design

[Reading #8] Discounting, data stories and long journalism

May 1, 2011

1. Discounting So discounting is what retailers do – at Christmas, to seize the momentum of buying ahead of Christmas, and, in June, to get cash rather than debts on the books ahead of the end of financial year. But it’s something we all do. Think about the choice between watching TV or doing exercise. [...]

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Maybe it’s time to accept failure

January 19, 2011
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Okay, so let’s start by agreeing none of us like to fail. It’s in our cells. But I’m interviewing Yiying Lu tomorrow, yes she of the fail whale, and I’m thinking about failure. And our relationship with failure.

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What use is an unmade idea?

January 7, 2011
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The effort to develop your idea, prototype it, attract financial support can stop you doing anything. Those steps are critical in a commercial project. But when the alternative is an idea that disappears into the air, can an abbreviated process still make a contribution?

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Three great things I came across this year

December 30, 2010
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I love lists. They can be arbitrary, but there’s something to them: a look back, before leaping into a new year. I’m a science writer and researcher, arts broadcaster and music obsessive, and a compulsive reader, so there is a  lot to draw on. So I focussed on three great things I came across this year and haven’t been able to stop talking about: Tipping Point, Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and Brisbane’s Other Film.

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Review: Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky

December 12, 2010

Madeleine Preston lives in Potts Point. She paints, draws, illustrates, does printmaking, media art, sculptures, installations and public art: “Whatever medium or method works with the idea.” She’s been in 30-something group shows and made the beautifully nostalgic Darlinghurst Eats Its Young blog. She teaches art too. Madeleine comes up with ideas, and turns them [...]

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