I’m posting this simply because this man refers to himself as ‘Grandpa chic’, and I love that.

Kassan Brown.

While you’re there … read about “The Prettiest Boy in the World”

Yesterday, Adobe announced the beta release of its new web design software, Muse.  The premise of the platform is that you don’t need to bother with any code, just pure design.  Rather than mocking up a page and handing it off to a dev team, in theory a designer can now mock up a page and have it fully working instantly.

On the one hand, Adobe is trying to remove barriers to creativity with this visual editing tool.  On the other, that assumes code as a barrier to creativity rather than an act of creativity.  Adobe admits that this will not be easily or cleanly compatible with traditional code-based web building (for intstance, there is no integration with their Dreamweaver product), and it is being sold as a stand-alone solution for making a site.

A tool like this strikes me as being ideal for designers to rapidly prototype a site, but not a wholesale replacement for the development process.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20091941-93/adobe-debuts-muse-a-no-code-required-site-builder/

Leaks, concept art, renderings.  These are the media of Apple’s gospel; the texts disciples study and debate.  The secrecy employed in Cupertino to ensure such devotion prior to any coming Apple announcement or product is brilliant.  Anticipation and hype seem built into Apple’s predictable delivery model, making annual lineups for phone releases unsurprising.  And when one particular construction of fandom becomes a mainstream activity, the devout look deeper. They splinter off and hone their focus.

A segment of a Cupertino city hall session in which Steve Jobs announces his plans to build a state of the art Apple campus for thousands of employees, has been viewed 1.2 million times in the last two months.  The city councilors present seem as giddy as those fans that bothered to sit through the video, as Jobs unveils his plans for the megastructure in the same fashion he has become famous for in his product releases.  He has his audience eating out of his hand.  As  laptop and phone users hear his words as affirmations of their dreams to do more, create more, connect more, this crowd is made to feel like a group of creative city planners by being in Jobs’ presence.

In the past, Apple’s flagship NYC store has drawn comparisons to Mecca in its design and in its function.  The headquarters structure has been rendered here in similarly religious fashion with God granting his approval with rays of sunshine.  This new facility is the culmination of a brand that is fuelled by the suggestion that they are the universal centre of creativity.  They have become the perceived source of all creative behaviour.  People look to Apple in anticipation of what might be invented next … what might Apple discover about  my ability to be creative that will change my life again?

The hope of all this bated breath really, and the reason to care about Apple’s new offices (other than an aesthetic architectural interest), is the brand promise that they will unlock the key to everyone’s creative potential.

From the NY Times:

The post-idea world has been a long time coming, and many factors have contributed to it. There is the retreat in universities from the real world, and an encouragement of and reward for the narrowest specialization rather than for daring — for tending potted plants rather than planting forests.

We all stopped thinking.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/opinion/sunday/the-elusive-big-idea.html