Design
On the Appropriateness of the Mad Men Poster
Last week I came across a poster advertising the premier date for this year’s season of Mad Men. I took a shot of it for my daily photo project and posted it to Flickr, Instagram and Twitter. My tweeted title was “I’m not too sure how appropriate is this Mad Men poster”. Thinking nothing more of it I continued with my day and shooting more images each morning. A couple days later I went back to the photo and noticed a spike in traffic to the photo. A couple blogs... Read More
My Initial Reaction to the Book on Saul Bass
2011 was a crazy year for me so over Christmas I rewarded the hard work I put in by buying a couple design books. I bought Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible by Sophie Lovell, Helvetica and the New York City Subway System: The True (Maybe) Story by Paul Shaw and Saul Bass by Jennifer Bass & Pat Kirkham. The first two books came right away but the Bass book was on back order and there was no defined delivery date. I ordered it anyways from Amazon. To my surprise it... Read More
Getting a Glimpse Into Ford’s Design Process
It’s been almost a week since I was in Detroit for the North American International Autoshow that Ford invited me to. I’ve had a bit of time to reflect on the days that I was there and wanted to start talking about what I saw inside Ford. I along with 149 other bloggers from across the world got access inside the company that they’ve never given the public access to. We checked out different labs for testing, rooms where designs are reviewed and some of the workspace... Read More
Cars I liked on the first day of the North American International Auto Show
Having never been to Detroit or the North American International Auto Show, here’s a couple cars that caught my eye on the first day. Read More
Experiencing the Henry Ford Museum
The Henry Ford Museum was the backdrop for the first dinner put on with Ford in conjunction with the North American International Auto Show. I had the opportunity to walk around the museum both before and after dinner. I was really was really impressed with the eclectic nature of the collection and vast size. There was everything from cars to trains to airplanes to different forms of machines that made energy. I really enjoyed seeing how a lot of those items have evolved over... Read More
In Detroit for the North American International Auto Show with Ford
Over the next couple of days I’ll be taking a lot of photos, tweeting and writing the occasional post from Detroit. I was invited from Ford to take part in this year’s North American International Auto Show. The two day schedule put together from Ford looks pretty cool as it is busy. I suspect by the time I fly back to NYC I’ll know a lot more about vehicles than when I landed in Detroit. Read More
Tweaking the New Year
A couple years ago after reading a post from someone that visited the Empire State Building once a year on New Years Day I decided to follow the same tradition. Just like last year and the year before that it gave me a focused opportunity to reflect on the past year and decide what I will do for the remainder of the new year. Looking back it was like no other. The biggie was Gesture Theory. We worked with more people, released better products and ultimately we we’re in... Read More
A couple tech interview video sites to catchup with over the holidays
I’m in the process of starting to reorganize some of my sources of info that I deal with on my browser. As I started to shuffle links around I noticed a nice set of tech video sources. Now that the holidays are almost here I figured I might be able to catchup on some of the interviews I’ve missed. Below are some of the sites that I think are worth visiting to learn a bit more about technology and some of my favourite interviews that I’ve seen. Bloomberg West I... Read More
Publishing Decks to the iPad and iPhone
There’s essentially two ways for people to publish online theses days. Using a print solution like a pdf or a web based CMS. The problem is that both ways were created before tablets and smart phones. I don’t think they really take advantage of what screens have the capabilities of doing today. PDFs also need a lot of time to make and CMSs assume people know how to code. It’s also a lengthy process. Over the past couple of months Gesture Theory has been working... Read More
Old Piers on the Hudson River
I try to take some time each weekend to walk down the Hudson River. It’s a great way for me to reflect on the past week and let my mind wander a bit with new ideas. This weekend I decided to shoot each old pier that I walked by to see what patterns might emerge after looking at them in a set. First thing I noticed was that I didn’t realize that there was that many piers clustered together within a short distance of each other. The second thing was the placement of... Read More
I shot more images this November than any other month, November Reloaded in Images
Looking back at November, the first thing I saw was the quantity of photos I shot. This was the first full month with my iPhone 4S and the weather in NYC this November was amazing. I can’t recall seeing a better fall month since I was in NYC. This was also the first month that a majority of my images were published first on Instagram and passed to Flickr second. The catch is that almost all my images for this post are being pulled from Flickr because it’s an easier... Read More
Why I returned my Up by Jawbone
I got really excited about Up by Jawbone as the first posts were published. My interests was because of it’s ability to ambiently track my walking habits without getting in my way. I was curious to see what that experience would be like and how that data would transfer to my iPhone. I wanted to test that interaction out. I also want to see how my behavior would change. I also wanted to experience it to see what new questions about fitness, measurement and interaction... Read More
Using Twitter to Understand the Silence of an Unknown Emergency
This morning started like almost every other morning. Waking up early, walking my weim Madison, checking what’s going on with the interwebs via my iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air. I showered, drank some coffee and played some music while doing all that stuff. I also glanced out my window from time to time during the rituals. Something different arose on one of my glances. Smoke coming from what I guessed was 34th street. In a matter of seconds a lot of it arose. What surprised... Read More
Looking at the Nooka Zizm
I spent some time this afternoon hanging out at Nooka’s office with good friend Matthew Waldman. Anyone that knows Matthew knows that he loves showing off his new products. This time around he showed me the Nooka Zizm. I had seen some images on his site but was surprised to see how differently it looks in person. I wasn’t so sure about the angled glass from the images on his site, but in person I really liked it. The face was completely legible from all angles.... Read More
Link Drop 003
I’ve just published Link Drop 003 using DeckPub. The deck is viewable on both desktop browsers and an iPad. To view on an iPad just open the link http://deckpub.com/8/link-drop-003 on iPad’s Safari browser. Read More
Custom iPhone Coverplate
I really liked the idea of customizing my new white iPhone 4S with something a bit different from the iPhone cases out there. It took a while to figure out what I wanted to do but realized what better image to use than the Obey stencil. I found a pdf of the stencil online, opened it up in illustrator and made the pattern. The most difficult aspect was trying to align the camera within the eye… Read More
The Future of Publishing to the iPad, Announcing DeckPub
Over at Gesture Theory we reached a pretty significant milestone Friday evening. We published our first live deck from DeckPub to the iPad using our own product. We used Link Drop to test because it gave us an opportunity to see how the images loaded with text with online content that people would want to read on an iPad. The screen shots above show the Dashboard where people create their decks, the Editor which allows people to add content, the content’s and leaf pages... Read More
My new favourite iPhone Photo App
I’ve been loving the new iPhone 4S’ camera. I’m using it as much as I can with Instagram and Flickr. Typically when I shoot it’s pretty static in format. Usually the format is either a square or 16:9 proportion. Yesterday Mike Arauz mentioned a new photo app to me that you should download immediately after reading this post. It’s called Photosynth. It makes panoramic images amazingly easy to take. All I had to do was tap the screen once and started... Read More
Authoritative overview of Social Computing and its relation to social media by Thomas Erickson
I received an email earlier from Mads Soegaard who is the Editor-in-Chief of Interaction-Design.org. He wanted to let me know that they’ve released an authoritative overview of Social Computing and its relation to social media by Thomas Erickson. He mentions that Thomas Erickson is a veteran researcher in social computing at IBM Watson Research Lab. Apparently the materials have took 10 months to produce and involved 3 editors, 2 peer-reviewers, and a camera crew of 4 people. I’m... Read More
REVIEW COPY: Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits by Debbie Millman
In Debbie Millman’s latest book Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits, she interviews 22 well known designers and other people with opinions about brands. The conversation about brands varied quite a bit from topic to topic. When the topic about the future of branding and implementation of new social technology came up, people recognized it’s importance but they didn’t really talk about how they’re taking advantage of it. The people being interviewed... Read More
October Reload in Photos
Taking a look back at some of the photos that I took in October, a couple influencers became apparent. First there was the technical. I started shuffling between a couple different mobile devices while continuing to use my GF1. It also made sense for me to take a closer look at where I place and store those photos because of my drastically changing camera habits. Typically a clean image will live on Flickr and another version on Instagram. This becomes noticeable as you scroll... Read More
Shuffling between an iPhone 3GS to a Droid Bionic to an iPhone 4S
October was a busy month for me shuffling between mobile devices and network carriers. I switched from an iPhone 3GS to a Droid Bionic to a white iPhone 4S. I also left ATT for Verizon. Below are some of my notes comparing the Droid Bionic to the iPhone 4S. There was a couple reasons why I left the iPhone family briefly. Basically I was unimpressed at the time of iPhone 4S launch. Yes, I was one of those people that wanted to see an iPhone 5 after waiting so long for a new iPhone... Read More
Forbes Photos & Videos iPad App Release
I remember the time when the iPad was just a rumor, something that was being discussed on blogs and other sites. There were guesses on what Apple would release with unlimited potential. When I finally got my hands on one the day the 3G version became available I started dreaming about what I wanted to design on it. Photos & videos seemed like a great start. The iPhone showed us the potential of gestures: swiping, tapping and pinching. The only issue with the iPhone... Read More
The Myth of Great Designs found on the streets of NYC
What seems like an internity now that I’ve been here for a while, before moving to NYC I’d come across stories of people finding cool design furniture on the streets. Stuff that no designer would probably throw out if they knew what it was. On the flip side near the end of any month there’s tons of furniture on the streets from people moving that can’t keep because their new apartment shrunk in space from what they used to live in. Almost a 100% of the... Read More
September Reload in Photos
At the beginning of each new month I take a look back at the last month of what I shot with my camera. Usually it’s from my iPhone though once in a while a shot from my GF1 slips in. Spending some time looking back at September, the first thing that I realized was that I shot a lot more images than usual. Comparing that to the summer there’s typically not a lot going on so it makes sense that fall would bring more opportunities to capture things out of the ordinary.... Read More
The repetitive nature of the unknown.
Recently Keith Stoeckeler asked me if I would write a post for his project #allthatinspiresme. Happy to consider the question, below is my response that is on his site. The repetitive nature of the unknown. Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. —Albert Einstein It’s very easy to get distracted these days because of easy access to the internet anywhere, people sharing links at all hours and the ability to like, heart and... Read More
Sounds of Today
I spend a lot of time on the weekends walking south by the Hudson river. I consider it time when I can press the reset button from the previous week. Over the past couple of months I’ve been capturing the growth of Ground Zero as it has risen. While the buildings are not completed yet, above are some of the angles that I’ve captured. This morning felt quite a bit different as I walked by people in an assortment of uniforms, families and others contemplating... Read More
Walking Down 5th Avenue Observing 9/11
Most mornings I’ll walk down 5th av to Washington Square Park on my way to Gesture Theory. Taking that familiar route this morning, red cups lined for a couple blocks appeared out of no where. It became apparent quite quickly that it was an observance of 9/11. In observance of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, Illegal Art has marked each of the 110 floors on the sidewalk with chalk, starting at 5th Avenue and 14th street and heading north for 1,368 feet (417 meters), the... Read More
Currently Live Streaming TV in NYC
Streaming TV online isn’t exactly new. I’ve talked about Live TV on the iPad before, and Sunday Night Football streaming last year previously. But something kind of cool is going on. Whether it’s that important or not remains to be seen, but I could watch 4 different US Open tennis on ESPN matches and Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2012 at the same time which happened to be in NYC. It’s kind of crazy. There’s so many interesting opportunities... Read More
App bug reports and updates
Camera+ is my favorite photo app for shooting images. The controls and settings are well thought out and make it easy for me to shoot things. Going through their latest update notes I couldn’t help but appreciate the detail they took in explaining the bug fixes that they solved. Not only do they detail what the issues were and what action it was preventing. On top of that they also add a bit of humor that doesn’t come across as contrived. It reads that they took meticulous... Read More
REVIEW COPY: Just My Type by Simon Garfield
Just My Type by Simon Garfield is one of those books that deserves to be found on the same shelf as The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst and Make it Bigger by Paula Scher. Just My Type goes into great technical detail while at the same time flexes personal stories about typography. A sure sign of a favourite book of mine is to highlight lines upon lines of things worth noting. The catch was that if this book had been a hard copy I’m not sure if I would... Read More
Why not compress the button?
I’ve wondered out loud before about compressing buttons on to a flat screen. Yet I still have to wonder why people bother making plastic dials? Is there some sort of tactile quality that a tap and swipe can’t provide or is it more about people being used to one type of tool like a dial and don’t feel comfortable experimenting with their unknowns? UPDATE: 09.06.2011 Coming across the demo this morning, one of the takeaways was that the artist could use the... Read More
Repeating August Through My Lens
If I knew a month a go what I do now, I wouldn’t have believed it. Everything imaginable and unimaginable happened. I survived intact and am here to think back about it. I suppose it’s a warm up of the things to come. Until next month, same time, hopefully same place, below are some of the things I was able to catch. Sunrise this morning Walking in Soho down Broadway & Broome #walkingtoworktoday Newspaper from across the apartment hallway #walkingtoworktoday NYC... Read More
TEST DRIVE: 2012 Scion iQ
Last week Scion flew and put me up to test drive their new Scion iQ. This is my review about driving the car for a couple hours in LA. Typically I’ll review design books, interview designers, pass along links and talk about user experiences. So when I was emailed a couple months ago to see if I would be interested in test driving a car, I figured why not? Press Reveal The event was held over three days at the Shade Hotel in Manhattan Beach, California. I had the... Read More
Selecting and Editing Hurricane Irene Info Flow
Having had a day to consider how I consumed information about Hurricane Irene, what became clear is that most of the information relayed to viewers on TV was available without the dramatics online. Looking back Twitter did help considerably in terms of finding sources of where to look online and provided valuable information such as weather alerts around NYC about the possibility of tornadoes and displayed videos & photos first hand. When press conferences were live on... Read More
Looking at Manhattan Beach, California
Last week I spent a couple days in Manhattan Beach California test driving the 2012 Scion iQ. Tomorrow I’ll be posting my review of the experience. However having never been to LA I thought I’d post a couple images of my first impression of the beach. I have to admit I really enjoyed walking around a new environment for a couple days in between driving. Between jumping around in the water and walking around the huge homes near the boardwalk made the trip... Read More
Book Launch party for THE ROAD TO SOMEWHERE by James A. Reeves
Longtime friend of Design Notes, blogger and now author James A. Reeves launched his book The Road to Somewhere last Thursday night at the powerHouse Arena. For the Launch he invited a number of people to share personal road stories along with James reading from the book. The guest readers would be quite familiar to those that follow design. One of my favorite designers out there, Candy Chang described road trips with her families white van. Amazingly every image show showed... Read More
Looking at the NOOKA ZUB ZOO 40′s
I dropped by on Friday after work to catch up with Matthew from Nooka. While I was there he showed me a couple of the newest time pieces that have just been released. The one that caught my eye was the Nooka Zub Zoo 40. I think it’s their first watch designed to swap wristbands easily with different colors. Instead of screws or pins, these bands simple slide out. I’d be curious to see what a black Zub Zoo would look like with the inside band as white. Since... Read More
NYC Morning & Afternoon Images
Inspired by the series by Stephen Wilkes’ Day to Night, I compressed yesterday’s afternoon bright blue sky with this morning’s sunrise. Below are a couple experiments with both images combined along with the originals shot from my iPhone. NYC Morning & Afternoon 01 NYC Morning & Afternoon 02 NYC Morning & Afternoon 03 NYC Morning & Afternoon 04 Original Morning Original Afternoon Read More
Gesture Theory Redesign of the AIGA | Aquent Survey of Design Salaries 2011 Website
ABOUT The AIGA engaged Gesture Theory to review the AIGA|Aquent Survey of Design Salaries 2010 website and provide our recommendations on how to improve the site for the 2011 launch. In the proposal they expressed the importance of building an online experience that tells the story behind the data. As we looked at the data it became apparent that the design philosophy should focus around adding visuals to compliment the numbers in order to make it more appealing and easier to... Read More
Presentations from Michael Surtees
Gesture Theory Redesign of the AIGA | Aquent Survey of Design Salaries 2011 Website
ABOUT The AIGA engaged Gesture Theory to review the AIGA|Aquent Survey of Design Salaries 2010 website and provide our recommendations on how to improve the site for the 2011 launch. In the proposal they expressed the importance of building an online experience that tells the story behind the data. As we looked at the data [...]
walkingtoworktoday
This week #walkingtoworktoday from my POV
November 1, 2010 at 9.32am EDT: A wig for the rest of the year #walkingtoworktoday November 2, 2010 at 9.30am EDT: JOA Type in the House #Walkingtoworktoday November 3, 2010 at 8.12am EDT: Looking at my elevator door #walkingtoworktoday November 4, 2010 at 9.14am EDT: My umbrella just before it self destructed #walkingtoworktoday November 5, [...]
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DesignNotes is published in NYC by Michael Surtees, Principal and Creative Director of Gesture Theory. Michael tries to explore people's daily experiences and observations with design. He can be reached at michael at gesturetheory.com 
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