http://www.makershed.com/product_p/mkshl1.htm

PS: Project Neon continues apace, though I imagine things will slow down over the next couple of months, so you may see more of me around here.

One of the many issues with POPs is that they very often do not live up to the promises (and renderings) of charming, welcoming, vegetated vest-pocket parks sprinkled throughout the city’s high-rise office districts to offer respite for weary workers from the endless concrete. Instead, they’re often open limited hours, closed entirely, or designed to be utterly inhospitable.

Of course this isn’t true of all such spaces — there are some truly lovely examples from atria to waterfall parklettes that function beautifully as publicly accessible spaces well maintained by owners of office buildings and condo towers. Still, though, with little or no enforcement, too many land owners get away with too much.

The first step toward enforcement is documentation, and WNYC & The New York World have started a crowd-sourced project to document the state of New York’s POPs. I highly recommend New Yorkers adopt a space or two, investigate, and report back. The map interface is a little wonky, but it’s a short, simple survey to fill out for each space.  I’ll be stopping by the unvisited spaces near my work during my lunch break over the next week. Maybe I’ll see you there?

Here’s the map and survey:
http://www.thenewyorkworld.com/2011/10/19/publicspace/

Just the map of POPs:
http://bit.ly/privatePublic

More information about POPs from the City of New York here:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/priv/priv.shtml

The deadline for the project is November 9th.

I just hauled this, my first computer, out if its case. It still works. I bought it with all my saved-up babysitting money back in 1989 when I left for college (yes, I am OLD). As I recall it was three-thousand some dollars with the academic discount.

Wow I was good at drawing in Mac Paint back then. I drew all the bugs in my room once. Also in the Mac SE’s hard drive (named ∞ as its 4,096K of memory seemed nearly infinite) a list of palindromes, the rules to a couple of made-up card games (Floof and Oh, puppy!), an analysis of mode mixture in one section of Schubert’s String Quartet in C Major (opus 163), and more—a time capsule of a long-gone era.

Some people have said they think it’s creepy to be sad that someone you haven’t met who was neither a saint nor a hero has died. It’s always sad, though, when someone dies too young. And when that person made your life better by helping design tools that enabled—no, encouraged—countless cool, beautiful, and important projects, I think it makes sense to mourn a little. He was a man with a clear vision and a strong imagination, and I wish he could have stuck around a little longer. RIP Steve.

Greetings from Project Neon headquarters. What you see above is my nifty new neon sign, which is going to hang in the window of the Project Neon show at the City Reliquary. If you are in New York, you should come:

Project Neon
Opening Friday September 23rd
7p – 10p
The City Reliquary
370 Metropolitan Avenue
Brooklyn, NY  11211

Also at that show we’ll be celebrating the launch of the free Project Neon iPhone app. In order for that to happen, we need to submit it to Apple in the next couple of days, so I’ve got quite a bit of work to get done (not to mention getting ready for the show). On account of that there will probably be radio silence around here for the next couple of weeks, but I look forward to catching up with everything after that, and I hope to see you at the opening!

Though wood has been the default material for homes in North America and elsewhere (though some places with a dearth of wood have traditionally preferred stone or other materials), it’s difficult to build a wooden house in a big city, as fire codes make it nearly impossible, which is too bad as wood has many things to recommend it: it’s easy to modify and repair, it’s a good insulator, and it has a fantastic range of texture and color.

Despite the dearth of contemporary wooden homes here, examples survive, and have a wonderful warmth and idiosyncrasy against the backdrop of the city of bricks & steel. Here is a blog is documenting New York’s surviving examples, with wonderful comparisons to historic photos:

http://woodenhouseproject.com/

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Man, I wish I had known about this site during architecture school:
http://www.thistothat.com/
But now I know! I’m off to glue things…

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I haven’t yet seen an alternative to incandescent bulbs that knocked my socks off (I’d rather retreat to candles & kerosene than use most of them), largely for one reason: quality of light. Until I see a compact fluorescent or LED that does, I’ll minimize their use in my own home. I tried a “full spectrum” CFL, and it gave off a terrible, sickly cold light. Yuck. If the quality of their light doesn’t bother you so much, here are some nicely designed ones:

A brain bulb!:
http://www.solovyovdesign.by/en/portfolio/node-1290168462/?group_id=163

The famous (and lovely) Plumen bulb:
http://www.plumenshopus.com/products/plumen-001

A solar-chargable LED light designed for people who use kerosene:
http://www.nokero.com

I really hate the look of this bulb (too steampunk for my taste), but I know a lot of people like it:
http://cooperhewitt.org/blog/2011/08/24/how-design-thinking-led-beautiful-led-lamp

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A cool printer that prints onto anything, not just paper:

http://www.petapixel.com/2011/06/06/a-digital-camera-that-magically-prints-onto-any-flat-surface/

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A tiny garden for the yardless:

http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/another_tiny_garden_by_another_studio_for_design_19688.asp

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An interesting project from one of my favorite architects, Peter Zumthor, for a secular retreat:

http://www.architizer.com/en_us/blog/dyn/23253/zumthors-secular-retreat/

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“Your Rainbow Panorama,” a joyful architecture project from artist Olafur Eliasson:

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/14812/olafur-eliasson-your-rainbow-panorama-now-complete.html

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A round-up of fictional—some very fictional—New York apartments from TV and the movies:

http://gothamist.com/2011/05/10/nyc_as_seen_on_tv_top_5_worst.php

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OK, that’s enough for now. I’m going to get back to finishing up Project Neon work now. Enjoy your weekend!

Sometimes, though, the desire is held in check not by pecuniary considerations, but by design flaws. The thing itself is great, fulfills a real need, has an elegant design… except for a small proverbial fly (or a few flies) in the proverbial ointment. If it’s a gross, giant, hairy fly, I will probably just pass on by, but a couple of tiny fruit flies? Surely that can be overcome.

As a prime example, witness the Pocket SmartString (as seen on TV!), a genius product from the minds of Pocket Workmate, LLC. Consumer laser tape measures are not accurate or reliable enough to be as useful yet, and they can’t measure circles, curves, or other complicated shapes. The Pocket SmartString can! (And yes, you can buy it through Amazon, among other places.)

Alas, though, the PSS suffers from several serious design flaws, particularly when viewed from the point of view (potential market!) of architectural measurers (before any architectural design work starts, a completely accurate measurement of the existing space must be completed—you have no idea how hard it is to get precise measurements of a room until you’ve done it, and tried to draft it up from your own measurements). First of all, from an architectural standpoint, the string needs to be considerably longer than a mere 50″. Saying you can add together multiple measurements is just asking for inaccuracies—the string itself needs to be much longer. I imagine a longer string will bring other problems with it, but you’re going to have to make it work, Pocket people.

Next, I’m a bit dubious about the end ring & plastic doo-dad. Will this interfere with accurate corner measurements? Will it wear out if you continually bend it into corners? The usefulness of that end bit, I’m pretty sure, could be improved, but the questions of durability for the entire gizmo are difficult to answer just by looking at the thing online. More research is needed!

Finally, the aesthetics of the thing are pretty dreadful. It looks like a cross between a badly designed business card and an HP scientific calculator (elegant in its own right, though dated). With a level thrown in, and some weird colors. Plus the string. The whole is, well, less than the sum of its parts. Now it’s impressive that there’s a calculator built in, which can do things like calculate the diameter of a circle that you’ve measured or convert effortlessly from inches to millimeters, but calculators can be pretty, too.  And I suspect this one could be a bit smaller without making it more difficult to use. The logo needs to be smaller and better integrated (and maybe redesigned), the colors need to be better coordinated, and the shape and proportions need to be more elegant.

If all of that happened—or even if most of it happened—I suspect that Pocket SmartStrings would start flying off the shelves. I know I’d buy one. For now, though, it’s likely to languish in my wish list.

I was out last night taking a few pictures (including this shot from the Diamond District):

I’m also still working on the Kickstarter rewards and the app, so it’s been pretty much all Project Neon all the time around here. I’m hoping it will calm down a bit in a couple of weeks, and I can return to semi-regular Catasterist updates. Until then, I’ll see you in Neonsville!

Most importantly, Kickstarter is an amazing tool. With Kickstarter you can not just get funding, but also build your audience and focus your project. There are some complications, though.

Poking around on Kickstarter, you will likely see a lot of projects that exceeded their goals quickly and went on to raise way more than they aimed for. Look closer, though, and you’ll see these aren’t the majority. One fault of the Kickstarter website, I think, is that browsing projects isn’t as easy or intuitive as it should be. You need to click the very small “Discover Great Projects” link at the top to really get beyond the Kickstarter-curated front page or the guest-curated lists below. The front page is a great place to find new projects—and I was lucky enough to have my project listed there—but projects are only on the page for a day or two, so if you’re trying to get the word out about your project, you can’t rely on that.

In general, Kickstarter favors featuring a few great projects rather than a big mixed bag of all kinds of stuff. Even once you get to a category (I put my project into the Photography category—technology could have worked, too, but I decided that photography is really the core of Project Neon) you still have to click teeny tiny “See More…” links to get to anything beyond the few projects featured on that page. So even if they Kickstarter staff loves your project (and they were very positive and supportive of mine), that’s not going to guarantee you a lot of pledges.

So what will guarantee that the money rolls in? Here are the things I’d suggest. Keep in mind, though, that your mileage may vary. What kind of project you have, what category it falls in, what kind of fan base already exists for it, when exactly you launch—all of these things will affect your Kickstarter campaign.

BEFORE YOU LAUNCH

Back a few other Kickstarter projects.
This will give you invaluable information about how things look from a backer’s perspective. Plus it’s fun! It will help you understand how people navigate the site, what kind of things are convincing (or unconvincing), and give you a better idea of how to communicate within the Kickstarter framework. Most projects have very low minimum pledge requirements (usually between $1 & $5), so pick a few. Choose something in your own category, choose something from the “Ending Soon” list, choose something silly, choose something important—choose whatever you like! If you are planning on offering tangible rewards, definitely pick at least one other project that does so you can see how that process works.

Apply to Kickstarter

This involves a filling out a short info form about your project. Don’t worry—you can change the wording of all of this before you launch, but you need to clearly explain your project and show the Kickstarter staff that you have a legitimate, creative project. This is also the point where they are going to decide to keep an eye on your project and possibly feature it on the front page or the blog, so put some thought into it.

It can take a while for your project to get approved (I think it took a few days in my case), so leave plenty of time between this and when you’d like to launch. Plus you still have to:

Set Up Your Project

Once you’re approved, you’ll be able to start working on the project itself. You’ll need a title, short description, long description, bio, video, etc. Get creative! Get friends to help if you can, and read through the descriptions of a bunch of other projects.

The two things you must be absolutely sure of before you launch (because you won’t be able to change them) are the deadline and funding goal. And if you don’t make the funding goal by the deadline, your backers won’t get charged and your project won’t get funded, so consider these carefully. Make a budget. What will you need to actually do your project? How much will you need to fulfill all your rewards? Don’t forget packing materials, postage (including for international shipments!), printing costs, etc. Can you trim down your budget at all? Subtract any amount you yourself will contribute toward expenses as you can’t donate to your own Kickstarter project.

Now take a look at the deadline. Many things I read suggested a 30 day deadline as the best, but I have to say I wish I’d made it longer. It’s difficult to do any PR before you’ve launched, and many blogs and print publications have a significant backlog on posting things. I spent the last week of my project writing back to places that had responded to my original submission but hadn’t yet published anything asking if they could manage to squeeze it in as soon as possible. Plus I had the added disadvantage of running my campaign during May, which is a very busy month for design bloggers.

Of course you probably don’t want to drag your campaign out too long—people do tend to make up their minds relatively quickly, and running a Kickstarter campaign is a lot of work. If you already have a large fan base, an extensive mailing list, an active Twitter account with loads of followers, and myriad Facebook fans, you may not need longer than 30 days. I, however, did not have those advantages, so I wish I’d set my campaign for 45 days or so.

One thing you may also want to do is set up a web page that explains your rewards. The Kickstarter format doesn’t allow a lot of space or formatting for the reward descriptions, and this is key for many people. Plus you can’t put any images into those descriptions (though both formatting and images can go into the main project description, of course). I had a hard time describing both my project and the rewards clearly and succinctly, and I wish I’d set up a web page with more extensive project descriptions before I started.

Keep in mind that as soon as anybody pledges to a particular level you won’t be able to edit that level, so make sure it’s clear and there are no typos.

Think about who your potential audience is and what questions they’ll want answered. What exactly will the money be used for? How did you get started on this project? and How do I know you’re going to do a good job with this project and the rewards? are all standard. Think about what specific to you.

Prepare to Spread the Word

You’ll save a lot of time later if you get a few emailing lists together before you start. What friends can you send it to? Which blogs would be most interested? What about print? Most especially consider who among your contacts could further disseminate your project—someone who writes “I have backed this cool project—you should, too!” can be a *huge* help.

If you have a blog for the project, don’t neglect it at this point. Likewise for Twitter & Facebook, and if you don’t have all those things, maybe you should. Now’s the time! The best time, actually, is before you launch, so you have time to build an audience and

Now’s also the time to start talking to your friends about the project (if you haven’t already!) and asking advice for contacts, approaches, and ideas. Have at least one person look over your Kickstarter page before you launch if you can. Your friends are really the key to a successful project—not necessarily because they’re going to be the majority of backers (though great if they are), but because they are going to be key for helping you get the word out. Thank them copiously at every step. (Thanks again to all my wonderful friends who helped me!)

LAUNCH!

Start Spreading the News

OK, you did it—your project is live. Congrats! First look it over one last time to see if there are any typos or broken links. Now get tweeting, facebooking, and emailing. As much as you can send individual emails rather than group emails—they make a huge difference. And don’t forget to tell people that you need their help not just with pledges, but also with spreading the word.

I’m bad about keeping emails short and to the point—I always worry about leaving too much out—but keep in mind that no one reads long emails. A brief explanation, a link to your Kickstarter and to your actual project blog, maybe a small image, and a thank you. That’s all you need.

Don’t forget to change your website link to your Kickstarter page or project page (which now should feature a prominent post about the Kickstarter campaign, and include the widget that shows the current pledge progress). If you comment or contribute on other topics, people may follow that link to see what else you are up to.

Don’t forget to track who you’ve sent things too—I did a bad job of this and had to keep rechecking sent mails to make sure I wasn’t resending people the same thing.

Keep Track of Who is Saying What

In the beginning (before I got overwhelmed with other work) I asked each backer where they had heard about my project. It was interesting to see—design blogs, for example, didn’t net me nearly as many pledges as photography blogs. Synergy helped a bit (people seeing my project on the front page of Kickstarter after seeing it mentioned elsewhere, for example) also helped. Friends of friends were a huge boost, as were internet forum friends (or imaginary friends, as I like to call them). Many blog mentions of the project were pretty inaccurate, but I didn’t sweat that—close enough!

Keep Spreading The Word

I hate pestering people repeatedly, but it’s necessary. People put things off, people forget—keep posting updates to Kickstarter, to Twitter, to your blog. And continue to add non-Kickstarter content to your blog if you can. In my project, for example, I made sure to go out and photograph what I knew would be popular signs even though I was busy with Kickstarter, since I knew I could post the link in the photo’s descriptions on Flickr. My blog posts during the month always mentioned Kickstarter, but I also tried to keep as much interesting content going as I could.

Don’t Give Up

Near the end of my project I had started to really worry I wasn’t going to make it. A couple of big PR things fell through, a couple of others didn’t generate the interest I thought they would, and the deadline was fast approaching. Everyone, especially friends, really pitched in. A lot of people really worked to help spread the word, and several people increased their pledges, which really saved the day. When someone tweeted that  Project Neon was a cool project, though it probably wouldn’t get funding I replied that I hadn’t given up yet, which reminded me that I shouldn’t give up. And I’m glad I didn’t.

AFTER IT’S OVER

If you weren’t successful, consider whether it’s worth relaunching later on Kickstarter—you’d be surprised how many unsuccessful projects are successful the second time around. There are also other similar crowd-funding platforms to consider like IndieGoGo (which doesn’t have an all-or-nothing rule like Kickstarter), and you can always add a PayPal “Donate Now” button to your project’s web page.

If you were successful—congratulations! Now you need to work on fulfilling your backers’ rewards and on the project itself (if they are two separate things, as they were in my project). Set yourself some deadlines, keep your backers updated, and get to work.  This is the stage I’m in now—it’s fun, but a lot to keep track of, especially for physical rewards that must be mailed.

To gather information from backers, you set up surveys (one for each reward level), which Kickstarter automatically emails to backers (and reminds them if they don’t return). The surveys are a little limited (you can’t add too many questions), so be sure to make sure they’re clear and will get you the information you need. You can always contact backers directly if you have specific questions (their email addresses are included automatically in the backer survey), but that can end up being a lot of work if you have to talk to more than a couple of backers that way.

Kickstarter allows you to download Excel-compatible spreadsheets with backer info, but not everyone fills out the backer form right away, so keeping track can be tricky. Basically being organized is key. I’m still working on packaging and mailing right now, but I’ll let you know if I get any insights during that step!

So there you have it. Kickstarter is an amazing tool, but unless you have a big fan base, an army of interns, or a very simple project, it’s probably going to involve a lot of work. It’s totally worth it though—what project will you launch?

Bread ties (aka bread tags, bread clips, or those colored plastic things that hold the bread (and other food) bags closed) are cool—the color tells you when the bread was baked, and the shapes are pleasingly varied. Finally (finally!) someone has begun cataloging these micro-gadgets and given them an official-sounding scientific name. Behold the Holotypic Occlapanid Research Group.

They aren’t the first to attempt to classify the variety of bread tags found in the wild, but their scientific rigor gives me hope they will create the definitive taxonomy.  The taxonomy is a bit bare at the moment, though, so I think I’d better scan in a few of my own samples to help fill it out…

PS:  Project Neon Kickstarter update—I’ve been busy getting going on fulfilling all the Kickstarter backer rewards. Many neon photos & posters are piling up in my apartment. I hope to start on membership cards soon, and then they’ll start going out in the mail. I’m also working with the developers to get the iPhone app rolling. More news at it develops.