If you love to make complex things simple and attractive.  If you love the idea of ice cream cones for the pure reason that they are both form and function.  If you think a driveway might better be called a parkway… then you should watch this movie!

I just got done watching Helvetica – The Movie and I can’t say enough great things. It’s an elegant discussion of simple/ clear graphic design.  It stresses the importance of looking through to the space that isn’t there, as well as the difficulty of how to make a “high heeled guchi” font vs. “a torn sneaker” or a “charlie parker jazz song” really sing.

In a walk through the city, it brings to life the messages that we are shown daily and the emotion that is formed as we interpret and own those forms.  It discusses the responsibility of the designer to give voice and message to artifacts.  It is inspiring.  And delightful to watch.

Helvetica, the movie.  Thumbs up.

anita

I’ve been working with a web 2.0 company doing social game play things for the last few months… so when I read this, all i could say was “wow!”.

“Open-source Linux efforts that pose a threat to Symbian and, by extension, to Nokia, include the LiMo Foundation — whose membership includes Vodafone, NTT DoCoMo, Motorola, Samsung, LG, Panasonic and LM Ericsson, which also are members of the new Symbian Foundation — and Google’s Android effort, featuring many of the same players. Meanwhile, Apple’s iPhone is set to launch in 70 countries by next year and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile OS has also gained share in recent years.”

This is so fantastic.  I can’t believe that there is finally so much movement around creating platforms that finally actually have some standards and extensibility.   Some of these platforms also tackle distribution, which will start to finally put a dent in the stifling of creativity in the mobile marketplace.

I’ve been working with mobile platforms for the last 5 years (save the last couple months).  Over that time, one of the biggest frustrations and (admittedly fun for a little while) challenges was how to figure out how to design and create products that could actually be distributed in the current ecosystem.  Its so great and refreshing to see this actually changing.  It means that hopefully we’ll start seeing some more innovation.  More unique offerings.  And more mobile adoption of new ideas.   Maybe we’ll alas be free of some of the carrier bureaucracy!

I’ll say it again – wow!

Anita