The Fundamental Elements of Design

The Fundamental Elements of Design from Erica Gorochow is a quick animated rundown of design fundamentals and how they are used to build an iconic brand.

Content, not Chrome

Autoupdate is one of Google Chrome‘s killer features. Per this post:

Delving back into project history long before we launched publicly in 2008, the autoupdate project was one of the very first we started working on. The idea was to give people a blank window with an autoupdater. If they installed that, over time the blank window would grow into a browser. And today, some five years after our autoupdater started updating a mostly blank window that could barely load webpages, it is now an engine for delivering an incredibly sophisticated web technology platform onto our users’ computers, which in turn allows web app developers to build amazing new online experiences. I have never seen such an effective platform update mechanism before.

How cool is that??!

Invisibility is a key part of one of Chrome’s four “S”s – simplicity. We seek not to bother the user with information that is irrelevant. As important as it might seem to engineers for our users to weigh fully a variety of considerations relating to our software, in reality they have better things to be doing. They’re trying to find a restaurant, check an email, post a facebook update, and then get the hell away from the computer. Every time the user agent steps in between the user and their task, we slow them down and diminish their enjoyment. Content, not Chrome.

What an awesome way to think about design.

Eric Ries’s Lean Startup – Tech Talk

I just watched a talk by Eric Ries (IMVU founder and investor) that he gave to Stanford ETL. He goes over stuff that’s mostly taken for granted at startups in the valley, these days. (I picked up most of these lessons from working at Facebook and Quora over the past two summers.)

But, I’ve never heard these startup ideas articulated this clearly before. This is an excellent talk.

Think Different

Steve Jobs narrates the first Think different commercial Here’s to the Crazy Ones. It never aired. Richard Dreyfuss did the voiceover for the actual TV spot that aired.

Also, this is my favorite Steve Jobs quote:

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.

Really gets the blood pumping, huh?