design – Clay Carson

The Complete Changes To Augusta National →

As time ticked on, holes were further altered to address playability, agronomics, spectator convenience and, most recently, 21st-century club and ball technology. Our challenge was to graphically document every architectural change at Augusta National in a manner never attempted before. To do it, we enlisted the talents of computer artist Chris O’Riley to prepare a succession of detailed diagrams based upon our 30-plus years of research.

Why Can’t We Build a Splash-Proof Toilet? →

The BYU team also learned that a “low angle of attack” produces the least splash. When pee hits the porcelain at a 90 degree angle, the splashback is terrible. But when the urine simulator aimed low—imagine hitting just above the drain of the urinal—the splash was more modest and not angled back at the urinator. This is also a good reason to aim sideways rather than straight at the urinal.

The NASA Design Program →

Fletcher: “I’m simply not comfortable with those letters, something is missing.”

Low: “Well yes, the cross stroke is gone from the letter A.”

Fletcher: “Yes, and that bothers me.”

Low: “Why?”

Fletcher: (long pause) “I just don’t feel we are getting our money’s worth!”

Fletcher: And this color, red, it doesn’t make much sense to me.”

Low: “What would be better?”

Fletcher: “Blue makes more sense… Space is blue.”

Low: “No Dr. Fletcher, Space is black!”

It is also worth checking out some of the additional images of NASA Graphics Standards Manual on Flickr.

The Original Super Mario Game Was Designed On Graph Paper →

“Back in the day, we had to create everything by hand,” Nintendo designer Takashi Tezuka said in a video released as part of Nintendo’s E3 announcement Tuesday. Every square of land, question-mark block and Goomba had to be hand-drawn and colored on graph paper. When they were happy with the design, they sent it off to a developer to code. Fixing errors or making changes was tricky. Shigeru Miyamoto, Mario’s creator, said whiting out mistakes was too messy, so they overlaid opaque tracing paper on top of the level being drawn.

Be sure to check out the embedded video starting at 41:11.