Saturday, April 26, 2008

Pencils Before Pixels

"Drawings and sketches can be powerful and persuasive representations of ideas, events, sequences, systems and objects. As part of a larger collaborative design process, hand drawing can serve as a key method for thinking, reasoning and exploring opportunities, yet inherently differs from wire-frames and conceptual models. Innately, interaction designers employ a variety of methods for representing ideas and information, both internally in a cognitive sense, and externally in the devices we employ to record, share and reflect. However, competency in sketching and drawing by hand seems to be diminishing across design disciplines making it a more highly desired skill in contemporary design practice. In addition, there seems to be an apparent phenomenon of fear when it comes to drawing ideas. For many practicing designers, they have convinced themselves that they can’t draw and thus position themselves to the periphery in concept generation…"

Read more about this article.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Sitting and stinking

Ok, so I take showers once a day like most people. He is something I am having a hard time figuring out..

I work as a Sr Designer... Most days, I spend my time sitting at a computer (Or, in a meeting). Now how is it possible that for the most part around 5:30, I realize I start to stink just as much if I would have been outside playing Soccer?

Anyone care to comment on this?

Amazing!

Check out this Rahzel Beatboxing short documentary. I have always had a ton of respect for this guy.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Helvetica Neue Descending a t-shirt

Show the world you know your type. Helvetica Neue explained for the layman.

In weights descending from Ultra Black 95 to Ultra Light 25, Max Miedinger's redesign of his own 1957 classic has never been so fashionable.

Progresswear
is proud to share our love of the art of typography with our new line of t-shirts for designers.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Typography Friday + Tim Robbins

A few good links:

Of course, it's Typography Friday!

The ten best min of Tim Robbins speech; I found it pretty interesting.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

You Suck at Photoshop

You Suck At Photoshop has been nominated for TWO different Webbies! Both Best Comedy Series and Best How To Series! It's really funny; check it out.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Random Photos

Ok, so I finally shot some new photos. It's been awhile; too much going on. Enjoy.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Bike accident + FontStruct + Spin

I was biking home from through the West End. I ran over some railroad tracks and well, that's about the last thing I remember. Thank God I wear a helmet.

I forget who sent me this site, but it's really cool. The idea of making your own fonts and sharing them on the web. Check it out.

Other than that, not too much going on.. Lot's of work, and trying to stop the "Spin". Kenny Bunch knows whats up!

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Are you right-brained or left-brained?

To know what side of your brain is more dominant, just look at the moving picture. If you see her going clockwise, then you are using the creative side of your brain which is the right. If she moves counter-clockwise, then the logical part of your brain is working, which is the left side.

Check it out.

Wear your helmet!

"One major concern of the report is to prevent accidents and injuries. More than 1000 people die each year from bicycle-related injuries--75 percent as a result of head injury. Nearly half of these deaths occur among children. The most common cause of sports or recreational injury in the United States is bicycling."

Interesting article I ran across.

Friday, April 04, 2008

Design + coding rap video

The Poetic Prophet (AKA The SEO Rapper) is back with another marketing rap.

This time he describes how web standards and proper design can affect the ranking and conversion of pages on your site.

Lyrics:
Your site design is the first thing people see
it should be reflective of you and the industry
easy to look at with a nice navigation
when you can't find what you want it causes frustration
a clear Call to action to increase the temptation
use appealing graphics they create motivation
if you have animation
use with moderation
cause search engines can't index the information
display the logos of all your associations
highlight your contact info that's an obligation
create a clean design you can use some decoration
but to try to prevent any client hesitation
every page that they click should provide and explanation
should be easy to understand like having a conversation
when you design the style go ahead and use your imagination
but make sure you use correct color combinations
do some investigation, look at other organizations
but don't duplicate or you might face a litigation
design done, congratulations but it's time to start construction
follow these instructions when you move into production
your photoshop functions then slice that design
do your layout with divs make sure that it's aligned
please don't use tables even though they work fine
when it come to indexing they give searches a hard time
make it easy for the spiders to crawl what you provide
remove font type, font color and font size
no background colors, keep your coding real neat,
tag your look and feel on a separate style sheet
better results with xml and css
now you making progress, a lil closer to success
describe your doctype so the browser can relate
make sure you do it great or it won't validate
check in all browsers, I do it directly
gotta make sure that it renders correctly
some use IE, some others use Flock
some use AOL, I use Firefox
title everything including links and images
don't use italics, use emphasis
don't use bold, please use strong
if you use bold that's old and wrong
when you use CSS, you page will load quicker
client satisfied like they eating on a snicker
they stuck on your page like you made it with a sticker
and then they convert now that's the real kicker
make you a lil richer, your site a lil slicker
design and code right man I hope you get the picture
what I'm telling you is true man it should be a scripture
if it's built right you'll be the pick of the litter
everyone will want to follow you like twitter
competition will get bitter and you'll shine like glitter
if you trying to grow your company will get bigger
design and code right man can you get with it

Comp Fight, a flickr search tool

Pretty cool, check it out.