Brad Lauster .com

Continuing my recent string of non-design-related posts, I thought I'd take this opportunity to ask you about luggage.

I'm going to be doing enough traveling this year that I think it warrants purchasing a new piece of carry-on luggage. I already have a nice pack that I could use, but I'm really looking for something that:

1. Will deffinately be accepted by airlines as a carry-on (no bigger than 22"x14"x9")
2. Looks a bit more professional than a backpack (basically plain and rectangular)
3. BUT, has shoulder straps (that can be hidden) so I can carry it like a back pack
4. Doesn't have wheels

So far, I'm considering the Patagonia MLC. It seems to be the only thing I can find that meets my criteria.

I'm sure I'm missing some good bags though - especially European products (those Europeans really know how to travel). If you've got any suggestions, please post a comment!

I registered for the CHI 2002 / AIGA Experience Design Forum (also here) this evening. As part of my registration, I signed up for an AIGA Associate Membership. It cost $190, according to the registration form. BUT, when the summary is displayed, after you've accepted the charges, the cost is $195 [pdf].

What's this? CHI not testing their own registration form?

The Architectural League of New York has created a project called, "TEN Shades of Green," featuring ten buildings that espouse ten different aspects of environmental design.

Why are all travel clothes made for old people? Doesn't anyone make stylish, wrinkle-resistant clothes for my generation? Doesn't anyone make travel pants without pleats or elastic waist bands? And why are all travel clothes khaki or moss colored? I'm not 75 years old here!

Zoza.com, had a great line of wrinkle-resistant clothes. Sadly, they're no longer around.

If anyone can suggest a stylish line of wrinkle-resistant clothes, I'd love to hear about it!

(sorry about all the travel-releated posts lately - it's just been on my mind)

Dear brad lauster (dot com) readers,
I updated the Comments form and added a "Terms of Service." It's very straight forward. It says:

1. Your name and email address are required to comment, but your email will never appear on brad lauster (dot com). It only gets sent to me via email, so I can reply directly to you, if I feel like it.
2. I will NEVER sell or give your email address to anyone, without your permission, period.
3. Oh yeah! I reserve the right to delete stupid comments.

I'd love to get your reaction to the terms of service. Will you be more likely to post a comment, knowing what happens to your email address, or less likely to comment, now that an email address is required...or do you feel another way all together?

A really nice collection of articles is now online for the first issue of Boxes and Arrows.

To paraphrase their description:
Boxes and Arrows is a peer-written journal dedicated to discussing, improving and promoting the work of the digital design community which includes, among others, information architects, information designers, interaction designers (who are way cooler than everyone else) and interface designers.   ;-)

Tomorrow morning I'm leaving for Baltimore. My destination? The IA Summit.

I'm scheduled to help the folks from CarbonIQ with their Usability Testing for Information Architects seminar. It's going to be lots of fun.

Other than that, besides the regular conference proceedings, I'm wide open! Let's meet and grab a drink. Look for me...I'll probably be wearing my brad lauster (dot com) belt - sorry, I don't have a pic, but it looks just like the top of my website: three bands of green.

Hi everyone! I'm back from the IA Summit. The conference was GREAT, but access to the internet from the hotel sucked - hence no posts while I was there (I wouldn't have had time anyway).

Over the next few days I'll be collecting and refining my thoughts on what I heard, saw, thought and learned. You can be sure I'll put everything online for your perusal.

I met so many intelligent, fun people that I feel compelled to get all link-slutty, so here goes:

I met Karl Fast, Matt Jones, Joshua Kaufman, Steve Krug, Jeff Lash, Victor Lombardi, Cinnamon Melchor, George Olsen, Eric Reiss, Lou Rosenfeld, Paula Thornton, Thomas Vander Wal and John Zapolski.

I also met a bunch of other great people - I'm still sorting through the business cards. I promise to post more soon!

This has been posted all over the place, but I finally got around to reading the Herman Miller RED Case Study on Design Interact.com and it was great!

It chronicles some of the Information Architecture and Interaction Design that Nathan Shedroff did on the project and contains lots of concept sketches and wirefames. Check it out, you won't be disappointed.

Mike Pell pointed me to the web site of George Robertson, of Microsoft Research.

George's Recent Publications and Talks will likely be of interest to brad lauster (dot com) readers. Specifically (the reason I posted this in Interaction Design), "Leveraging Human Capabilities" [power point].

Also interesting, with perhaps more of an Information Architecture bent is, "From Hierarchies to Polyarchies: Visualizing Multiple Relationships" [power point].

Michael Graves, Don Norman & Henry Petroski had a chat about Everyday Design on Talk of the Nation for February 1, 2002.

Those of you with Real Audio (ugh, yuk) can give it a listen by following the link.

A vicious smear campaign concerning my alleged love of chickens ran today in Boxes and Arrows. More IA & chicken pictures are available on the B&A site.

Also in B&A, Izumi Oku, Matt Jones and myself flashin' the IA gang sign. The full story is also available.

Ahh, the concept car. The epitome of pie-in-the-sky product design.

Follow the link for the Auto.com photo gallery of cars from the show. I particularly like the Saab 93-X.

My only wish: more fuel-cells. Combustion engines are, like, SO 20th century!

The always informative xBlog pointed me to this New York Times article: Wish List: 9 Innovations in Search of Inventors.

My favorite: the TIVOCORDER. I already carry a digital voice recorder everywhere I go (SUPER handy, by the way), but it doesn't have a rolling recording window like TiVo does. Man, that would be sweet!