The Tremendous 10 link roundup, #171

1. Architectural Cutout People | “Whether it is because time is limited or cutout libraries are too small, it often seems like adding entourage into an illustration is treated as an afterthought at the end of most workflows. When it is finally time to insert people, a large portion of time goes to thinking about how dense the entourage should be and how to get the lighting to look just right so that the people don’t feel collaged in. Yet, it is the entourage of an illustration that can best articulate narrative and connect viewers to a place. Yes, density and lighting of the people are important, but more important are the activities of the entourage and having a contextual understanding that properly represents the ethnicities and cultures of the project.”
2. Productivity and the Joy of Doing Things the Hard Way | “This story is part of a series on how we make time—from productivity hacks to long walks to altering the function of our own circadian clocks.”
3. I wrote the book on user-friendly design. What I see today horrifies me | “The world is designed against the elderly, writes Don Norman, 83-year-old author of the industry bible Design of Everyday Things and a former Apple VP.”
4. An incomplete list of 30 things I learned in 30 years | “When we commence a new decade in our lives, on the one hand we can view it as meaningless – age is just a number, after all. On the other hand, we can view a number as a marker. Uncertainty means that there is always a blank canvas in front of us, but like a new year, a new decade helps us put a frame around it. Recently speaking with a 90-year-old woman named Margaret, after recounting extraordinary parts of her life story, she was quick to assure me, ‘You can’t arrange life, it happens around you.’ As much as we want to arrange or plan our life year by year, decade by decade, we are shaped by what happens around us – the opportunities we seize, the people we encounter, the places we stay or leave.”
5. Why Start with Napkin Sketches? | “The blank page is both opportunity and agony. It is an empty canvas to be filled with ideas. It is a barren wasteland, taunting us with its emptiness. The page itself is not to blame, and can’t do anything to help release our ideas except to be there, ready.”
6. Tips on industrial strength WiFi for normal people | “Talking to friends with bulletproof home networks, they all relied on ethernet drops in every room along with a wireless access point system like those from Ubiquiti, which is a common system in offices, at conferences, in schools, and other public places with hundreds to thousands of people using them.”
7. Apple, etc. started in a garage? | “None of this is true! Let’s look at how each of the companies were founded!”
8. 77 Life Rules for Photographers | “If you’re around the photography industry for any length of time, you start to develop a sense of the necessary, the desirable and the outright horrible. This is the code we came up with in no particular order. Add your own below.”
9. National Park Typeface | “A typeface designed to mimic the National Park Service signs that are carved using a router bit.”
10. Keanu Reeves Is Too Good for This World | “Though he possesses a classic leading-man beauty, he is no run-of-the-mill Hollywood stud; he is too aloof, too cipher-like, too mysterious. There is something a bit “Man Who Fell to Earth” about him, an otherworldliness that comes across in all of his performances, which tend to have a slightly uncanny, declamatory quality. No matter what role he plays, he is always himself. He is also clearly aware of the impression he makes.”

Image: architectural cutout people by justnotthesame.us, via link #1.