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I originally posted this design a couple of months ago, but it just came off the press. Should be for sale soon.
How To Fix Twitter
Anyone who works in a creative field knows that sometimes having complete creative freedom can make your task much harder. Having some restrictions help shape your task, and give you a problem to solve. Twitter’s 140 character restriction works in the same way. By limiting your space, Twitter forces you to choose your words wisely. However, there are a few likely unforeseen issues that the 140 character limit has caused, and I’d like to propose a solution.
First, the URL issue. The character restriction has created a whole internet cottage industry of URL shorteners. Sites like tinyurl and bit.ly exist almost solely as a way to give the Twitterer a few more characters to work with. What I would propose would be to allow users to create html links. Allow people to highlight a few words of their tweet and turn them into a link.
So a tweet liks this…
Would turn into this…
It’s a small change, but in many cases it would give you an extra 20 characters to work with (Twitter automatically turns any non-shortened URL into an abbreviated 20 character version).
The other issue I have with Twitter is the inconsistency in retweeting. The official Twitter method is to either retweet without comment, showing the original users icon with an indication of who is retweeting it. The other option is to “quote tweet” in which it puts the original tweet (and twitter handle) in quotes with your comment following outside the quotes. The big problem with this is that if the original tweet is longer than 60 characters, once you add in the original twitter handle, you barely have any characters left to comment. Other programs format retweets in the following way: [retweeters comment RT: @originalhandle {original tweet}]. The issue with this is that it forces you to read the follow up comment before the original tweet, and it doesn’t do anything to solve the character count issue. Additionally, this gives the original tweeter a little less credit in your feed because followers of the retweeter don’t see the original user’s icon or full name.
I would propose that Twitter make a consistent retweet style that doesn’t link retweet comments to the original tweet, so you are able to write a full 140 characters, no matter what the length of the original tweet was. Just visually link a retweeted comment to the original tweet. Like this…
This method gives everyone their due exposure and lets users write more than 15 characters when commenting in their retweet.
These aren’t new problems to Twitter, and I doubt nobody on their team has thought of these solutions, so I don’t have high hopes for a change. I have a feeling they like the strange Twitter world they’ve created, with bit.ly and hashtags and RTs, but I think it would really improve the experience.
Lastly, follow me on Twitter: @tqvinn
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Behold, the power of tumblr! I started this tumblr less than 9 months ago, just filling in old posts from my previous blog. My anamorphic typography post caught the eye of someone in charge of the #design tumblr tag and spread around tumblr in a way I never would have imagined. Yesterday, it passed the 40,000 likes/reblogs mark. Thanks to all of you tumblrers!
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Sketches for a calligraphic logo I’m working on.
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A logo exercise I put together recently.
A few photos from my presentation at the Apple Store in Lincoln Park (in Chicago). It was pretty cool showing my work on their enormous 80 inch television. Thanks to Kris Kettner for taking these photos.
A logo and website I designed for a mexican restaurant. I hand drew the logo and the navigation type, though it is originally based on Ed Benguiat Interlock.
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A trio of rejected logos that I liked, but the client did not.
Come See Me At The Apple Store
Hey, if you happen to live in Chicago, come see me at the Apple Store in Lincoln Park on January 24th at 7pm. I’m going to be speaking about my work, my transition from being an “artist” to a “designer”, and what that distinction even means anymore. If that doesn’t sound interesting enough and/or you are the kind of person that can’t resist free shit, I’m planning on giving out some sort of souvenir to anyone that comes.
Best of 2012
It’s time for the obligatory Best of 2012 list. I’m going to keep it short this year, instead of naming a bunch of records that were “pretty good”, I’ll just list the ones I thought worthy of a best list. For those of you who are Spotify users, I embedded my favorite tracks from each of my favorite albums.
MUSIC
1: Divine Fits — A Thing Called Divine Fits
Stakes were high when the frontmen of two of my favorite bands (Spoon and Handsome Furs) decided to start a new band together, but the result did not disappoint. If you do not like this album, you and I can’t be friends anymore.
2: Tanlines — Mixed Emotions
Tracks 1-3 rival any 3 song stretch of the year for me, but with Tanlines, if you go a little too deep, you’ll quickly find yourself on a Jamaican vacation that you didn’t sign up for, thus bumping them to #2.
3: Twin Shadow — Confess
Most ‘Best Of’ lists include Chromatics Kill For Love to fulfill their “80s revival entry”, but I prefer the Twin Shadow flavor.
4: The xx — Coexist
I’m ready to admit that the sophomore effort from The xx isn’t quite as good as their debut, but it is still worthy of your time.
5: Grizzly Bear — Shields
Everyone else seems to like Grizzly Bear a little more than I do, but “Yet Again” rivals “While You Wait For The Others” for my favorite track by them. It alone gets them on this list.
MOVIES
1: Safety Not Guaranteed
A super-overlooked movie. I really enjoyed every aspect of it. Aubrey Plaza plays the same character she has ever played, but it works well for this movie.
2: Looper
The time travel logic in this movie breaks down about 15 seconds into discussing it, but it’s self-awareness that it doesn’t really make any sense gives it a pass on that. A sci-fi movie for the masses.
3: Cabin In The Woods
If you haven’t seen this, try not to find out anything about it, then Netflix it. It is a horror movie, but my wife hates horror movies and I forced her to watch it and she loved it. The way they turned the intentionally-over-the-top-generic-stoner character into the voice of reason is excellent.
4: The Dark Knight Rises
No explanation necessary really. I’m not sure whether it is possible to live up to The Dark Knight without having the Joker in the movie, but it was a fitting ending for a fantastic trilogy. Let Christopher Nolan do any movie he wants to do for the rest of his life please.
5: Argo
It’s good. See it. But stay for the end credits when they show the real people that the movie was based on, and enjoy a good laugh when you see how much effort they put into making every character look just like the real person until you get to the Ben Affleck character who is obviously hispanic. I guess it’s Ben’s movie, so he gets to play the star whether the guy was white or not.
Honorable Mention: Django Unchained
It isn’t out yet, so I can’t put it on my ‘Best Of’ list, but based on my love of Quentin Tarantino movies, and the fact that it has a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, I’m pretty sure I’m going to love it.
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