Welcome to The Very Daily Weblog of Joshua Blankenship

Quite a few of the infographics from the upcoming documentary I.O.U.S.A. have made their way online. YouTube has a few clips like this lovely one. Motion graphics designer Brian Oakes is responsible and his portfolio is full of equally-well-executed work.

Related: Univers Ultra Condensed is apparently the font of choice for info graphics these days. Design accordingly.

I am a filter. A cherry-picker. I am often an editor, sifting through and providing occasional commentary. For some, I point you in the direction of interesting hyperlinks in a variety of areas so you don’t have to do the work.

I wonder what happens when someone with a somewhat established role/direction on the web decides to veer elsewhere? Are you drawn here by my instincts and my taste, or by some other aspect of personality or adherence to a role?

I say all that to say this.

Within a few minutes of getting my invite to Daytum, I had set up a few graphs and statements. After a few hours, I got obsessive and had a date-specific pie-chart of all the addresses I’ve lived at based on how many months I spent at each one.

I’m a sucker for solid information graphics. And I obviously love the web. Designer Nicolas Felton (client work at Megafone) has put out his personal annual report for the past three years and I distinctly recall thinking it was a great idea, it just needed a web framework to capture all that data easily and then graphically represent it.

This collaboration with Ryan Case does that, with gusto. Quote, “Daytum is a home for collecting and communicating your daily data. Begin tracking anything you can count and display the results immediately.” Daytum is still in private beta, but you can go and request an invite. In the meantime, you can find me at daytum.com/blankenship where much info graphic fun will continue to occur.

Quote, “If you’re hiring for people to work online, I can’t imagine not screening people [on the social web]. This is the work, and you can watch people do it for real before you hire them.” — Seth Godin, excerpted from Learning from a summer intern program

Godin is discussing his an intern selection process, which involved creating a Facebook group and watching potential interns interact there, but it applies to any role I think. At NewSpring we’ve been interviewing for several web-centric communications roles lately, doing initial talks via Skype video, which is the perfect way to see if someone can hold your attention in that medium. When I look at a designer’s portfolio and they don’t pay attention to how users interact with the web, chances are they’re not a good fit for our team. This stuff is important.

If you don’t understand the medium, how can you possibly be effective within it?

1. Flip flops as viable daily work footware
2. 99% of screenprinted t-shirts
3. Ill-fitting denim
4. Belts with sharp-cornered buckles
5. Baggy khakis

Chances are, there’s at least one step in your process that users shouldn’t have to do themselves. Why?

Quote, “I hate automatic paper towel dispensers. Waving may hand back and forth in front of that thing is only slightly less annoying than turning a crank…Since most public faucets are automatic, why not tie the dispenser sensor in with the faucet sensor? If I put my hands under the faucet, I’m going to need a towel, right? The dispenser could anticipate that and feed out a towel when the water turns on.” — Matt Donovan, excerpted from his post Automate This!

I love this kind of solutions-oriented thinking that doesn’t start with what currently exists and work from there, but seriously takes things to their most basic level and asks, “wait, why is THAT there?” with the goal to make the path from initial touchpoint to end result that much quicker. This works for design, environments, signage, check-in processes and so much more.

Find the step that doesn’t need to be a step and make it automatic.

Quote, “Like the recent Batman sequel, [Warner Brother's President of Production Jeff Robinov] wants his next pack of superhero movies to be bathed in the same brooding tone as The Dark Knight…he sees exploring the evil side to characters as the key to unlocking some of Warner Bros.’ DC properties. “We’re going to try to go dark to the extent that the characters allow it,” he says. That goes for the company’s Superman franchise as well.” — Latino Review

The only problem with that strategy is SUPERMAN IS NOT DARK. In anything I would consider decently-written material in keeping with the canon of his story, he’s the epitome of purity of heart. He’s the icon of goodness. The almost-immovable, incorruptible hero with super strength who uses it for good. Batman once said, “It is a remarkable dichotomy. In many ways, [Superman] is the most human of us all. Then…he shoots fire from the skies, and it is difficult not to think of him as a god. And how fortunate we all are that it does not occur to him.” The Dark Knight wasn’t successful because it tapped into some secret, special dark place, it was successful because the world of The Batman is inherently dark. It was successful because it was true to form and character.

Warner Brothers, you think making the Man of Steel darker is the key to “unlocking” Superman? That’s the exact opposite of what you should do. Try making a movie in keeping with the character’s world for once, instead.

Quick growth is often seen as an indicator of success on the web. But in my experience, hardly anything that grows fast does so without strain and stretch marks. The quick growth often forces your hand to implement before you can strategize. Then you waste time trying to fix mistakes brought on by speed, hopefully before the hoopla surrounding your launch dies down and everyone leaves for greener pixels. I wonder why slow growth isn’t popular on the web? Too boring for us? Not immediately measurable?

Here’s my subscriber stats from when I started using Feedburner in November ‘07—current:

No huge swells of change, no massive influxes of traffic. Not very exciting, is it? Just a slow, (surprisingly) steady uphill climb which enables me to (hopefully) build long-term relationships with fine people like you. Nothing flashy. Nothing newsworthy. Not even a lot of traffic* in the grand scheme of things. Then again, sustainable relationships take time, effort and hard work, and those things aren’t nearly as sexy as big stats.

But they’re way more valuable.

*It would have been easy to prove the point without the actual stats numbers, but why bother trying to be something I’m not? Transparency is valuable, too.

Stephen Hallgren asked “[Does] anyone have any good links on how to organize gigantic font libraries (not applications, but methods)?” and then specifically asked me to share my categories for organizing fonts.

I use Linotype’s wonderful free app FontExplorer X as a font manager. It works much like iTunes, in that you can add sets (drop and drag) and “smart sets” (which update automatically based on the given criteria.) These sets keep things organized so I don’t have to scan through the entire massive list every time I need a monospaced font for something or a nice script for a wedding invite. They also help me organize in ways that make sense to me and how I look for the right font for the right use.

I keep a set called “Go To” that’s full of the 50 or 60 typefaces I use most often and then sets for specific clients/projects so I don’t forget what faces I used for what clients. For the most part, this organizational structure works for me and saves me tons of time that I used to spend scrolling through that massive list, one font at a time. I’ll also add that I spent a solid week whittling down my library to around ~1600 fonts total. That helps save time more than anything else because honestly, most of the other fonts I had were complete crap that I never used.

Hope this helps, Stephen (and anyone else who may benefit from nerdy ways to organize font folders and such.) Happy typesetting.

1. Stephen King — On Writing
2. Ecclesiastes
3. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information — Edward Tufte
4. East of Eden — John Steinbeck
5. Re-Imagine! Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age — Tom Peters

*Please feel free to respond in kind. I’m looking to add to my reading list.