if (team == tired) {
get_drinks($many, $often);
}

if (team != tired {
work($often, $late);
}

if(team == drunk) {
sleep();
}

if(team == notyetdrunk) {
drink_more($scotch);
}

I love when “research” time comes around at the office. It gives me a valid excuse to do what I clandestinely do the rest of the week: Surf the Internet. We’re deep into work on an architectural firm and researching all things architectural and found a documentary on West Coast Modernism called “Coast Modern: Open space, modern mind.” . It seems to fall in the footsteps of Helvetica and Objectified. No real information on the website about official release, though the blog talks of a fall release. Can’t wait to see it!

Though a relatively famous short film, I saw C’était un rendez-vous by french director Claude LeLouch for the first time this morning. In short, it’s an 8 minute tour through Paris by way of a camera strapped onto the front of sports car, allegedly a Ferrari, going by all accounts somewhere between 140-200 miles/hour. The official story was that an unnamed Formula 1 driver was at the wheel, while it has also been suggested that LeLouch himself was at the wheel and later overdubbed the sound of the Ferrari to finish the film.

Regardless, it’s a fun watch of a high speed romp through Paris! (via Scout Magazine)

If you’re familiar with ‘Inbox Zero‘ from 43 Folders you’re already aware of how problematic emails can be. How many emails do you have in your inbox? How many have you been putting off because the response is too long? Check out five.sentenc.es. The concept is to get people to respond to emails like they would a SMS message. Short and right away. In this case in under 5 sentences.

There also sites from the same family called four.sentenc.es, three.sentenc.es and two.sentenc.es.

All designers should have learned this so long ago that it’s already been forgotten and therefore in need of a refresher so I offer you The 10 Commandments of Dieter Rams. His design, and design principals, have influenced a generation of designers including Jonathan Ives who’s designs at Apple sometimes show a striking resemblance to those of Rams.

Big news in the web world as Typekit was launched last week. For those of you who missed news of the launch, it serves to bridge the copyright issues associated with the CSS3 Property @font-face (hotly debated issue among foundries and developers recently). Solutions like sIRF and Cufon have greatly pushed the industry in this direction and, while we have used them on projects, they have limitations, particularly when it comes to body copy. The hole with @font-face is that it makes it possible for the end user to download the font in question, which in virtually every instance violates the license.

The concept behind Typekit harnesses @font-face but protects the font files on a separate server. The designer/developer/client would purchase a license (per site? per month?) to use the font. With an expected to launch sometime this summer, the major draw back seems to be the issues surrounding the storage of the font information on a different server from the website. (required to satisfy DRM licenses) The anticipated problem with this surrounds the issues associated with the uptime (and downtime) of this font server. No server is up 100% of the time, it just doesn’t happen. But what happens when this server goes down? Potentially all websites linking to this central database will lose their font definitions.

Sharing code snippits on a central server hasn’t presented a prohibitive problem in the past as the jQuery library, CSS Resets and other snippits are all available hosted on a central server and used on major sites world wide and downtime hasn’t presented itself as a problem. Although we might be comparing apples and oranges between Google’s servers and Typekits. Time will tell. Certain some exciting developments for sure!

I’m already buying tickets to go see legendary Cuban pianist Chucho Valdez with The Hugh Fraser Quintet at the Center. Other highlights include studio favourites The Heavy, James Danderfer and Cuban flautist Maraca. Plus there’s always Canada’s best jazz club, The Jazz Cellar, offering up the countries best jazz all year round.

Who’s with me?

Ever since reading Speak Up’s Landmark Web Sites, Where Art Thou? two years ago, the concept of the differences of print vs. interactive have been simmering on low on my mind. There are obvious differences, between these two mediums that those of us understood, though I for one have lacked the articulation to explain it. My rational lies somewhere between the obvious and “If you don’t already know, I can’t make you understand”; neither of which pedagogical nor insightful.

If you’ve fallen short of providing an answer, or ever wondered about this yourself, go check out web wiz Jason Santa Maria talking about this topic on Vimeo. Granted he doesn’t offer a lot of solutions (besides a look at Jason’s own site) but it provides an insightful and articulate look at differences to date.