Being Jakob Nielson: The Story of the Blue and the Green is funny and honest and insightful. The aspect that most gets me is the zen perspective: he takes Jakob’s rantings and accepts them as zen koans. What a great attitude. Makes me feel like a whiny fuck.
Humans destroy each other, we let horrible things manifest in our
society. We pay money to hurt ourselves. A bead of sweat or two may collect
in Jakob’s fine wisps of hair, but he is confident that it will all sort itself out.
You stare the bad things in the eye, buy another large fries and Coke, strap
on the Nikes, and in your own small way try to make the world a better place
Of course I disagree about the Nikes, but I get the point.
Funny aside: One of the info architects at Razorfish has a small, framed picture of Jakob Nielson on her desk. We usually rant on and on to each other about how much of an interface gestapo he is, so it’s a funny inside joke.
Another funny aside: Razorfish is responsible for designing a prominant site with a swirl and a blue and green palette. But like brig, we had to work with a branding agency to come up with that thing of a logo.