Steve Jobs made a very interesting announcement today at the WWDC Keynote. Wanna write for apps for the iPhone? Make them web apps that work on Safari. Done.

That is a bold idea. Very forward thinking. A whole new product with the opportunity for a whole new platform. But instead Apple chooses simple and familiar: HTML and Javascript. Tens of millions of developers already know it. Instant developer uptake and an instant batch of apps that likely already work with the iPhone.

This is the coming out party for web apps. We are very excited about this. These are exciting times.

And one more thing… Something else that makes us smile is a paragraph on this page at the Apple Site:

Mac OS X is now the ideal platform for all kinds of script-based development. Ruby 1.8.6 and Python 2.5 are both first-class languages for Mac development, thanks to Cocoa bridges, Xcode and Interface Builder support, DTrace monitoring, and Framework builds — plus AppleEvent bindings via the new Scripting Bridge. Leopard is also the premier platform for Ruby on Rails development, thanks to Rails, Mongrel, and Capistrano bundling.

Hells yeah.

Some recent postings at the 37signals Job Board:

Northwestern University is looking for a Sr. Web Applications/Software Developer in Evanston, IL.

LevelTen Design is looking for a Web Developer in Cleveland, OH.

imeem, inc. is looking for a Visual/Interaction Designer in San Francisco, CA.

Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum is looking for a Web Innovator in New York, NY.

SpikeSource is looking for a UI Designer in Redwood City, CA.

Link to Life Connect Ltd is looking for a Technical Architect in Nantgarw, Cardiff.

Waterfall Mobile is looking for a Software Engineer in San Francisco.

Skype is looking for a Product Designer in London.

Epoch.com is looking for a Senior Web Developer in Santa Monica, CA.

Comcast is looking for a Web Developer in Philadelphia, PA.

Joost is looking for a Web Designer in New York, NY.

Library of Congress is looking for an Information Technology Specialist in Washington, DC.

Inkling is looking for a Senior Rails Developer in Chicago, IL.

Avenue A Razorfish is looking for a User Experience Lead in Austin, TX.

AOL is looking for a Tech Analyst in Dulles, VA.

Find a job or put your design/programming job in front of the best at the Job Board. Freelancers/contractors can meet their match at the Gig Board.

(Continued from Part 1.)

Matt	How do you approach client work differently than your personal projects?
Jonathan	I’ve been fortunate to have had some really amazing clients—Yahoo! (for the time capsule), Seed Magazine (for Phylotaxis), and Daylife. The nature of those projects matches very closely the type of work I would be making anyway, so it has been a very natural process.
Aaron	I’ve been extremely lucky recently and have been able to work on a number of projects guided very much by my own interests. Coincedentally, I also have been working with Yahoo! ... in a totally different group as a resident designer, as well as working with Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and MIT’s One Laptop Per Child project
Marcos	I had been playing around with the idea of doing something with google news and then I came through Ben Shneidermann’s research paper on treemaps and then I think it was very clear what I needed to do.
Aaron	At Yahoo! I’ve been working in a new team called "Design Innovation" focused on prototypes and ideation internally. It’s been great. Most of what we’re doing here is internal investigation, but I can show a few examples that we’ve been playing with.
Aaron
Aaron	This screenshot is from an animatied visualization system for looking at traffic accidents in urban areas
Matt	neat
Jonathan
Jonathan	Mine is Phylotaxis, an ever-changing zeitgeist of science news images. The identity of Seed Magazine actually changes every few hours, as the world of science news changes.

Jonathan
Jonathan
Jonathan
Matt	http://www.phylotaxis.com/phylotaxis.html
Jonathan	There’s a slider running from science (a strict grid) to culture (a chaotic swirling cloud).
Marcos	If I can backtrack the conversation a little bit, Aaron and Jonathan where talking about ‘making things alive, human’. I think both, Flight Patterns and We Feel fine, excel in that area. The fact that there’s so much activity aggregated there and displayed in such a way it really lets you feel what’s happening in the data. I guess what I’m trying to say animation is a really powerfull tool, but probably mainly because of current computing power we don’t see many samples like Aaron or Jonathan’s work out there.
Jonathan	Yes, animation is a great tool, which can help make the information itself FEEL human (in the way it moves, the way it responds to the mouse, etc.). As humans, we’re good at anthropomorphizing what we see. We see faces in clouds and knotted tree bark. Humans see human traits in many things, and animation can help urge along that process.
Aaron	Yes… computing power has been a bit of a battle. This is becoming less and less of an issue though, and part of what I love about Jonathan’s work is that it shows how far ingenuity and creativity can take a medium. Concept and execution can trump smoke and mirrors anyday.

Matt	Now for some reader-submitted questions…
Matt	“Aaron, we currently have methods to via the internet present large amounts of text information, html. and we have it for data, in xml. what work is being done in being able to present graphical information online. for example how could you possibly present the FAA flight info data in a browser realtime for the web? Is there anyone working on that sort of thing?”
Aaron	There are many efforts to display large amounts of data in graphical form online, some great examples of this can be seen from my friends at Stamen Design here in San Francisco. (see http://labs.digg.com/). In terms of flight data, this does exist and there seems to be growing interest in making these systems more robust. What was interesting to me about the flight visualizations, however, was the motion, and rhythms. It was more about the intricacies of the working system over time than a current instance.
Matt	“Does the presence of tools focused on information vis/interaction like processing stimulates the creativity when doing new experiments? or are the experiments generally thought independently of the tool, and they are used just as a mean of getting the projects implemented?”
Jonathan	I would say it really depends on the person! For instance, I know Marcos is a big believer in prototyping and making experiments. I think this is a fairly common approach (see the gallery section of Processing.org, for example), and a great way to develop ideas. But that approach isn’t for me. I develop my ideas on paper in a sketchbook, and only sit down at the computer when I know what I’m going to make. I find it difficult to be creative in front of a computer.
Jonathan	and this in particular: http://processing.org/exhibition/network_p…
Marcos	well, I think the presence of a tool and preexisting work created with that tool is always going to influence the output. ‘The medium is the massage’. True innovation and unique work is definitively going to come from people who think outside those boundaries.
Marcos	‘Skymall Liberation’ http://www.blog.ni9e.com/archives/2007/02/… by Evan Roth is a clear example of that thought.
Jonathan	Yes, I love that one!
Matt
Matt	awesome
Aaron	I agree w/ Marcos about the tools. One of the things that makes Processing great is that it’s evolving as well.
Aaron	Tools by artists, for artists which constantly change with the times…
Matt	“Can you compare displaying data using java/Processing with flash/AS3? And if yes, some details on pros and cons on both technology would be much appreciated.”
Jonathan	One thing I’ll say about Flash / Processing is that Flash tends to lead to aesthetic convergence, because so many things are predefined. With Processing, you have to make everything from scratch. If you want a textbox, you have to define what that means, exactly. So you end up thinking more clearly about exactly what you’re trying to make, and the end products end up looking more distinct.
Jonathan	(which is a good thing, in my opinion)
Aaron	Looking at early processing work you see major trends which make the work easily recognizable. Since then works have diversified extremely, even moving off the screen into sound and space.
Marcos	about the creative process, Jonathan mentioned how important it is to sketch a lot on paper. I completely agree with that. I do sketch a ton on paper myself too. But I got to say I sometimes find myself doodling in code a lot too. Not really knowing what I’m doing, just trying to come up with interesting visuals, patterns animations. They later become the base or parts of much bigger applications.

Michael Bierut’s “Everything I Know About Design I Learned from The Sopranos” is an especially fun read on The Morning After the end of the Sopranos.

Even more entertaining are the reviews encouraging you to cancel your HBO subscription. More reviews here. And here.

It’s funny to hear people bitch about the end. There are lots of people saying it was lazy and lacked creativity, but in the same breath they fire off all the possible endings they envisioned.

Isn’t a large part of creativity about the unexpected? If it was predicable it wasn’t creative. If it was formulaic it wasn’t creative. if it was obvious is wasn’t creative.

I think last night’s show was one of the most creative finales I’ve ever seen. The show may be over, but it didn’t end. Or did it? That’s creative.

If you are a web designer, these 7 design movements haunt you. It‘s a love/hate relationship. You think to yourself, “I want to create something that‘s never been done before,” but you feel spellbound because you know “what works.” Unfortunately, you also know that “what works” has been done a million times before. No matter how hard you and other creative-types strive to do something new, history has created a set of "classic" styles that basically remain the same, save some minor updating.

Take the world of fashion for example. Fashion is in one minute and out the next because we get bored of looking at the same things day after day. The same pattern will occur in web design. However, just as there are mainstays of good fashion, such as the little back dress, there are also mainstays of good web design. Every site may not fit into each of the categories exactly and some may be combinations of styles, but you‘ll get the idea.

1. Collagism – Make it un-perfect.

The inspiration behind the collage is to create something new out of old pieces. The collage style in web design consists of elements such as paper, tape and grungy or dirty textures. Drips, sprays, splatters and coffee stains are also hallmarks of the collage. This style has a sense of tangibility and is a counterpoint to the geometrically clean perfection that computers naturally exude. You’ve seen this style on everything from snowboarding sites, church sites and even network sites. The trick to this style is to break outside of the grid. Use background images to make things look ‘askew.’ Even though your text may have to be straight, you can trick the eye with background images that are not straight. This creates a sense of movement with organization.

Artists who inspire: USSR Posters on Flickr, Max Ernst, Peter Blake and Hannah Hoch

1.1 Collagist Art Example:

1.2 Collagist Web Examples:

2. Ornamentalism – Interior decorating.

Ornamental design can be similar to the collage, but the essence of the ‘fleur de lis’ and Art Nouveau ornamentation separate this style from the rest. It is often seen on the web in background patterns or framing elements. Ornamental design is inspired by architecture, where ornaments are applied as decorative accents from stone, wood, precious metals or plaster. The easiest way to incorporate this movement is through a monochromatic damask background pattern which is subtle yet dramatic.

Artists who inspire: Gustav Klimt, Alfons Mucha, Mikhail Eisenstein and Hector Guimard

2.1 Ornamentalism Art Example:

2.2 Ornamentalism Web Examples:

3. Glossism – Reflective, isn’t it?

This is the most popular style on the web today. You’ve seen it everywhere; it best embodies the phrase ‘Web 2.0’ when referring to design. It includes gradients with jewel-tone colors that are so shiny you just want to lick your monitor. Reflections, gradients and glossy buttons are fundamental for this web design movement. This style is here to stay even though a lot of people are already sick of looking at it. It creates a sense of cleanliness and easily guides the user through an interface that also include bold jelly colors, sun burst shapes, badges, rounded corners and talk bubbles.

3.1 Glossism Art Example:

3.2 Glossism Web Examples:

4. Wordism – Words Become Art.

This movement is inspired heavily by the print world and is predominantly seen as the digital counterpart of traditional magazines in e-zines. Its characteristics use an overall grid-like layout and powerful typography in lieu of decorations or design elements. The typography itself becomes a visual stimulant, making it almost unnecessary to add other photographs, illustrations or decoration. Inspiration for Wordism can be found in the poster artists of WWI and WWII, who used illustrations combined with bold typography. Modern graffiti art could relate to this movement as well.

Artists that inspire: Robert Indiana, Adolphe Muron Cassandre, and International Posters

4.1 Wordism Art Example:

4.2 Wordism Web Examples:

5. Futurism -- Think Like a Trekkie.

This was one of the first design movements on the web, but it’s not often used today. In the future I could see this making a comeback -- not in exactly the same way but with a new twist. This style is translated through geometric shapes such as computer circuits, motherboards and mechanical gears. In essence, this movement is a reflection of technology and what we might envision the future to be like.

Artists who inspire:deviantArt , Joe Pogan and Chris Foss

5.1 Futurism Art Example:

5.2 Futurism Web Examples:

6. Minimalism – Less is More.

The minimalist movement was a response to the abuse our senses took from early web pages when busy backgrounds, blink tags and rainbow colored text were the norm. "Minimalism" is a term coined by the art and literature circles to describe a movement toward extreme simplification of form and color. Minimalism, as it relates to web design, focuses on usability, aesthetics and letting the content be the star. This kind of design doesn't have to be boring. In fact, proper use of white space gives a site a level of sophistication that is often missing from sites that have every little space crammed with something.

Artists who inspire: Artcyclopedia, Frank Stella and Ellsworth Kelly

6.1 Minimalism Art Example:

6.2 Minimalism Web Examples:

7. Retroism -- A Blast from the Past.

Retro design can draw from anything in the past, such as the illustrative look of the 50’s, the flower power of the 60’s, disco of the 70’s or even the cool pop art of the 80’s. Mainstream styles and graphics of these eras were restricted by the limitations of the technology of the day. Retroism takes advantage of the iconic looks that these limitations created. The VW Beetle is the perfect example -- compare the 1961 Beetle to the new convertible of the 2000's. When using this style it’s a good idea not to over do it. There can be too much of a good thing.

Artists who inspire: iso50, Crazy Labels and Bastard Graphics

7.1 Retroism design Example:

7.2 Retroism Web Examples:

Design may evolve, but the basics remain the same.

The world collectively shifts its visual thinking of what's considered “in.” You see this collective thinking in everything from the colors we use to paint our walls to the shapes of fashion that adorn our bodies. Even though things are always evolving, basic movements will remain the same. So the next time you're looking for inspiration, just go back to the basics and add your own twist. The 7 design-isms listed above are not the only design movements of the web; many have yet to be defined or even discovered. These design-isms may very well be the little black dress of web design -- everyone uses them because they work -- but with a little creativity it's still possible to make them your own.