5 ms·

I got through this entire article before I realized it was written by someone I worked with back in my agency days. Beth is an awesome designer with a great eye

by jscheel 6mo ago

I got through this entire article before I realized it was written by someone I worked with back in my agency days. Beth is an awesome designer with a great eye. Nice to see her on the front page here. Now, to the content: I often wonder how much we have lost with our endless quest for minimalism. We can't even make buttons look like buttons anymore. Affordances have become anemic at times. Designers who think and care deeply about functional color theory and usable design should be cherished.

roughly 6mo ago
I'm reminded of an article a while back talking about how the change from sodium streetlights to LED streetlights had a whole lot of unforeseen effects on animals, people's sleep patterns, driver awareness and visibility, etc. due to color changes. There was a comment on the article from an old civil engineer saying "no, these were not unforeseen, we actually did the research back in the day to figure out what color the street lights should be, that's why they were the color they were."
- linkjuice4all 6mo ago
  I think we've learned a couple of times that lighting placement, temperature, and shadow-casting are not ideal [0]. Also some of the newer lighting does actually fade to a different color [1] so it's not just the base temperature of the new lights. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight_tower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight_tower [1] https://sigostreetlight.com/blogs/common-quality-problems-in-led-street-lights-causes-and-practical-solutions/ https://sigostreetlight.com/blogs/common-quality-problems-in...
- cucumber3732842 6mo ago
  I'm sure tons of people along the way "noticed" but if you're selling LEDs or you're paid by the LED people to create marketing to convince people that LEDs are gonna save the planet, you're not gonna bring that up.
  - mikestorrent 6mo ago
    IDK if you've noticed but we are all lighting our house with bulbs that use 1/10th the amount of electricity as incandescents did. I like the color spectrum of a real lightbulb better, too, but not enough to pay 10x in power. I make up for it by using all kinds of random bulbs all over the place so that the aggregate light in the room fills more of the spectrum than if I coordinated them all to be the same.
    - throwaway27448 6mo ago
      How many life forms do we have to kill before cost savings aren't worth it? Besides, we can have LEDs in better spectrums for under 1/5th the costs of incandescents. We just hired stingy motherfuckers and don't care about the repercussions of our decisions.
      - duskdozer 6mo ago
        I question the cost/energy savings. Seems to me for the most part any efficiency gains are being spent on making everything 5x as bright and expansive.
    - cucumber3732842 6mo ago
      >but we are all lighting our house with bulbs that use 1/10th the amount of electricity as incandescents did. Yeah I know. I love it in my house. On the industrial side, sodium vs LED is a much closer comparison generally than LED vs incandescent. LEDs kinda suck for high bay applications.
    - aliher1911 6mo ago
      Did you try using high CRI LEDs with color remperature of 2700K–3000K? When I switched from halogen to LED I did just that and the difference is not noticeable, you'll have the same yellowish tint and very natural looking colours. Even with expensive bulbs, extra longevity covers for higher cost.
      - 6mo ago
- SyzygyRhythm 6mo ago
  > that's why they were the color they were That doesn't seem right to me. Sodium (and mercury) vapor lamps are the color they are due to physics, and were chosen because they're very efficient (and long lasting). Low-pressure sodium is the best and worst of these; essentially monochromatic but fantastic efficiency. Their only advantage, color-wise, is that the light can be filtered out easily (they used to be widely used in San Jose because Lick Observatory could filter out the 589 nm light).
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  - salawat 6mo ago
    ...And the old Engineer was just saying that that was the area on the spectrum they aimed for, so they found a light that emitted in that wavelength that could be technically implemented and scaled. Way better work than whoever it is handling this LED nonsense. Why we can't find a diode that we can use to simulate the old spectra would be a fun research project.
    - nine_k 6mo ago
      We of course can make LEDs of more or less any color. The current white LEDs are high-power blue LEDs that are covered by various phosphors to give a mix of colors for "full spectrum" illumination. Different color temperatures are produced by different mixes of phosphors. This is pretty similar to how the traditional luminescent (mercury vapor-based) lamps worked. But different phosphors have different efficiency and price. LED lamps were first introduced for interior lighting, where sun-like spectrum is welcome. Such LEDs were produced en masse and relatively cheaply. So street lighting naturally used them, because municipalities usually look for the cheapest viable option. We likely could produce high-power narrow-spectrum orange LEDs if there was a large market for the economies of scale to kick in. You can buy deep orange LED lamps today (look for color temperature 1800K or 1600K, "amber"), but they are more expensive, because they are niche.
      - josephg 6mo ago
- throwaway27448 6mo ago
  The posted article seems like credulous commentary, though.
- anthk 6mo ago
  I miss the aesthetics of the support for the street light themselves too. In Spain they used to be curved with a 'crown' shaped top, looking 'classical' and less hard for the brain as straight lines make the brain really tired. We are used to fractal and curved designs from nature, not to fake perspective points in every city full of straight lines. These could just reuse the current LED lamps by just redesigning the socket. Altough the materials should be changed as the old ones (I think they were ceramic and/or concrete?) could cause serious harms if they felt over random people walking around. And, yes, they can even break concrete pavement like nothing. I remember hearing a falling lamp+case near my home and upon falling to the sidewalk it sounded like a bomb, I am no kidding, even the floor vibrated and the windows nearly crashed. These things were really sturdy, either concrete or cement. I would love the same design but in magnesium, which can be lighter and maybe as durable, altough I know ceramic/concrete can withstand anything.
- justonceokay 6mo ago
  I wouldn’t change it for the world. I grew up in Minneapolis and moved to Seattle, so I went in a single night from sodium lights everywhere in a 500 mile radius to LED. It feels safer (subjective), more pleasant to perform tasks in, and less depressing. I should note I care 0% what the animals think of the whole affair. This is especially important at high latitudes where for months of the year the street lights provide more illumination than the sun for most working people.
- drzaiusx11 6mo ago
  Another effect observed with LED street lights, especially in my area, is that many have shifted from white light to purple as a widespread manufacturing flaw causes their phosphor coating to fail. The purple lights evoke a vaporwave/synthwave aesthetic like I'm in a bad 80s scifi movie. Unintentionally appropriate given the general state of things.
prox 6mo ago
[dead]
ErroneousBosh 6mo ago
This could do with a little better colour design, but let me just give you this to look at: https://gjcp.net/plugins/peacock/ https://gjcp.net/plugins/peacock/ Yeah. Skeuomorphism isn't dead. Buttons need to look like buttons. Sliders need to look like sliders. You just know looking at it that when you click on the little buttons, they pop in slightly as the LEDs go on and off, right? Does it look cheesy and 80s and dated? Yeah it sounds cheesy and 80s and dated too.
FpUser 6mo ago
Modern designers do not give rat's ass about ergonomics and functionality. Their ultimate design is an empty screen with some light gray color on white text and inability to distinguish between active (can interact with) and info elements
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
cade 6mo ago
Ha. I didn't realize until I checked the comments that I worked with Beth in Nashville too! Not sure what that says about how I consume content these days... but she's delightful. Two of my favorite classes in college were Color Studies and Typography. As a long time back end engineer, I would encourage anyone unfamiliar to spend at least a little bit of time looking into both. If you're at all intrigued, treat yourself to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_Style https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_St.... It will forever change how you look at text (hopefully for the better!).
- sph 6mo ago
  Great book. I'm a great believer in leaving books behind for other people to enjoy. I left this one when I moved out of my previous flat, and I regret it every day.

by jscheel 6mo ago

roughly 6mo ago

I'm reminded of an article a while back talking about how the change from sodium streetlights to LED streetlights had a whole lot of unforeseen effects on animals, people's sleep patterns, driver awareness and visibility, etc. due to color changes. There was a comment on the article from an old civil engineer saying "no, these were not unforeseen, we actually did the research back in the day to figure out what color the street lights should be, that's why they were the color they were."

linkjuice4all 6mo ago
I think we've learned a couple of times that lighting placement, temperature, and shadow-casting are not ideal [0]. Also some of the newer lighting does actually fade to a different color [1] so it's not just the base temperature of the new lights. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight_tower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight_tower [1] https://sigostreetlight.com/blogs/common-quality-problems-in-led-street-lights-causes-and-practical-solutions/ https://sigostreetlight.com/blogs/common-quality-problems-in...
cucumber3732842 6mo ago
I'm sure tons of people along the way "noticed" but if you're selling LEDs or you're paid by the LED people to create marketing to convince people that LEDs are gonna save the planet, you're not gonna bring that up.
- mikestorrent 6mo ago
  IDK if you've noticed but we are all lighting our house with bulbs that use 1/10th the amount of electricity as incandescents did. I like the color spectrum of a real lightbulb better, too, but not enough to pay 10x in power. I make up for it by using all kinds of random bulbs all over the place so that the aggregate light in the room fills more of the spectrum than if I coordinated them all to be the same.
  - throwaway27448 6mo ago
    How many life forms do we have to kill before cost savings aren't worth it? Besides, we can have LEDs in better spectrums for under 1/5th the costs of incandescents. We just hired stingy motherfuckers and don't care about the repercussions of our decisions.
    - duskdozer 6mo ago
      I question the cost/energy savings. Seems to me for the most part any efficiency gains are being spent on making everything 5x as bright and expansive.
  - cucumber3732842 6mo ago
    >but we are all lighting our house with bulbs that use 1/10th the amount of electricity as incandescents did. Yeah I know. I love it in my house. On the industrial side, sodium vs LED is a much closer comparison generally than LED vs incandescent. LEDs kinda suck for high bay applications.
  - aliher1911 6mo ago
    Did you try using high CRI LEDs with color remperature of 2700K–3000K? When I switched from halogen to LED I did just that and the difference is not noticeable, you'll have the same yellowish tint and very natural looking colours. Even with expensive bulbs, extra longevity covers for higher cost.
    - 6mo ago
SyzygyRhythm 6mo ago
> that's why they were the color they were That doesn't seem right to me. Sodium (and mercury) vapor lamps are the color they are due to physics, and were chosen because they're very efficient (and long lasting). Low-pressure sodium is the best and worst of these; essentially monochromatic but fantastic efficiency. Their only advantage, color-wise, is that the light can be filtered out easily (they used to be widely used in San Jose because Lick Observatory could filter out the 589 nm light).
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- salawat 6mo ago
  ...And the old Engineer was just saying that that was the area on the spectrum they aimed for, so they found a light that emitted in that wavelength that could be technically implemented and scaled. Way better work than whoever it is handling this LED nonsense. Why we can't find a diode that we can use to simulate the old spectra would be a fun research project.
  - nine_k 6mo ago
    We of course can make LEDs of more or less any color. The current white LEDs are high-power blue LEDs that are covered by various phosphors to give a mix of colors for "full spectrum" illumination. Different color temperatures are produced by different mixes of phosphors. This is pretty similar to how the traditional luminescent (mercury vapor-based) lamps worked. But different phosphors have different efficiency and price. LED lamps were first introduced for interior lighting, where sun-like spectrum is welcome. Such LEDs were produced en masse and relatively cheaply. So street lighting naturally used them, because municipalities usually look for the cheapest viable option. We likely could produce high-power narrow-spectrum orange LEDs if there was a large market for the economies of scale to kick in. You can buy deep orange LED lamps today (look for color temperature 1800K or 1600K, "amber"), but they are more expensive, because they are niche.
    - josephg 6mo ago
throwaway27448 6mo ago
The posted article seems like credulous commentary, though.
anthk 6mo ago
I miss the aesthetics of the support for the street light themselves too. In Spain they used to be curved with a 'crown' shaped top, looking 'classical' and less hard for the brain as straight lines make the brain really tired. We are used to fractal and curved designs from nature, not to fake perspective points in every city full of straight lines. These could just reuse the current LED lamps by just redesigning the socket. Altough the materials should be changed as the old ones (I think they were ceramic and/or concrete?) could cause serious harms if they felt over random people walking around. And, yes, they can even break concrete pavement like nothing. I remember hearing a falling lamp+case near my home and upon falling to the sidewalk it sounded like a bomb, I am no kidding, even the floor vibrated and the windows nearly crashed. These things were really sturdy, either concrete or cement. I would love the same design but in magnesium, which can be lighter and maybe as durable, altough I know ceramic/concrete can withstand anything.
justonceokay 6mo ago
I wouldn’t change it for the world. I grew up in Minneapolis and moved to Seattle, so I went in a single night from sodium lights everywhere in a 500 mile radius to LED. It feels safer (subjective), more pleasant to perform tasks in, and less depressing. I should note I care 0% what the animals think of the whole affair. This is especially important at high latitudes where for months of the year the street lights provide more illumination than the sun for most working people.
drzaiusx11 6mo ago
Another effect observed with LED street lights, especially in my area, is that many have shifted from white light to purple as a widespread manufacturing flaw causes their phosphor coating to fail. The purple lights evoke a vaporwave/synthwave aesthetic like I'm in a bad 80s scifi movie. Unintentionally appropriate given the general state of things.

prox 6mo ago

[dead]

ErroneousBosh 6mo ago

This could do with a little better colour design, but let me just give you this to look at: https://gjcp.net/plugins/peacock/ https://gjcp.net/plugins/peacock/ Yeah. Skeuomorphism isn't dead. Buttons need to look like buttons. Sliders need to look like sliders. You just know looking at it that when you click on the little buttons, they pop in slightly as the LEDs go on and off, right? Does it look cheesy and 80s and dated? Yeah it sounds cheesy and 80s and dated too.

FpUser 6mo ago

Modern designers do not give rat's ass about ergonomics and functionality. Their ultimate design is an empty screen with some light gray color on white text and inability to distinguish between active (can interact with) and info elements

deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]

cade 6mo ago

Ha. I didn't realize until I checked the comments that I worked with Beth in Nashville too! Not sure what that says about how I consume content these days... but she's delightful. Two of my favorite classes in college were Color Studies and Typography. As a long time back end engineer, I would encourage anyone unfamiliar to spend at least a little bit of time looking into both. If you're at all intrigued, treat yourself to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_Style https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_St.... It will forever change how you look at text (hopefully for the better!).

sph 6mo ago
Great book. I'm a great believer in leaving books behind for other people to enjoy. I left this one when I moved out of my previous flat, and I regret it every day.