night Trenton 2013
Factor of safety is about preparing for unknown flaws in a design, even though the issue may never arise. In the interest of preventing system failure, a designer can make more safety elements than are necessary. In general, it is the act of adding more elements than are strictly necessary in a design to prepare for situations that may or may not happen. In graphic design, you might add restatements of an idea to make more sure of the delivery of the message. In structural design, you might add more beams to the underlying structure. In urban design, more roads and parking, and so on.
I decided to illustrate the most common expression of the factor of safety that I can think of: “belt and suspenders”. In other words, you might say “belt and suspenders” in response to someone bringing a USB key with their materials to a presentation even though the materials available online. In the event that Internet access is down (e.g. the belt breaks) you’d still be able to present via USB (e.g. suspenders).
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Geofencing
In the last week or so, I was contacted by a team leader about developing marketing tools and social media to support a new mobile app. The startup (we’re still working on the name and brand) focuses on Geofencing. Geofencing is a technology that uses the sensors on your phone (cellular, wi-fi, and GPS) to decide if you are in a certain specific area, and then do something with that information, often automatically. Some great apps exist that make use of GeoFencing. Two that come to mind are Smart Places Checkin for Android and Tasker for Android.
Existing solutions
Smart Places Checkin for Android allows me to set up geofencing zones and then automatically check in to those places on Facebook, along with stats. It’s beautiful, and I have several zones set up. However, it’s difficult in my opinion to set up those zones, and the UI could use some work. What’s more, it only does that one singular thing: share my location with Facebook. I want that functionality, but I want flexibility to do other things too.
Tasker for Android is a superb application that allows you to do everything you could imagine with the sensors on your phone, and as a result, you can set actions to be performed with your phone based on your location. Tasker is brilliant, but especially difficult to use for the uninitiated. The UI, in particular, could use an overhaul, or a “light” mode.
Our idea
What we are proposing started as simply a geofencing coupon app. It was like super-local groupons that pop up when you are near a deal. But after seeing what the app is capable of, we are looking to be able to do that and a lot more.
If we incorporate gamification features, a social layer that allows tie in to Facebook, Twitter or G+, sharing IFTTT style recipes between users, and other features related to Geofencing, we could really have something. People can choose to create scenarios like those below and share them for customization by others. Consider the following examples:
- Use the app to create geozone based easter eggs, and create a reward (for businesses, it might be a discount, for others it might be a badge) for collecting all the ‘eggs’.
- Use the app to create awareness of location between you and your significant other or children so that you always know where each other are.
- Use the app to design a tour of a campus, lab, city, or route, with messaging related to placemarks.
- Use the app to create one-off or repeating reminders to yourself or others that while you are near the Post Office, drop off the mail; While near the grocery store, pick up eggs.
- Use the app to track your movement along your path for later review.
- Use the app to give yourself points or a badge when you visit a friend’s house or some other task that you want to encourage yourself to do more often, and share the recipe with your friends to encourage them to do the same. Automatically share your points or visit with Facebook.
I could list another 10 examples, but I imagine that you have your own examples that you are thinking about. When this was just a geofencing coupon app, I have to admit, I was not as excited. But with the potential flexibility and extensibility of this, I could not be more so. Stay tuned for more on this as it develops!
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