Download or read book A Few Minutes of Design written by Emily Campbell and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2019-02-19 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A series of deceptively simple—and fun—exercises . . . A marvelous invitation to anyone with an interest in creativity, invention, and design.” —Michael Bierut, Partner, Pentagram, New York Even concert pianists do warm-up exercises to limber up the fingers and clear the mind for the performance ahead. Designers are, or should be, no different. This delightful collection provides fifty-two exercises or activities to jump-start your creative juices, free you from creative block, start a new project, or finish an existing one. Each exercise offers insight into the innumerable small decisions involved in design. How to join this part to that, how to establish a pattern or continue the series, how to say it without words, what fits, and what doesn’t? For established practicing designers or creatives in any field, these activities are sometimes playful, sometimes challenging—but always enlightening.

Download or read book Designing Your Life written by Bill Burnett and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2016-09-20 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • At last, a book that shows you how to build—design—a life you can thrive in, at any age or stage • “Life has questions. They have answers.” —The New York Times Designers create worlds and solve problems using design thinking. Look around your office or home—at the tablet or smartphone you may be holding or the chair you are sitting in. Everything in our lives was designed by someone. And every design starts with a problem that a designer or team of designers seeks to solve. In this book, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans show us how design thinking can help us create a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling, regardless of who or where we are, what we do or have done for a living, or how young or old we are. The same design thinking responsible for amazing technology, products, and spaces can be used to design and build your career and your life, a life of fulfillment and joy, constantly creative and productive, one that always holds the possibility of surprise.

Download or read book Thoughts on Design written by Paul Rand and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2014-08-19 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the seminal texts of graphic design, Paul Rand's Thoughts on Design is now available for the first time since the 1970s. Writing at the height of his career, Rand articulated in his slender volume the pioneering vision that all design should seamlessly integrate form and function. This facsimile edition preserves Rand's original 1947 essay with the adjustments he made to its text and imagery for a revised printing in 1970, and adds only an informative and inspiring new foreword by design luminary Michael Bierut. As relevant today as it was when first published, this classic treatise is an indispensable addition to the library of every designer.

Download or read book Design Justice written by Sasha Costanza-Chock and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2020-03-03 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of how design might be led by marginalized communities, dismantle structural inequality, and advance collective liberation and ecological survival. What is the relationship between design, power, and social justice? “Design justice” is an approach to design that is led by marginalized communities and that aims expilcitly to challenge, rather than reproduce, structural inequalities. It has emerged from a growing community of designers in various fields who work closely with social movements and community-based organizations around the world. This book explores the theory and practice of design justice, demonstrates how universalist design principles and practices erase certain groups of people—specifically, those who are intersectionally disadvantaged or multiply burdened under the matrix of domination (white supremacist heteropatriarchy, ableism, capitalism, and settler colonialism)—and invites readers to “build a better world, a world where many worlds fit; linked worlds of collective liberation and ecological sustainability.” Along the way, the book documents a multitude of real-world community-led design practices, each grounded in a particular social movement. Design Justice goes beyond recent calls for design for good, user-centered design, and employment diversity in the technology and design professions; it connects design to larger struggles for collective liberation and ecological survival.

Download or read book System Design Interview An Insider s Guide written by Alex Xu and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2020-06-12 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The system design interview is considered to be the most complex and most difficult technical job interview by many. Those questions are intimidating, but don't worry. It's just that nobody has taken the time to prepare you systematically. We take the time. We go slow. We draw lots of diagrams and use lots of examples. You'll learn step-by-step, one question at a time.Don't miss out.What's inside?- An insider's take on what interviewers really look for and why.- A 4-step framework for solving any system design interview question.- 16 real system design interview questions with detailed solutions.- 188 diagrams to visually explain how different systems work.

Download or read book Sprint written by Jake Knapp and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-03-08 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From inside Google Ventures, a unique five-day process for solving tough problems, proven at thousands of companies in mobile, e-commerce, healthcare, finance, and more. Entrepreneurs and leaders face big questions every day: What’s the most important place to focus your effort, and how do you start? What will your idea look like in real life? How many meetings and discussions does it take before you can be sure you have the right solution? Now there’s a surefire way to answer these important questions: the Design Sprint, created at Google by Jake Knapp. This method is like fast-forwarding into the future, so you can see how customers react before you invest all the time and expense of creating your new product, service, or campaign. In a Design Sprint, you take a small team, clear your schedules for a week, and rapidly progress from problem, to prototype, to tested solution using the step-by-step five-day process in this book. A practical guide to answering critical business questions, Sprint is a book for teams of any size, from small startups to Fortune 100s, from teachers to nonprofits. It can replace the old office defaults with a smarter, more respectful, and more effective way of solving problems that brings out the best contributions of everyone on the team—and helps you spend your time on work that really matters.

Download or read book Creativity Inc The Expanded Edition written by Ed Catmull and published by Random House. This book was released on 2014-04-08 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The co-founder and longtime president of Pixar updates and expands his 2014 New York Times bestseller on creative leadership, reflecting on the management principles that built Pixar’s singularly successful culture, and on all he learned during the past nine years that allowed Pixar to retain its creative culture while continuing to evolve. “Might be the most thoughtful management book ever.”—Fast Company For nearly thirty years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as the Toy Story trilogy, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, and WALL-E, which have gone on to set box-office records and garner eighteen Academy Awards. The joyous storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really is. Here, Catmull reveals the ideals and techniques that have made Pixar so widely admired—and so profitable. As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream as a Ph.D. student, and then forged a partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever. The essential ingredient in that movie’s success—and in the twenty-five movies that followed—was the unique environment that Catmull and his colleagues built at Pixar, based on philosophies that protect the creative process and defy convention, such as: • Give a good idea to a mediocre team and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team and they will either fix it or come up with something better. • It’s not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It’s the manager’s job to make it safe for others to take them. • The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them. • A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody. Creativity, Inc. has been significantly expanded to illuminate the continuing development of the unique culture at Pixar. It features a new introduction, two entirely new chapters, four new chapter postscripts, and changes and updates throughout. Pursuing excellence isn’t a one-off assignment but an ongoing, day-in, day-out, full-time job. And Creativity, Inc. explores how it is done.

Download or read book Creative Confidence written by Tom Kelley and published by Crown Currency. This book was released on 2013-10-15 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: IDEO founder and Stanford d.school creator David Kelley and his brother Tom Kelley, IDEO partner and the author of the bestselling The Art of Innovation, have written a powerful and compelling book on unleashing the creativity that lies within each and every one of us. Too often, companies and individuals assume that creativity and innovation are the domain of the "creative types." But two of the leading experts in innovation, design, and creativity on the planet show us that each and every one of us is creative. In an incredibly entertaining and inspiring narrative that draws on countless stories from their work at IDEO, the Stanford d.school, and with many of the world's top companies, David and Tom Kelley identify the principles and strategies that will allow us to tap into our creative potential in our work lives, and in our personal lives, and allow us to innovate in terms of how we approach and solve problems. It is a book that will help each of us be more productive and successful in our lives and in our careers.

Download or read book The Artist s Way written by Julia Cameron and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2002-03-04 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "With its gentle affirmations, inspirational quotes, fill-in-the-blank lists and tasks — write yourself a thank-you letter, describe yourself at 80, for example — The Artist’s Way proposes an egalitarian view of creativity: Everyone’s got it."—The New York Times "Morning Pages have become a household name, a shorthand for unlocking your creative potential"—Vogue Over four million copies sold! Since its first publication, The Artist's Way phenomena has inspired the genius of Elizabeth Gilbert and millions of readers to embark on a creative journey and find a deeper connection to process and purpose. Julia Cameron's novel approach guides readers in uncovering problems areas and pressure points that may be restricting their creative flow and offers techniques to free up any areas where they might be stuck, opening up opportunities for self-growth and self-discovery. The program begins with Cameron’s most vital tools for creative recovery – The Morning Pages, a daily writing ritual of three pages of stream-of-conscious, and The Artist Date, a dedicated block of time to nurture your inner artist. From there, she shares hundreds of exercises, activities, and prompts to help readers thoroughly explore each chapter. She also offers guidance on starting a “Creative Cluster” of fellow artists who will support you in your creative endeavors. A revolutionary program for personal renewal, The Artist's Way will help get you back on track, rediscover your passions, and take the steps you need to change your life.

Download or read book Creative Workshop written by David Sherwin and published by HOW Books. This book was released on 2010-11-24 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have you ever struggled to complete a design project on time? Or felt that having a tight deadline stifled your capacity for maximum creativity? If so, then this book is for you. Within these pages, you'll find 80 creative challenges that will help you achieve a breadth of stronger design solutions, in various media, within any set time period. Exercises range from creating a typeface in an hour to designing a paper robot in an afternoon to designing web pages and other interactive experiences. Each exercise includes compelling visual solutions from other designers and background stories to help you increase your capacity to innovate. Creative Workshop also includes useful brainstorming techniques and wisdom from some of today's top designers. By road-testing these techniques as you attempt each challenge, you'll find new and more effective ways to solve tough design problems and bring your solutions to vibrant life.

Download or read book How to Speak Machine written by John Maeda and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-11-12 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Visionary designer and technologist John Maeda defines the fundamental laws of how computers think, and why you should care even if you aren't a programmer. "Maeda is to design what Warren Buffett is to finance." --Wired John Maeda is one of the world's preeminent interdisciplinary thinkers on technology and design. In How to Speak Machine, he offers a set of simple laws that govern not only the computers of today, but the unimaginable machines of the future. Technology is already more powerful than we can comprehend, and getting more powerful at an exponential pace. Once set in motion, algorithms never tire. And when a program's size, speed, and tirelessness combine with its ability to learn and transform itself, the outcome can be unpredictable and dangerous. Take the seemingly instant transformation of Microsoft's chatbot Tay into a hate-spewing racist, or how crime-predicting algorithms reinforce racial bias. How to Speak Machine provides a coherent framework for today's product designers, business leaders, and policymakers to grasp this brave new world. Drawing on his wide-ranging experience from engineering to computer science to design, Maeda shows how businesses and individuals can identify opportunities afforded by technology to make world-changing and inclusive products--while avoiding the pitfalls inherent to the medium.

Download or read book The Best Interface Is No Interface written by Golden Krishna and published by New Riders. This book was released on 2015-01-31 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our love affair with the digital interface is out of control. We’ve embraced it in the boardroom, the bedroom, and the bathroom. Screens have taken over our lives. Most people spend over eight hours a day staring at a screen, and some “technological innovators” are hoping to grab even more of your eyeball time. You have screens in your pocket, in your car, on your appliances, and maybe even on your face. Average smartphone users check their phones 150 times a day, responding to the addictive buzz of Facebook or emails or Twitter. Are you sick? There’s an app for that! Need to pray? There’s an app for that! Dead? Well, there’s an app for that, too! And most apps are intentionally addictive distractions that end up taking our attention away from things like family, friends, sleep, and oncoming traffic. There’s a better way. In this book, innovator Golden Krishna challenges our world of nagging, screen-based bondage, and shows how we can build a technologically advanced world without digital interfaces. In his insightful, raw, and often hilarious criticism, Golden reveals fascinating ways to think beyond screens using three principles that lead to more meaningful innovation. Whether you’re working in technology, or just wary of a gadget-filled future, you’ll be enlighted and entertained while discovering that the best interface is no interface.

Download or read book This Is Service Design Doing written by Marc Stickdorn and published by "O'Reilly Media, Inc.". This book was released on 2018-01-02 with total page 1156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can you establish a customer-centric culture in an organization? This is the first comprehensive book on how to actually do service design to improve the quality and the interaction between service providers and customers. You'll learn specific facilitation guidelines on how to run workshops, perform all of the main service design methods, implement concepts in reality, and embed service design successfully in an organization. Great customer experience needs a common language across disciplines to break down silos within an organization. This book provides a consistent model for accomplishing this and offers hands-on descriptions of every single step, tool, and method used. You'll be able to focus on your customers and iteratively improve their experience. Move from theory to practice and build sustainable business success.

Download or read book Design in Nature written by Adrian Bejan and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2013-01-08 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this groundbreaking book, Adrian Bejan takes the recurring patterns in nature—trees, tributaries, air passages, neural networks, and lightning bolts—and reveals how a single principle of physics, the constructal law, accounts for the evolution of these and many other designs in our world. Everything—from biological life to inanimate systems—generates shape and structure and evolves in a sequence of ever-improving designs in order to facilitate flow. River basins, cardiovascular systems, and bolts of lightning are very efficient flow systems to move a current—of water, blood, or electricity. Likewise, the more complex architecture of animals evolve to cover greater distance per unit of useful energy, or increase their flow across the land. Such designs also appear in human organizations, like the hierarchical “flowcharts” or reporting structures in corporations and political bodies. All are governed by the same principle, known as the constructal law, and configure and reconfigure themselves over time to flow more efficiently. Written in an easy style that achieves clarity without sacrificing complexity, Design in Nature is a paradigm-shifting book that will fundamentally transform our understanding of the world around us.

Download or read book Earthling written by Mark Fearing and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2018-10-02 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every kid worries about making friends at a new school, but when nine-year-old Bud accidentally catches the wrong bus and finds himself launched into deep space, new friends are the least of his problems! At Cosmos Academy, Bud learns that Earthlings are the most feared creatures in the galaxy, and even Earth's location has been hidden! With the help of his new friend, Gort, Bud goes undercover as a Tenarian exchange student. Unfortunately that means everyone thinks he's a pro at anti-gravity Zero-Ball (even though he's really only a pro at watching sports). And with paranoid Principal Lepton threat ening to expel any Earthlings (into outer space) and only Gort's hacked Blip computer to help them determine Earth's co-ordinates, will Bud ever find his way home?

Download or read book Design Patterns Explained written by Alan Shalloway and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2004-10-12 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "One of the great things about the book is the way the authors explain concepts very simply using analogies rather than programming examples–this has been very inspiring for a product I'm working on: an audio-only introduction to OOP and software development." –Bruce Eckel "...I would expect that readers with a basic understanding of object-oriented programming and design would find this book useful, before approaching design patterns completely. Design Patterns Explained complements the existing design patterns texts and may perform a very useful role, fitting between introductory texts such as UML Distilled and the more advanced patterns books." –James Noble Leverage the quality and productivity benefits of patterns–without the complexity! Design Patterns Explained, Second Edition is the field's simplest, clearest, most practical introduction to patterns. Using dozens of updated Java examples, it shows programmers and architects exactly how to use patterns to design, develop, and deliver software far more effectively. You'll start with a complete overview of the fundamental principles of patterns, and the role of object-oriented analysis and design in contemporary software development. Then, using easy-to-understand sample code, Alan Shalloway and James Trott illuminate dozens of today's most useful patterns: their underlying concepts, advantages, tradeoffs, implementation techniques, and pitfalls to avoid. Many patterns are accompanied by UML diagrams. Building on their best-selling First Edition, Shalloway and Trott have thoroughly updated this book to reflect new software design trends, patterns, and implementation techniques. Reflecting extensive reader feedback, they have deepened and clarified coverage throughout, and reorganized content for even greater ease of understanding. New and revamped coverage in this edition includes Better ways to start "thinking in patterns" How design patterns can facilitate agile development using eXtreme Programming and other methods How to use commonality and variability analysis to design application architectures The key role of testing into a patterns-driven development process How to use factories to instantiate and manage objects more effectively The Object-Pool Pattern–a new pattern not identified by the "Gang of Four" New study/practice questions at the end of every chapter Gentle yet thorough, this book assumes no patterns experience whatsoever. It's the ideal "first book" on patterns, and a perfect complement to Gamma's classic Design Patterns. If you're a programmer or architect who wants the clearest possible understanding of design patterns–or if you've struggled to make them work for you–read this book.

Download or read book Presentation Zen written by Garr Reynolds and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2009-04-15 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: FOREWORD BY GUY KAWASAKI Presentation designer and internationally acclaimed communications expert Garr Reynolds, creator of the most popular Web site on presentation design and delivery on the Net — presentationzen.com — shares his experience in a provocative mix of illumination, inspiration, education, and guidance that will change the way you think about making presentations with PowerPoint or Keynote. Presentation Zen challenges the conventional wisdom of making "slide presentations" in today’s world and encourages you to think differently and more creatively about the preparation, design, and delivery of your presentations. Garr shares lessons and perspectives that draw upon practical advice from the fields of communication and business. Combining solid principles of design with the tenets of Zen simplicity, this book will help you along the path to simpler, more effective presentations.