Design Observer is a long-running publication of essays and criticism on graphic design, culture, and the design profession.
HN commenters recommend it as a good source for design writing, though not the only one, in threads asking for design reading.
I, who dropped out of CompSci after my first year, was a small-time shadow scholar.
It started innocently enough: I wasn't working, and a friend of a friend who was doing her Master's (in Education, wouldn't you know) needed help typing and formatting a document according to APA Style. I needed the money, so I visited her at the school where she worked. I took the draft she had penned and started reading.
I nearly vomited.
The quality of writing was atrocious. It wasn't just 'bad', or 'needing improvement'. It was shockingly, horrifyingly terrible.
Poor structure. Poor grammar. Not answering the question. excessive circumlocution. Hackneyed phrases every other sentence.
I diplomatically told her that I would 'change some of the words'. As she dictated and I typed, I changed sentence order and modified her word choices. When it was finished, there was a semblance of respectability. A few days later, I heard that the lecturer loved it.
That, dear friend, was the beginning. I completed quite a few assignments for her, but stopped after she started quibbling over the already small fee I charged. (Note to self: Always charge what you're worth.)
Sometime later, a neighbour in my building called me upstairs to help a friend of his. She was typing a paper for her degree to submit that evening, and he, knowing my language skills and typing speed wanted me to help. I went, sat down, and read.
Oh, dear.
I told her that in all honesty, it sucked. I made a few changes, typed up…
My kid loved his Cuisenaire rods. Let me add:
- Schoolhouse Rock (songs and video): ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSRRAHvSQBo ). Related to skip-counting (counting by 2s, 3s etc), which some kids really like and you can practice anywhere you can count (count the stairs). Skip-counting leads to learning the multiplication tables (flash cards).
- Illustrated books about polyhedra. This may be a little advanced, but the pictures are nice. And it leads to Zometools ( https://www.zometool.com/ ) and software versions of the same.
- Books with number illustrations. You have to look for them ( https://designobserver.com/feature/herbert-spencer-and-the-book-of-numbers/37654 ).
- Any illustrated book about symbols? I remember how my kids wanted to know the names and sounds of the IPA ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet ). This may be just a quirk of my family tho. And it's not exactly math, but being comfortable with associating symbols with meaning might make math a little more comfortable.
This is what my kids liked, but every kid has different interests and talents and of course you should build on that. My kids weren't interesting in Lego or Erector Sets or breadboarding LEDs or shooting baskets playing with dolls. If they had been we would have done that.
It's not math, but another thing my kids liked was language-learning software like Rosetta Stone ( https://www.pcmag.com/picks/the-best-language-learning-software ).
When i see the tote bag, i think of
http://designobserver.com/images/features/jacobs.jpg
which, if you ask me, is beyond hilarious and the most ridiculous self-lampooning brand statement ever.
Jacobs
by
Marc Jacobs
For Marc by Marc Jacobs
In Collaboration With
Marc Jacobs for Marc by Marc Jacobs
The relevant paragraph from the original article[1] here:
Marc Jacobs skewered his own eponymous empire with his "marc by marc for marc" tote. This fascination with cheap bags seemed like part reaction to, and part extension of the high-end handbag frenzy that gripped the fashion industry for much of the 00s. It had all the same qualities of exclusivity and brand envy, but also seemed at least in part to be an acknowledgement that things had gone too far. Was Mr. Jacobs’ self-mocking tote a mea culpa for the astronomical hand-bag prices he had helped engineer at Louis Vuiton or was it a sly attempt to mainstream the phenomenon?
[1]: Paper, Plastic, or Canvas? (Dmitri Siegel) http://observatory.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=7917
edit to include alt content of the image link.
Will children be able to draw rainbows free of political and cultural symbolism? Or will the appropriation become permanent, much like the word "gay" which has lost its original English and French meaning?
"The rainbow flag made its debut in 1978 at San Francisco's Gay and Lesbian Freedom Day Parade... The original flag had eight colors, two more than its customary version, each representing an aspect of gay life: red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sun, green for nature, blue for harmony, and violet for spirit."
"In 2006, a straight family in Kansas had to defend flying a rainbow flag at their bed and breakfast from some angry townspeople... Understanding the wider symbolism, the owners nevertheless chose to fly the flag because their young son said it reminded him of the movie The Wizard of Oz, evoking the movie's signature song, Over the Rainbow."
http://observatory.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=7007
1. Users notoriously have no idea what they want. Surveys may not be the best method to determine the effectiveness of an icon because youre asking the user to predict their future behavior (which most are happy to do, confidently). The only way to test an icons effectiveness, is to test icons in a real world environment.
2. We hear this story every time Apple releases a product, when Google updates Gmail, when Facebook gave us Newsfeed. An instant gut reaction to change is not indicative of long term success or failure. People "hating" the icons is meaningless - they havent even been released yet. Change is good, its what drives our ambitions forward. Don't survey people and let the results scare you into stagnating.
3. http://observatory.designobserver.com/feature/graphic-design-criticism-as-a-spectator-sport/37607/
>Should an Art Teacher get copyright rights on all their students' work?
In quite a lot of cases they do (or at minimum the right to reproduce and distribute such at will without compensating the originator of the work).
https://www.trademarkandcopyrightlawblog.com/2012/05/bear-and-copyright-contract-fall-through-the-cracks-who-owns-student-art-work/
https://designobserver.com/feature/who-owns-student-work/12667
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/who-owns-student-artwork_b_6464558