Age of Slang, Idea and Design

By Clay Parker Jones | January 29, 2010

A couple years ago, my friend Don and I had an idea while spending way too long debating the origin of a piece of slang.

The idea:
A crowd-sourced slang dictionary that would let you browse your way back through the history of language’s oddities, define terms, and otherwise waste away a workday. Think Urban Dictionary, but for word-nerds. Here’s my designs of how it would work (click images to see full-size).

This would be the screen you would see at the site, which would be called “Age of Slang” or perhaps “Slang Ages”. The latter of which lends itself to being said as “Slangages”. Give it a try, it’s fun to say. Worth noting on this view are the ability to skip between words (of a similar type? age of creation? letter? who knows), and the ability to add words before and after the word you’re examining.

This is the screen that shows one parent. The phrase “Word” perhaps came from “I Concur”, noting agreement. That’s probably wrong, but it’s just to illustrate the design.

Here I’ve added some interface features:

  • View date of “creation”
  • Close word (eliminates from view if the “stack” gets too high)
  • View descendant/ancestor (not “child” or “parent” which was deemed to be too, well, child-like…)
  • Add descendant/ancestor

Hopefully you can see now how this might work out.

If you click the word (it’s underlined, so it’s got to be a link, right?), you get to see the definition.

And here’s what it would look like if you wanted to add a slang word or phrase. Note the somewhat “angry hipster” instructions.

And here’s the second screen, if you wanted to take credit for your addition to the database.

And I even went so far as to create a footer, with search and a dedicated “add phrase” button.

And explained the joke about “Web Two-Point-Greg”, which Don and I came up with after being annoyed over people saying “Web 2.0” too frequently. Probably a little too far.

So hey, digital friend! Want to help me out? Care to help build this thing, or at least help me make it real? I think it’s something that the world should have. Urban Dictionary is hardly the proper repository for the world’s slang.

Posted in Design, Digital Thinking, Ideas, Language | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Creed Original Vetiver

By Clay Parker Jones | January 28, 2010

My favorite thing in the world came in the mail today. It’s a bottle of Creed Original Vetiver.

From the first time I smelled this stuff in a Nieman Marcus in Orange County, I was hooked. It smells like grass, summer, and awesome. I highly recommend you check it out.

Creed’s definitely an interesting brand, too. It’s still run by the original folks (the Creed family), which to me is one of the most important factors in maintaining a strong culture within an organization. Further, they’ve successfully blended old-world perfumery techniques with responsible manufacturing practices. At least, as far as I can tell. Vetiver, interestingly enough, is grown primarily in Haiti. Hopefully some of my purchase went toward their relief efforts there.

Posted in Nice Products | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

FEED’s Irresponsible Infographics

By Clay Parker Jones | January 27, 2010

There are two kinds of infographics:

  • The kind that deceive
  • The kind that clarify

This is the former. Shame on you, Razorfish designer.

EDIT:

My friend and colleague-from-another-agency, Guthrie Dolin (Odopod), helped me get in contact with Garrick Schmitt, the publisher of the FEED report. His tweet in response to my post is copied below.

I appreciate (a) the understanding that it’s not the best way to display the data and (b) that his point wasn’t to highlight/obfuscate. So, that’s good. Thanks, Garrick, for the response.

Posted in Design | Tagged , , , , , , | 9 Comments

The YouTube Interface

By Clay Parker Jones | January 16, 2010

Most times, I talk about YouTube in a way that goes something like, “Yeah, it’s big, but it’s ugly. I like Vimeo better.” I think I might be wrong about that. It perhaps doesn’t get enough credit for the way it looks.

When you collapse all the bits and pieces on YouTube, it’s actually a pretty decent-looking, quiet interface.

Underscores for me the importance of text, color, spacing, and lines. That’s ALL this interface is, aside from four buttons and 11 graphic elements.

Posted in Experience Design, Wading | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Fitness goals!

By Clay Parker Jones | January 14, 2010

I’ve just joined a new gym: Equinox. It’s a delight. A unique, wonderful delight. There are beautiful women there—hell, beautiful people in general—and the amenities are amazing. Their showers have big rain-shower-heads and hot water and nice tile and Kiehl’s, and unlike my home, when you get out of the shower you’re not hit with a wall of frigid air. And there’s a guy that brings you towels while you’re running. Excessive, but nice.

In any case, I’ve included a picture of myself in college for reference, as I’d like to get back to my college fitness levels by the end of this year.

  • I’d like to be able to run a 5:00 mile again,
  • I’d like to be 185 pounds again,
  • I’d like to feel like anything (physical) is possible…again.
  • I’d also like to feel fast when I do triathlons later in the year.
  • And heck, I’ll be honest, I’d like to look like that again. I feel like a fat mess while I’m running. It sucks.

So, here I go.

Follow my progress here and on DailyMile, which as far as I’m concerned, is the best fitness site on the internets.

Posted in A Challenge | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

WriteMinds: Goals and Wireframes

By Clay Parker Jones | January 13, 2010

Over the past while, I’ve been working with some friends on an exciting problem:

How can we make writing on a computer easier and… awesome-er?

A couple years ago, some friends of a friend came to me and my friends (Eric and Kevin, who do fun projects with me from time to time) and asked us if we could design and build a collaborative writing website, where people could get together to write novels. After a good long think, a bunch of meetings around a table in an office we no longer have, and a whole heck of a lot of calls, we came up with a different sort of thing, correcting a smaller problem: it sorta sucks to write on a computer. I’ve tried Scrivener, Writeroom, Ommwriter, Microsoft Word, Pages, Textedit, and others, and none of them really made sense. They all either did too much or not enough. And with Google Wave and Basecamp around, the collaboration thing is/will be nailed.

So now that Will, Ryan and Robbie have gotten the funding out of the way and the development underway, we’re ready to start talking about it.

The first thing I’d love to get your feedback on is some of the initial application screens that detail a bit of the marketing and account management functions of the product.

Homepage:

The bottom bit is the footer, and hopefully the screen grabs/video bits are compelling enough to get people to sign up.

May need some more detail here, though. Note to self. Thoughts?

Welcome Page:

Let’s say you’ve signed up, and you’re ready to write. What’s the first thing you’ll see? This page.

Individual Document Page:

Okay, you’re a pro, you’ve made a few documents. Perhaps you want to compare your work to previous versions, or just edit what you’ve got. Here’s where to do that. The stuff you see on the Version 6 bar: that’s a rollover state.

Old Version Rollover View:

For launch, we’ll only have the most recent version be editable. Too many complications with version comparison…

General Account Admin Page:

And the settings page is pretty straightforward. You can see that we’re trying to have a bit of personality with everything about the site, even for the boring bits.

Password Entry View:

So that’s that. Would love to know what you think.

And of course, stay tuned for details.

Posted in Writeminds | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

6.5 Earthquake – Northern California

By Clay Parker Jones | January 9, 2010

Whoa. Big earthquake near my parents’ house. They live right above the bay, north of Eureka, where you see all those little maroon fault lines running parallel to each other.

When I was a little kid, I went through an earthquake the exact same size—6.5—and despite the fact that I was in the hunting/fishing aisle of the Long’s Drugs (imagine fishing poles and hatchets coming down around me), I came out unscathed.

Earthquakes scared the crap out of me when I was a kid, and for good reason: we were living on a “Triple Junction”, a unique tectonic zone where three plates come together. We were living at the active part of where the Pacific, North American, and Gorda plates meet within the Cascadia Subduction Zone, which also happened to produce Crater Lake and Mt. St. Helens, and the possibility of “The Big One” hitting was larger than my young brain could deal with.

Oh, and I found out from my little cousin tweeting about it. Go, Social Media.

Posted in Wading | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Snip Those Threads

By Clay Parker Jones | January 9, 2010

Even here in style-conscious New York City—within the style-crazy neighborhood of SoHo—I see this style fail far too frequently.

The loose stitching holding together the vents of your jacket are meant to be removed. So here’s a tip: remove them.

Posted in Fashion | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

C + J California Jacket

By Clay Parker Jones | January 6, 2010


Apologies for the creases in the back…I could not avoid wearing it.

Over my Christmas break, I went home to California and designed this jacket. I wanted something that I could wear through three seasons, wear over layers, wear to work, wear on the bike, and even wear while chopping wood around an October campfire. I wanted it to be made of mostly natural materials—predominantly worsted wool—and I wanted it to toe the line between dress and sport.

I think this jacket achieves those things. Some features:

  • Split yoke – shoulder flexibility
  • Double-layer front and shoulders – durability and warmth
  • Single-layer back – comfort under packs, ventilation
  • Articulated, silk-lined sleeves – better drape, better flexibility, more warmth
  • Diagonal-cut cuffs – long where you need it, short where you don’t
  • Single left-chest pocket – minimal, accessible storage for essentials (passport, money, etc.)
  • Tall collar – warmth when you need it
  • YKK zippers & a grosgrain hanging loop

All the tailoring was done by Donna Parker (twitter | blog).

I rather like it. Would love to know what you think.

Posted in Crafty, Fashion | Tagged , , , , , , , | 9 Comments