Aaron Hoffmann Principal UX Product Designerthought of the day: isn’t one’s first birthday technically the day they were born? much like recurring charitiable and recreational parties, an initial birthday should be called something like, “The First Annual I’m-going-to-be-alive-awhile Charity Event. Now give me presents.”
a couple more images from projects long-since passed. one is just a collection of strange iconography, the other is a group of gift card concepts for a digital music store. enjoy!
i think my recent trip to japan spoilt me in many ways. or maybe it opened my eyes to some things here in america we all take for granted that are just messed up. like the concept of gratuity for every mother-loving service under the sun. you bagged my groceries while i was preoccupied with purchasing them. plus 15 percent. you opened a door allowing my arms to fall into atrophy. plus 10 percent. unless your job doesn’t already pay you a wage, how about doing your fucking job and not carrying some chip of entitlement on your shoulder that people owe you something extra when you’re just scraping by doing the bare minimum? and if your job doesn’t pay you a wage, you are a fucking idiot; wages are why you get a job in the first place.
today i travelled from san francisco to minneapolis, taking two shared van services to get both to one airport and home from the other. it’s like a miniature city bus, with slightly more convienience that you pay a significant premium to use, versus municipal transportation. having no luggage other than my laptop backpack, i neither asked nor received any assistance from the van driver aside from his apt handling of the rotation of the steering wheel, and the depressing of floor pedals in the proper sequence.
now i’m not sure about anyone else, but i and nobody i’ve ever seen has ever tipped a bus driver. yet when this guy chased me down inside the airport after leaving the van and pestered me to give him a tip–he actually made me sign a receipt to verify he was getting zero for a tip; it’s hard to tell who was more insulted. him for not getting a tip and having not done anything to earn one, or me who is assaulted by a greedy slob who had no qualms about cursing at me in his native slavic tongue.
what ever happened to people having pride in a job well done? or even just doing your job satisfactorily if for nothing else than to avoid consequence? america’s service industries are infected with too many people who expect me to pay extra for them to just do their damn job. “gratuity” is to be paid for exceptional service… for a favour, or for going above and beyond to please me as a customer. if your idea of A+ service includes sharing aloud fictional adult scenarios involving my mother and livestock in a ukranian dialect, my idea of gratuity is not exhausting my egg mcmuffin’s calories in physical appreciation… to your face.
japan is one country that does it right. people very happy to do their jobs and do them so well you couldn’t complain if you tried. and their only expectation? that you are satisfied. in fact, trying to offer a tip there can result in two outcomes: a) they are insulted by your condescending charity, or b) assume you overpaid and graciously correct your oversight as a hapless customer by handing the extra back.
i guess my point is that the guilt–and the guilt trips–surrounding the american system of gratuities needs to stop, and i am fully preparing myself to take a stand by “being an asshole” and not just tipping because i’m supposed to for some mysterious dogmatic reason. and if you’re a service provider who supplements an hourly wage with tips, that’s fine, but unless you’re willing to go beyond “meets expectations” when we meet, you should expect nothing extra from me either.
listening to:
Brian Vander Ark
Brian Vander Ark
in case anyone hadn’t noticed, i’ve ditched the moody, gothic black and red design for something a bit more light-hearted, not to mention inspired; the previous design was pretty dull in my opinion. this time around, brighter tones everywhere, as well as some more organic elements give a more accurate representation of my personal design style and skill.
replacing the branching tree animation of the previous header are the row of navigational buttons just beneath the header, each with a small, subtle animation. it’s probably my favourite new element to the site, followed by the new image viewer. click almost any image from a post or gallery to have it neatly presented in a larger format, scaled to your window.
one disclaimer: the site is designed to work in all modern browsers, which contrary to some beliefs, does NOT include Internet Explorer 6. i have done my best to keep things reasonably designed and functional with IE6, but the truth is the program is old hat, and was never very good to begin with. it’s an anchor this boat isn’t interested in dragging anymore. so you can do your best to enjoy the site with IE6 minus the full experience and plus a few layout quirks, or you can do the internet a favour by joining the rest of 2008 and using Firefox or Safari.
it’s my hope that people enjoy it; if you experience any issues or just totally hate it, leave a comment. in the coming days, i’ll be refreshing/streamlining my portfolio images to be more concise and current. thanks for stopping by!
listening to:
Modern Guilt
Beck
madness or genius? it’s probably a blend of both, but you have to give the guy credit for doing something different. using his mother’s 1968 high school annual, he lovingly caricatured over a thousand faces now for us to marvel upon. why? who knows, but it’s bloody intriguing if nothing else!
check out the entire project on Flickr:
Excelsior – 1968
that’s all for now…going to be updating my gallery with things soon!
thought of the day: do green gummy bears have the same effect as green m&m’s?
it’s bloody cold here in minneapolis, but that statement is true for more than half the year, so it’s not news. this time of year it is exceptionally true. last weekend was -8ºF (with -29ºF windchill factor), and even today was -11º, which means i’ve been spending less time indoors. while i have plenty of games to occupy my time, i like some diversity among my diversions. unfortunately, thanks to the writer’s strike, many of my favourite shows aren’t airing new content, and haven’t for some time now, forcing me to look beyond my normal comfort zones of television, and to some smaller extent, movies.
U2 3D
most recently, i acquired pre-screening tickets to a private showing of the new imax feature U2 3D, a milestone of modern 3D cinema in the sense that it was shot not only in the gigantic imax film format, but also shot live, and of course in the extra-dimensional effect. that i’m a superfan of U2 aside, it really is an amazing experience for anyone who might enjoy music, the band, or just something different. normally i don’t pay much attention to imax releases because the ticket prices feel as large as the screens, but from time to time, i just can’t ignore them.
in the case of U2 3D, the film follows the band on their Vertigo Tour during a show in Buenos Aires. Having been “front row” to more than one of the band’s shows–including one on this same tour–i had a specific point of reference for what to expect from this film. from the very beginning and the first song, it’s surprisingly accurate to the feel of the show, and the dimensionality of being so near the stage and performers; seeing it on such a large screen only helps to amplify the effect. like stepping into a steaming hot tub, the overwhelming sensation wears off after awhile, even just two or three songs in, but in effort to combat that complacency, some clever visual tricks have been added to freshen the audience and pop some ‘wow’ back into their brains. for example, every shot is a three-dimensional space, but from time to time, they collage together several layers of such space, essentially multiplying the effect. during the song “love and peace or else”, lead singer bono is filmed in a tight closeup during a quiet bridge between anthemic refrains, and always the performer, he starts miming the lyrics with hand gestures such as turning a dial or finger painting mid-air. to these gestures, a post production effect i’ll call “light drawing” was added to emphasise and provide additional dimension, not to mention interest. strangely, it wasn’t until the end of the show where things got really over the top. one of their encore songs, “the fly” already had so much going on with the giant stage display behind the band, that to have the insanity of so many words, shapes and colours mimicked, enhanced and complemented in full 3D as a foreground layer atop the live action was just overwhelming, in a good way. similarly, the light drawing re-emerges toward the end of the closing credits, after many had left the theatre. one of the best effects in the film, it was a combination between the 2D drawings, and 3D animation. just a tip to stay start to finish when you go see it, and you should go see it if there’s an imax theatre anywhere near you.
MONK
two weeks ago, while enduring the interim between shows on a boring sunday night, i found myself scouring the programming guide for something, anything. the USA network is nearly adjacent to the Sci-Fi channel where i spend a fair amount of my television time, so in the vacuum of other interests, noticing it on the same screen as the rest of the schedule i planned to watch later, i decided to give monk a shot.
unaware of the show’s premise, i soon figured out why some people who know me well enough know that i have a somewhat mild case of OCD would suggest i see it sometime. after a few minutes, i wasn’t entirely convinced, but gradually my scepticism wore thin as my amusement at the lead character’s quirks grew. not that his condition itself is amusing, but instead that i see a lot of myself in him and the things he does, and how his surroundings affect him. i can appreciate how the writing uses what many would consider a weakness and instead use it as a powerful advantage, even though the crime-solving aspects don’t typically interest me as much as enjoying the character’s idiosyncrasies, and relating them to myself. in fact, the crime-solving is never very puzzling for me, i typically have things figured out before the first commercial break. while it’s certainly not new by any measure, to have found a program with such a richly developed character and hefty backlog of episodic content is a huge win for me.
LOST
i’ll admit, the series lost just never appealed to me, despite so many of my fellow geeks, gamers, etc. all seemed to really dig it. so here upon the cusp of season four about to begin airing in a week, i started seeing advertisements on abc.com (sinfully, while watching missed episodes of Grey’s Anatomy) for a new, free availability of the show in HD, from the very beginning to most recently aired…three full seasons in total.
so what of it? the first handful of episodes was really a test run for me; while i wasn’t immediately engrossed, i wasn’t bored either. much like my favourite show, Battlestar Galactica, the series centres around a cast dealing with their dire circumstances and each other; it’s a character drama that happens to have a slight sci-fi twist. the show has a strong tendency to tie the current events and theme of the episode to the characters’ pasts during scattered flashbacks, thereby revealing not only more about the characters, but helping to reinforce the lessons learned in each one. the problem for me at first was that the show has so many characters, that it takes a long time for a viewer to develop any sort of attachment to any of them, and in turn a loyalty to the show; it requires so many episodes to make progress on that front. it’s a sort of vicious cycle in some respects; not knowing enough to care about characters, and not enough time to find out enough to care. however for the vigilant come the rewards.
to put it another way: in a matter of 3 days, i watched the entire first season; 24 episodes at 45 minutes apiece for around 18 hours of content, most of that time at the expense of my sleeping schedule. as i continue to barrel through season two, the pieces falling into place one episode at a time, i can only curse that the show is but an hour long, and for such a complex cast and story, it simply isn’t enough to satisfy the appetite of avid viewers. so it’s free, it’s in HD; everyone really should give it a go.
next post may have to be a retelling of games i find myself currently involved in playing, or some new additions to my design galleries. stay tuned!
a comedy bit disguised as an informational video to prepare japanese travellers for visiting america. i rather wish it was real.
[singlepic=848,300,300,right]i’ve been reading and hearing a lot about apple’s latest downloadable update for their “revolutionary”–or as it seems more appropriately labeled “controversial”–iphone, and how it supposedly breaks the functionality of phones unlocked for use on other cellular carriers, to the point they cease to function at all. and to be honest, it irritates me that anyone would be so overly sensitive about something so heavily steeped in common sense.
first of all, while it may not be illegal to unlock a cell phone, it is being sold, supported, and directed for use under very specific conditions. but to undo those specific guidelines and limitations of both the hardware and software in an unauthorised, unsupported way is–let’s face it–hacking. for anyone technically savvy enough to know how to hack an iphone–AND UNDERSTAND–what they’re doing in the process, it shouldn’t be a big deal, as they should also be able to work with or around the new updates; that’s what hackers do. but for those who are simply following a tutorial found on Google or by using some unofficial software to perform the dirty deeds, they ought to know better, or at least have thought ahead and made sure their actions were undoable or warrantied by the author of whatever software used to hack before even considering something so risky.
second, it’s not a cheap device, even after the recent 30% price slash. why anyone would pay for such a sophisticated cell phone, only to tinker with it in hopes of breaking its intended functionality so they can do something else is beyond me. yes, i fully understand the plights of non-at&t wireless customers and international users wanting to share in the rotational, multi-touch glow, but unfortunately those are the tough breaks. the iphone is contractually bound between the hardware manufacturer and the service provider; to undo that bond is only asking for trouble on any number of fronts. if you had to save up to purchase the phone, you shouldn’t have taken such a hefty risk with it. if you have the free-flowing cash on hand that the risk and potential loss wasn’t an issue, just go get another one.
therein lies the problem. for such a hot gadget as an iphone, so many people were willing to just jump right on the bandwagon and ignore the fine print of their user licenses, agreements, and warranties that now they have nobody to blame but themselves. yet blaming apple for their own gambling disorders is exactly what’s happening. some may liken unlocking a phone to painting a car, changing the oil, or installing a hula-dancing bobble on the rear sill; but looking at the nature of those changes, it’s mostly cosmetic. even changing the oil is usually something covered in a car’s manual.. they even give you special nozzles, hoses, and knobs to do it. but an iphone has no such instructions, has no hoses or knobs; hell, it doesn’t really even have any seams to invite tinkering hobbyists to monkey with its innards. unlocking an iphone is fundamentally changing the way the device is intended to work; it’s not cosmetic at all. some people will take those signs at face value and use the phone as it should be, when others will take them as personal challenges to overcome. after all, rules are meant to be broken, right?
bottom line is, if you’re a seasoned hacker, go for it. if you have money to burn, go for it. if you don’t fall into either of those categories; it’s probably best to just follow the rules like a good little consumer, and wait for another opportunity down the road… or just don’t bother with software updates. 😛
listening to:
Disclaimer II
Seether
