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case study

A collection of 18 posts

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Hatch vs Nanit

I never thought I'd be comparing night lights, but here I am, after many hours of frustration with both products, putting down some thoughts about what would be a good design, and (spoiler alert!) why neither of the two that I bought is any good. My main use

LLM designed packaging is here

LLM designed packaging is here

I got a snack box on my Alaska flight from Seattle to Salt Lake City, and when I looked at the bag of chips, something seemed off. I could not immediately put my finger on it, so I started eating. And then about halfway through, it dawned on me: I’

Is my Starbucks cup angry at me?

Is my Starbucks cup angry at me?

The first assignment in my first design class was to use simple black shapes on white background to express different words, such as "small", "crowded", "angry", and so on. The key takeaway from that assignment was that pretty much anything could be expressed with

Blackletter cities

Blackletter cities

This week, I was studying fraktur capitals, and my homework assignment was to write out a word beginning with each letter of the alphabet. I chose to write a list of US cities. There are many different styles of writing that can be classified as "blackletter". For this

From paper to digital

From paper to digital

I've been studying calligraphy for almost 10 years now, and I found that depending on where you are geographically, it can either look like calligraphy is just another art class anyone can take, or like it's some special club where a selected few get to study

Swiss design?

All throughout college I've heard so much about how awesome Swiss design is. I've also seen a huge number of examples: books, posters, typefaces... I have to say, though, that generalizations of this kind are harmful. When you call something good or bad based on such

Oddly specific

Signs and labels of all kinds are a source of unending fascination for me. Today, I'd like to talk about two of them that I recently saw. You've probably heard about Helvetica Man (a term coined by Ellen Lupten). Even if the name doesn't

The joys of Fiat 500

The joys of Fiat 500

You might remember my earlier post on car temperature controls. Back when I wrote it, I thought those controls were the worst thing about cars. Enter my new arch-nemesis: Fiat 500. To cut the long story shot, somebody hit my car while it was parked, and it took over a

Teavana's new labels

Teavana's new labels

At the end of last year, the local Teavana store got a major facelift. Now the teas are no longer hidden behind the register, but can instead be browsed by buyers. I am assuming that similar changes are happening across the other Teavana stores in the US. Yesterday I discovered

Material matters

Material matters

Signs of all sorts surround us. Some are good and clear, such as most of street signs, while others can be hard to read and confusing. However, typography is not the only thing that makes a good sign. It is true that bad typography will likely make it bad, but

On hard dependencies

This week, there was a major power outage in the area where I live. We had no power in the house for over 20 hours. During this time, I learned a couple interesting things about my appliances. I have a gas stove, a gas tankless water heater, a gas furnace,

Just make them different

Just make them different

When two different designs or products look too similar, they invariably end up confusing users. Sometimes, it could be two different brands. Or two devices that have different purposes. Or walls that look too much like whiteboards. My example today will be of the two boxes of cereal. They are

On the direction of light

On the direction of light

One of the most fundamental principles of creating a three-dimensional scene is to establish the direction of light. In a complex composition, there may be multiple light sources, and some objects may be obscured by one another, but today I am going to present a much simpler case. Consider this

It's Automatic!

It's Automatic!

Last time I stayed at a hotel, I noticed that the clock on the iHome device on the bedside cabinet was showing the wrong time. It wasn't just off by a couple minutes: it said "12:31 PM" when in reality it was 9:53 PM.

Car temperature controls

Car temperature controls

I have driven quite a few different cars, mostly rentals, and on many occasions I found myself frustrated with the temperature controls. Until very recently, almost all cars had the same type of temperature controls, as illustrated below with the 2013 Toyota Corolla: There is a knob that controls the

Figuring out Ford Focus

I went on a trip to California last year and ended up renting a car. They didn't give me much choice over which car I would have (barring the unreasonably priced options), so I ended up with a 2013 Ford Focus. I have never driven one before, so

Not meant to be together

Not meant to be together

In my previous posts, I've complained about individual signs. That's not because I think all the signs are bad - quite the contrary, there are a lot of them that I like. There is usually also just one or two things that could be fixed to

Last, fast or fart?

Last, fast or fart?

I was staying at a boutique hotel in Cambridge, MA. It was all nice and cozy, and there were some elegant flyers on my bed when I arrived. I was browsing through them idly, and then... and then I saw this one. I've shown it to several people,