Kenya Hara, one of my favorite authors, writes about Japanese hotels in a beautiful newsletter named High Resolution Tour. The latest edition features Tokyo’s Muji Hotel in Ginza.
MUJI HOTEL GINZA opened in April, 2019 on the top five floors of a ten-story building on Namiki-dori Street. The new flagship store, on floors B1-five, replaced the former one, near Yurakucho Station. MUJI, founded in the values of anti-gorgeous and anti-cheap, is determined to provide simplicity and concision, pursuing a unique style of coziness and comfort. Visitors and guests at MUJI HOTEL GINZA can savor this concept as a context for living.
Sometimes restraint is more comfortable than extravagance. Here one finds a highly precise minimalism that can be implemented here because Japan prides itself on its high quality space design and construction. MUJI’s approach is reflected in every part of the space. Careful selection, refinement and constant improvements have been made to floors, walls, ceilings, their borders and corners, materials, furniture and fixtures. While the rooms are not especially spacious, there is pleasure to be had in staying in a new hotel in the very heart of the Ginza playground.
You can also keep up with Hara’s tours on Instagram. Staying at the Muji hotel would be a difficult sell for my spouse considering she organizes and manages all of our travel plans. Hopefully I can convince her to plan a stay at one of Hara’s featured hotels during our next trip.
If you are unfamiliar with Hara, I strongly urge you to read Designing Design in which he writes extensively about Muji’s purpose and brand. The way Hara illustrates craft, simplicity, and authenticity is inspiring.
By the time a coffee arrives at your doorstep, it has traveled a long distance and has been transformed from an agricultural product into freshly roasted beans ready to be ground and brewed. We recognize the effort, time, and energy that goes into making the decisions about things like growing variables, processing, and roasting that factor into creating an exceptionally high-quality coffee. However, the truth is that none of that means it will be the best coffee you’ve ever had if it isn’t properly brewed. When preparing your coffee at home, you are the last factor in this long, energy-intensive coffee supply chain. You become an active participant in bringing the specialty coffee to life and ultimately influencing the taste, for better or for worse. That is why understanding the brewing process can help to turn that specialty-grade bean into something delicious, every time.
Tyler does a solid job succinctly explaining the science behind brewing coffee on the Mistobox blog. Read through and try to remember one thing from this article, and then apply it the next time you drink a cup of coffee. Was the extraction ideal? Was the ground fine, medium, or coarse? Have you tried using turbulence?
In the Klein household we use a medium grind setting with the Breville Smart Grinder Pro for the Moccamaster KBT. I only use turbulence when I use my Hario V60 for a single cup.
One can argue that the Apple TV remote has a derisive design12. In my opinion it has several major flaws:
If the room is dark it’s difficult to determine which side of the remote should point forward.
It’s difficult to pick up because of its thinness.
It’s easy to lose because of its small size.
If the room is dark it’s difficult to differentiate between buttons.
One way to mitigate some of these issues is to place the remote inside of a case. I did this and it made picking up the remote much easier. However, it made differentiating between a regular trackpad press and fast forward/rewind very difficult. I often pop the remote out of the case before attempting to fast forward or rewind.
I’m surprised the only change to the remote’s design since its initial release is a slight bump in the form of a white circle on one of the buttons. This did not fix any of the problems. I often wonder how Apple can continue to ignore this considering many of its own employees must own an Apple TV.
When Salt, a Swiss TV company, announced in 2019 a remote specifically designed to work with the Apple TV, I was intrigued and even considered purchasing one on eBay. Patience, David. Patience.
Lo, Function now sells the remote directly in the United States for $29.95.
Like a typical remote, the Function remote feels good in your hand. It’s large, bulky, and not too heavy. When you set the remote down it does not shake back and forth like TiVo’s more curvy remote.
The dedicated fast forward, rewind, and pause buttons are a dream. You will never accidentally fast forward or rewind when you are trying to pause. However, the up, down, left, and right buttons are definitely a step backward compared to the Apple TV remote. It takes more effort and time to navigate Apple TV’s interface. When you temporarily pick up the Apple TV remote you feel again how easy it is to quickly traverse the screen.
The more traditional layout provide enough space for the button positions to enter your muscle memory. You can easily slide your finger around to find volume up/down and be confident you are pressing what you intend to press. Oh, and a mute button lets you… mute.
One major drawback is the lack of a Siri button. Occasionally I know exactly what movie I want to rent so I speak its name into the Apple TV remote. That is no longer possible. Apple TV offers a screen that shows you what apps allow you to watch a movie for free. Without Siri I’m not sure how to get to that screen.
Another drawback is the lack of a home button. “Wait, David, the Apple TV remote has a home button?” Yes! The TV icon button in the upper right corner instantly jumps to the home screen with the grid of app icons. I have encountered multiple people who never tried pressing that button. They press the menu buttons repeatedly until arriving on the home screen. Can you imagine?! Those naive users will be comfortable with the Function remote. I, however, am instantly frustrated every time I want to return to the home screen.
The last drawback is visual: Function’s ugly logo is prominently displayed at the bottom of the remote. This is similar to LG placing their logo on the UltraFine 5K Display. I don’t need to be constantly reminded of who made your product.
If your household exclusively uses Apple TV for content (YouTube TV, Hulu, Netflix, HBO MAX, Peacock, Acorn, Disney+, Apple TV+, etc.), I recommend purchasing the Function remote. Interacting with your Apple TV should be simple and enjoyable, and that requires a better remote.
As an Apple fan since since 1990 with the arrival of the Macintosh LC in my home, this is an achievement of which I am particularly proud.
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John Siracusa, of Hypercritical, Accidental Tech Podcast, Reconcilable Differences, and The Incomporable fame, is an underrated storyteller. Whether it’s cooking, researching cheese graters, reviewing toasters, moving refrigerators, or, as I discovered this week, troubleshooting his new Mac Pro, I’m somehow always enthralled. No detail is too small, and subtle hints live amongst the minutiae.
Casey: So right before we started recording, something appeared in the after show section of the show notes. And it says, “John’s Mac Pro woes.” Oh no. What’s going on…
Marco: “I saw this too and right at that moment I’m like “Oh no… This is not good. Oh John. What’s up?”
John: “Hmm… Well… This is one of those things where… it’s not a slow-moving disaster, but it’s kind of a gradual thing… I’m trying to pinpoint when did this all begin.
Who knew troubleshooting could be so entertaining.
An hour after presenting, Systrom was reminded of Facebook too. His iPhone flashed with his new boss’s name, and he went to a quiet spot to take the call. Good, he thought. Even if Cox and Zuckerberg weren’t attending the event, they were at least acknowledging the accomplishment. He swiped to answer.
“We have a problem,” Cox said. “Mark’s very angry about your icon.”
“Are you serious? What’s wrong?” Systrom asked.
“It looks too much like the icon for Facebook Messenger.” The IGTV logo had a sideways lightning bolt shape inside a TV-shaped box. The Messenger logo had a similar bolt, but inside a cartoon dialogue balloon.
After the drama of the day, there was no praise from on high—only Zuckerberg’s concern that Instagram would step on Facebook’s branding.
This similarity did not occur to me. Take a look for yourself.
Each icon includes a lightning bolt, but they are different enough to not be confusing. However, one wonders if the IGTV design team was winking, nodding, waving, or sneering at the Facebook Messenger team.
This reminds me of when Facebook Places launched in 2010. Facebook partnered with Foursquare and Gowalla on their new product for sharing your location. But, if you look closely at the Places icon, you’ll notice the Places icon includes a “4” inside of a square. Were the Places designers winking or sneering at Foursquare?
Marcin Wichary writes about an interview he conducted for his upcoming book about keyboards on his corresponding Shift Happens newsletter.
I have a feeling chasing people isn’t the right take, anyway. You have to chase stories. But stories don’t announce themselves as such. Many are hiding inside people’s heads, feeling like nothing very exciting. It haunts me that somewhere within the readership of this very newsletter, there are great stories that will never see the light of day; even if I had time to talk to everyone, and you had the willingness to engage me, well… I’m not a great interviewer.
I’ve had some luck with chasing stories on Twitter, and I’ll write about that some other day. And I was pretty lucky with finding some wonderful people who surrendered great stories too: fans of mechanical keyboards, people who typed on the oldest of computers, ergonomics specialists, inventors. To the extent I could determine it, I thought I was already done with interviews about a year ago.
And yet, despite that, the most unusual interview I‘ve done happened only last month.
Marcin is a master storyteller. If you have never seen him speak at a meetup or conference, I recommend watching his latest talk from Config 2020: I Pressed ⌘B. You Wouldn’t Believe What Happened Next. I absolutely cannot wait for his book.
The biggest was “community first,” meaning all their decisions should be centered around preserving a good feeling when using Instagram, not necessarily a more fast-growing business. Too many notifications would violate that principle. Then there was “simplicity matters,” meaning that before any new products could roll out, engineers had to think about whether they were solving a specific user problem, and whether making a change was even necessary, or might overcomplicate the app. It was the opposite of Facebook’s “move fast and break things,” where building for growth was valued over usefulness or trust. There was also “inspire creativity,” which meant Instagram was going to try to frame the app as an artistic outlet, training its own users and highlighting the best of them through an editorial strategy, focusing on content that was genuine and meaningful.
It’s clear today that these early values, especially “simplicity matters,” are lost. Instagram is a confusing mess. There are 3 camera flows each with their own interfaces, features, and content placement.
The book also includes several passages discussing Systrom’s refusal to build a “regram” button that would allow me to post others’ photos to my feed similar to a “retweet” button on Twitter and a “reblog” button on Tumblr. He believed Instagram should be a place for expression and creativity; not viral content. This button does not exist today, but sharing others’ photos and videos to Instagram Stories is possible. This functionality means my Stories are filled with impersonal nonsense.
I’d been thinking about how the inclusion of a road in a photograph affects the way I felt and what I thought about when I viewed the image. So, on a recent evening, I searched my catalog for photographs in which a road was a prominent feature of the composition. I found and created a new collection of a dozen examples. As I examined them more closely I discovered that they fell into two broad categories: one in which the road drew my eye into a clearly seen destination, the other where the road disappeared into parts unknown.
While making landscape photographs I look for a place to set my camera in order to represent an evocative view. I want my print to give the viewer a feeling that they are standing, virtually, where I had stood to make the photograph. I call this “giving the viewer a place to stand.” When a road is also included in the composition, the viewer is not only offered a place to stand, but he/she is invited to enter deeper into the image.
As I continued looking at my road photographs I began to explore what I was feeling when I made these two kinds of images. In the case of the road leading to a clearly seen destination, the feeling was obvious: the road had drawn me to a view that exuded a sense of heightened beauty or grandeur. It was as if I had arrived at a captivating place and could now stop and gaze at the view. I felt happy…my spirt soared. The second type, where the road disappeared around a bend or over a hill, made me wonder what was beyond, what awaited me. I felt a sense of curiosity, mystery or longing. In both cases the inclusion of a road in the image invited me in–stimulating new feelings and thoughts.
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The Klein household currently uses a Filson tote (thank you for the wonderful gift, Jesse) when we travel to family members’ houses and wife-approved hotels. The Filson tote is pretty but its lack of pockets and zipper causes anxiety. Cables and chargers also end up tossed into a suitcase which results in cables getting tangled amongst my allbirds underwear and socks.
The river runs from Fujisawa to Enoshima and on the return trip, the Enoshima lighthouse acts appropriately as a beacon in the distance. The other night, the moon fought through hazy cloud cover, and the river water looked stage-lit. There’s a path along that river that runs for miles and miles. At 10 PM it’s empty. Just me, on my orange bike, total silence, floating through the soup that is the air of August in Japan, air that even at 10 PM is as soupy as you can imagine, more soupy than even in the afternoon since the humidity rises at night. My bike has a beautiful little German-engineered light and dynamo hub on the front wheel. Totally silent in operation. It lights the path (which is otherwise unlit). The river glints. My presence is nothing more than a gentle rubber-on-cement hum. Every now and then a fish flies up and out of the water, splashes back down with a thud. Bridges bisect the river at various intervals and one of them carries the Enoden, a small local train, and as
you hover alongside the river, the fishes flopping, the air like soup, the lighthouse marking the way in the distance, every now and then a train will trundle past downriver and you’ll catch a quick glimpse of a few heads, yellow-lit from within, and the rough reflection of the cars in the water.
Actually, become a Special Projects member and support his endeavors.
In 2005 I was a teaching assistant for CS 130 Introduction to Web Design at Cornell (ever heard of it?). At the start of the semester the professor was thrilled to show off her new convertible laptop that she could fold over and write on using a special pen. She presented PowerPoint slides during each class, and after a few minutes the slides would have highlights, questions, and notes scribbled all over. Later in the day she would upload her improvised slides to the class website. I recall this being a clever process for disseminating information because it combined prepared and improvised thoughts into a single source.
These laptops were particularly popular amongst MBA students (yes I took a few MBA courses while I was a CS grad student). A handful would take notes on the screen, but most settled for the traditional laptop orientation. I believe the reason these laptops actually sold well was not because of the fancy handwriting technology, but because it was an innovative feature placed on top of a traditional laptop. If you were walking by you would most likely not notice that the laptop could be converted into an entirely different product.
Fifteen years later (oy) we have the Surface Duo. I am not trying to compare the Duo and old convertible laptops because they fold. They should be looked at together because new technology is placed on top of a traditional device. The smartphone (or “cellular telephone” which is what I call it around the house when I am unable to locate it) is now a “traditional” product because it has settled into a predictable form: a black rectangle with rounded corners with the front rapidly approaching 100% screen.
The Surface Duo, to its detriment, is not only too far removed from the predictable smartphone form, but it’s also much more expensive than what the market expects to pay ($1399?!). Of course it’s exciting to see new form factors tested by the market. It’s been far too long since we’ve had unusual and fun hardware. However, I predict this will be a dud compared to old convertible laptops which were both competitively priced and recognizable by purchasers.
When we first set out to design a logo for Components AI, we naturally gravitated towards generative concepts. The idea of a static mark didn’t seem to make sense as a brand concept. As people interact with the design tools, Components AI as a product is constantly altered. The logo is an opportunity to play with and reflect that concept in our visual language.
Makes sense considering the goal of the company.
After looking at thousands of options, this output felt balanced and inline with what we wanted. It’s got enough variance to feel alive and dynamic. It’s only 1 degree removed from a random grid of dots. While simple, we feel it’s a step forward aesthetically and a bit more recognizable as a mark.
I highly recommend reading this post. At first I was highly skeptical, but after walking through the process they really did land on a simple, recognizable mark.
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