Meanwhile #001
Hello — So this is the first edition of Meanwhile, a weekly digest of design-related links and thinks scraped off my desk and into your lap. For longer musings, visit danielgray.com. For shorter, follow @gray.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
“This sentence has been the talk of grammarians since 1972. According to William Rapaport, its creator and a professor at the University of Buffalo, it means, 'So, buffalo who live in Buffalo (e.g., at the Buffalo Zoo, which does, indeed, have buffalo), and who are buffaloed (in a way unique to Buffalo) by other buffalo from Buffalo, themselves buffalo (in the way unique to Buffalo) still other buffalo from Buffalo.' The sentence relies on a few tricks. The first is that 'buffalo' is a verb as well as a noun and the name of a place. To buffalo someone is to confuse or fluster a person. There's also a missing 'that.' Under normal circumstances, we can sometimes drop a 'that' from a sentence, as long as the nouns still make the meaning clear. All-buffalo sentences muddle it up a bit.”
From the ever-wonderful McSweeneys, client feedback on the creation of Earth:
“Right now we’re only seeing two great lights in the sky … a greater one for day and a lesser one for night? Thinking that maybe we weren’t clear in the original briefing. Definitely need more than just two great lights. Need to make this a memorable, high-value experience for our users. Please revisit slides thirteen and fourteen in the deck. Shout with questions.”
Amy Poehler's new book, Yes Please, is full of splendid wisdom:
“Here’s the thing. Your career won’t take care of you. It won’t call you back or introduce you to its parents. Your career will openly flirt with other people while you’re around. It’s never going to leave its wife for you. Your career is effing other people and everyone knows but you. … It will reward you every time you don't act needy. It will chase you if you act like other things (passion, friendship, family, longevity) are more important to you. If your career is a bad boyfriend, it is healthy to remember you can always leave and go sleep with somebody else.”
Cooper Hewitt's Pen sounds like an interesting new approach to museumry:
“A high-tech device that resembles the most basic tool of design, the Pen is a key part of the new Cooper Hewitt experience. Given at admission, it enables every visitor to collect objects from around the galleries and create their own designs on interactive tables. At the end of a visit the Pen is returned and all the objects collected or designed by the visitor are accessible online through a unique web address printed on every ticket. These can be shared online and stored for later use in subsequent visits.”
Some words I wrote for Brand Perfect, regarding Unit Editions' rather lovely Manuals, the second edition of which has recently been published:
“Yes, it’s the epitome of fetishised graphic design: a handsomely-designed printed artefact full of handsomely-designed printed artefacts, all discussed by (presumably handsome) designers. It is design about design about design. But this isn’t merely an act of clinging on to the good old days. Alongside the wealth of images are essays by NASA designer Richard Danne, Greg D’Onofrio and Patricia Belen (Display), Armin Vit (Under Consideration), Sean Perkins (North) and John Lloyd. There is an acknowledgment throughout that these manuals, as stunning as they may be, are things of the past. But they are not without value: they are lessons in how to set and convey a brand’s language.”
That is all.