Ideo Labs just released this great new (and free) iPhone prototyping application that mirrors your desktop on the iPhone. The great thing here is that taps on the iPhone register as mouse clicks. You position an emulator on your desktop to frame the active area on the phone.
Download it here LiveView for iPhone
I haven’t had a chance to play around with this sketching tool yet but it looks interesting. You can see a demo at atebits.com
- Incredibly easy-to-use drawing tool
- Advanced stroke rendering make sketches look natural
- Intuitive 3D layer interface
- Save to most popular graphics formats
- Drawing tablet supported (but not required)
- 1-click sharing
- Freely publish to the Scribbles Gallery
- “Infinite canvas” groundbreaking core technology that allows the artist to break free of the restrictions of typical drawing apps. You never have to pre-define the size of your canvas. You can zoom into your drawings with unparalleled precision and Scribbles will magically re-render your art so you never encounter a jaggy edge or blocky pixel.
- High-resolution output
- Free to download and try for as long as you want
Cristoph Niemann posted a beautifully simple pictoral expression of NYC in Lego. What I love about this is the level of abstraction that lego mandates. There is always that moment where abstraction and imagination join to form meaning from a set of basic shapes. When we communicate our ideas early in a design this activation of imagination is essential in encouraging participation and interpretation.
At the end of these images you want your own bin of Legos to add your own, the coffee cart, gum spots, water towers, anything you can imagine is in that bin.
See the series by Christoph.
About the Artist
Christoph Niemann’s illustrations have appeared on the covers of The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine and American Illustration. His work has won numerous awards from the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the Art Directors Club and American Illustration. He is the author of two children’s books, “The Pet Dragon,” which teaches Chinese characters to young readers, and “The Police Cloud.” After 11 years in New York, he moved to Berlin with his wife, Lisa, and their sons, Arthur, Gustav and Fritz. His Web site is christophniemann.com.
*NY Times
This sketch above is from Dan Roam’s book, Back of the Napkin, a book about solving business problems with pictures. He has a system that matches six ways of seeing with six ways of showing. Could this be a basic framework for approaching and sketching out design challenges?