If you are used to whipping off papers the night before they’re due, running them quickly through the computer’s spellchecker, handing them in full of high-school errors and sentences that make no sense and having the professor accept them, “because the ideas are good,” please be informed that I draw no distinction between the quality of one’s ideas and the quality of those ideas’ verbal expression, and I will not accept sloppy, rough-draftish, or semiliterate college writing. Again, I am absolutely not kidding.
Unix Time is a system for describing points in time, defined as the number of seconds elapsed since midnight Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) of January 1, 1970, not counting leap seconds. It is neither a linear representation of time nor a true representation of UTC.
On February 13, 2009 at exactly 23:31:30 (UTC), the decimal representation of Unix time was equal to ’1234567890′, a moment celebrated across the world to commemorate 1234567890 Day.
In computing, the second system effect refers to the tendency, when following on from a relatively small, elegant and successful system, to design the successor as an elephantine, feature-laden monstrosity.
Courtesy of Antonio Carusone, the creator of the excellent AisleOne1, The Grid System is an inspiring resource that’s well worth bookmarking. Minimally crafted typography coupled with a restrained, yet striking, grid meet well-researched content that results in an indispensible tool for the discerning designer.
The Josef Müller-Brockmann quote in the header underlines Malcolm Gladwell’s observation2 that practice makes perfect:
The grid system is an aid, not a guarantee. It permits a number of possible uses and each designer can look for a solution appropriate to his personal style. But one must learn how to use the grid; it is an art that requires’practice.
— Josef Müller-Brockmann
Practice makes perfect.
Footnotes
AisleOne
An inspirational resource focused on graphic design, typography, grid systems, minimalism and modernism.
Outliers
Written in 2008 by Malcolm Gladwell Outliers is a something. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Gladwell suggests 10,000 hours of effort is required to become a master in any subject.
Every year our students ask us what it will take to leave with a First Class Honours Degree; our answer is usually, “A great deal of hard work…” Good news, this year we can provide you with an actual, quantifiable, answer. It seems that the difference between average and world-class is 10,000 hours.
