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How color-coded notes make you a more efficient thinker:
Separating “branches” of your map by color stimulates the creative side of your brain, helps you visually separate and recall distinct themes of the stuff you’re working through, and encourages you to map through even boring topics that seem cut-and-dry.
“Add a dash of color … and all of a sudden the notes come alive. They are unique, they are unusual, they are memorable and they are more interesting.”
More…

How color-coded notes make you a more efficient thinker:

Separating “branches” of your map by color stimulates the creative side of your brain, helps you visually separate and recall distinct themes of the stuff you’re working through, and encourages you to map through even boring topics that seem cut-and-dry.

“Add a dash of color … and all of a sudden the notes come alive. They are unique, they are unusual, they are memorable and they are more interesting.”

More…

“It fascinates me that older objects were so well-built, and were most likely put together by hand. These items were repaired when broken, not discarded like our devices of today.” —Photographer Todd McLellan tears apart objects to expose their hidden complexity.

The Smith-Corona typewriter from 1964 has 621 parts. The Swiss Army Knife? 38. 

More awesome examples here.

fastcodesign:

Only four days left to enter our INNOVATION BY DESIGN contest. Winners will be featured in the October design issue! 

“We want to give innovators and businesses a record of the year’s most intriguing design ideas—and a catalogue of designers to hire. And we want to celebrate those designers whose influence rarely goes appreciated on a large, mainstream platform.”

If you have friends who are designers, spread the word! Here’s how to enter.

This new ultra-simple deck of cards from designer Joe Doucet has simple geometric motifs for minimalists. But the back of each card is marked with a single diagonal line to ensure you don’t inadvertently show your hand.

Check them out

Fab.com, the fastest growing e-commerce site on the web, wants to develop original products, and is asking designers and students to submit their ideas. 

Despite Fab’s ongoing success as a third-party retailer, the company is looking to pivot once again, away from the flash sale model and toward developing Fab as a design brand. The ultimate goal, according to co-founder Bradford Shellhammer, is to become “the world’s alternative to Amazon and Wal-Mart.”

The competition will serve as a testing ground for Shellhammer’s ideas about co-creating products with designers. Want to submit your stuff? Have a look at some of Fab’s other previous products.

See What Your iPhone And Other Personal Effects Will Look Like “100 Years Later.”

A new project from Maico Akiba shows modern objects as you’ve never seen them before: the way our descendants will see them 100 years from now.

Read more here.