It’s the bit with the POV shot while The Cleaner fixes Woody’s arm.
And, it’s a one-second shot.
Watch it twice. It’s insane.
Because, here’s the thing: like the transitions between The Magic Kingdom’s “lands,” the extravagant fish tanks and white tigers at The Mirage, and the impossibly seamless design of an iPhone 4’s chassis—there’s absolutely no direct or quantifiable financial reason to make this one little shot this good.
The only reason to make each thread on a broken toy’s shirt look this good is taste. Pure and simple.
And, at least as far as I’m concerned, that taste is precisely the thing that makes PIXAR, PIXAR.
If someone is talented enough to do a great job within his or her skill set, then they’re probably talented enough to learn a bit about someone else’s job, too. Designers learning how to program. Programmers learning how to design. Product people learning how to actually design or build something instead of just writing about it.
I think most of us working on the web today are unique in that we all have a ton of curiosity about how things work. And I think the reason why some designers don’t code isn’t because they wouldn’t be able to, but rather they don’t know where to start. Mike continues to describe that rare breed who can design and code:
I can’t really speak for anyone else, but I’m guessing the common trait amongst us is that we’re curious, almost to a fault. I’ll read about programming languages, science, math, psychology, economics and space until the cows come home. I absolutely had to write software for the iPhone when it was announced so I had to teach myself C and Objective-C. Jesus, it was hard, but I did it.
So for those among us who are interested in picking up some extra skills, whether it be code or design, there are plenty of resources out there for you. If you’re interested in learning some HTML and CSS, Jessica Hische has a great site devoted to teaching the two from scratch: Don’t Fear the Internet.
CSS Transforms were first introduced in WebKit in 2007, and have now reached mass-adoption by all the major browswer vendors… The API for applying transforms however, does not scale to complex applications which require intricate and complex management of transformations. TransformJS attempts to identify and address these problems, allowing developers to make use of transforms without having to be encumbered by cross browser issues, and low-level APIs.
Well, this is great news.
I hated messing with multiple browser configurations for doing any type of advanced CSS3 transformations, and trying to implement it to older browsers was near impossible. It looks like this library helps with a lot of those issues, while gracefully degrading for older browsers.
Frank Chimero sums it up better than I ever could:
Good design and good markup provide structure to content. Good markup is a fundamental part of good design: beautiful on the inside, beautiful on the outside. HTML and CSS give another venue to provide structure to content in the native language of the web, and learning these guides decisions by surfacing the affordances of the medium. Design decisions are affected by both the content and the format, like how a sculptor would make different decisions if she were working with clay rather than marble.
In short, designers working on the web today should know how to code.
We’ve all been waiting on baited breath for Steve Jobs to permanently resign as CEO of Apple, but it still came as a surprise.
I’m not going to join the Apple-fanboy chorus in saying that Steve Jobs’ departure won’t affect Apple in a negative way, but I also don’t think it will be as impactful as the naysayers are making it out to be, either.
No matter what you think of Apple, or wherever your stance is on the future of computing, it’s impossible to dispute the fact that Steve Jobs was and will continue to be a visionary. If you don’t take my word for it, watch the video below from 1997 WWDC when Jobs was an advisor to Apple and all but predicted where Apple would be today.
This piece from Anil Dash is the best thing you’ll read today, and probably this week.
His insight into how the most successful company in America today is run by a liberal shows just how wrong the conservatives in America are about how liberals want to ruin business and turn the United States into a Socialist state.
In a recent Adweek article, Erin Griffith reports on the havoc caused to the publishing industry by content management systems and the unavoidable battles between developers and editors who maintain and use them.
The article claims there is “no such thing as CMS success story,” and while I’m inclined to agree, I don’t think the problem is as simple as blaming technology. As someone who has worked in the editorial department for a national political publication, I saw firsthand the lack of communication between the supposed in-house tech and editorial teams.
You mean I can eat my cake, too?
Time CIO Mitch Klaif says in the Adweek article:
“There’s nobody that can walk in the door for any price tag and say, ‘We have the solution.’ If someone had a silver bullet, I don’t know if I’d have them shoot it at the sites or at me.”
I think this underscores some of the biggest problems with modern-day publishing from companies such as Time, Inc: they are looking for a one-size-fits-all, straight-out-of-the-box solution for something that took centuries for them to refine in print. And to boot, these large and storied media enterprises are largely staffed with elderly editors and writers who for one reason or another refuse to learn about the technology behind publishing on the web.
Let’s make no mistakes, I am in no way advocating writers and editors should be able to write code or even write and style a static web page. I do think, however, that tomorrow’s most successful writers and editors will at least be able to understand what is happening behind the scenes when they publish a story. Like their peers before them who understood how a line a type was set on a printing press before going to print, today’s writers and editors should have a basic understanding how a piece of content is delivered to their audience. Oftentimes I fear the writers and editors are asking for too much magic and the developers and designers of these custom CMSes are promising to make things too magical. A deeper understanding of how these systems operate and their innate constraints will help writers and editors better server their audiences.
Don’t get me wrong, I in no way think all of the blame sits with the editors and writers, but is equally shared with the developers building these systems. Ad Week’s article further goes on to quote a former AOL employee who says, “When you try to build a product that works for everybody, it works for nobody.” I can personally attest to past jobs where I’ve been on the developer side and have been trying to appease too many writers and editors who do not understand the web, while at the same time trying to write a product that performs well, is secure and is scalable enough for years into the future. It’s impossible unless you have a large and evolving ecosystem such as WordPress or Drupal, and even with those you’re better off knowing HTML if you plan to use them successfully.
In order to build a successful CMS publishing platform, a developer should understand the workflow of those using it. And the staff of that publication should be filled with writers and editors who understand the technology and constraints behind their medium. It’s about respect and communication, people.
