5 ms·

Web Design Pioneer Hillman Curtis passed away

59 points by turingbook 14y ago

jongala 14y ago
I'm so disconnected from Flash work now, that it's easy to almost forget about the hundreds and hundreds of hours I spent doing it. But 10 or 12 years ago it was a really exciting area, and Hillman Curtis was incredibly inspiring. His stuff and Joshua Davis' Praystation were on another level. He left a real mark. And he had the courage to walk away for something new when he needed to. Sorry to hear about this.
willlangford 14y ago
RIP. This was posted a few days ago and didn't get any votes.. glad it finally made it.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
palish 14y ago
What breaks my heart is that this kind of tragedy is avoidable. He was only 51; died of colon cancer. All we need is to design a wearable device which continuously monitors your body for changes that correlate with "might be developing cancer". (An undershirt, for example.) This is a solvable problem. Cancer causes measurable (but typically unnoticed) changes to the rest of your body. If it can be measured, it can be monitored; and when that change is detected, a quick trip to the doctor's office would likely save the next 30 years of your life (if it was indeed the very early stages of cancer). Cancer is beatable; we simply need to beat it before it has the chance to incubate. This is a problem that I would like to personally work on, but unfortunately it would take at least a year to arrive at a feasible design. It'd need only a small investment (~$1M) but I doubt any investor would be interested in "zero profitability for at least 12 months".
- aantix 14y ago
  Your message sounds feasible but lacks enough to details for me to figure out whether you're being serious or not..?
- nopinsight 14y ago
  I'd say this is a good project to get funding via kickstarter.com. Have you checked it out? It will be risky for the funders, but the risk is small compared to potential benefits for each individual. Several much less useful projects garnered higher funding than the amount you mentioned.
  - swalsh 14y ago
    Anything medical has extra risk. What if the device doesn't work perfectly? When my phone doesn't work perfectly, the call drops... but when my cancer device doesn't work perfectly I become over confident, and maybe miss other signs. Its a potential liability issue.
  - dsrguru 14y ago
    palish, if you have enough knowledge and are willing to invest the time given ~$1M, seriously make a kickstarter project. If this is actually both possible and doable like you say (I don't know anything about oncology), assuming it's practical enough for everyone to wear and doesn't have harmful side effects, this has got to be just about the biggest contribution to humanity that you have the power to make. (I imagine it would also be rather lucrative.) You have my word that I'd advertise the kickstarter project at the very least by word of mouth, and I'm sure many others would do the same.
  - palish 14y ago
    Using Kickstarter is a good idea, but I'm struggling with the moral implications of it. The chance that I'll succeed is inherently small, and I'd feel absolutely awful if that $1M wound up not resulting in some useful contribution. Still, I have ideas, along with the skill necessary to test them. And if I were independently wealthy, then this is how I'd spend my time... If I were to Kickstart this, then I'd keep a public daily journal of my efforts and short-term goals. There would be a webpage showing exactly how the money was being spent. I'd make everything as transparent as possible. The thing is, most of my ideas will turn out to be impractical, but there's no way to know which until I test each of them. That process would require money from people who are okay with gambling on the off-chance that one of my ideas turn out to work. (Sidenote: if I happen to succeed, then I want to repay the people who funded me, at the very least.) Here is a glimpse into the future I envision: - A sensor in your bed scans for tumors as you sleep. - If you have a heart attack, a sensor in your clothing immediately detects it and pushes an alert to your phone, which dispatches emergency services to your exact GPS location. (Most people keep their phone in their pocket or purse, so this seems doable.) A speaker embedded in your belt yells out step-by-step CPR instructions to the people around you. - Your toothbrush takes your temperature and absorbs a sample of your saliva, which it analyzes for deviations from your long-term norm. It uses wifi to upload this data to your computer, along with a map of the surfaces of the teeth you brushed. The next time you use your computer, you'll see a visualization of your teeth; any surfaces which you missed when brushing are highlighted in red. (e.g. if you aren't brushing behind your molars, then those areas are highlighted.) - As you're driving, a sensor on your rearview mirror will detect if you fall asleep at the wheel (your eyelids close for more than one second) which triggers an audible alert to wake you. I'd love to spend my life coming up with pragmatic ways to use technology to benefit your health / monitor for emergency conditions. I'm just not sure it'd be ethical to use Kickstarter to fund possibly-crazy endeavors like this. I don't know.
culturestate 14y ago
Sad. I really admired him - MTIV: Process, Inspiration and Practice for the New Media Designer was a huge influence for me when I was starting out.
jordhy 14y ago
I'm very saddened by two things: confirming that great artists usually die young and by the ever-extending specialization of labor in our industry. Generalists like Hillman Curtis, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are becoming more and more uncommon. Hillman was truly the "Michael Jordan of Flash", a great web designer without parallel in our industry. Inspired by Hillman's books, I changed careers and became a web architect (a mixture of programmer, designer and producer). What inspired my about Hillman's work is that he wasn't afraid of going the distance, and constantly pushed the envelop on the limits of technology, by integrating design, development and architecture in a very cohesive theme. He designed and developed websites in the old days of 14.4K modems! David Hillman Curtis amassed dozens of important awards and wrote books that were translated to 14 languages. His book MTIV (Making The Invisible Visible) changed my life more than any other professional book I've ever read. I'm saddened to see our field devoid of such visionaries, nobody's pushing the envelop anymore. Most technicians and entrepreneurs are working for a quick exit and are forgetting about having any sort of legacy. If you are reading this, please try to become an ARTIST at your craft. Don't just write C, C++, Node.js or Ruby. Push-the-envelop and write the most bad-ass and revolutionary code you can, create a signature style (for Steve Wozniak it was simplicity, for Walt Disney, imagination, etc). Please enrich, enrich this industry, make no f'in compromises. Push the damn envelop until you've made history. You know who you are, you have that fire inside, you make no compromises, you want to make a difference, a real difference. Like Curtis did. On Hillman's words: “The reason for designing new media is simple — to subtly and quietly change the world.” From music, to design, to web design and film making, Hillman created a signature style that defined his career. His obsession with animated portraits, simplistic and memorable animations made a huge impression on all of us (the old new media designers that started in the late 90s). Even today, memorable design is an afterthought found only on a limited collection of very distinguished websites and apps. When I browse from TC to VentureBeat, for example, I feel like going from McDonald's to Burger King - Nobody gives a damn anymore. We respect SEO, we bow to latency and concurrency... yet nobody gives a damn to art direction and interaction design. If Eric Ries talks to you about A/B testing, you listen. But if Nathan Shedroff gives a lecture about "Experience Design" half of the room is empty before his talk is over - nobody cares anymore. Nobody. The Web is chasing Hollywood. And we have no Scoreseses. I'm sorry to curse, but I most: get a fuckin soul, make history in your work. Care, care about every pixel, care about the theme of your work, care about your legacy. Hillman taught us to care. He inspired us to be our best and to create a new web. Hillman will always live in the memory of all his book readers, associates and fans. I know he will always be present in my work. I owe too much to him. Especially, I owe to him the discipline to make zero compromises. Please, if you're a generalist, become an artist. If you're a coder, learn about design. Care about the final product, the whole product. Care about the experience you're delivering. Feel your work, and raise to be a director of experiences, not only a coder or corner-cutter. Become the Steve or the Bill of our industry. Because nobody cares anymore. And all the great generalists that used to care are dying. More About Hillman Curtis https://vimeo.com/38130536 https://vimeo.com/38130536 http://hillmancurtis.com/ http://hillmancurtis.com/

59 points by turingbook 14y ago

I'm so disconnected from Flash work now, that it's easy to almost forget about the hundreds and hundreds of hours I spent doing it. But 10 or 12 years ago it was a really exciting area, and Hillman Curtis was incredibly inspiring. His stuff and Joshua Davis' Praystation were on another level. He left a real mark. And he had the courage to walk away for something new when he needed to. Sorry to hear about this.

willlangford 14y ago

RIP. This was posted a few days ago and didn't get any votes.. glad it finally made it.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

palish 14y ago

What breaks my heart is that this kind of tragedy is avoidable. He was only 51; died of colon cancer. All we need is to design a wearable device which continuously monitors your body for changes that correlate with "might be developing cancer". (An undershirt, for example.) This is a solvable problem. Cancer causes measurable (but typically unnoticed) changes to the rest of your body. If it can be measured, it can be monitored; and when that change is detected, a quick trip to the doctor's office would likely save the next 30 years of your life (if it was indeed the very early stages of cancer). Cancer is beatable; we simply need to beat it before it has the chance to incubate. This is a problem that I would like to personally work on, but unfortunately it would take at least a year to arrive at a feasible design. It'd need only a small investment (~$1M) but I doubt any investor would be interested in "zero profitability for at least 12 months".

aantix 14y ago
Your message sounds feasible but lacks enough to details for me to figure out whether you're being serious or not..?
nopinsight 14y ago
I'd say this is a good project to get funding via kickstarter.com. Have you checked it out? It will be risky for the funders, but the risk is small compared to potential benefits for each individual. Several much less useful projects garnered higher funding than the amount you mentioned.
- swalsh 14y ago
  Anything medical has extra risk. What if the device doesn't work perfectly? When my phone doesn't work perfectly, the call drops... but when my cancer device doesn't work perfectly I become over confident, and maybe miss other signs. Its a potential liability issue.
- dsrguru 14y ago
  palish, if you have enough knowledge and are willing to invest the time given ~$1M, seriously make a kickstarter project. If this is actually both possible and doable like you say (I don't know anything about oncology), assuming it's practical enough for everyone to wear and doesn't have harmful side effects, this has got to be just about the biggest contribution to humanity that you have the power to make. (I imagine it would also be rather lucrative.) You have my word that I'd advertise the kickstarter project at the very least by word of mouth, and I'm sure many others would do the same.
- palish 14y ago
  Using Kickstarter is a good idea, but I'm struggling with the moral implications of it. The chance that I'll succeed is inherently small, and I'd feel absolutely awful if that $1M wound up not resulting in some useful contribution. Still, I have ideas, along with the skill necessary to test them. And if I were independently wealthy, then this is how I'd spend my time... If I were to Kickstart this, then I'd keep a public daily journal of my efforts and short-term goals. There would be a webpage showing exactly how the money was being spent. I'd make everything as transparent as possible. The thing is, most of my ideas will turn out to be impractical, but there's no way to know which until I test each of them. That process would require money from people who are okay with gambling on the off-chance that one of my ideas turn out to work. (Sidenote: if I happen to succeed, then I want to repay the people who funded me, at the very least.) Here is a glimpse into the future I envision: - A sensor in your bed scans for tumors as you sleep. - If you have a heart attack, a sensor in your clothing immediately detects it and pushes an alert to your phone, which dispatches emergency services to your exact GPS location. (Most people keep their phone in their pocket or purse, so this seems doable.) A speaker embedded in your belt yells out step-by-step CPR instructions to the people around you. - Your toothbrush takes your temperature and absorbs a sample of your saliva, which it analyzes for deviations from your long-term norm. It uses wifi to upload this data to your computer, along with a map of the surfaces of the teeth you brushed. The next time you use your computer, you'll see a visualization of your teeth; any surfaces which you missed when brushing are highlighted in red. (e.g. if you aren't brushing behind your molars, then those areas are highlighted.) - As you're driving, a sensor on your rearview mirror will detect if you fall asleep at the wheel (your eyelids close for more than one second) which triggers an audible alert to wake you. I'd love to spend my life coming up with pragmatic ways to use technology to benefit your health / monitor for emergency conditions. I'm just not sure it'd be ethical to use Kickstarter to fund possibly-crazy endeavors like this. I don't know.

culturestate 14y ago

Sad. I really admired him - MTIV: Process, Inspiration and Practice for the New Media Designer was a huge influence for me when I was starting out.

jordhy 14y ago

I'm very saddened by two things: confirming that great artists usually die young and by the ever-extending specialization of labor in our industry. Generalists like Hillman Curtis, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are becoming more and more uncommon. Hillman was truly the "Michael Jordan of Flash", a great web designer without parallel in our industry. Inspired by Hillman's books, I changed careers and became a web architect (a mixture of programmer, designer and producer). What inspired my about Hillman's work is that he wasn't afraid of going the distance, and constantly pushed the envelop on the limits of technology, by integrating design, development and architecture in a very cohesive theme. He designed and developed websites in the old days of 14.4K modems! David Hillman Curtis amassed dozens of important awards and wrote books that were translated to 14 languages. His book MTIV (Making The Invisible Visible) changed my life more than any other professional book I've ever read. I'm saddened to see our field devoid of such visionaries, nobody's pushing the envelop anymore. Most technicians and entrepreneurs are working for a quick exit and are forgetting about having any sort of legacy. If you are reading this, please try to become an ARTIST at your craft. Don't just write C, C++, Node.js or Ruby. Push-the-envelop and write the most bad-ass and revolutionary code you can, create a signature style (for Steve Wozniak it was simplicity, for Walt Disney, imagination, etc). Please enrich, enrich this industry, make no f'in compromises. Push the damn envelop until you've made history. You know who you are, you have that fire inside, you make no compromises, you want to make a difference, a real difference. Like Curtis did. On Hillman's words: “The reason for designing new media is simple — to subtly and quietly change the world.” From music, to design, to web design and film making, Hillman created a signature style that defined his career. His obsession with animated portraits, simplistic and memorable animations made a huge impression on all of us (the old new media designers that started in the late 90s). Even today, memorable design is an afterthought found only on a limited collection of very distinguished websites and apps. When I browse from TC to VentureBeat, for example, I feel like going from McDonald's to Burger King - Nobody gives a damn anymore. We respect SEO, we bow to latency and concurrency... yet nobody gives a damn to art direction and interaction design. If Eric Ries talks to you about A/B testing, you listen. But if Nathan Shedroff gives a lecture about "Experience Design" half of the room is empty before his talk is over - nobody cares anymore. Nobody. The Web is chasing Hollywood. And we have no Scoreseses. I'm sorry to curse, but I most: get a fuckin soul, make history in your work. Care, care about every pixel, care about the theme of your work, care about your legacy. Hillman taught us to care. He inspired us to be our best and to create a new web. Hillman will always live in the memory of all his book readers, associates and fans. I know he will always be present in my work. I owe too much to him. Especially, I owe to him the discipline to make zero compromises. Please, if you're a generalist, become an artist. If you're a coder, learn about design. Care about the final product, the whole product. Care about the experience you're delivering. Feel your work, and raise to be a director of experiences, not only a coder or corner-cutter. Become the Steve or the Bill of our industry. Because nobody cares anymore. And all the great generalists that used to care are dying. More About Hillman Curtis https://vimeo.com/38130536 https://vimeo.com/38130536 http://hillmancurtis.com/ http://hillmancurtis.com/