Herbert's posterous

The river flows ...

Terrific Typographical Photoshop Brushes

For the creative types amongst us. Creativepro.com has a cool selection of Photoshop Type brushes, all for free. 

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Here's what they say, "Do a Google search for "free typography Photoshop brushes" and you'll find so many that your head will spin. We've helped you out by combing through the many possibilities and creating this one standout collection. We've even refined the results by dividing them into sub-categories, such as vintage, calligraphic, grunge, musical, and more."

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From Seth's Blog: "A little empty"

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via sethgodin.typepad.com

"A little empty

I guess this is how a sports fan felt when Joe DiMaggio retired.
Business didn't used to be personal. Now it is.
Computers didn't used to make us smile. Now they do.
We didn't used to care about whether a CEO made one decision or another, or whether or not he was healthy. I do now.
Sure, there was baseball after joltin Joe stopped playing. But it was never quite the same.
Thank you, Steve, for giving us all something to talk about and a way to talk about it with beauty (and fonts). We owe you more than we can say."

I say, "Well said, #ThisIsSethsBlog! I feel the same."

Great quote from Steve Jobs

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"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything -- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. ... Stay hungry. Stay foolish."

-- Steve Jobs, Stanford University commencement address, June 2005.

My new desktop picture

Sky-plane-kaizen
This is to remind me that continuous improvement is a life-long journey and not an ad hoc one-time event, and I picture myself riding in that small plane high up in the sky - where it's so much easier to see the big picture.

The inspiration came as I listened to the broadcast of This American Life about NUMMI, the short lived joint venture between Toyota and GM. I realized that a fundamental difference in Japanese vs. American manufacturing is kaizen, or continuous improvement - Japanese workers will stop an assembly line if they see a problem and fix it on the spot, while their American counterparts can get fired for stopping an assembly line.

It comes down to quality vs. quantity. I think the Japanese approach is ultimately the better one as it generates less waste and less faulty products.

Kaizen, Japanese for "continuous improvement" or "change for the better", refers to philosophy or practices that focus upon continuous improvement of processes in manufacturing, engineering, supporting business processes, and management. It has been applied in healthcare, psychotherapy, life-coaching, government, banking, and many other industries.

When used in the business sense and applied to the workplace, kaizen refers to activities that continually improve all functions, and involves all employees from the CEOto the assembly line workers. It also applies to processes, such as purchasing and logistics, that cross organizational boundaries into the supply chain.

By improving standardized activities and processes, kaizen aims to eliminate waste (see lean manufacturing). Kaizen was first implemented in several Japanese businesses after the Second World War, influenced in part by American business and quality management teachers who visited the country. It has since spread throughout the world and is now being implemented in many other venues besides just business and productivity.

Golden Ratio hidden in the icon of iCloud

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 Via translate.googleusercontent.com and Sachin's Blog

This is a Google Translate version of a Chinese (?) blog, their English is a bit rusty, but I hope you get the idea.

As a designer I really like the rule of the Golden Ratio and I try to implement it wherever I can. It's simply amazing to see what attention to detail the icon designers at Apple put into this new icon for iCloud; they used the Golden Ratio in 3 layers to get to the final design! I'm not 100% sold on the brushed metal look though ...

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For example, I have used the Golden Ratio in the design of the new logo for the International Atomic Energy Agency:

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And as a bonus here is an explanation of the Golden Ratio from the studios of the great Walt Disney, starring Donald Duck in Mathemagic:

Toyota vs. GM - one gets it, the other goes bankrupt -why?

Host Ira Glass from "This American Life" introduces the story of the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., aka NUMMI.

In 1984, General Motors and Toyota opened NUMMI as a joint venture. Toyota showed GM the secrets of its production system: How it made cars of much higher quality and much lower cost than GM achieved. But today, GM cars still don't have the quality of Japanese imports, GM went bankrupt and on March 31, 2010, NUMMI was closed, sending thousands of car workers looking for jobs.

In this hour-long story, NPR Automotive Correspondent Frank Langfitt tells the story of NUMMI and why GM—and the rest of the American car business—wasn't able to learn from it more quickly.

Play the original audio broadcast (60 minutes)

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via thisamericanlife.org

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The NounProject by @SimpleScott

In case you're currently looking for pictograms check out Scott Thomas' recent work The NounProject.

For those who could not attend, the second keynote speaker of this weeks PSUWeb11 conference at The Penn State University was Scott Thomas (@simplescott), part of his talk was how he conceptualized and designed the website for the 2008 Obama campaign (without mentioning IA - thanks Rebecca for noticing!). He now published a great book about that experience, this link lets you view the entire book and a FREE PDF can be downloaded from a link on the top right - still, I recommend buying the book as a great treat, and to support the artist! 

Scott also has another interesting blog/website that's worth a moment of your attention, he collaborates with his office neighbors in The Post Family, and he wrote an interesting post how he financed the publishing of his Designing Obama book through Kickstarter, a successful crowd-sourcing start-up.