Sam "Wordy" Winston

Recently I went on a eco-home tour in the Los Feliz area with an awesome companion. It included a house with a roof garden and a rented crane that would take interested people up to eye-roof-level to check it out. The line was too long, so we didn't do that, but it was a neat option.

Also in this house, which has nothing to do with eco-anything, was a framed print that looked like this:

Maybe you can't really tell here, but it was/is awesome. It's a story, and each word of the story includes a definition of that word! Said companion and I wrote down the artist's info because we were so excited about this work of art that played with our love of words. We went to the internet and found it. Delight! Then we found out that it costs $700. Dismay! It's a limited edition, and understandable, but $700 sounds like a heckuva lot of cash right now. Right?

Maybe one day. And maybe $700 sounds doable to you, in which case you can go to Sam Winston's website and buy really pretty, smart art for the wordy wordsmith in you.

New Courses This Quarter

We like to keep things fresh - especially our donuts, but also our courses. Check out what the winter brings:

Design and Development for WordPress: Beyond the Blog
WordPress is a popular tool for designers and developers alike that has grown from an open source blog application to a powerful and extendable publishing platform. Modifying existing themes and creating custom ones can facilitate rapid development of dynamic websites with stunning graphic design. In this project-based course, you will design and develop a dynamic website utilizing WordPress as a CMS. Taught by Michael J. Newman, designer who has developed and created original content, brand identities, interactive experiences, and creative solutions for such companies as AT&T, Sundance Channel, Vh1, Nickelodeon, and IFC, for over 12 years. Read more about the course here and here and go to Michael's site here.

Enroll in WordPress with Reg# V4751B

User Experience Research
Today's designers must satisfy the needs of multiple constituents, including clients, colleagues, and, especially, end-users. The ultimate goal of experience research is to inform design decisions that meet the critical needs of constituents. User research helps assess gaps in an existing experience, discover design opportunities, refine concepts and strategy, and test the creative/design execution. Taught by Christopher Korintus, Experience Research + Analytics, Sapient Interactive. Read more about UE jobs here and see an example of Chris' work here.

Enroll in UE Research with Reg# V4753B

Cradle to Cradle: Closed Loop Systems
In this course, students aim to design like nature, finding inspiration in natural cycles where "trash" and "waste" are nonexistent and, where instead, everything has a continuous purpose. Instruction studies industrial-age systems, such as extraction, manufacturing, assembly, disassembly, and packaging, and explores ways in which these systems can be sustainable. Taught by Kevin O'Donnell, Co-Founder, thread collaborative, a sustainable design, resource, and strategy company dedicated to innovative green strategies to achieve sustainable building development. Mr. O'Connell has worked in the retail industry for over fifteen years, championing cutting-edge design, integrated architecture and decor, and brand development. Check out Kevin's company here.

Enroll in Cradle to Cradle with Reg# V5018B

UE is Where the Interdisciplinary Money Is

Okay, so Google doesn't post salaries with their job descriptions, but check out the demand for User Experience Researchers there. Don't believe me? How about this list of UE jobs at Facebook? Want to go back to Canada? Then you can work here. That's almost ten jobs right there in three links. Seriously.

We've had a User Experience Design course for years. Now we're adding a User Experience Research course with a newly relocated designer, Chris Korintus who works at Sapient (along with Sarah Lamont. Hi Sarah!). Check it:

Today's designers must satisfy the needs of multiple constituents, including clients, colleagues, and, especially, end-users. The ultimate goal of experience research is to inform design decisions that meet the critical needs of constituents. User research helps assess gaps in an existing experience, discover design opportunities, refine concepts and strategy, and test the creative/design execution. This course covers the key concepts of evaluation and evaluation methods, and students develop both quantitative and qualitative measures, such as contextual observation, heuristic analysis, surveying, interviewing, focus groups, persona development, evaluation during the design/iteration cycle, usability testing, and analysis of systems in use. Designers leave the course with an understanding of which methods to use, given constraints, and how to design, field, and report on findings.

You can be a UE Researcher! Yes, you. Register here.

Web Design with WordPress: An Email

Poster design by Michael J. Newman

Peter,

Thank you so much for your interest in the class.

The class will start with WordPress fundamentals (general concepts, installation and configuration) and then move into utilizing WordPress as a platform for delivering dynamic websites that don't appear as "cookie cutter" templates.

We will cover some existing plug-ins that help facilitate using WordPress as a content management system and also the basics of writing custom WordPress widgets and plug-ins. Since the course will be covering a lot of material, widget and plug-in concepts, usage and development will be only about 10% of the overall course.

One thing that might also be of interest that we will cover is the concept of using WordPress to generate custom data feeds. The feeds can be used for a variety of applications including passing data to Flash files or tools such as Google Maps.

Please let me know if you have additional questions.

Best,

Michael Newman
mjnewman@pomp.com

Enroll

Pretty, Pretty Books

Penguin Books cover design by Coralie Bickford-Smith

My Uncle John had shelves and shelves of beautiful books, mostly leather- and cloth-bound. He had first editions and rare prints and many of them were frayed on the spine. They were very cinematic to me. I thought, I should pick one of those up and read it under a tree while wearing a sundress and sipping apple juice in a glass jar from Martinelli's.

Apparently the people at Anthropologie had similar cinematic fantasies, for they included some pretty books in their latest catalog. Following the links led me to Coralie Bickford-Smith's website, which shows off her beautiful work for Penguin Books.

This is what graphic design can be.

Thanks again, Jezebel.