(Disclaimer: I started writing this post yesterday and Safari crashed on me, so this is a much shorter version of what I originally wanted to write (which was so freaking brilliant). This morning, i have less time on my hands. )
1. Twitter blocks came out.
2. A lot of people started bitching (on twitter, jaiku, etc of course coz no one seems to be bothered making full-fledged arguments on blogs anymore) that their visualisation was *pretty but useless*.
3. Stamen defended themselves aggressively.
4. In light of the fact that the internet is full of people who amuse themselves filling up pages of cats staying stupid things, I think they should relax.
5. The best defense is offense. Keep at it guys, you’re doing great work.
Conclusion & other questions this brings up: When you’re in the “grey zone” between the totally practical and art, what do you do? Do you keep defending your work as one or the other? Do you just ignore the silos and just get on with it? If Stamen is the grey zone of the internet’s information age, who occupies this role in “offline product design”? And what does that scale look like? What are the criteria for this?
There’s also this way to think about it: http://mike.teczno.com/img/aesthetics.png
tee hee, well said…drawn I mean :)