Design Decisions '08: Heller on Buttons and The Big No

Design at the Olympics; First Impressions The Organic Paper Prisms of Jen Stark A Book You Could Live In; Olafur Eliasson's Lasercut "Your House" Why I'm in Love with Zocalo First-Person Mediator. Playing for Good With Videogame Peacemaker Speaking Delicately; the Cut Paper Eloquence of Hina Aoyama Need a Hero? Try Vestergaard Frandsen Slideshow of Cut-Paper Inspiration The Cool Kids Re-Invent the Newspaper; McSweeney's SF Panorama The Genius of the A4 Sheet: Peter Callesen

Just to get the creative juices flowing for those of ye who are about to enter the McCoy "Get Out The Vote" button contest --- let's all harken back to what the Dean of American Design Criticism, Steven Heller, had to say about button design four long, grueling years ago . . . during the last presidential election, in an essay called 10 Anti-Buttons: Lessons in Design.

Heller keys on strategies of incumbent-bashing and has some thoughtful and useful observations about the use of the circle/slash "no" symbol.

Takeaway advice: In buttons, even more than in other types of design . . . brevity = wit.

Posted by The Curator on May 16, 2008 4:27 PM
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retropolis says:
May 30, 2008
5:24 PM

Looking for some help with uploading my button designs. I tried a couple of times and my designs have yet to appear (I uploaded 5 different designs). Meanwhile, other designs continue to be added to the gallery.

Thank you for whatever assistance you can provide.

Jack Straw

Rob Wittig says:
June 3, 2008
2:29 PM

We're looking into the uploading situation. Try again later this week! Thanks for your patience! We want to see your design!

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