Much brou-ha-ha was made regarding this recent post from the crew at 37Signals. I don’t agree with it at large but 37Signals works in a different context than I do. Which is why I’d have to stress that it’s important to read the bit where it says “Why we skip Photoshop.” I do however agree with the pseudo-follow-up Web designers should do their own HTML/CSS. I don’t believe it’s necessary in any sort of case as the correct answer to any of these (and life’s questions) should be “It depends.” Context, personal circumstance and experience should always be taken into account. To me, the web is endless possibility, not a place of rules and hardlines.

Hi Ian –

I read on The Thought Kitchen about Nau closing down and at first glance I had to ask myself whether or not it was April 1st. Nope.

I’ve been really bummed and upset that you folks are closing up shop. It’s really a shame that in these turbulent times that an excellent company like Nau couldn’t survive past a year. No one else I feel is doing what you folks are doing. From the first time I heard and read about you folks in an issue of Outside — if I recall correctly — I was super excited at what I was seeing — functional outdoor clothing that gasp actually looked sexy, slick, good and that you could wear for a night on the town and no one would be the wiser. As a designer, it filled that void that I thought was missing between fashionable, modern cuts but being completely functional. To me, it’s a match made in heaven.

I put you folks up there along with Rapha, the high end cycling clothing mfg. based in London. I’m sure you’re familiar with them — given the overlap of some of the Portland cycling brethren that you both worked with — Ira Ryan, Dan Sharp, et al.

And now you’re going away. I’ve never felt so emotionally about a company whose values aligned with mine but it’s good to know that at least you were around for a while. I’m happy to have quite a few Nau pieces in the closet and yesterday I called everyone I knew who loved you folks and we all raided the Chicago store. My significant other (Jen Schuetz — I believe she’s also emailing you) and I bought what we could, happy to get our hands on more excellent pieces but not the situation with which we managed to get these items this time around. Bittersweet with with the bitter side being more prominent.

I feel that given another 6 months to a year you folks would really have found your groove and become a lasting company. I’m a fan of other outdoor companies, notably Patagonia but I rarely find anything at Patagonia that I actually buy — the clothes are a bit too drab and I’ve noticed that their sizing has grown a little (contrary to their claim to fit active people first — perhaps adopting some of The North Face populist appeal?).

Nau was my company of choice. If there ever was a company that I believed could change things, it was you folks.

With that, I hope perhaps someday Nau might return, perhaps in another form. I hope you don’t look at this as a failure — if you do, you failed spectacularly and successfully. But like any relationship that leaves a lasting impact, I’m glad you folks were around for as long as you were rather than not at all.

Godspeed and good luck in your future endeavours.

Thanks for everything,
Naz.

Ed: For further, read Treehugger’s wrap-up.

Last week, a client contract came my way which required a signature, as well as either the signed document returned via email or fax. Typically in the past, I’ve printed out the contract and faxed it back. However, I dislike wasting paper for things like this (as well as thinking Green these days) and have often wasted money and time on having to head out to Kinko’s to get things faxed. How quaint eh?

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Before heading down to SXSW this year, Aza Raskin, now of Mozilla Labs, got in touch with me to see if I’d be interested in designing some t-shirts for them. Why, yes please.

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Earlier this week, Trent Reznor released Ghosts I-IV, a 36 track (or a traditional split of 4 albums) collection of instrumental music. It forms a soundscape of moods, atmosphere, moments and volume. It’s a highly interesting experiment in regards to Reznor pulling a Radiohead but how good is the actual music? And how does this set the tone for distribution?

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When Yahoo! Pipes launched in early 2007, I didn’t quite understand what it was right off the bat. A bit more investigation and seeing examples helped me with that but I didn’t think about building anything until late last year. I had come across something (I forget what) and someone had mentioned that they wished they had a feed for some of my combined output.

I went back to Pipes and played around with it some. It’s remarkably simple to use especially if you’re a visual person. It takes XML/RSS feeds and puts them together or creates mash-ups of data, which is actually a lot of fun. I don’t see it being used as often enough perhaps but now that I’ve played with it, I wish it were.

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There’s a growing feeling that I’ve had and shared with my peers in numerous conversations lately. It’s a desire to see another dot-com bust of sorts. A mini-bust if you will. I don’t mean this with any menace — rather, a desire to see the fat get trimmed, the cruft erased and for there to be more of a lean and mean Internet.

The fact is, my friends, there’s gluttony going around.

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Around the time Christopher Nolan’s restart of the Batman franchise, Batman Begins was coming into theaters, I discussed with some friends the notion of opening weekends, DVD’s, film piracy and what the future of movie-going could be like.

I suggested then, the idea of having movies be released on DVD or on demand cable. Soderbergh did something very similar with Bubble in 2006.

Some background: I used to be an opening-night junkie.

I’m not anymore and as I grew weary of getting tickets and standing in line for an hour before the movie started so we could get good seats, I grew to like the idea of having a movie accessible on opening night right in your own home.

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If you’re a photographer who’s embraced the DSLR, you’ve no doubt heard of or work with RAW files.

I made the switch quite a while ago and have been working with them for some time now. The quality is unsurpassed in manipulating digital images. For a long while however, it seemed that the technology for working with RAW files was shoddy and turned many would-be-RAW-shooters right off. Including myself.

Enter Aperture. Enter Lightroom.

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I’ve mostly recuperated from the behemoth that is SXSW. I took a lot of notes in my moleskine and decided to do an infographic poster regarding my experience (instead of being lengthy with words — I am a designer, so I should flex the muscles a bit and display information concisely and visually) and some of the smaller details and minutiae of the event. You can see a larger version here or you can download the printable 11×17 PDF poster here.

Some notes:

1. Info is as accurate as I remember, refer or calculate.
2. The blocky typeface for SXSW 2007 is custom and created just for this. I started work on it at SXSW itself.
3. Some of it is humourous. Some of it is serious.
4. The list of people I met obviously resembles a tagcloud — the key should be evident — the larger your name is, the more time I spent with you.

My SXSW photos, all 140 of them are here.

The web was abuzz yesterday and the day before with the latest product announcement from Motorola: The MOTOFONE. It’s sleek, sexy looks have no doubt won the aesthetic hearts of many but more importantly and as pointed out by Greg Storey, “Finally, a cell phone that’s a phone.”

If you’ve known me for a while, you’ll know that I was reluctant about having a cell phone. For a while I fought against having one, preferring the solid connection of a land line and the privacy that came with not being able to be reached anywhere and anytime. A few years ago, I had a cell phone, gave it up for a year and then got one again, which I’ve had ever since. There are quite a few reasons why I’ve come round to it, some of which are obvious and others not so.

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