Arizona in black & white

Bridging the theory/practice gap: A visual exploration

May 25, 2016

Theoretically there should a reciprocal relationship between Theory and Practice - but it is the gap that every academic bemoans. This posting is prompted not by any particular insight into these matters but rather to share a set of visuals (ambigrams, memes,...

GeoGreeting!

Oct 1, 2008

I often do an assignment with my students where they go looking for letterforms in nature. Leigh Wolf just sent me this link to GeoGreeting.com which takes the same idea - but conceptualizes it on a global scale. Check out this example.

On embodiment in online learning

Jul 28, 2008

Patrick Dickson just forwarded me an essay from the Chronicle of Higher Education, titled The Sensuous Classroom: Focusing on the Embodiment of Learning [Subscription required]. In this article Suzanne Kelly, the author, bemoans the absence of the physical body from...

A boy and his windmill

Oct 8, 2009

The Daily Show featured William Kamkwamba, a Malawian high school student who built a windmill by looking at pictures in a book! I have always been a fan of jugaad, the idea of indigenous creativity using the detritus that seems to be a function of our modern world....

Children & anthropomorphic toys

Mar 30, 2008

Andrea Francis and I recently presented a paper at AERA titled "Differences in children's verbal responses and behavioral interactions with anthropomorphic toys." The abstract is as follows: Interactive toys for children are becoming more popular for both play and...

Wikipedia minor fail

Jan 2, 2010

I recently received the following email: Sir, I was reading the article in Wikipedia on 'Samarangana Sutradhara' (King Bhoja's treatise on Architecture). I was of the impression that there is no translation of the work in English. Though the article says that there is...

My Illusions on the web

Feb 15, 2013

There are a couple of websites that feature work done by me. I had written earlier about Brad Honeycutt's website An Optical Illusion at (http://www.anopticalillusion.com/). He now features four different ambigrams created by me: You can find them on this page on his...

Reading Obama, and getting it right!

Mar 12, 2010

I rarely if ever blog about politics - though I follow it avidly. I spend large parts of my day reading the news, keeping up with what is going on. Most of my news gathering happens online (the little TV I watch, usually the Daily Show, also happens online). And it is...

New ambigram book, with 3 of my designs

Apr 3, 2013

Ambigrams Revealed: A Graphic Designer's Guide To Creating Typographic Art Using Optical Illusions, Symmetry, and Visual Perception is a new book edited by Nikita Prokhorov. The book showcases the works of ambigram artists from around the world. It includes...