Kevin Rothermel

No Spoilers.

Brand Strategist
Professor, VCU Brandcenter

No Spoilers.

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Every Stormtrooper in Star Wars Explained By Lucasfilm

January 11, 2020

My kids are into Star Wars. That’s not uncommon. But their obsession is on the verge of becoming a problem.

But there are good things about it. For instance, people will send me cool videos to show to them.
This one hits at the sweet spot between Star Wars and design.

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Star Wars

Nasa’s Map-Based Population Estimation Tool

January 22, 2018

Kottke found a cool NASA tool:

NASA has built a service for estimating populations, part of which is a map hosted by Columbia on which you can draw a circle or a shape and the map will give you an estimate of the population contained by the shape.

First, you look at the map.

Then you draw a shape on the map.

Then the map tells you how many people live in your shape.

Screen Shot 2018 01 22 at 10 56 08 AM

Check it out here

Filed Under: Design, Technology

You are responsible for what you put into the world

July 29, 2015

From Mike Monteiro’s answer to a student’s question about whether designers should be able to appreciate an object’s design on a purely aesthetic level, specifically, the AK-47:

Your role as a designer is to leave the world in a better state than you found it. You have a responsibility to design work that helps move humanity forward and helps us, as a species, to not only enjoy our time on Earth, but to evolve.

And to design is to take purpose into account — as my friend Jared Spool says: design is the rendering of intent. You can’t separate an object’s function from its intent. You cannot critique it, you cannot understand it, and you cannot appreciate something without thinking about its intent.

A couple thoughts come to mind:

Roger Ebert’s thinking that evaluating a movie requires consideration of whether or not it achieved what it set out to do.

In his review of The Manson Family, Ebert gave the film three stars for achieving what it set out to do, but admitted that did not count as a recommendation per se.

Steve Jobs on design:

Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.



Filed Under: Design