DezineCafé http://www.dezinecafe.com/dezinecafe The first and oldest international Design Community on the World Wide Web, established in 1994! Dezine Cafe, after a long respite, has been re-established. Please join our conversation! Help us celebrate the next ten years of Dezine Cafe! Please contact the admin to request an account! daily 1 DezineCafé http://www.dezinecafe.com/dezinecafe http://www.dezinecafe.com/logo.png Martin Buber on Education http://www.dezinecafe.com/dezinecafe/archive/2008/02/02/Martin-Buber-on-Education "The real struggle is not between East and West, or capitalism and communism, but between education and propaganda...The tempo of propaganda is feverish, nervous. It is the pace of television and radio.... Whereas education goes at a slow pace. It is the pace of teachers talking with their students. It is the pace of a man reading by himself in a room. It cannot be hurried or speeded up and remain education." I've posted this excellent thought on my blog at fraterdeus.com

It seems an appropriate reminder of the challenges for designers: to remain committed to education rather than propaganda. It is exceedingly difficult to be a professional symbolic worker without participating in propaganda, whether political or economic.

How can we begin to exercise our powers of understanding and presentation in favor of education, that is, as Buber said: Education means teaching people to see the reality around them, to understand it for themselves.

Perhaps Edward Tufte is in this camp. His work on decoding visual presentation provides perceptive and analytical tools which allow the viewer to uncover hidden distortions and agendas in the "propaganda" of the statistician, the advertiser, the economist, the politician.

 

]]> 2008-02-02T23:36:23-06:00 2008-02-03T19:46:37-06:00 Peter Fraterdeus communication buber cultural clashes design tufte education propaganda Robert Bringhurst on Type Design http://www.dezinecafe.com/dezinecafe/archive/2008/01/29/robert-bringhurst-on-type-design Robert Bringhurst is the author of "The Elements of Typographic Style" who brings the literate eye of a highly respected poet to bear on the presentation of language. The most powerful type and design tools in the world are the pencil and the pen, which have been pretty accessible and affordable for quite a while. Some people, it is true, are so enchanted by the computer that they now can’t draw or write by hand, just as some are so enchanted by the car that they’re incapable of walking. And a few people are vandals, who will use whatever tools they have to wreck what other people do. But the tools aren’t to blame for these defects of character

http://www.typebooks.org/i-r_bringhurst.htm

http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Typographic-Style-Robert-Bringhurst/

]]> 2008-01-29T17:40:07-06:00 2008-01-29T17:40:07-06:00 Peter Fraterdeus slow print Elements of Typographic Style design typography Design a CSS Theme http://www.dezinecafe.com/dezinecafe/archive/2008/01/21/design-a-css-theme We're going to try to set up a theme development section, where anyone who wants to try their hand can re-theme dezineCafe.

]]> 2008-01-21T19:23:31-06:00 2008-01-21T19:23:31-06:00 Peter Fraterdeus theme design css community 2008 already!? http://www.dezinecafe.com/dezinecafe/archive/2008/01/20/2008-already Sheesh. Another year flies by.

There's news here at the Dezine Cafe, though.

We've migrated the Plone servers to a new host at Rackspace, and we're looking forward to a stronger and more consistent development pattern.

Also, our focus personally has shifted from high-tech to high-touch, from frantic web development to slow-print...

In fact, we've got a new domain  "slowprint.org" for our letterpress printing business, which is just about the speed we prefer!

]]> 2008-01-20T17:24:47-06:00 2008-01-20T17:24:47-06:00 Peter Fraterdeus slow print 'free range' letterpress Free Range IT http://www.dezinecafe.com/dezinecafe/archive/2007/01/27/freerangeit "There are enormous divides between IT engineering and the 'creative' Communications and Marketing cultures. Prior to the web, these cultures rarely interacted. Today, they are constantly struggling to bridge the gaps." - Peter Fraterdeus, Free Range IT
Creative staff on the marketing team have an update for the corporate web site.
A new campaign is planned with significant online components, interactive web surveys, and media.
They turn to the IT staff to implement server and software improvements, only to be told that their projects are on the backburner due to other IT priorities.

There's a clear need for IT departments to conform to the 21st century realities of the network as a corporate strategic asset which has far less to do with internal resources than with responding with agility to the demands of a consumer driven marketplace.

How have designers learned to deal with the cultural clashes within organizations?

Have you found it's easier dealing with third-party IT suppliers?
Without their own corporate turf to defend, out-sourced hosting and development houses have much stronger incentive to include designers and communication planners in their management teams.

What are your experiences?
Sign in and join the forum!
]]> 2007-01-27T11:36:09-06:00 2007-01-27T12:18:43-06:00 peterf communication cultural clashes 'free range' IT Welcome back! http://www.dezinecafe.com/dezinecafe/archive/2007/01/12/welcome-back Apologies and encouragement! Apologies because we've been remiss in getting this site rolling. I've been meaning to migrate the original site to Plone 2.5, with its far more comprehensive foundations, more secure and configurable membership, and solid forward migration path to the upcoming features of Plone 3.0 and beyond. I've decided to simply migrate the small amount of content by hand, and start fresh in Plone 2.5.2

The migration from Plone 2.0.5 was just not practical.

So, if you had already joined the site, you will have to re-join now.

I hope to see dezineCafé flourish, with new Web 2 features, blogs, RSS, multimedia options, and so forth. However, it's going to take some doing, and your help!

Please let me know what you think. The contact link will send mail to me directly, and I promise to make every effort to reply in good time!

]]> 2007-01-12T10:12:16-06:00 2007-01-12T10:12:16-06:00 peterf Hot or Iced? http://www.dezinecafe.com/dezinecafe/archive/2007/01/12/hot-or-iced Dezine Cafe, after a long respite, has been re-established at this new lovely corner location! Now in Plone 2.5! Hot or Iced?

Dezine Cafe, after a long respite, has been re-established. Now that Plone provides a solid, design conscious, and secure framework for our development, we will begin to build again. "designdigerati":http://www.designdigerati.com will provide our first invitation! Please join our conversation!

Please help us celebrate the next ten years of Dezine Cafe!

]]> 2007-01-12T09:49:25-06:00 2007-01-12T09:49:25-06:00 peterf