csilverman

@csilverman@mastodon.social

Designer, artist, iPhone Notes limit pusher. I know the difference between a "font" and a "typeface", but I'm not obnoxious about it.

A note: while I CW the occasional political post, I don't typically CW things like faces or food. My art is weird, often includes eyes/faces/masks, and can be (I'm told) eerie.

Profile pic: a white pixel rendering of a small computer with a sad face, set on on a black background (Susan Kare's immortal "Sad Mac" icon).

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

jk, to random
@jk@mastodon.social avatar

in america all the traditional foods are called like hogbread and eggcorn. in america i imagine when youre a kid youre always standing around waiting for the blue angels to do a live-fire display with real bunker-busters and your american-style dad is like like "slup your eggcorn billy" and someones selling hot hogbread out the engine block of a 1938 chrysler

csilverman,

@jk depends if you're in one of them big cities or not, but in my town, folks still gather every July 1 for the Gator Truck Pull. Strongest truck-pulling alligator wins a fried pumpkin.

There was a time not so far past when every American had a gator and a truck, and the gator could pull the truck. We didn't have "apps" for things like that, and we didn't need em

csilverman, to art

csilverman, to random

Not sure if anybody's already coined the term "OStalgia"—the feeling you get when you see a screenshot of the OS you used growing up—but I've been having a fair amount of that lately.

Lot of good memories associated with System 7 and Mac OS 8–9.

csilverman,

@JoBlakely agreed. If I had to name one defining quality of contemporary software vs. the OS and apps I grew up with, it wouldn't be power or ease of use; it would be a deep, fundamental contempt for users.

I think this is the core of my nostalgia (OStalgia?) here; I remember when software products weren't creepy and grubby. And I miss those days.

csilverman,

@adamrice heh, I think about that sometimes. Reminds me that there will come a day when the current Vision Pro headsets are $25 on eBay, no matter how weird that sounds now.

That's the way of miracles. They get commodified and then they get old.

I have at least two computers that cost as much as a car when they were introduced. I found both of them next to dumpsters.

csilverman,

@WideEyedCurious Oh really? I thought 7.5.3 was considered the gold standard of the 7 series, but I never really used 7.5+; my parents didn't upgrade the Power Mac we had, so I went from 7.1 to 8.1 when they got a G3. Was it not as good as I'd heard?

csilverman,

@pmonks @hopeward @Binder Reminds me that I'm also nostalgic for systems I rarely used, like BeOS. A friend of mine got it set up on a PC we built, but I didn't use it extensively. I really liked the UI design, though.

It did feel like a warm fuzzy OS. Software had such a sense of character back then.

csilverman, to art

leaverou, to random
@leaverou@front-end.social avatar

Doing some research on design systems / design tokens, especially around color.

What are some good open source color palettes?
So far I have: Open color, Open props, Tailwind, Material, Adobe Spectrum, GitHub Primer, Ant Design, IBM Design Language, Radix UI, Bootstrap.

Req: Need to have a page that lists all their colors (see examples).

Looking at color palettes primarily for UIs, not those designed exclusively for dataviz.

The Material color palette
Open Props

csilverman,

@leaverou Flexoki, by @kepano, is one of my favorites: https://stephango.com/flexoki

csilverman, to art

limebar, to random
@limebar@mastodon.social avatar

What is the weirdest account you follow, so I can follow it too?

csilverman,

@reillypascal @limebar speaking of cursed: @headswap

csilverman, to art

csilverman,

@spoltier No, I didn't know about his work, actually. This is fascinating. Thank you.

csilverman, to art

csilverman, to art

csilverman,

@shqm2 Oy. I'm sorry 😬 I see what you mean now—that similarity didn't occur to me until you mentioned it. I had social media in mind when I drew this one: the red heart/yellow star icons that indicate likes/approval, and the small figure seeing this promise of fame in the distance and trying to find a way to it.

I specifically try to avoid political imagery, but I don't always catch alternate interpretations. In retrospect, a yellow star balloon with red hearts might have been a better design.

vga256, (edited ) to retrogaming
@vga256@dialup.cafe avatar

this illustration was commissioned for a type-in program called Islands for the commodore 64, in the august 1988 issue of RUN magazine.

i am in love with the line-art/woodcut style, painstakingly inked and coloured. it was a different age in which a work of art could be commissioned for a BASIC game that a handful of people in the world would bother to hand-code and play.

this is better art than 90% of the physical big box games i own

update: as it turns out, there is not merely emulating etching/woodcut with inked lines, it IS an etching by artist doug smith who was famous for this style.

more of his work here: https://richardsolomon.com/artists/douglas-smith/

#retrogaming #art

csilverman,

@vga256 I remember seeing that illustration style a lot on 90s ads and packaging. (I think NeXT branding used this extensively; I always think of them when I see it.) I loved it.

csilverman,

@vga256 hmm. I'm trying to find them and the only thing image search is bringing up is that woodcut pile of cubes. I'm almost positive I saw at least one NeXT ad with a woodcut illustration of several people in front of a computer, but maybe I'm thinking of something else.

csilverman, to random

One of the laziest things a type designer can do is ship a "condensed" version that's obviously just a squished version of the regular typeface, rather than redrawing the letters for those proportions. Nothing says "phoned in" like horizontal strokes being thicker than vertical ones.

Trust me, designers know when you're doing that and we resent it.

csilverman, to art

stroughtonsmith, to random
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

I'm struggling to see an acquisition path for Humane; what unique technology would a potential acquirer be picking up? The hand projector? Software wise any AI features they've demonstrated so far (even if working as advertised) are going to be rapidly outstripped by newer, better models. A talent acquisition? They certainly have some beautiful industrial design, but you don't really need to buy the entire company if you want to poach that. Brand? 😅

csilverman,

@joshhunt @kkolakowski Exactly. Big companies don't need Humane's tech; smaller companies don't have the resources to turn it into a marketable product.

From beginning to end, the whole thing just seemed like a mad gamble on a product category that might not even have a reason to exist. If the Humane leadership are gamblers—or, as some might say, grifters—sure, why not try to sell this crisis for whatever you think you can get for it?

Quoting the NY Lottery: "Hey, you never know."

csilverman, to art

csilverman, to art

csilverman, to art

thelastpsion, to retrocomputing
@thelastpsion@bitbang.social avatar

It's been a great weekend at the Festival for Portable Computing. Thank you so much to everyone who came along.

I also gained a Revo (dead, of course) and became the custodian of a Geofox!

csilverman,

@thelastpsion I hear you on this, 100%. Social media is perverse like that: having a following can be energizing and give you faith in what you're doing, but there's a point where it feels like having shareholders/critics breathing down your neck.

For what it's worth, I think everything you're doing is fascinating. I don't know much about retro engineering, but I really like seeing what goes into exploring old technology.

Hope you get a chance to recharge/refocus.

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