Chris Johanesen is a graphic designer who specializes in creating clean, elegant, user-pleasing designs for information-rich websites & applications.

This is a weblog filled with random stuff. If you’re looking for something in particular check out the footer. Eventually there will be some of my work here to look at, but for now check out BuzzFeed if you want to know what I do all day.

Archive for December, 2005

• Better food labeling on it’s way?

  It looks like the FDA is going to be making some changes to the nutrition information on our food packaging. I hope they have some good information designers working on this. Is it too obvious to suggest Deborah Adler? While they’re at it, would it be so hard to explicitly label products that have meat or […]

  Posted on Friday, December 30th, 2005 in Design | Comments Off

• More about newspaper sites

  Kirk McElhearn muses on why newspaper website are so bad. While he is talking about usability more than visual design he has a very good point about the browsability of newspaper sites: Leafing through a paper newspaper, one sees headlines on each page, and may end up reading stories that would not be likely to show up […]

  Posted on Wednesday, December 28th, 2005 in Design | 1 Comment

• Strike!

  It’s sickening how the MTA, the Mayor, and the Governor are trying to pit New Yorkers against the transit workers, and how many New Yorkers are falling for it—at least as reported by mainstream media outlets like in this horribly biased AP article. I keep reading interviews with New Yorkers saying how the transit workers have […]

  Posted on Tuesday, December 20th, 2005 in Experience | 4 Comments

• Bad news (websites)

  In doing some research for a site I’m working on I’ve been looking closely at a lot of newspaper and magazine websites. While I’ve seen most of them before, and always felt they were poorly designed, I’ve been newly astounded by how bad they look and why. Check out: The New York Times, The Washington Post, […]

  Posted on Monday, December 12th, 2005 in Design | 2 Comments

• There is no god

  Wow. The most concise, profound thing I’ve read about religion, and from Penn Jillette no less. He sums up my thoughts perfectly. “Believing there is no God means the suffering I’ve seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn’t caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn’t bothered to help […]

  Posted on Thursday, December 8th, 2005 in Experience | Comments Off

• Random stuff

  Rick Valicenti is speaking this Wednesday, and you don’t want to miss it. No you don’t. Speaking of things you don’t want to miss, AIGA NY Holiday Sale is this Sunday. It’s time to start your holiday shopping. Boxes-and-Arrows is giving some editorial control to it’s users. Sounds like a great idea to me. Pitchfork has long interview […]

  Posted on Monday, December 5th, 2005 in Design, Inspiration, Experience | Comments Off

• For immediate release

  It comes as no surprise that CyberMonday was thought up by the online retail industry. After all, people have been using advertising to manipulate, capitalize on, and sometimes completely construct cultural phenomenon so they can sell us more crap. (The diamond engagement ring is probably one of the most widespread examples.) What depresses me […]

  Posted on Saturday, December 3rd, 2005 in Experience | Comments Off

• Problem solving

  A few weeks ago AIGA NY had both Joshua Davis and Lorraine Wild speaking at two events in the same week. Seeing them back-to-back was fascinating. In many ways these two designers couldn’t be more different. The core of Joshua Davis’ style rests on his illustrations—everything for him starts with the illustrations he makes. The way […]

  Posted on Thursday, December 1st, 2005 in Design | Comments Off