Design (Web)
Front-End Design Conference 2010
August 2, 2010
A couple of weeks ago, I attended the Front-End Design Conference in St. Petersburg, Florida. I had attended the inaugural conference last year and was looking forward to this year’s event. I won a free ticket to this year’s conference from Fuel Your Creativity blog. As part of the contest, I had to answer why […]
iPad and the future of the Web
April 2, 2010
Yesterday, I read the following from a Google group: MacWorld has an article, “Apple reveals its list of ‘iPad-ready’ Websites.” The article brought some interesting questions to mind: What do you all think about the difficulty of upgrading websites that use Flash, to a more iPad friendly HTML5 + CSS + Javascript? Does upgrading mean that […]
Design Something (Almost) Every Day
January 22, 2010
In December, I read Jad Limcaco’s article, Design Something Every Day. He points out the reality that every designer wants to get better at what he or she does. He suggests spending less time surfing and reading what other people have written and spend more time designing and creating new things. The challenge he laid […]
Blue Beanie Day
November 30, 2009
Today is International Blue Beanie Day. I’m showing my support for Web standards by adding a blue beanie to my avatar today. If you would like to add a beanie to your avatar, grab this Photoshop file created by Kevin Cornell. What are Web Standards This video is a very good introduction to the topic. Jeffrey […]
Web designer—n.
August 27, 2009
What is a Web designer? Good question. And depending on who you ask in the Web industry, you are bound to get a lot of different answers. So let me share what I mean when I call myself a Web designer. First and foremost, a Web designer is a problem solver. A client comes with […]
What is a Browser?
June 30, 2009
A very telling video about what the average person is thinking when they use the Web. I listened to an interesting discussion about this subject on Sitepoint’s podcast. I think the reason there is confusion about the difference between a browser and a search engine is the integration of search into the Web browser. Search […]
Great Designers <del>Steal</del> Practice
April 15, 2009
Last week, Cameron Moll posted Good Musicians Copy. It was a follow-up to a post he made several years ago, Good Designers Copy, Great Designers Steal. In that article, Cameron was: “…attempting to describe the idea of becoming a better designer by dissecting, analyzing, and ‘copying’ the works of other designers.” In his follow-up article, […]
That’s Clever
March 24, 2009
A talk from SXSW on the clever things designers put in their design to add pleasure to the experience. I listened to the audio but look forward to viewing the slides since this was a very visual presentation. I would like to think more about the ideas presented here. It goes on usability to adding […]
A Well-Done Critique
October 17, 2008
I also posted this on http://wearethelab.com A couple of week ago, I read Jared Spool’s article, What Goes into a Well-Done Critique. One of Jared’s observations is that teams that felt they go the most out of critiques were those that conducted them the most. Critiques have benefits for both the designer and those looking […]
ALA Survey for People Who Make Web sites
July 29, 2008
For the second year, A List Apart is calling all those who make Web sites to participate in a survey that gives us a better understanding of our profession. Nearly 33,000 participated in last year’s survey, including myself. If you are a designer, developer, project manager, writer or anyone else who helps make Web sites, […]
Web Design Best Practices Rap
May 22, 2008
This YouTube video features a rap about Web design best practices. I found this via The Rissington Podcast.
Important Skills for a Designer
May 2, 2008
Yesterday I read an article by John Dilsworth on NorthTemple. The article came about as John considered the question, “what is the one skill that can make the most positive impact in your profession?” John breaks down the work that designers are called to do into 3 categories understanding identifying crafting He goes on to […]
Design is in the Details
May 2, 2008
Here are some memorable points from Dan Rubin and Bryan Veloso’s talk, Design is in the Details from Webmaster Jam 2007, get MP3 of talk from RSS feed. I listened to this talk over my Christmas vacation. I listened to it again this morning. I had immediately applied several of the things they talked about […]
Learning the Fundamentals of Design
March 25, 2008
One of my interests of late has been to learn the fundamentals of design. I was really challenged by this after doing an all day seminar with Luke W at UI12 in November. Here are some of the resources that have been helpful to me: Site Seeing — Luke W’s book that covers much of the […]
A Week of Web in Boston
November 8, 2007
I have been attending the UI12 Conference in Boston this week. I have been looking forward to this since last May when I signed up. I had attended the conference 2 years ago and it was really good. I wish I had more time to process all that is being thrown at me. I would […]
Sundance Film Festival Site Design
October 11, 2007
I came across the Sundance Film Festival site from Cameron Moll’s Premium Linkage. I liked the design of the site. There are several elements that I found interesting: Right navigation on the secondary pages Overhanging graphic on that navigation bar that indicated “you are here” Colored drop down boxes of links on the horizontal navigation bar. […]
Homepage the least important page on your site?
September 7, 2007
Last week, I was listening to a podcast from UIE on Homepage design. Jared Spool pointed out that the homepage is the least important page on your site. He believes the content page is the most important because that is what the user is looking for. I see his wisdom in this. Jared also talked about […]
Embracing the Medium
August 21, 2007
Khoi Vinh wrote an article for print designers who want to get into Web design. I think he makes some good points about how designing for the Web is a different discipline than print design. He addresses one of my pet peeves of an over reliance on Flash that I have observed many print designers […]
Design vs. Art
June 21, 2007
Last week, Joshua Porter wrote a post, Design is not Art, Redux. Today he posted some of his favorites from the discussion to that article. I found both of these to be interesting reads. I agree with the distinctions that Josh is making between design and art. Design is trying to communicate to a specific […]
Web Design Styles
June 19, 2007
Larissa Meek explores 7 different styles seen on the Web in Web Design-isms: 7 Surefire Styles That Work. Along with each style, she gives examples from the world of art with links to artists that inspire. I thought her examples of minimalism were not as minimal as I would have expected. I have seen several […]
