At Normal Modes, we love things with thoughtful, useful design. So when we came upon this video from 1970 detailing how Eames chairs were designed and fabricated, we were captivated.

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I’ll admit my reluctance to attend meetings was once a hindrance on my Corporate America career. Even worse, I had the audacity to grouse when the meetings I actually attended ran unnecessarily longer than the scheduled a hour.

Remember the NPR piece, “This I believe“? This I believe Corporate America Edition: meetings should only be scheduled as an absolute last resort and should never run longer than 30 minutes. If you’re not abiding by that rule, then you’re just not working. Period. End of discussion.

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Is a knock off or “inspired by” piece the same as the real deal? Not always. Bad Design Within Reach looks at Design Within Reach’s bad remakes.

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Virtually every Phase 1 of our projects includes building out wireframes that take into consideration a competitive analysis and design pattern exploration, which culminates in wireframes. Earlier in 2009, we adopted Balsamiq as our wireframing tool of choice in part because the product produces wonderful low-fidelity, computer-based wireframes that have a “sketchy” feel, which reinforces the flexibility of this phase of the design process. We love wireframing because it allows us to nail down functionality and interaction before we get the visual design phase of the project, which is the phase where clients generally have the most feedback and/or changes. By nailing down functionality (or gently tacking it down – structured flexibility) we can easily make aesthetic changes without disregarding user best practices and expectations. Our clients universally love our computer-based sketchy wireframes and comment on them frequently.

If you’re new to wireframes, Boxes and Arrows just published “Sketchy Wireframes: When you can’t (or shouldn’t) draw a straight line” which includes a review of the popular wireframing products on the market.

(One last note: we LOVE Balsamiq and recommend it to everyone who asks.)

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And finally, if you’re going to be in Houston Tuesday, Decemeber 22, 2009, WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg will be speaking at the Westchase Technology Center, 7850 Parkwood Circle Dr. Ste. B3. Matt will be presenting on the state-of-the Web, status of WordPress and other Automattic endeavors. The event is being sponsored by PopLabs.