June 24, 2010

Stylus recommendations?

Why is it I can draw more accurately with our 2-year-old’s Magna Doodle than I can with an iPad? Simple: it’s the stylus.

I tried a stubby Pogo stylus a few months back and had an instant aversion to drawing with a big, flat, round disk. I see that other styluses are available, but I’ve yet to find a good set of comparisons. If you’ve successfully used a stylus to draw on an iPad, I’d like to hear your recommendations.

Incidentally, the imprecision of drawing with a finger certainly raises the value of natural media brushes (e.g. a realistic pencil simulation). Crappy input driving a high-precision line looks bad, but crappy input driving a deliberately crappy (sketchy) line looks more like “I meant to do that.”

[Update: Incidentally, just so people know, I'm not completely incompetent when it comes to drawing.]

Illustrator-friendly iPhone UI elements

I find myself mocking up iPad interfaces in Illustrator (<-trendy tongue twister?) this morning, so I’m finding this collection of iPhone UI vector elements from Rusty Mitchell & the folks at Mercury Intermedia quite handy. Thanks, guys! [Update: See also Mordy Golding's vector iPhone and components.

[Previously: iOS elements for Photoshop.]

Video: The High Line evolves

It’s a little off topic from my usual blogging fare, but I love seeing how New York’s High Line park has evolved & will continue to develop:

I haven’t been back to NYC since the park opened (thanks, kids!), so maybe I can live vicariously through Tom & Bryan. (*cough* You know they’re doing a photo walk nearby on Saturday, right? *cough*)
Here’s some context for the video. [Via]