The story behind draft.
Everybody says they want better design, but very few people can do anything about it. Sometimes companies have the wrong overall direction, and you're the canary in the proverbial mine. Sometimes everyone claims to be on the same page, but they don't know how to go about it. We put together draft as the first step of addressing these problems.
Design is how it works. Ultimately, good design is incremental, a sea change in our attitudes. Well-designed solutions come in unexpected ways, as inventive solutions to complex problems. Today our world mandates a change in design thinking, as more and more problems are ideally solved through good design.
Nick Disabato is an interaction designer who founded draft in the hopes of teaching good design in many small ways to many interested people. Nick has five years of experience under his belt and a master's degree in human-computer interaction from UNC-Chapel Hill. In past lives, Nick has worked for VSA Partners, Groupon, and Emmis Interactive. He enjoys really good beer, in-depth conversations, and long walks on the beach.
If you're interested in draft's work, perhaps you'd like to read Cadence & Slang. A style guide for useful and beautiful interactions, Cadence & Slang is the cookbook for what we do here. It comes out at the end of 2010. Pre-order a copy today for $40.
Where is draft?
Logan Square in Chicago, IL, the best city in the world. While we don't do any in-person business outside of the city proper, we're comfortable working with you remotely.
Some examples of drafts.
We occasionally review the usability of various sites and products over at I see what you did there. Right now we don't have any drafts available for publication, but if you want, and we'll fire off some of our recent work.
Some testimonials.
Nick is forward thinking and ahead of the curve, and he takes others along for the ride. His knowledge, talents and personality are of great value, if not priceless.
— Brian Leli, Designer, Emmis Interactive
Nick's independent thinking and personal drive have refined our system and improved our workflow, and I believe his abilities will be of great service to any organization.
— Phill Lyons, Associate Director of Finance, MEASURE Evaluation
Some sites we like.
- useit.com
- A List Apart
- The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web
- Signal vs. Noise
- but does it float
- The Morning News
- The Setup
- Rands in Repose
Recommended reading.
- Edward Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
- Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style
- Steve Krug, Don't Make Me Think
- Jennifer Tidwell, Designing Interfaces
- Alan Cooper, About Face
- Kim Goodwin, Designing for the Digital Age
- Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language
- Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities
- Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture
Legal jargon.
Unless otherwise noted, everything related to draft is licensed by Nick Disabato under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. This means you can repurpose anything on this site for your own uses, but you have to give us credit and you can't make money off of it.
If you have any further questions about what this all means, and we can talk about it. We're very reasonable with what's used, but we would rather know first.
"We?"
The royal we, man! You know, the editorial...