Maldon Salt (Page 87)

More issues

Talk to me.

In contemplating the aesthetics of interaction design, beauty as defined by all five senses must be considered: Seeing, Hearing, Touching, Tasting, Smelling. And, I’m going to make that six senses by adding one more: Emoting. By which I mean a person’s psychological state in response to an interaction

Time and aesthetics.

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but the eye of the beholder has a biological preference based on mathematical proportions. Within the context of the man-made environment and the natural world, there is a documented human cognitive preference for golden section proportions throughout recorded history. Some of

Heaven is full of tiny ponies.

Speaking of tiny ponies, I have something to say. I was a Christian a long time ago. A devout one. A fundamentalist one. A brainwashed one. A very, very naive and innocent one. From the time I was 16 until I started cursing, sinning, and spitting fire again at 26.

Square one.

I have no idea what I’m doing. But that’s the fun part. One of the main reasons I took this new teaching gig was because of the opportunity I have to start a design lab. I worked for about 10 years as a visual/interaction designer in industry

A new platform.

Today was my first faculty meeting. I never had to go to these in all my years as an adjunct. Oh, wait. I take that back. I did go to a few at MICA. Anyway, I’ve read a little on the difference between working in industry vs academia. One

Design Studio 108 B.

They say those who can, do and those who can’t, teach. I say that’s bullshit, based on my own experience with designers in the “real” world. Those who should be doing, but don’t. Can’t, actually. Even if they wanted to. On the contrary, the design professors

A photographic ode to the Seattle barista.

All the baristas I’ve loved (i.e., a portrait of each barista who pulled shots for me during my last trip to Seattle, minus a couple – when watching the slideshow, make sure to click on “Show Info” to view the captions). In case you don’t know, I’m

Back to school.

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. And this is the hallway where I’ll be spending the immediate future: the Visual Arts department at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. See all those posters? Student work. But my crit walls will be filled with iPad

Notes from a beer tasting.

Beer tastings are awesome. We will definitely be doing another one soon. Here are Will’s notes from our menu planning session. And for a great book on beer, check out this one. Oh, and there are also great pairing guidelines from Wegman’s.

I design, therefore I cook.

One of the things I really love about cooking is the design of culinary tools. In my honest opinion, the Kitchen Aid stand mixer deserves a place at MoMA. It’s a design classic, an icon of American design and mechanical engineering. Consequently, I find excuses to spend money at