Sonia Zjawinski from Wired posted a photo gallery called How Google Got Its Colorful Logo. It provides an interesting peak into some of the ideas that graphic designer Ruth Kedar bounced off Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page while designing Google's now famous logo.

It won’t be long before you can do things like draw the telephone of your dreams and have it work, and I was schooled on the concept of going from hand drawn design to working model with a minimum of cleanup (and apparently it’s still going on).

It’s one thing to hang out in 3D and play with toy physics, but the 2D Crayon Physics Deluxe is the coolest thing I’ve seen all week.

(I’m sure this one has already been dugg, but I just saw it thanks to David Sibbet.)

Ridgemont Typologies by Mark Luthringer.

Like Exactitudes for design and architecture.

Courtesy of Gary Peare, who points out that we used to work at Row 1, Column 3.

This is a copy of the letter that I sent to webmaster@labcorp.com this morning regarding my experience with the Laboratory Corporation of America (LabCorp) web site. LabCorp is a huge company that does medical testing and my doctor sent me there for some routine tests for my physical.

Hello,
I've never written a rant letter like this to a big corporation but this morning I couldn't help it. LabCorp doesn't seem to want consumers to use their web site. I set out this morning with what I imagined to be a fairly simple task: "Find the hours of the LabCorp at 2850 Telegraph in Berkeley, California". Here are some of the steps that I took and what I ran into:

1. Google "LabCorp 2850 Telegraph" (This will be faster than calling them.)
I get nothing for labcorp.com in the first 10 pages of results only, business directory listings without the hours.

2. Google "LabCorp"
The top result is a page titled "Welcome to Laboratory Corporation of America". I guess that is "LabCorp", so I click on it.

3. Welcome to "Welcome to LabCorp"
I am greeted by a big picture of an angry looking man with his arms crossed, but it says "Welcome to LabCorp" so I know I'm in the right place. The blurb on the home page tells me a bunch of information about how big and awesome LabCorp is, with $3.6 billion in revenues, 25,000 employees, 370,000 specimens daily, the NYSE ticker, etc. Wow, LabCorp is a big impressive corporation!

4. Where do I click for locations?
The two big buttons in the middle of the page say "For the New York area www.chooseLabCorp.com" (OK, that's not me, I'm in California) and the other says "Physicians click here to set up a LabCorp Account or call 1-888-LABCORP" (OK, that's not me either).

5. Let's glance at the navigation.
Ugh, there's tons of navigation links with long names and the font is really small, so I start reading down the left bar. "Home"? Nope I'm already on the home page. "About..."? No, I already know they get "370,000 specimens daily". "Corporate Governance"? Huh? "Centers of Excellence"? Excellent, That could be it! Ut oh, a sub menu popped out, what do I pick here, "Center for Esoteric Testing", "Center for Molecular Biology and Pathology", "DIANON Systems", "Esoterix"? Ah, "US LABS", I'm in the United States and I need to find a lab, perfect!

6. "US LABS is an esoteric anatomic pathology laboratory providing critical cancer screening, diagnosis, prognosis and genetic analysis."
WTF? All of the navigation is gone and I'm anchored to the middle of a page that seems to list a bunch of companies that LabCorp owns or something, so I click the back button.

7. O.K., the navigation is insane... Let's use the search box.
I search for "2850 Telegraph", no results, "telegraph", no results, "Berkeley" (I know there are like five LabCorp locations in Berkeley), still no results. I think perhaps search doesn't work at all, so I search for "lab". The top result is a link to the 2000 Annual Report. I am mildly interested to find out if they had "370,000 specimens daily" back then but now I'm starting to get distracted. I also want to add that the most noticeable thing on the search result page is a button to download Adobe's Acrobat Reader software. It's almost as big as their logo.

8. Calm down Mark, you've been building web pages for over twelve years, you CAN figure this site out!
Yeh, how did I miss that small, purple tab on a purple background along the top edge of the page labeled with two lines of tiny text that says "Patient Service Center Locator"? I click it and see a Star Trek version of the LabCorp logo and a bunch of text. Now what? There's a big button that says "Back" (which is great because I've gotten tired of using my web browser's normal "Back" button while shuffling around this information architecture train wreck). Wait, I see a "click here" link, I'm going for it!

9. Cool, this page uses frames, a very hip, 1997, retro aesthetic touch!
I think I made it! After scrolling down past four paragraphs of text that use new and exciting type faces that I haven't seen yet on other parts of the site, I find the elusive locator form. There is a paragraph about health plans with a yes/no field (which I ignore), two sets of radio buttons for various options (some of which have footnotes in red text, but I still ignore them) and four fields for address information. I'm not taking any chances with my address so I enter the address of the LabCorp location "2850 Telegraph" and type in "Berkeley" for the city and click the "Find PSC" button (because "Reset" didn't seem like the right button).

10. Alright, a bunch of MapQuest branded maps!

• Berkeley (Alameda County) CA (US)
• Berkeley (Saint Louis County) MO (US)
• Berkeley (Cook County) IL (US)
• Berkeley (Providence County) RI (US)
• Berkeley (Berkeley County) WV (US)
• Berkeley (Hernando County) FL (US)
• Berkeley (Ocean County) NJ (US)
• Berkeley (Albemarle County) VA (US)
• Berkeley (Charles City County) VA (US)
• Berkeley (Pierce County) WA (US)

I click on the first one and get a page of 14 more MapQuest maps. The one I'm looking for is the second one on the list. Yeh, they open at 8:00 AM today. I probably should have just started at MapQuest.

Basically, LabCorp's web presence seems to be a horrific example of a corporate web site that has been designed by committee and cobbled together over the years to satisfy the whims of various competing stakeholders with the inward-looking, pomp and circumstance of stock photography, investor annual reports, and no focus on simple business objectives (like getting customers to lab locations).

One more (slightly more geeky and obscure) note about LabCorp's site; the company has a page stating that they are "committed to implementing the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA)". This an important law that deals with privacy issues and I'm glad that LabCorp is paying attention to it but they might also want to take a look into sections of the Americans with Disabilities Act. With its frames, weird pop out navigation menus, and graphical buttons without text alternatives, the site would be nearly impossible to use for people with impaired vision. To get a quick idea of what their experience would be like, turn off images in your web browser and visit the LabCorp home page.

I doubt that my long-winded, unfriendly rant will win any business for my employer (Clear Ink - a 40 person web marketing firm in Berkeley), but I thought it might be helpful to share. I posted this letter on my company blog about internet marketing if you want to post back any comments publicly. <http://clearnightsky.com/node/335>

Thanks for taking the time to read my rambling rant.

-- Mark Celsor

LabCorp also has some strange regulations about linking to them. I'll disregard them, because I imagine Yahoo and Google probably did as well.

In an environment where architecture is more like a liquid than an artifact, everything seems to be a work in progress. This constant state of metamorphosis is a distinct advantage (and challenge) of building in a virtual world, where the architectural palette is able to shift and change as quickly as its context and programmatic agenda unfold.

As we watch Clear Ink Island evolve, I think there is value in documenting and characterizing its current state of architectural affairs as it emerges. My hope is that the buildings and spaces we create there will serve as a foundation upon which to continue expanding our virtual worlds practice, as well as the community we are designing it to encourage and sustain.

As a matter of background, the most ubiquitous criteria the Clear Ink team kept returning to was the development of a sense of community on the island, which remained a core tenet of whatever would be built on the island. Likewise, comfortable, easily navigable spaces, as well as the inclusion of the ‘SL Spirit’ in anything we build were also key ingredients.

By searching images symbolizing the architecture of community, it became clear that, insofar as an architectural relationship with the term was concerned, the most common denominator was the creation of space. Features such as courtyards, town centers, and central gathering spaces were clearly the stuff community is made of.

So, the new installation on Clear Ink Island would feature a town center or courtyard, but what should the surrounding architecture look like?

My avatar friend and Fine Artist Dancoyote Antonelli brought it to my attention that virtual architecture is interface, a thought that has continued to pervade and influence my approach to virtual design. Clear Ink Island is certainly a manifestation of that influence. With no gravity, and no elements to protect from, why depend exclusively on replication of real life architecture – which is derived from an entirely different set of functional requirements? How do we define spaces while retaining clear way finding strategies without resorting to exclusively real-world replication and enclosure?

It is important to remember that people are trained at an early age to understand and organize the world around them through certain visual cues – both learned and innate. Even though we are technically free to design without the restriction of physical limitations, the process of creating effective and easily navigable spaces in a virtual environment requires that we draw upon these basic visual cues in order to organize the architecture into easily recognizable patterns. This process forces a return to the fundamental principles of architectural design. Basic elements, such as hierarchy, proportion, rhythm, scale and layering are as important as ever in shaping quality virtual environments with lasting value.

Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion is a fine example of a restrained, yet expressive precedent of what can be achieved through the utilization of the most fundamental, almost reductivist palette of architectural strategies; highly appropriate for a virtual environment. This precedent was appropriate for Clear Ink’s architectural elements for many reasons, not the least of which was its effectiveness in shaping both indoor and outdoor spaces through the use of point and plane in a primarily open air environment. The elegant simplicity and freedom of shaping space through such minimal intervention seemed an appropriate, albeit prim-efficient means of fulfilling our functional program requirements, while at the same time avoiding restriction of camera movement and the claustrophobia of tightly enclosed spaces.

The potential of incorporating both motion and sound was manifest through the pools and cascading waterfalls intersecting the build. Waterways pass directly under the pavilions, where they join the pre-determined context of the infinite ocean surrounding the sim boundary. With gulls flying overhead, sharks threatening swimmers near the beach, coins in the courtyard pools and other hidden surprises, we hope to preserve and foster the spontaneity and personality of the ‘SL Spirit.’

As for community development, the courtyards and shared common spaces are intended only as an aperture. It is our intention to continue building upon Clear Ink’s invited guest series and events, opening these discussions to the public on a regular basis. To kick off the new year, and to test drive our new installation, we will be welcoming Lys Ware (formerly Henrik Linden) to discuss what it really means to build a virtual community on January 9th, 7pm SL. Stay tuned for details, and background information on Lys and other invited guests.

In sum, by inviting the dimension of time into the equation of architecture in a virtual environment, I believe we gain a more accurate perception of its true character. If Clear Ink Island remains static, its community will be equally so. I think it’s important that we continuously revisit and revise our goals for the island as our agenda evolves, and allow the architecture to shift shape accordingly. After all, architecture really is interface – the common boundary. There is nothing static about Clear Ink’s virtual worlds initiative, our interface can be equally intense.