dias normais

Category: Design

  • Teletext and the Early Ages of Digital Art

    Teletext and the Early Ages of Digital Art

    I first heard of Teletext one day when reading about pixel and ASCII art. Teletext is a standard for displaying text and graphics on a television invented in the early 70s on the UK. It works by sending the information in the broadcast signal on an invisible area of the display which is then decoded and buffered in a series of “pages“ which can be accessed via the remote control.

    I never thought I’d ever see something like that until recently when I spotted it still working on a TV hotel in Rüdesheim am Rhein, Germany in 2023.

    A friend of mine (@werls) then pointed me to Telidon, a telecommunication system invented in Canada in the late 70s. Recent art projects are seeking to recover and preserve the digital art created during that period. Motherboard also published a cool video about its history and legacy.

    The Lost Art of Canada’s Doomed Pre-Internet Web
  • From screen pixels to ink on paper

    From screen pixels to ink on paper

    Cover of the iOS App Icon Book. The cover features a white background with a big silver reflective rounded square shape on the center

    This beauty arrived in the mail just the other day. ✨

    The iOS App Icon Book is a project created by Michael Flarup that celebrates the art and craft of app icon design.

    The project was funded by a successful Kickstart campaign that raised over 135.000 € by 1.450 backers.

    An aside, this is actually the second Kickstarter campaign that I’ve backed, the first one being the Pebble 2 smartwatch back in 2016.

    The book is great, colours are vibrant and the printing quality absolutely superb. Containing over 150 pages and hundreds of icons, I hope this book’s gonna provide a ton of inspiration for me.

    Detail of a page of the iOS App Icon Book. A grid of icons can be seen. On the center the Chegou app icon is visible. This icon shows the classic Brazilian Correios in blue and yellow and crossed by a messenger's bag blue strap.
    Chegou app icon by Marcel Muller

    One thing that I couldn’t not notice though is that there aren’t many icons by Brazilian or Brazil-based designers in the book.

    One that I could find is the gorgeous Chegou app icon by Marcel Muller. The icon is super recognisable and clean, it depicts the classic Correios uniform in blue and yellow.

    So in order to remedy this I will create my own collection of iOS app icons by fellow Brazilians and display it on this very website in the coming weeks!

  • MiniTimer: a minimal macOS app for setting timers

    MiniTimer: a minimal macOS app for setting timers

    Screenshot of the MiniTimer app displaying a 10 minute timer

    This past weekend I saw a tweet by Daniel Eden in which he created a very simple timer app using SwiftUI and Combine frameworks.

    I decided to make one for myself because I thought it would be really useful at work and also because it was a very practical way to learn some Swift programming.

    As I was at it I took the time to make a simple icon — because why not?

    The original code can be found in Daniel Eden’s Github. Thanks, Daniel!

    Download

    MiniTimer.zip (169 KB)

    Note: requires macOS Catalina or later.

  • Brainstorm Exercise, Drawing Inside Circles

    Brainstorm Exercise, Drawing Inside Circles

    Circles can be the constraint, the frame or part of the illustration itself.

    Coming with a good idea is hard.

    Coming with several, perhaps dozens, of ideas sounds harder still, but one of the takeaways from this Ideation course I’m enrolled to is that you’ve to let go of judgment and just jot them down, and to sketch away any ideas that comes into your mind.

    Admittedly, I’ve spent more time in this exercise that I’ve planned but the process was insightful nevertheless.

  • Storyboarding Design Ideas

    In today’s post I’ll share the result of the second assignment for the HCI specialization course I’m enrolled with this trimester.

    From the assignment instructions:

    A storyboard presents a scenario that takes a hypothetical user from setting (a problem, need, or desire embedded in a specific situation) to satisfaction (an outcome achieved through a design that addresses the problem/need/desire). Storyboards show what a design enables the user to accomplish without specifying a particular user interface. A good storyboard begins by introducing the problem: what does the user seek to do? The subsequent panels walk through what the user does. It introduces how the user begins using the system, any exploration that they do, and how the design helps the user accomplish their goal.

    For these storyboards I’ve drawn inspiration from an interview with my colleague Paula Maria and other community needs I’ve been observing for some time.

    Light Deliveries

    The first design, Light Deliveries is about an app to facilitate the hauling of small to medium cargo. Increasingly people in Brazil are losing jobs with plenty of vacant small trucks to be used. A person will be able to input the cargo information, origin and destination. Afterwards, drivers would accept or decline the offer.

    As a variation of this idea, an elderly lady using the same app could buy cat food from a local pet shop and an available driver would deliver the goods to her place.

    Routes

    The second idea’s an effort to help people getting around with public transportation. A person can check in to a desired bus route and see all of the information about its trajectory, e.g. landmarks, street names, neighborhoods, street-level imagery, alerts, maps, etc.

    In the second example, two friends use the app to meet on the same bus, bringing more safety to their trip.

    This system could be specially useful for tourists, sporadic commuters and people with visual impairment.

    Shower Center

    Finally, based on some evidence found in the answers from the interview, I introduce a shower center, or shower facility, so bike commuters have a place to freshen up and clean before and after work. This is particularly welcome because the majority of company offices in Brazil don’t offer suitable facilities of this kind for their employees.

    The same can be used after work or at any time, really.