My friend and colleague, Chris, has shared a spiffing idea, the Ideas of March. He suggests: ‘If we all blog a little more than we normally would this month, maybe we can be reminded of all of the reasons blogs are great.’

But wait, this post is called the Ides of March? Right. As soon as I read what Chris had posted, a twist on the phrase echoed in my memory. The Ides of March is a Roman festival dedicated to the god of war, Mars. Some say it’s on the 15th of March (today). I can’t find a reference that this is accurate relative to the Julian or current Gregorian calendars, so I will use the first full moon instead. This year it will be on Saturday, 19th of March, in four days time. Wikipedia has more:

The Ides of March was a festive day dedicated to the god Mars and a military parade was usually held. In modern times, the term Ides of March is best known as the date that Julius Caesar was killed in 44 B.C.

Dramatic stuff. Appropriate in these times, too. Mars may have been the god of war, based on the anarchistic Greek god, Ares, but he represented the pursuit of peace through military strength. A thoroghly debunked method if you ask me, but a pretty neat rationalisation still used today. The military pursues Gaddafi’s version of peace in Libya. Mubarak tried it, and failed, in Egypt. The Ben Ali regime collapsed under protests in Tunisia. Saleh is on his way in Yemen. Right now, Saudi soldiers are deployed in Bahrain to quell protestors fighting for democratic freedom.

Whatever you think about the current strife, one thing is true: Tyrants never last. I’ve been an advocate of Twitter, and its ambient intimacy for almost four years. In that time I’ve seen it buoyed by the innovations of its users. Smart folks using @replies, and retweets that became a part of the fabric, coded into links and threads (sort-of). Other smart people building clients with new ways of looking at the graph. I’ve seen Twitter take the good ideas and do good things with them. Yet now, Twitter isn’t just the platform any longer, it wants to be the clients too. From URL shortening and tracking, to changes in who can make clients, and how they work. People don’t like it. The same kind of smart people who helped it be successful. The same kind of people who permit benevolent dictators to exist until they become tyrants.

I’m still a fan of the idea of short messages. They are neat, by their nature, but lest Twitter forgets, they also exist elsewhere, too. They’re a snack between meals. Signposts to feasts. The real banquets are blog posts, though. I’ve learnt more from them in the last ten years than I ever will from 140 characters. That’s why blogs are something to be treasured. Blogs and RSS may be dead according to some, but I like that I disagree. After all, even with this rambling post, you’ve probably learnt something, just like I have writing it. Thanks for the prompt, Chris.

Don’t procrastinate, fire up your editor and share your own ideas of March. Drew, Lorna, and Sean already have. Go on, you know it’s been far too long!

Stories are everywhere. When they don’t exist we make up the narrative — we join the dots. We make cognitive leaps and fill in the bits of a story that are implied or missing. The same goes for websites. We make quick judgements based on a glimpse. Then we delve deeper. The narrative unfolds, or we create one as we browse.

Mark Bernstein penned Beyond Usability and Design: The Narrative Web for A List Apart in 2001. He wrote, ‘the reader’s journey through our site is a narrative experience’. I agreed wholeheartedly: Websites are narrative spaces where stories can be enacted, or emerge.

Henry Jenkins, Director of Comparative Media Studies, and Professor of Literature at MIT, wrote Game Design as Narrative Architecture. He suggested we think of game designers, ‘less as storytellers than as narrative architects’. I agree, and I think web designers are narrative architects, too. (Along with all the multitude of other roles we assume.) Much of what Henry Jenkins wrote applies to modern web design. In particular, he describes two kinds of narratives in game design that are relevant to us:

Enacted narratives are those where:

[…] the story itself may be structured around the character’s movement through space and the features of the environment may retard or accelerate that plot trajectory.

Sites like Amazon, New Adventures, or your portfolio are enacted narrative spaces: Shops or service brochures that want the audience to move through the site towards a specific set of actions like buying something or initiating contact.

Emergent narratives are those where:

[…] spaces are designed to be rich with narrative potential, enabling the story-constructing activity of players.

Sites like Flickr, Twitter, or Dribbble are emergent narrative spaces: Web applications that encourage their audience use the tools at their disposal to tell their own story. The audience defines how they want to use the narrative space, often with surprising results.

We often build both kinds of narrative spaces. Right now, my friends and I at Analog are working on Mapalong, a new maps-based app that’s just launched into private beta. At its heart Mapalong is about telling our stories. It’s one big map with a set of tools to view the world, add places, share them, and see the places others share. The aim is to help people tell their stories. We want to use three ideas to help you do that: Space (recording places, and annotating them), data (importing stuff we create elsewhere), and time (plotting our journeys, and recording all the places, people, and memories along the way). We know that people will find novel uses for the tools in Mapalong. In fact, we want them to because it will help us refine and build better tools. We work in an agile way because that’s the only way to design an emerging narrative space. Without realising it we’ve become architects of a narrative space, and you probably are, too.

Many projects like shops or brochure sites have fixed costs and objectives. They want to guide the audience to a specific set of actions. The site needs to be an enacted narrative space. Ideally, designers would observe behaviour and iterate. Failing that, a healthy dose of empathy can serve. Every site seeks to teach, educate, or inform. So, a bit of knowledge about people’s learning styles can be useful. I once did a course in one to one and small group training with the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. It introduced me to Peter Honey and Alan Mumford’s model which describes four different learning styles that are useful for us to know. I paraphrase:

1. Activists like learning as they go; getting stuck in and working it out. They enjoy the here and now, and are happy to be dominated by immediate experiences. They are open-minded, not sceptical, and this tends to make them enthusiastic about anything new.
2. Reflectors like being guided with time to take it all in and perhaps return later. They like to stand back to ponder experiences and observe them from many different perspectives. They collect data, both first hand and from others, and prefer to think about it thoroughly before coming to a conclusion.
3. Theorists to understand and make logical sense of things before they leap in. They think problems through in a vertical, step-by-step logical way. They assimilate disparate facts into coherent theories.
4. Pragmatists like practical applications of ideas, experiments, and results. They like trying out ideas, theories and techniques to see if they work in practice. They positively search out new ideas and take the first opportunity to experiment with applications.

Usually people share two or more of these qualities. The weight of each can vary depending on the context. So how might learning styles manifest themselves in web browsing behaviour?

• Activists like to explore, learn as they go, and wander the site working it out. They need good in-context navigation to keep exploring. For example, signposts to related information are optimal for activists. They can just keep going, and going, and exploring until sated.
• Reflectors are patient and thoughtful. They like to ponder, read, reflect, then decide. Guided tours to orientate them in emergent sites can be a great help. Saving shopping baskets for later, and remembering sessions in enacted sites can also help them.
• Theorists want logic. Documentation. An understanding of what the site is, and what they might get from it. Clear, detailed information helps a theorist, whatever the space they’re in.
• Pragmatists get stuck in like activists, but evaluate quickly, and test their assumptions. They are quick, and can be helped by uncluttered concise information, and contextual, logical tools.

An understanding of interactive narrative types and a bit of knowledge about learning styles can be useful concepts for us to bear in mind. I also think they warrant inclusion as part of an articulate designer’s language of web design. If Henry Jenkins is right about games designers, I think he could also be right about web designers: we are narrative architects, designing spaces where stories are told.

—∞—

Wow, this has been a busy period. I’m just back from the Ampersand web typography conference in Brighton, and having a catch-up day in Mild Bunch HQ. Just before that I’ve been working flat out. First on Mapalong which was a grass-roots sponsor of Ampersand, and is going great guns. Then on an article for The Manual which is being published soon, and on 8 Faces #3 which is in progress right now. Not to mention the new talk for Ampersand which left me scratching my head and wondering if I was making any sense at all. More on that in a subsequent post.

In the meantime two previous events deserve a mention. (This is me starting more of a journalistic blog. :)

First of all, an interview with Simon Pascal Klien, the typographer and designer who’s curating the Design Festival podcast at the moment. We talked about all things web typography. Pascal cheekily left in a bit of noise from me in the prelude, and that rant pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the conversation. Thanks for your time, Pascal! If anyone reading this would care to listen in, the podcast can be downloaded or played from here:

Secondly, Daniel Bogan of The Setup sent me a few questions about my own tools. My answers are pretty clipped because of time, but you may find it interesting to compare this designer’s setup with your own:

I should note that in the meantime I’ve started writing with Writer, and discovered the great joy of keeping a journal and notes with a Midori Traveler’s Notebook. The latter is part of an on-going search I’m having to find Tools for Life. More on that, too at some point. Here’s my current list of topics I want to write about shortly:

• Ampersand, the aftermath
• Marrying a FujiFilm X100
• No-www
• Tools for life
• Paper versus pixels

There, I’ve written it!

The first Ampersand web typography conference took place in Brighton last Friday. Ampersand was ace. I’m going to say that again with emphasis: Ampersand was ace! Like the Ready Brek kid from the 80s TV ads I’m glowing with good vibes.

Imagine you’d just met some of the musicians that created the soundtrack to your life. That’s pretty much how I feel.

For a long, long time I’ve gazed across at the typography community with something akin to awe at the work they do. I’ve lurked quietly on the ATypI mailing list, in the Typophile forum, and behind the glass dividing my eyes from the blogs, portfolios, and galleries.

I always had a sneaking suspicion the web and type design communities had much in common: Excellence born from actual client work; techniques and skills refined by practice, not in a lab or classroom; a willingness to share and disseminate, most clearly demonstrated at Typophile and through web designer’s own blogs. The people of both professions have a very diverse set of backgrounds from graphic design all the way through to engineering, to accidentally working in a print shop. We’ve been apprenticed to our work, and Ampersand was a celebration of what we’ve achieved so far and what’s yet to come.

Of course, web design is a new profession. Type design has a history that spans hundreds of years. Nevertheless, both professions are self-actualising. Few courses exist of any real merit. There is no qualifications authority. The work from both arenas succeeds or fails based on whether it works or not.

Ampersand was the first event of its kind. Folks from both communities came together around the mutal fascination, frustration, challenge and opportunity of web type.

Like Brooklyn Beta, the audience was as fantastic as the line up. I met folks like Yves Peters of the FontFeed, Mike Duggan of Microsoft Typography, Jason Smith, Phil Garnham, Fernando Mello, and Emanuela Conidi of Fontsmith, Veronica Burian of TypeTogether, Adam Twardoch of Fontlab and MyFonts, Nick Sherman of of Webtype, Mandy Brown of A Book Apart and Typekit, and many, many others. (Sorry for stopping there, but wow, it would be a huge list.)

Rich Rutter opened the day on behalf of Clearleft and Fontdeck at the Brighton Dome. Rich and I had talked about a web typography conference before. He just went out and did it. Hats off to him, and people like Sophie Barrett at Clearleft who helped make the day run so smoothly.

Others have written comprehensive, insightful summaries of the day and the talks. Much better than I could, sitting there on the day, rapt, taking no notes. What follows are a few snippets my memory threw out when prodded.

Who knew the original letterforms for Comic Sans were inspired by a copy of The Watchmen Vincent Connare had in his office? Or that Vincent, who also designed Trebuchet, considers himself an engineer rather than type designer, and is working at the moment on the Ubuntu fonts with colleagues at Dalton Maag.

Jason Santa Maria declared himself a type nerd, and gave a supremely detailed talk about selecting, setting, and understanding web type. Wonderful stuff.

Jonathan Hoefler talked in rapid, articulate, and precise terms about the work behind upcoming release of pretty-much all of H&FJ’s typefaces as web fonts. (Hooray!) He clearly and wonderfully explained how they took the idea behind their typefaces, and moved them through a design process to produce a final form for a specific purpose. In this case, the web, as a distinct and different environment from print.

I spoke between Jason and Jonathan. Gulp. After staying up until 4am the night before, anxiously working on slides, I was carried along by the privilege and joy of being there, hopefully without too much mumbling or squinting with bleary eyes.

After lunch, David Berlow continued the story of web fonts, taking us on a journey through his own trials and tribulations at Font Bureau when re-producing typefaces for the web crude media. His dry, droll, richly-flavoured delivery was a humorous counterpoint to some controversial asides.

John Daggett of Mozilla, editor of the CSS3 Fonts Module, talked with great empathy for web designers about the amazing typographic advances we’re about to see in browsers.

Tim Brown of Typekit followed. Tim calmly and thoroughly advocated the extension of modular scales to all aspects of a web interface, taking values from the body type and building all elements with those values as the common denominator.

Finally, Mark Boulton wrapped up the day brilliantly, describing the designer’s role as the mitigator of entropy, reversing the natural trend for things to move from order to chaos, and a theme he’s exploring at the moment: designing from the content out.

The tone of the day was fun, thoughtful, articulate, and exacting. All the talks were a mix of anecdotal and observational humour, type nerdery, and most of all an overwhelming commitment to excellence in web typography. It was a journey in itself. Decades of experience from plate and press, screen, and web was being distilled into 45-minute presentations. I loved it.

As always, one of the most enjoyable bits for me was the hallway track. I talked to heaps of people both in the pre- and after-party, and in between the talks on the day itself. I heard stories, ideas, and opinions from print designers, web designers, type designers, font developers, and writers. We talked late into the night. We talked more the next day.

Now the talking has paused for a while, my thoughts are manifold. I can honestly say, I’ve never been so filled with positivity about where we are, and where we’re going. Web typography is here, it works, it’s better all the time, and one day web and type designers everywhere will wonder, perplexed, as they try to imagine what the web was like before.

Here’s to another Ampersand next year! I’m now going to see if Rich needs any encouragement to do it again. I’m guessing not, but if he does, I aim to provide it, vigorously. I hope I see you there!

Furthermore

• Rich Rutter back in May on The Ampersand Story
• Eye Magazine: Web typography comes of age at Brighton’s Ampersand conference
• Anthony Stonehouse: Ampersand 2011
• Laura Kalbag: Notes from Ampersand
• Dave Bushell: Ampersand Conference!

Last but not least, did I mention that Rich Rutter, Mark Boulton, and I are writing a book? We are! More on that another time, but until then, follow @webtypography for intermittent updates.

In 2003, my wife Lowri and I went to a christening party. We were friends of the hosts but we knew almost no-one else there. Sitting next to me was a thirty-something woman and her husband, both dressed in the corporate ‘smart casual’ uniform: Jersey, knitwear, and ready-faded jeans for her, formal shoes and tucked-in formal shirt for him (plus the jeans of course; that’s the casual bit). Both appeared polite, neutral, and neat in every respect.

I smiled and said hello, and asked how they knew our hosts. The conversation stalled pretty quickly the way all conversations will when only one participant is engaged. I persevered, asked about their children who they mentioned, trying to be a good friend to our hosts by being friendly to other guests. It must have prompted her to reciprocate. With reluctant interest she asked the default question: ‘What do you do?’ I paused, uncertain for a second. ‘I’m a web designer’ I managed after a bit of nervous confusion at what exactly it was that I did. Her face managed to drop even as she smiled condescendingly. ‘Oh. White backgrounds!’ she replied with a mixture of scorn and delight. I paused. ‘Much of the time’, I nodded with an attempt at a self-deprecating smile, trying to maintain the camaraderie of the occasion. ‘What do you do?’ I asked, curious to see where her dismissal was coming from. ‘I’m the creative director for … agency’ she said smugly, overbearingly confident in the knowledge that she had a trump card, and had played it. The conversation was over.

I’d like to say her reaction didn’t matter to me, but it did. It stung to be regarded so disdainfully by someone who I would naturally have considered a colleague. I thought to try and explain. To mention how I started in print, too. To find out why she had such little respect for web design, but that was me wanting to be understood. I already knew why. Anything I said would sound defensive. She may have been rude, but at least she was honest.

I am a web designer. I neither concentrate on the party venue, food, music, guest list, or entertainment, but on it all. On the feeling people enter with and walk away remembering. That’s my job. It’s probably yours too.

I’m self-actualised, without the stamp of approval from any guild, curriculum authority, or academic institution. I’m web taught. Colleague taught. Empirically taught. Tempered by over fifteen years of failed experiments on late nights with misbehaving browsers. I learnt how to create venues because none existed. I learnt what music to play for the people I wanted at the event, and how to keep them entertained when they arrived. I empathised, failed, re-empathised, and did it again. I make sites that work. That’s my certificate. That’s my validation.

I try, just like you, to imbue my practice with an abiding sense of responsibility for the universality of the Web as Tim Berners-Lee described it. After all, it’s that very universality that’s allowed our profession and the Web to thrive. From the founding of the W3C in 1994, to Mosaic shipping with <img> tag support in 1993, to the Web Standards Project in 1998, and the CSS Zen Garden in 2003, those who care have been instrumental in shaping the Web. Web designers included. In more recent times I look to the web type revolution, driven and curated by both web designers, developers, and the typography community. Again, we’re teaching ourselves. The venues are open to all, and getting more amazing by the day.

Apart from the sites we’ve built, all the best peripheral resources that support our work are made by us. We’ve contributed vast amounts of code to our collective toolkit. We’ve created inspirational conferences like Brooklyn Beta, New Adventures, Web Directions, Build, An Event Apart, dConstruct, and Webstock. As a group, we’ve produced, written-for, and supported forward-thinking magazines like A List Apart, 8 Faces, Smashing Mag, and The Manual. We’ve written the books that distill our knowledge either independently or with publishers from our own community like Five Simple Steps and A Book Apart. We’ve created services and tools like jQuery, Fontdeck, Typekit, Hashgrid, Teuxdeux, and Firebug. That’s just a sample. There’s so many I haven’t mentioned. We did these things. What an extraordinary industry.

I know I flushed with anger and embarrassment that day at the christening party. Afterwards, I started to look a little deeper into what I do. I started to ask what exactly it means to be a web designer. I started to realise how extraordinary our community is. How extraordinary this profession is that we’ve created. How good the work is that we do. How delightful it is when it does work; for audiences, clients, and us. How fantastic it is that I help build the Web. Long may that feeling last. May it never go away. There’s so much still to learn, create, and make. This is my our party. Hi, I’m Jon; my friends and I are making Mapalong, and I’m a web designer.

I’m pleased to be able to say that Analog is joining forces with Fictive Kin! We already work together on Brooklyn Beta and other projects. We share the same ethics and ambitions. We have fun together. We’re good friends, and often old friends, too. They asked, we said yes. We had a beer. That’s pretty much how it went.

The Analog adventure that started in 2009 continues, just bigger, and hopefully better, with more fun, inspiration, and collaboration. I like to think of it like assembling Dai-X from Star Fleet but Voltron may serve if that’s more familiar to you.

It think Cameron came up with the word ‘Anakin’ from our two brands in 2010. It’s been used by us ever since whenever we get together to work or celebrate. It made me smile at the time, and even more so now, just like the echoes of the Analog identity in the lovely new Fictive Kin logo.

If you fancy keeping an eye on what we’re up to, follow @fictivekin. There’s more on the Fictive Kin blog, and in a post by Chris. Thanks for reading. Onwards!

I’ve shot at this location a few times but for some reason I’ve never seen it from the other side. Literal proof that shooting with other creatives gives you new perspective. ???? (at Toronto, Ontario)

BIG NEWS: My custom Lightroom presets are now available and 50% off for a limited time with discount code HOLIDAY50. Link in profile!

This collection includes two styles (Everyday and Clean) that I use to edit every shot on this feed. I can’t wait to see what you all do with them! Stay tuned to my upcoming tutorials on how to put the presets to good use. ???? (at Toronto, Ontario)

Thanks for all the positive support and reception to my Lightroom presets so far, especially to those who pulled the trigger and became my first customers! I’d love to hear your feedback once you try them out!
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Still time to enter the giveaway or to take advantage of the 50% sale! See my last post for full details and the link in my profile. ❤️ (at Toronto, Ontario)

I like the philosophy behind shooting with primes; that a photographer shouldn’t stand still but instead, continuously move closer, further, lower, or higher relative to his/her subject as a means of establishing a deeper connection. ????????
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Save 50% on my custom Lightroom presets with HOLIDAY50. Link in profile. (at Toronto, Ontario)

Bricks are better black. ◾️ (at Toronto, Ontario)

Lights, camera, action. ????
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A few more days left to get 50% off my custom Lightroom presets! Link in profile. (at Toronto, Ontario)

Missing Berlin’s gorgeous buildings again. ???? (at Berlin, Germany)

And while we’re in the process of missing European architecture… ????
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4 more days left to catch my Lightroom presets for 50% off! ⌛️ (at Copenhagen, Denmark)

This is from my favourite shoot/photoset of all time. It was spontaneous, serendipitous, and simply beautiful. ☂️
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The edit: After applying my preset (I used Clean for this one), I bumped up the exposure and desaturated the yellows/oranges a bit. As a finishing touch, I used a graduated filter to brighten the top a bit and a radial filter on @sllychn to brighten and sharpen the focal point. That’s it! ✨ (at Toronto, Ontario)

Preset (Everyday) + transform + exposure + graduated filter + radial filter. If shots like this take more than 2 minutes to edit, it’s probably not worth editing. ⏱
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Boxing Day will be the last day to get my Lightroom presets discounted, which leaves you only 3 more days! Get on it! ???? (at Toronto, Ontario)

Merry Xmas everyone! It’s giveaway time! ????????
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Thank you to all those who participated in my preset giveaway this week! The support makes all the hard work and extra effort worth it!
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Without further ado, the randomly drawn winners of my custom Lightroom presets are @l9lee @rchellau @bokeh.jay! Congrats and check your DMs soon for details! ????
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You still have until tomorrow to grab my presets (which this shot was edited with) for 50% off! They’ll be going back to regular price after so don’t miss out! ???? (at Toronto, Ontario)

Trying to straighten all the lines on this shot is a sure fire way to go blind. ???? (at London, United Kingdom)

I’ve gone subway hopping for photos in every city I’ve been to except the one I live in. ???? (at Toronto, Ontario)

I just realized that I can export my entire story all at once now, which means uploading my tutorials to my Facebook page will be a million times easier (it was tedious to stitch all the individual clips together before). ????
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Related: I posted a story this morning deconstructing the edit on yesterday’s shot.
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Also related: I uploaded the 3 tutorials from my November feature on @thecreatorclass to my Facebook page this morning too. More to come! (at London, United Kingdom)

I took this shot about a year ago when I had a very different editing style. A ton of faded blacks and, believe it or not, a subtle green tint (unknowingly inherited from the preset I was using at the time). Re-editing it now, I’m happy with the way my style has evolved, though I can already sense that I’m on the brink of evolving it again. And I’m okay with that. ???? (at London, United Kingdom)

This might as well be a Herschel ad. ???? (at London, United Kingdom)

This trip solidified my conviction to learning photography. A lot has happened since this shot was taken.
Can you pinpoint the moment you decided to pursue photography? (at Toronto, Ontario)

A lot to look forward to in 2017. How did 2016 treat you: ???? or ????? (at San Francisco, California)

Four days from now I’ll be boarding a one way flight to San Francisco to take on the next evolution of my role at @shopify. Leaving the city that I’ve called home my entire life and the people who have defined everything I am was one of the most uncomfortable decisions I’ve ever had to make. But this wouldn’t be the first time I’ve chased discomfort in my career.
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I wrote about my ongoing pursuit for discomfort this morning in hopes of inspiring others to do the things that scare and challenge them this year. You can find the link in my profile.
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Happy 2017! ????
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????: @jonasll (at San Francisco, California)

Quick survey: on average, what time is it when you check Instagram for the first time on any given day? (Be sure to include your timezone!)
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PS: Thank you for all the incredible support on yesterday’s announcement. ❤️ (at Toronto, Ontario)

UX competitor analysis is a valuable user research method that focuses on understanding your products’ competitors, helping you better understand your market and goals. Idea Theorem™ has worked with many clients that required a UX competitor analysis to get actionable insights about their competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, and mistakes to avoid and know what they are doing right.

I had a fantastic conversation with Jem Sophia today (our first actual conversation after years of talking online!) who pointed me in the direction of this fantastic article. I love the sentiment and the metaphor. Creating software to scratch an itch without any ambitions of ScAlInG and turning it into a capitalistic enterprise.

Discover top YouTube channels dedicated to UX design, offering insights and tutorials to enhance your skills in creating intuitive and engaging user experiences. Here are some of the best channels for UX designers.

The right photo effect can transform an ordinary image into a work of art. Adjustments to lighting, color balance, and texture help you create the perfect mood for your project.

The market Study is segmented by key regions which is accelerating the marketization.

Just like in Mac OS X, you can change the DNS servers on your iPhone. This can significantly speed up Safari and other iPhone apps that use the Internet. For a general introduction to DNS, and to learn why you would want to change the DNS servers on your iPhone, see How to Change Your Mac's DNS Servers.

Before we start, you should know a couple things about how iOS handles DNS. First, these instructions only work for Wi-Fi connections - iOS does not allow you to change the DNS servers when connected to cellular networks. Also, the changes are network specific, so you'll need to change the DNS servers every time you connect to a new wireless network. The good news is that iOS remembers the settings, so you won't have to do anything the second time you connect to a network.

Here's how to change your iPhone's DNS servers:

1. From the iPhone's home screen, tap Settings.
   
   
2. Tap Wi-Fi. The screen shown below appears. The available wireless networks in range of your iPhone appear, as shown below.
   
   
3. Find your wireless network in the list, and then click the arrow. The screen shown below appears.
   
   
4. Tap the DNS field.
   
   
5. Delete the current DNS servers, and enter the new DNS servers. (If you enter more than one DNS server, be sure sure to separate the servers with commas.)
   • To use OpenDNS, enter 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220
   • To use Google DNS, enter 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4
6. Test your new DNS servers to make sure they're working.
   • If you're using OpenDNS, visit the OpenDNS test page.
   • If you're using Google Public DNS, follow these testing instructions.

That's it! You've updated your iPhone's DNS servers!

Related Articles

• How to Find the Best DNS Servers
• How to Change Your Mac's DNS Servers
• How to Change Your iPad's DNS Servers
• Change an AirPort Extreme's DNS Servers

Meet Your Macinstructor

Matt Cone, the author of Master Your Mac, has been a Mac user for over 20 years. A former ghost writer for some of Apple's most notable instructors, Cone founded Macinstruct in 1999, a site with OS X tutorials that boasts hundreds of thousands of unique visitors per month. You can email him at: matt@macinstruct.com.

If you own an AirPort base station, you can use the Timed Access feature to control the days and times when users access the Internet. This could come in handy in a variety of situations. For example, if you own a cafe and provide free wi-fi access, you can configure the AirPort to block all access to the Internet when your business is closed. And if you have children, you can set time limits for specific devices in your home.

There are two ways to use the timed access feature. You can create a default allow policy to allow all devices to access the Internet at any time, and then specify custom schedules for specific devices. Or you can create a default deny policy to prevent all devices from accessing the Internet according the schedule you specify, and then exempt specific devices by creating custom schedules.

Here's how to control AirPort network access with time limits:

1. Open the AirPort Utility application. (It's in Applications → Utilities.) The window shown below appears.
   
   
2. Click the AirPort Extreme's icon. The status pop-up window appears.
   
   
3. Click Edit. The settings window appears.
   
   
4. Select the Network tab. The window shown below appears.
   
   
5. Select the Enable Access Control checkbox.
   
   
6. Click Timed Access Control. The window shown below appears.
   
   
7. Select the Unlimited (default) option. By default, this allows all of the devices connected to your AirPort to access the Internet all day, every day, but you can change this to block Internet access for all devices (except the ones you specify later) during the times you set.
   
   
8. If you'd like to limit the days and times that a specific device can access the Internet, click the + button under the Wireless Clients field. The window shown below appears.
   
   
9. Enter a name for the device in the Description field.
   
   
10. Enter the device's MAC address in the MAC Address field. You can use the following tutorials to find the device's MAC address.
    
    • How to Find Your Mac's MAC Address
    • How to Find Your iPad's MAC Address
    • How to Find Your iPhone's MAC Address
    
    
11. Use the + button under the Wireless Access Times field to create a schedule for this device's Internet access.
    
    
12. Once you've added all of your devices and customized the schedules, click Save.
    
    
13. Click Update. The AirPort will restart to apply the changes.

Congratulations! You have successfully set time limits for the devices connecting to your AirPort network. The schedule you created is effective immediately.

Meet Your Macinstructor

Matt Cone, the author of Master Your Mac, has been a Mac user for over 20 years. A former ghost writer for some of Apple's most notable instructors, Cone founded Macinstruct in 1999, a site with OS X tutorials that boasts hundreds of thousands of unique visitors per month. You can email him at: matt@macinstruct.com.

When you connect an iPhone to a wi-fi network, the iPhone remembers that network and will automatically attempt to connect to it in the future. This is a great feature for wi-fi networks you trust and use frequently. But mistakes happen. If you connect to the wrong network at a coffee shop, your iPhone will automatically attempt to join that network every time you visit the coffee shop in the future. And if the password for a known network changes, your iPhone might have trouble connecting to it.

What's the solution? Telling your iPhone to forget the wi-fi network. Forgetting a network will remove the network's password and prevent your iPhone from joining it automatically in the future.

Here's how to tell your iPhone to forget a wireless network:

1. From the home screen, tap Settings.
   
   
2. Tap Wi-Fi. The window shown below appears.
   
   
3. Locate the wireless network you want the iPhone to forget, and then tap the blue arrow next to the network name. The window shown below appears.
   
   
4. Tap Forget this Network. The iPhone will forget the wireless network.

You have successfully told your iPhone to forget the wi-fi network. The iPhone will not attempt to connect to the network in the future. And if the network required a password, that password has been forgotten.

Related Articles

• How to Connect an iPhone to a Wi-Fi Network
• Make Your iPhone Ask to Join Wi-Fi Networks

Meet Your Macinstructor

Matt Cone, the author of Master Your Mac, has been a Mac user for over 20 years. A former ghost writer for some of Apple's most notable instructors, Cone founded Macinstruct in 1999, a site with OS X tutorials that boasts hundreds of thousands of unique visitors per month. You can email him at: matt@macinstruct.com.

By default, your iPhone automatically connects to known wi-fi networks. (To stop an iPhone from automatically connecting, you can tell your iPhone to forget a wi-fi network.) But what happens if you take your iPhone to a new location? You'll need to manually connect your iPhone to a wi-fi network.

That's a hassle. But if you have the foresight and inclination, you can save yourself time in the future by making your iPhone ask to join wi-fi networks when no known networks are available. Instead of having to open settings to join a network, you'll be able to easily select a network from an on-screen prompt.

Here's how to make your iPhone ask to join wi-fi networks:

1. From the home screen, tap Settings.
   
   
2. Tap Wi-Fi. The window shown below appears.
   
   
3. Move the Ask to Join Networks slider to the On position.
   
   
4. The next time you're in a location with no known networks, your iPhone will prompt you to connect to an available wi-fi network, as shown below.
   
   

In the future, this prompt will be displayed when no known networks are available. (To actually see the prompt, you'll need to do something that requires network access, like try to check your email or open a webpage.) To connect to a wi-fi network, select a network and enter a password, if one is required.

Related Articles

• How to Connect an iPhone to a Wi-Fi Network
• Tell Your iPhone to Forget a Wireless Network

Meet Your Macinstructor

Matt Cone, the author of Master Your Mac, has been a Mac user for over 20 years. A former ghost writer for some of Apple's most notable instructors, Cone founded Macinstruct in 1999, a site with OS X tutorials that boasts hundreds of thousands of unique visitors per month. You can email him at: matt@macinstruct.com.

If you're a new iPhone owner, one of the first things you'll want to learn how to do is connect your iPhone to a wireless network. That's because there are certain times when your cellular data connection just won't cut it, even if you're lucky enough to have an unlimited data plan. Using Facetime, downloading content from iTunes, and even surfing the web can be painfully slow without a wi-fi connection.

Fortunately, it's a relatively simple process to connect an iPhone to a wi-fi network. Just be sure to commit this process to memory, because it's something you'll need to do over and over again, unless you set your iPhone to automatically detect and prompt you to connect to wi-fi networks.

Here's how to connect an iPhone to a wi-fi network:

1. From the home screen, tap Settings.
   
   
2. Tap Wi-Fi. The window shown below appears.
   
   
3. Verify that the Wi-Fi slider is in the On position. This allows your iPhone to detect and connect to wireless networks.
   
   
4. Tap the wireless network you want to join. If the network is not password protected, the iPhone will connect immediately.
   
   
5. If the wireless network you selected is protected with a password, you will be prompted to enter a password, as shown below. Enter the password and then click Join to connect to the network.
   
   
6. If the wireless network you selected is protected with a captive portal, you will be prompted to enter a password, or a username and password combination. These are increasingly common in hotels, airports, and on college campuses.

Congratulations! Your iPhone is now connected to the wi-fi network. From now on, the iPhone will automatically connect to this network when it is in range. If you accidentally selected the wrong wi-fi network, you can tell your iPhone to forget it.

How to Tell if Your iPhone is Connected to a Wi-Fi Network

There are several indicators you can use to verify that your iPhone is connected to a wi-fi network. The easiest way to visually check to the status bar in the upper-left corner of the iPhone's screen. The wi-fi symbol is displayed when you are connected to a network, as shown below.

If you're curious about which wi-fi network the iPhone is connected to, open the Wi-Fi settings. The network name is displayed in the sidebar, and a checkmark is also displayed next to the connected network, as shown above.

Related Articles

• Tell Your iPhone to Forget a Wireless Network
• Make Your iPhone Ask to Join Wi-Fi Networks

Meet Your Macinstructor

Matt Cone, the author of Master Your Mac, has been a Mac user for over 20 years. A former ghost writer for some of Apple's most notable instructors, Cone founded Macinstruct in 1999, a site with OS X tutorials that boasts hundreds of thousands of unique visitors per month. You can email him at: matt@macinstruct.com.

Rob Ball
Untitled, Margate, England, 2014
From the Dreamland series
Website - RobBall.co.uk

Rob Ball is a British photographer and academic working on self-initiated projects and commissions. His work has been shown at numerous institutions and festivals including The National Portrait Gallery, Ways of Looking Festival, Format Festival and Bonnington Gallery, Nottingham. Interested in areas including materiality, process, landscape and the archive, Rob produces a variety of outputs including the publications Unremarkable Stories and Beyond the View (2014). Rob is Deputy Director of The South East Archive of Seaside Photography (SEAS).

Jesse Chehak
Near Big Water, Utah, 2010
Website - JesseChehak.com

Born in Tarzana, California, Jesse Chehak studied photography and Art History at Sarah Lawrence College and is currently pursuing a MFA at the University of Arizona. Chehak has exhibited his large format prints in galleries and project spaces including Bruce Silverstein (New York), Danese (New York) and the Durham Art Guild (Durham, North Carolina.) He is currently seeking funding to publish his first monograph, Fool's Gold, and a gallery to exhibit and distribute the completed print edition. In 2005, Chehak joined M.A.P. and began executing commercial campaigns and editorial features for clients, including The New York Times, Wallpaper*, Newsweek, GQ, Ogilvy & Mather, Saatchi & Saatchi, Digitas, and others. Chehak has received notable attention for his work, including PDN30 in 2005, The Magenta Foundation's Flash Forward in 2007, a Baum Nomination in 2008, and AP25. He lives in Tucson and Los Angeles.

David Wolf
Oranges and Stones, , 2012
Website - DavidWolfPhotographs.com

David Wolf is a devoted film photographer, making both color and black and white prints by hand in the traditional darkroom. His work has been exhibited internationally at such venues as Aperture, The Griffin Museum of Photography, the Photographic Center Northwest, the Lishui International Photography Festival in China, and the Salon de la Photo during Paris Photo. David’s photographs have been acquired by a variety of private and institutional collections, including the Bibliotheque nationale de France, Paris; the Prentice and Paul Sack Photographic Trust of the Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; the Santa Barbara Museum of Art; and the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA. He recently won top honors in both the International Photography Awards and the Grand Prix de la Decouverte, International Fine Art Photography Competition. His work has appeared in such publications as Harper’s, aCurator, and Fraction Magazine. A Boston native and Brown University graduate, David now calls San Francisco home, where his work is represented by Corden|Potts Gallery.

Abelardo Morell
Camera Obscura: Early Morning View of the East Side of Midtown Manhattan, , 2014
Website - AbelardoMorell.net

Abelardo Morell was born in Havana, Cuba in 1948. He immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1962. Morell received his undergraduate degree in 1977 from Bowdoin College and an MFA from The Yale University School of Art in 1981. In 1997 he received an honorary degree from Bowdoin College.

His publications include a photographic illustration of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1998) by Dutton Children’s Books, A Camera in a Room (1995) by Smithsonian Press, A Book of Books (2002) and Camera Obscura (2004) by Bulfinch Press and Abelardo Morell (2005), published by Phaidon Press. Recent publications include a limited edition book by The Museum of Modern Art in New York of his Cliché Verre images with a text by Oliver Sacks.

His work has been collected and shown in many galleries, institutions and museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Art Museum in New York, The Chicago Art Institute, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Houston Museum of Art, The Boston Museum of Fine Art, The Victoria & Albert Museum and over seventy other museums in the United States and abroad. A retrospective of his work organized jointly by the Art Institute of Chicago, The Getty in Los Angeles and The High Museum in Atlanta closed in May 2014 after a year of travel. Abelardo will be having his first show at the Edwynn Houk Gallery in New York opening October 23, 2014 and will run until December 20, 2014 featuring a selection of new pictures.

Mona Kuhn
AD 6309, Joshua Tree, California, 2013/2014 (winter)
Website - MonaKuhn.com

Mona Kuhn is best known for her large-scale, dream-like photographs of nudes. Her work often reference classical themes with a light and insightful touch. Kuhn’s approach to her photography is unusual in that she usually develops close relationships with her subjects, resulting in images of remarkable naturalness and intimacy, and creating the effect of people naked but comfortable in their own skin.

Kuhn was born in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1969, of German descent. She received her BA from The Ohio State University, before furthering her studies at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1996. She is currently an independent scholar at The Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. Kuhn’s first monograph, Photographs, was debut by Steidl in 2004; immediately followed by Evidence (2007), Native (2010), and Bordeaux Series (2011). Mona's upcoming book is titled Private (release 2014).

Mona Kuhn's work has been exhibited and/or included in the collections of The Louvre Museum in France, The J.Paul Getty Museum, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Pérez Art Museum in Miami, The Museum of Photographic Art in San Diego, The George Eastman House, the Griffin Museum in Boston, Miami Museum of Art, the Cincinnati Art Museum, North Carolina Museum of Art, Georgia Museum of Art, The International Center of Photography in NYC. In Europe, her work has been exhibited at the Royal Academy of Art in London England, Le Louvre in France, Deichtorhallen in Hamburg Germany, Musée de l'Élysée in Switzerland, Centre d'art Contemporain at Musée Chaleroi in France, the Leopold Museum in Vienna Austria, and the Australian Center for Photography in Sydney. Currently, Mona lives and works in Los Angeles.

““I always hated that word—marketing—and I hate it now. Because for me, and this may sound simplistic, the key to marketing is to make something people want. When they want it, they buy it. When they buy it, you have sales. So the product has to speak. The product is what markets things.””

- Interview with Tom Ford.

“

What is deceptive, especially in the West, is our assumption that repetitive and mindless jobs are dehumanizing. On the other hand, the jobs that require us to use the abilities that are uniquely human, we assume to be humanizing. This is not necessarily true. The determining factor is not so much the nature of our jobs, but for whom they serve.

‘Burnout’ is a result of consuming yourself for something other than yourself. You could be burnt out for an abstract concept, ideal, or even nothing (predicament). You end up burning yourself as fuel for something or someone else. This is what feels dehumanizing. In repetitive physical jobs, you could burn out your body for something other than yourself. In creative jobs, you could burn out your soul. Either way, it would be dehumanizing. Completely mindless jobs and incessantly mindful jobs could both be harmful to us.

“In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art. This kind of art is not theoretical or illustrative of theories; it is intuitive, it is involved with all types of mental processes and it is purposeless. It is usually free from the dependence on the skill of the artist as a craftsman.”

- Artist Sol Lewitt on conceptual art.

Prada Omotesando building by Herzog and De Meuron

Tower by Jun Mitsui

My favorite home product company, many of their products are designed by Naoto Fukasawa

Omotesando Koffee, a one man espresso bar hidden in a residential area

It was installed in the first floor of an eighty year old traditional house set to be demolished

The only seating in a small front garden

A British Columbia (BC) teen from the Fraser Health region who was hospitalized with an earlier announced presumptive positive H5 avian flu infection is in critical condition, the province's top health official said today.

Dan Perry: The world was hugely interested in the U.S. presidential election -- and everywhere people are wondering what the return of Donald Trump will mean in geopolitics. But is America interested in the world?

Hundreds of "Wanted" posters targeting members of the University of Rochester community were found glued to campus buildings and classrooms, according to the Department of Public Safety.

The county said the 32-hour workweek has attracted a host of new talent: Applications have spiked 85.5% and open positions are being filled 23.75% faster, while more employees are staying in their jobs -- separation (employees quitting or retiring) dropped by 48%. And 84% of employees said their work-life balance was better.

A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced a Massachusetts Air National Guard member to 15 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to leaking highly classified military documents about the war in Ukraine.