Amber Simmons is a writer and web content strategist. Subscribe to her blog. Or, you can just drop her a line.
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A Timely Raven, vignette 3
Just in time for Halloween, I present here “A Timely Raven”, a story of demonic possession, ghosts, murder and love.
Something Wonderful to Write About
It’s funny how quickly priorities can change.
I’ve been a writer my entire life. When I was a little girl, my mother used to send me and my brother to our grandmother’s house outside of Cleveland for the summer. It was a much anticipated trip, as going away to grandma’s was like going away to another [...]
The Interaction Design of Typography
In Elements of Typographic Style, Robert Bringhurst suggests that thoughtfully designed type and an intelligently designed printed page do more than tell a story: they create “looking room” for the user, luring him into the words, into the page, into the discussion carefully crafted before him. Type, as a language crafted by history’s finest designers, [...]
The Mismeasure of Craftsmen
Yesterday, sitting at my desk reading The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould (I’m always reading something different, usually before I finish a previous book; I’m afraid I have something like academic ADD) I came across an interesting story by Socrates. He was recounting a myth he wished to tell his people of their [...]
Free Culture and the Undead Art of Writing on the Web
This week:
A List Apart has published my article, Reviving Anorexic Web Writing
I read Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture: the nature and future of creativity in October of 2006 with something like rapture and soul-deep sympathy. In 1994 I was a freshman in college, and I latched on to the advent of the world wide web feverishly, [...]
Visual Media Storytellers
User-testing terrifies me, because I’m always afraid that someone is going to offer mean-spirited critiques of my work. So far, this fear is completely unfounded. In fact, most user tests reveal very interesting thought processes. And most recently, one woman’s comment stopped me in my tracks and caused me to really consider my role a [...]
Designs that Fail: Across the Universe Movie Poster
Call me crazy, but I don’t understand the intentions behind the poster for the upcoming film, Across the Universe. When I saw this poster the other day while standing in line to watch Transformers, I leaned over to my husband and asked, “What is that? Is it a movie about two teachers that fall in [...]
Psychology and Academic Web Publishing
One of my colleagues sent me a text message this morning that said, “I was surprised the J-school (Journalism) didn’t have something on their homepage about Lady Bird Johnson this morning. Isn’t that why we have a content management system, so people can make changes like that?”The question caught me off guard; it almost felt [...]
Making Love on the Web
How do you make love on the web?
I know how to make love with books. Books are conspicuously sensual. Pages have texture, smell. There is a delightful satisfaction that comes from the feel of turning pages, the way the pages whisper and rustle when moved. Intimacy is easily established with a book, for I can [...]
Design Theory 101: Emotion and Experience
Designers are fond of saying that we are problem solvers: we recognize real, human needs and create appropriate solutions. We needed a place to rest our bones; designers created the armchair. We needed a way to comfortably drink our hot beverages; designers concocted the coffee mug. But great designers are more than problem solvers: they’re [...]
Recent Posts
A Timely Raven: the conclusion
November 11, 2008The final episode of A Timely Raven is finally complete, and plans proceed apace for the new web fiction project.
No Offense, But…
November 7, 2008A candidate loses the election, gets drunk, and sends out the obligatory incendiary email to his friends, family and cohorts.
This Is My Children’s America
November 5, 2008American Blackness has long sung doleful tunes. Today marks a new chapter in history, for our families and our country.
