Links for March 27, 2005

Working in the open

Waldo Jaquith writes about why he works in the open, and it's a great breakdown of why transparency is generally good in your own work, about how you'll be exposed to new ideas after people read yours, and how you'll also meet people working in the same spaces along the way.

I came to the web from the academic world and going to grad school really cemented the idea working in the open was natural since your colleagues could help you hone your research and approaches along the way. Early blogging definitely scratched the same sort of itch for me and I can't imagine doing things any other way, even though I probably went overboard in the first few years of blogs.

Why I work in the open.

I’ve long worked in the open, overwhelmingly for one reason: it increases enormously the surface area for success.

Waldo Jaquith

Entertaining logo redesigns done well

A couple weeks ago I stumbled upon a guy named Zimri Mayfield who redesigns logos on the fly. I quickly subscribed because it reminds me of when I was a young designer and friends asked me to do a logo for their group or non-profit or fun run. Extremely fun and creative and addictive to watch.

I really love how adept he is at doing what is basically art-based improv, whipping up ideas on the fly and implementing them immediately in Adobe Illustrator. It's really fun to watch and also reminds me of the old weekly live studio videos that Aaron Draplin used to do on Instagram that I loved dearly. I don't think I've ever seen him not improve a logo greatly.

Huh, something impressive from GoPro

Honestly, GoPro has been lagging the last few years as competitors have consistently released cheaper, better alternatives to their main action cameras and I kind of wondered what the future of that company was like. But GoPro recently launched a wide-angle lens attachment and this video of drone shots and cycling video is honestly mind-blowing in how great it looks. It reminds me of the first time I ever saw consumer drone video.

I can tell from the video that this was recorded last November when Thomson Bike Tours did a gravel trip through Morocco that I was actually looking at doing someday myself. Just gorgeous visuals in an amazing place.