Author: Christopher Fahey
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A Tale of Two Libraries 2: The Morgan Library
I’m no architecture critic, but when I read the New York Times review of the just-reopened Morgan Library & Museum a few weeks ago (with words like “dazzling”, “mesmerizing”, and “triumph”) I knew I had to visit as soon as I could. So immediately following my class field trip the other day, I dismissed my…
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Avoiding Distractions with “The Exorcist”
Khoi just posted a great idea for a desktop application, which he calls Blockwriter: It’s a lean and mean text-writing app that (a) hides all other applications, and (b) allows you to disable email and even all network connectivity completely. The idea is to help people focus on writing tasks by blocking access to all…
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A Tale of Two Libraries 1: Mapping and Thinking at the NYPL
Yesterday I took my FIT students on a field trip to see the Places & Spaces: Mapping Science exhibition at the Science, Industry and Business Library of The New York Public Library. It’s a modest little show consisting of several dozen examples of maps, globes, and information graphics — as exemplified by Edward Tufte’s much-beloved…
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Science vs. Art: Visualizing Alien Life
Long-lost Yes album cover. I recently saw a documentary about the search for extraterrestrial life, and I was struck by how even hard science is sometimes fueled at least in part by pure imagination and creativity. And I thought about how design itself is, at its best, as much based on raw, unfiltered inspiration as…
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Retail Change Management
The coins-on-top method. Coins slip-sliding around on top of the paper bills. It seems like over the past several years, every cashier in the world has decided — or has been told by their bosses — to hand customers their change by first placing the paper bills in the customer’s hand, then placing the coins…
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Review: Don Quixote
Today (amazingly the 410th anniversary of the deaths of both Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare) I’ve finished reading the classic Don Quixote Parts I and II. What an unforgettable journey, and what an eye-opener! A four hundred year old book (Parts I and II were published in 1605 and 1615) that in many ways…
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High and Low in Public Sector Design
New York’s recycling mascots. They used to have an alley cat nemesis, too. In recognition of Earth Day 2006, here’s an environmental design challenge: Inform nine million people how, when, and what to take out for recycling. Your audience, the citizens of New York City, is the most diverse group of people in the world.…