Let's Get Professional: Email Sign-Off Etiquette

"Let’s talk about email sign offs, how many times have you sat staring at your blinking cursor while trying to decide on the best way to sign off an email?

Should you go with “sincerely” or “all the best”? Or maybe a cheeky “cheers”?

Sometimes figuring out how to end your email can take even longer than writing the message itself.

But that’s OK, because the sign-off is just as important at the content of your email. The way you choose to close your email says a lot about your relationship with your recipient and will influence the way they respond to you.

So it’s crucial to get it right."

Check out more on email etiquette by clicking this sentence!

Women in UX: Sarah Doody

Sarah Doody talks to UX Jobs Board about storytelling in product design and advice for aspiring UX professionals.

Click this sentence to read the full interview!

Worst Technology Fails of All Time (according to Time)

"The graveyard of technology is riddled with failed products: remember the Apple Newton? Or Microsoft’s Zune? How about Amazon’s Fire Phone?

And yet in Silicon Valley “failing fast” is heralded as a virtue and, sometimes, even failing slowly can have unforeseeable benefits. Cutting-edge products may die an embarrassing death, but they often also lay the groundwork for better, more well-timed ideas that flourish later on. This is a list of failures, yes, but failures that led to success or may yet still lead to something world-changing. That’s why we’ve called these technology’s most successful failed products. Like an experiment gone awry, they can still teach us something about technology and how people want to use it.

This list, ranked in order of influence, was extensively debated by TIME’s technology team."

Read the rest of the article and see what failed by clicking this sentence!

Free Fonts?!?!

myfonts.com has a newsletter–and they send out free fonts on Friday!! Sometimes it's a range of weights and sometimes just one–but it's worth your money ;) 

Here are some examples:

Lulo Clean family, a layered type system from our friends at Yellow Design Studio. A more clean-cut version of the original Lulo design, Lulo Clean is a shoe-in choice for projects where you need your selected typeface to exude personality. Its layered capabilities are bold, engaging, and fun.

Wreath from Insigne is a collection of 21 script fonts that includes five different texture variations to choose from, as well as companion decorative ornaments.

 Newslab family from Latinotype.

Comprised of 16 friendly yet solidly-constructed slab serif fonts, this workhorse design is an apt choice for editorial, packaging, branding projects and more.

Sign up by clicking this sentence to get free stuff!

Excavation Notepad

Perfectly pairing a penchant for cool stationery with a love for classic Japanese architecture, the Omoshiro Block by Triad is an office supply with a twist. Aptly (and loosely) translated to “fun block,” each one-of-a-kind memo pad reveals a beautiful architectural model as it's used, turning traditional note-taking into an exciting excavation.

Together, the laser-cut pages that compose each Omoshiro Block produce an iconic building in Japan, ranging from centuries-old sites, like the Kiyomizudera Temple in Kyoto, to more modern marvels, like the iconic, Tour Eiffel-inspired Tokyo Tower. The surprise site begins to reveal itself as one tears off the strategically-shaped notecards. Once the entire cube is used, the intricately crafted architectural model is fully unearthed, leaving you with your very own miniature work of art.

It is not just what's left that makes this memo pad special, however. In addition to its building-shaped remains, the sheets extracted from each Omoshiro Block feature fascinating cut-outs, from human figures to leaves and flowers.

Currently, this ingenious item is only available at “creative life store” Tokyu Hands in Osaka. Hopefully, however, it makes its international debut soon. In the meantime, be sure to check out similar products in our selection of surprise gifts.

Read more by clicking on this sentence.

Never Ever Just Design Pretty Little Apps

“Guard against that vanity which courts a compliment, or is fed by it.”
 –Chalmers

"Surfing some design-inspiration sites with my hype-busting, critical “U-X-ray eyes” :) I often come away with smoke rising out of my ears. Like the title says this is a rant, but don’t take it too seriously. I’m trying to make a point.

Yes, I know that some of these design showcasing sites are not meant to be necessarily for real-world products, but then I still say they need to reflect a thoughtful approach to design, primarily by asking the main question “Who is this for?”, “How will people use my product” and “Is it actually usable?”.

Superficial app designs that follow the latest fads and blatantly ignore basic usability conventions, UX best practices, and fundamental principles of interaction design would most likely fail in the real world! Luckily, they usually don’t go beyond the generally ridiculous, self-parading fantasyland on Dribbble and Behance.

Unfortunately, these “concept designs,” a single screen in an imaginary app, only serve to perpetuate designers being labeled as “artists” — as pretenders who only care about the veneer, pretty colors, and typefaces. Nowadays, any app design has to go way beyond that.

I’m talking about UX."

Read the rest of the article and add some UX to ya day by clicking this sentence!

Spotlight on....Women who Shaped Herman-Miller

The history of Herman Miller design has always had a somewhat utopic and storybook allure for design lovers. For starters, the setting is an unusual one: the company known for shepherding modern furniture into American homes and offices is and has always been headquartered in Zeeland, Michigan, population 5,500. Despite this, the major players read like a rolodex of famed and irreverent mid-century architects and furniture makers—Gilbert Rohde, George Nelson, Isamu Noguchi, the Eames’, Alexander Girard, Robert Propst. Working for Herman Miller under Nelson, designer Irving Harper dreamt up both Marshmallow sofa and the Herman Miller logo. Internal posters designed by Steve Frykholm, who was the company’s design director until last year, are now a part of MoMA’s permanent collection. He made them for the annual company picnic.

Read about how women shaped Herman-Miller by clicking this sentence.

Magazine as Sound-based Voyeurism

Party Next Door challenges what defines a “magazine” and reaffirms what “party” means

Interesting documentation of the album using packaging and a gradient background

Refreshingly, in the wake of the tiresome “Print is dead! No it isn’t” chatter that’s been waffling on for a while now, the notion of what a “magazine” is, and could be, has been broadened into wild, exciting new possibilities. Content is expanding beyond the tried-and-tested art/lifestyle/fashion worlds—as in this magazine celebrating work by immigrant artists, and highlighting the complexities of the O-1 Visa application. The idea of ink on paper has long been challenged with the proliferation of online publications, and with the likes of Pop Up Magazine, a publication that exists only as a live iteration, for just one day.

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Wooden Cat Stacking Game is Like Playing Jenga, But With a Pile of Kitties

Cats are often viewed as loners who relish their alone time, so you’d hardly expect them to be in cahoots with other felines. But when you pick up a set of the wooden Cat Pile game, you’ll see that it turns the notion on its head—or back, or tail. Created by the Taiwan brand Comma, the felines—posed in a variety of ways—are meant to be stacked in seemingly endless combinations, with the ultimate goal that they form a pyramid-like shape.

Cat Pile is often associated with the classic game Jenga, although Comma’s creation is played in reverse. Jenga is started with the tower fully assembled and challenges you to disassemble (and reassemble) it brick-by-brick without toppling over. Cat Pile, in contrast, instructs you to start at the base and juggle the wooden teak pieces atop one another. No matter how precarious they may seem, the last person to successfully stack a kitty without it falling will be crowned the winner. When you’re done with the game, the cats double as modern home decor and make a fun accessory for your desk.

One set of Cat Pile includes six kittens that measure approximately two inches tall by three inches wide by a half-inch thick. Each set has its own colorful sticker on the packaging. There are two colors—pink and blue—now available in My Modern Met Store. We also have a verision of Cat Pile which has smaller pieces for sale as well.

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