Yes that title is disturbing, but is it true? Some of you have probably noticed that the design world went a little filigree crazy, particularly motion graphics. Some examples that come to mind on the television front are TLC, Comedy Central, and, one of the bigger fans of filigree, Food Network. You may have seen this design element swirling around the logo, or drawing itself into pretty curly shapes after the commercial has made it’s point. This was a nice way to present the show because the filigree was subtle enough not to distract, but pretty enough to enhance. You could even make this feminine element look masculine by adding dark manly colors and add a splash of mud here and there.

Recently, however, I started to see less of out friend filigree; particularly in the networks listed above. Is filigree now a faux pas? Comedy Central seems to be experimenting with video distortions and TLC looks as though they are going back to their clean cut minimalist look. What about the filigree happy food network? Well these food lovers still love their filigree, but it doesn’t seem to be the star of the show anymore. They still use filigree but now it is used as more of a subtle background texture instead of displaying it loud and proud.

Conclusion? Filigree may be on it’s way out with motion graphics but I say it will make it’s comeback in no time. I don’t think there will ever be “last days of filigree,” it’s a timeless element that has been around since 5000 BC. Just because some television stations used it to death does not mean they have killed it for good. Filigree will always be a beautiful, elegant design element that people will flock to. So don’t give up on Filigree, just don’t use it to the point of exhaustion.

OK, I’m one of the biggest Apple fans out there however I’ve been at the most luke-warm on Leopard OSX. About a month ago I upgraded from a Tiger / PowerBook 1.2 GHz to my new MacBook Pro 2.2 GHz Leopard systems. To tell you the truth, there isn’t much of a jump for me. Video and audio processing is faster but increasingly the bugginess of Leopard is making me think of downgrading.

I know everyone experiences their systems differently, but if you can relate please let me know. Consider this my perpetual list of Pros / Cons of Leopard as of 10.5.1

Pros:

• Quick view, it pretty much rocks for quickly seeing docs and images
• Time Machine, a nice out of the way application for backups

Cons:

• Keyboard lockup even after the supposed patch in Dec ‘07
• SMB / AFP networking fails to authenticate at least a third of the time
• Dropped Airport connections
• Lack of support, or shall I say “removed support” for AirTunes in Front Row
• Keyboard misses the first character, again after the Dec ‘07 patch
• Repeated application crashes
• Lost packets over network connections
• Failure to wake after falling into sleep mode

I’ll keep it coming but the Cons are adding up!

Recently I just bought myself an iPhone and it’s become my second brain. It only took a few minutes to get it working with our Exchange Mail server however I quickly ran into a hurdle in viewing non-PDF documents in my email over the iPhone.

To overcome this challenge, email your docs from the iPhone Mail app to iphone@pdfonline.com
The service converts your attachments to PDFs and emails them back to you.

Simply put into words and no need to say more (of course, open for discussion):

“To design is much more than simply to assemble, to order, or even to edit; it is to add value and meaning, to illuminate, to simplify, to clarify, to modify, to dignify, to dramatize, to persuade, and perhaps even to amuse.” - Paul Rand, author, graphic designer, teacher

At lunch today we had a great discussion about the rumored Apple “Ultra Portable” laptop. There have been several rumors floating around about what this ultra portable may look like so I thought I’d float my own vision / secret desire for the ultra portable.

Give me a laptop iPhone! Begin with a small screen, say 10-12 inches with a hardened surface akin to the iPhone. Install Leopard OSX on the device and allow my finger movements to interact the same as a mouse would. Then give me one button on the side of the device, or a hot corner to allow me to slide in a keyboard display which takes up 1/3 of my screen real-estate. Don’t forget to add Bluetooth in case I’d like to add a wireless Apple Keyboard and mouse.

Think about it, a bigger iPhone-ish device with OSX and a sleek interface would be a killer hardware piece for field engineers, students and people on the move. Give it to me Apple!