Ask any good designer, an obsession with perfection and getting something right visually allows for the best results. Ask any good great developer, an obsession with efficient, clean code leads to applications that run faster using less processing power with less bugs.

Make the last 10% of something the best 10%. If something isn’t right, rip it out and redo it. And then redo it again. Obsess with the details, the completion, the experience; all of it. If you don’t think you have something to obsess about, create something; or just stop reading my blog. I hope to only preach to the converted, it makes things much easier on me.

Personally, I’m completely obsessed with building a fence. What does that have to do with the internet or design? Nothing. I really just wanted to post that picture of me working on a fence in the dark – if that’s not obsession, I don’t know what is. And guess what, I re-dug several post holes, re-screwed several 2X4s, and re-cut several boards. All in the name of obsessing over the details. Getting them right gives your work longevity, for every detail you leave behind, it’s a detail you will regret.

I’m a huge advocator for the occasional movie day. They provide a chance to be inspired by stories you’ve seen before and new stories that may encourage a different perspective. They cause you to slow down. And, they clear your head of all the other things in life.  My Saturday went like this, woke up to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, then Lethal Weapon, then Avatar (at the theater), then Good Will Hunting when I got home. All very different movies. I’m going to talk about two.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a movie that came out while I was in high school and I don’t think I truly appreciated its brilliance until this last go around. In fact, I don’t think I ever made it through the full movie before. The gross irreverence for the American Dream is entertaining as hell for those of us turned off by certain aspects of American Culture. Too many good scenes in this movie to name and two of my favorite actors in Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro. I carry around Del Toro’s autograph in my wallet from a random run in at a Blazers game. He was not full of fear and loathing, he was just nice.

Avatar however, was a whole different kind of brilliance. It’s may be once in a decade that a movie comes out like this one. It’s easy to pull themes of the movie from everything else that’s been done – and James Cameron was definitely playing with fire with the themes in Avatar. Besides a few cliche moments, he did a damn fine job – it could have been a trainwreck. Visually it’s completely stunning – this is where it changes the game. I had the chance to see it in 3D and would recommend it to anyone. The line that stood out to me was, “they killed their mother.” A stinging statement, but really, compared to the Navi of Pandora, we have lost our connection with our planet. Go see it.

Movie days inspire. They cause you to slow down. They clear your head. Do not feel guilty from a movie day, embrace it. Oh, and go see Avatar in 3D, it’s amazing.

a roof over my head and sneakers on my feet.

When I first entered the working world, I got a piece of advice that stuck with me and I often quote, “You either do what you love regardless of the pay, or you do a job you may not like that affords you the ability to do what you love outside of work.” While I would like to tell everyone to do the former, just like in 8th grade, not everybody can be Michael Jordan. Most people are forced into the latter and it takes either high-tolerance to cope or a lot of drive to get into doing something you do love.

The “have-tos”

don’t make relaxing your every day.

Imagine if you could pick out what you would be doing with every single second of every day. Now imagine the opposite. These are the have-tos. It doesn’t mean that you dislike what is being asked of you, it’s just not exactly what you would choose given the choice. Today I had to write a proposal, fix some code, finish a presentation deck, and gather tax documents – I don’t dislike any of these things (well maybe the taxes thing, however that’s another story), but given the choice, I’d probably be on the mountain snowboarding. These are requirements in my life that allow me to put a roof over my head and sneakers on my feet.

What is it that you have to do every day? Do you like it?

The “want-tos”

There aren’t a lot of pills more bitter than that one – getting ripped off sucks.

Ask someone what they like to do and the expediency of the answer often says more than the answer itself. Generally speaking, people with passions trend toward “the want-tos,” naturally. Want-tos needs a more definitive explanation. For some, “I want to sit on my ass every day and watch TV” may be a perfectly viable answer. I would argue it’s not. It’s actually sloth, a sin. Being lazy should never be your passion, it will never lead to anything good. I’m not arguing against taking a break in your day to relax and enjoy some form of mindless entertainment – just don’t make relaxing your every day.

The key here is to be doing something that gets you excited and away from the things you have to do. TV is an escape, but it rarely excites, and often depresses. If you feel you do not have any passions – go out and seek new experiences, the world is full of tons of fun stuff. Remember, only the boring really get bored.

The Lucky Ones

Remember the Michael Jordan example from above? Well, there is a higher percentage of people doing what they love for a living than there are Michael Jordans in the world. What you want to do and what you have to do can merge into the same thing. It takes a lot of drive and extra work to make this happen, but in the end, it seems to be more rewarding. However, there are two risks associated with this option.

I wanted to post up on the couch and kill characters in videogames – not good.

Risk #1 – Burning Out – When you like what you are doing, you tend to do a lot of it. I found a passion early on in web development and the internet.  While I think the info addiction will always be there, the web development part I have had points of burnout. Before the ’08 holiday season, I was tired of everything related to what I had to do and what I wanted to do. For the most part I wanted to post up on the couch and kill monsters in videogames – not good. The best thing to do to get away from burning out is to develop another set of passions that become your new “want-tos.” I like to play music, work in my yard, exercise, and snowboard – all of these things help me walk away from my work.

Remember, only the boring really get bored.

Risk #2 – Hating What You Once Loved – Often times there is something extremely contaminating about money – it can turn things dirty. I’ve heard a ton of stories of high school kids doing a little bit of web design and then getting ripped off by the people that hired them. There aren’t a lot of pills more bitter than that one – getting ripped off sucks. Being professional about what you do can stem that tide – don’t agree to doing something that isn’t fair, collect 50% of whatever up front, and always write it down.

Conclusion

While doing what you love or doing what you need to do to enable the ability to do what you love are both good goals – the former, I would argue, is the only true way to find balance for the majority of people. Only the most steady and disciplined can go to work 40 hours a week at a job they dislike and cope with it – the rest of us end up unhappy or resentful.  Take risks, work hard, develop interests away from what you have to do, and always have outlets. It can be done, it just takes perseverance. How do you find balance?

Note Two: Arms out is the ultimate passion power stance.

How to be inspired

Whether someone decides to take a class or start doing their own research, an initial moment of inspiration is necessary to kick start the process. This post was inspired by an email I woke up to from my sister, essentially saying, “I want to become a web designer.” As her brother, nothing could make me happier.

do I really like this?

I would like to know what inspired her moment. From the outside looking in, I can only guess. Part of it was definitely my influence. In thinking about it closer, her and I are a lot alike in our strengths – if I could be happy and enjoy success in this field, then naturally, she could too. Web design is equal parts aesthetics, organization, and desire. Always learning, always creating. These are strengths and values we share as siblings.

What follows is a rundown of how one can get started in the field. Would love to hear people’s own stories in response.

Step #1 – Owning Your Domain

This may seem like a weird first step to some, but nothing is more thrilling than publishing your first html files to your own site. I think I had three iterations of my first domain, geodigi.com, before I ever did any kind of client work. It’s a person’s first digital sandbox to do whatever they want.

nothing could make me happier.

After receiving the email from my sister, I went and purchased her name domain. Upon presenting this news to her, she thanked me – not knowing what it really meant. In time however, she will come to realize, this is the spot where everything started.

Step #2 – Getting Educated

The field of web design is changing so rapidly, one must stay on it continuously to ever develop a strong knack for providing solutions to people (clients/bosses/friends). It’s all a daunting amount of information at first, but once one gets on top of the pile, it’s just a matter of maintenance.

Coursework

While I praised those who come into the field self-taught, it’s not the only avenue to becoming a web designer – you can take courses. There are pros & cons to doing coursework.

To illustrate my point, my sister decided to enroll in a collegiate level course on the beginnings of HTML & CSS – which in theory, should give her a well-rounded view of the building blocks of the web. Before we sat down and had a screen-sharing session, she was painfully wading through the first few homework assignments. Doubt began creeping into her mind; do I really like this?

We are a passionate bunch

When I finally sat down and looked at what she was doing (she is working on building website for her soon-to-be wedding, college coursework applied to a real life need, smart) she seemed frustrated and kind of bummed out. When I looked at the code, it quickly became obvious the true culprit of her frustrations was the course itself. She was learning late-nineties web development from a lady who obviously doesn’t know what-is-what in the world of web design – this is a common problem in web design courses.

After two short sessions with me showing her how HTML & CSS played together, it clicked. Today she described the process of building her website, “addicting.” How fucking cool is that?

Self-Taught

Google is your friend.

In breaking out self-teaching into its own section, I do it injustice. It really is the catalyst to becoming a professional. If one isn’t willing to put in the hours teaching themselves, then they truly aren’t inspired. You don’t meet a lot of people in the field that gloomily say, “I’m a web designer.” We are a passionate bunch, and in a competitive world, passion is necessary to get ahead. In other words, you should be self-teaching in addition to coursework.

There are so many top ten lists for, “web designer resources,” that one only needs to simply Google it – and oh yea, Google is your friend. “Look it up dear,” is finally the answer to every question.

We are also big fans of Lynda at We the Media.

Step #3 – Get to know your peers

When was the last time you saw a post about, “How to become a shoe designer,” or, “How to become an investment banker?” Ok, there are some out there, but no profession likes to talk about itself like those involved in web design – we are a truly narcissistic industry (I mean that in an endearing way). There is probably a 10-1 ratio of useful web design blogs over just about anything else – it’s our playground, perhaps it’s because we had a head start.

It’s important to find your heroes

As a first step to getting to know your peers, it’s important to seek out those who inspire. Look through some CSS Galleries and identify the designers that really do it for you.

One of the first for me, and I’ve probably mentioned this before, was Jonathan Hicks.  One of his previous sites resonated heavily with me – I pretty much ripped him off on the first version of this site (before I began sort of blogging). It’s important to find your heroes, and with a little bit of internet stalking you can quickly find what they’re into and what they’re not. Follow them on Twitter, subscribe to their blogs, obsessively check their portfolios – do what it takes. Emulate. Emulate. Emulate.

It’s also important to reach out to your local communities – there are always meetups going on, I think here in Portland we are averaging three events a night or something. I wish I could attend more, but sometimes the work gets in the way – you tend to do a lot of what you love.

Conclusion

True criticism is what you should seek.

Becoming a web designer is a path full of triumphs and frustrations - the most important thing to remember is to keep plugging away, solutions always present themselves. Don’t plan on becoming a web designer overnight, it’s a long process. I didn’t start calling myself a web designer till a good web designer stopped beginning critiques with, “you’re straddling the line between mediocre and really really awful.” True criticism is what you should seek.

Please share your stories – I would love to hear them.

“Blog on a consistent basis, if it’s one time a week, then make sure you do it…”

In reading that, it seemed easy enough – but nope! Anyhow, it’s retarded for me to even blog about blogging (no offense to the retards who read my blog). I’ve been so busy doing that I haven’t had time to really tell about any of it – so here goes.

Wait! I have to share this video from Home Skillet Fest - I think it’s rad.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ok, here goes…

Nike

I do a lot of work for Nike, a lot… So much that I have had to build a team of very talented individuals to compensate for my lack of bandwidth. I can’t really say what we are working on currently but I can say what we have worked on in the past.

We launched nikecorre.com about a month ago and sportchangemakers.net a few months before that. Now we are working on managing both of these sites and doing consulting for a few bigger projects (I can’t name them and I won’t!). It’s been an amazing ride working with one of the most globally recognized brands in the world – I truly love it.

The stuff we are working on currently gets me all hyped up – I can’t wait to launch! Of course some of it will be over the course of a month, some of it all the way into January. Seems like awhile, but some of the stuff is really ambitious – we are learning how to, “Just Do It.”

Rahzel Live!

This is a project that came out of left field, but also one I couldn’t refuse. Working with Rahzel to help build him a site where he could manage all his merchandise and digital downloads has been a fun experience – the guy is the KING of beatboxing and I have been a fan since, “If Your Mother Only Knew.” This should drop soon as well.

Home Skillet Fest ’08

In another life I used to be a commercial fisherman in Alaska and it was around this same time that I co-founded a record label called Home Skillet Records. About three years ago we started throwing an annual music festival in Sitka, Alaska called……Home Skillet Fest (we’re kind of a one-trick pony). We just wrapped up this year’s show and this had to of been my favorite year. We were well organized, we had tons of merchandise, and we put a little money back into the label – that was our goal. If you follow this sob-story of a blog, you may remember my last post that was questioning the whole project. I am over that now – the festival is a great thing and my hometown is truly a special place. 

For the first time I walked away from Home Skillet Fest stoked and ready to build the momentum for next year. It’s turned into a family project for me, with both my parents and older sister helping with the organizing – it made it so much better. In having such a solid team in PDX I was able to call on people to help with design work – which is good because I’m really only decent at web design, the print world is perplexing.

Wrap Up

All in all business is good and growing. Our team is rad. I am getting married in September. My set didn’t suck at Home Skillet Fest. I am running for my health, so I feel better, AND…

…I am more happy now than I have ever been in my life. I think I am ok with that too – it’s ok to be happy for once.

More and more I think the response to boredom from many kids in school (from 8th-12th grade) is to gravitate towards computers and the self-taught realm.  I first started playing with Photoshop (at 17), not because I was introduced in a school, but because I was excited about pirating something so expensive.  How many designers started in a similar way? 

I don’t mean to discredit those with big piles of debt, I’m with you.  But I can’t help but be in awe of those who just do it and become self-taught rockstar designers without all the fat.  Thumbs up.  

More and more the internet provides all kinds of free training – for those that seek it. I compare k12 education to my experiences in learning to play the guitar (albeit a little older).  While Django and Robert Johnson are fantastic guitar players, if not the best – I want to “play The Fucking Clash,” – three power chords, I’m good.  A well-rounded education is important, but you also have to serve them up what they want.  Especially when competing with the internet, video games, and broken families.

The web gives us power – those who are willing to sweat and just do – don’t need a college education and they certainly don’t need a resume.

I can’t say I regret college – I had a great time and learned a lot of life skills, but for what I do, I probably would have been better off diving right in.  Now I am a 27-year-old designer watching the big 30 creep closer and closer – at what point am I dated?  Scary stuff!  Thank goodness for We The Media and it’s ever expanding talent pool – I will forever be connected to the talent of youth.

Yesterday was inspiring if anything – thank you to those who I met and spoke with.

Jeff and I got back to our room and I use the words “passed out” here, although it was somewhere between passing out and going to bed – do you know the difference? Anyhow, the alarm came quickly and we got up, showered, and headed down to the complimentary continental breakfast. We’re staying at the Hampton – shitty wi-fi, fantastic continental, take your pick. One more good thing about the Hampton is it attracts a lot of the industry “rockstars.” Shit, Jeff and I were there, and we’re pretty important. I jest, but the highly talented Shaun Inman was there and I did get to pick up the size medium American Apparel Mint T-shirts he brought. Thank you Shaun – it was an awkward moment, but it was never dull – my name is George.

After all this we made our way to the conference, what follows are my notes from the different panels/presentations, enjoy.

Design is in the Details

Naz Hamid started with many quotes, “Less is more”, and “God is in the details/Design is in the Details” Showed examples of design in details in many fields, cooking, industrial design, etc… Overall I think his presentation was really entry level. I wanted to be blown away and I was just kind of left with a, “well yea…” taste in my mouth. Oh well, not a bad presentation by any means, but definitely light on theory.

The one real world practice I took away was his use of different comps for different components of the site – this is something I will definitely try.

Checklist and Guide

• Experiment – Playing around with things in a few PSD files. Use the source files of the client. Play with color. Logo in one comp, background in another, navigation in another – don’t commit. Then start mashing up.
• Choices – Making choices on client needs, your styles, typefaces, and colors. Pick the things that are simple, most logical choices.
• Stay Consistent – Make sure homepages and subpages reflect eachother. Avoid minutae with clients.
• Completeness – Finish the comp and get it done done.
• Step In, Step Out, Step Back: Balance – Walk away for awhile – take notes when you get back about what is striking you – first impressions.
• Be your own critic – Address the things you may feel the people signing off will have issues with – compromise just a bit, it will go a long way.
• Complexity is Simplicity
• Obsession is Healthy – Dedication to the design, we put in long hours.

Thoughts, Breakthroughs, & Revelations – Let a design sit in your head and think about it. Not Billable Time.

Weird Turn Pro: Crowdsourcing for Creatives

Derek Powazek comes across as very genuine. His presentation was pretty fun and he provided some great examples of the good and bad sides of crowdsourcing. Now following him on twitter – he seems like a seasoned pro of “growing communities.”

“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” – Hunter S. Thompsen

Three lies people who don’t get crowdsourcing tell:

• Lie 1: Everyone on the net is an idiot – well they’re are some idiots, but some really smart people doing some really good stuff.
• Lie 2: Good stuff is too hard to find – traditionally has been human editors. It’s gone from traditional, to non-traditional, to moderators. Or it’s computers, text search, and Google. Now the interesting method is the hybrid model, Digg, flickr. Discussing leaderboards and how it encourages users to game the system. Show a random swath of “good results” to avoid the bad results of the game caused by leaderboards.Wisdom of Crowd – Selfish interests that increase the overall good. Says that if we all guessed numbers of beans in a jar, 99% of us would be wrong, but averaged out, we would be 99% right. Simple answers are the correct place for using the wisdom of crowds. Also needs to have diversity of viewpoints. Design for selfishness.Learning from Assignment Zero – Started by Jeff How – “Here everyone, write stories.” Nothing worked because nobody wrote anything. But increase the selfish motivation.

“Using crowdsourcings as a cost-saving measure doesn’t work. Communities must be cultivated, respected, and managed if they are to create economic value.” – Jeff Howe, who coined the term, “Crowdsourcing.”

• Lie 3: You can’t make any money. Threadless example – be the trusted middle man. How do they do it?
  • Contests – Ego, Winning, and Money
  • Fun thing on buyer end – The golden tag on a tshirt, Alumni Club.

Cautionary Tales:

• Yahoo Games Wii Sites: They pulled in flickr feeds tagged, “wii.” Flickr users rebelled and put in tons of “yahoo sucks” type images.
• GM Tahoe Apprentice Campaign: “Hey who wants to help us make a commercial for our SUV.” To make the commercial, all you could do was use their video and pictures and change the text. Chaos insued. “The Earth is now your Bitch”, “MURDER YOUR ENTIRE FAMILY.” They put the participants in a very narrow box. GM was greedy with their content – you couldn’t export it anywhere else, it could only work on the site. But it actually worked – drove more traffic to gm.com than google and yahoo combined.

Community is Grown, Not Built

1. Give people tools they want
2. Trust them to do good
3. Reward Good Contributions
4. Punish bad contributions
5. Expect the unexpected – Flickr Geotagging the word “Fuck” over iceland.

Blood, Sweat, and Fear: Great Design Hurts

And this is where the crappy web connection killed my notes. I guess it isn’t so smart to post notes inside of WordPress while having an unstable connection. Either way – this panel was great.

First was Michael Lopp from Apple, he’s a product manager and seems to be a damn good one at that. He started off with some keynote issues, which was ironic, being from Apple. He proceeded to talk about Apple building everything like a present. From OSX being inside of their computers being inside of great packaging being sold at a great store being debuted by a great leader – yea, I could listen to someone from Apple talk about this stuff all day. He had some great anecdotes, which I wrote down – but alas they are deleted.

Are you comfortable being an asshole for the integrity of your design?

Then came John Gruber of the Daring Fireball fame. I read his blog pretty frequently and he’s always on point with thoughts on Apple. He continued to talk about the “blood, sweat, and fear” that goes into great design. In the end he stated that it’s ok to be an asshole as a designer – it means your more dedicated to your vision. Thank you John we all need that.

All in all this was a great presentation and I got to sit on the floor the whole time, which means it was a packed house.

A General Theory of Creative Relativity

You know how when you’re watching Die Hard and you just know that everything is going to be ok because badass John McClaine is on the job? You know, the bad guys are toast, he took a beating but won, and the girl who was in his life but couldn’t handle his badassnes when he wasn’t saving the world, comes back into his life? That’s like Jim Coudal – except he’s saving the world from shitty creative work.

“He’s a man’s designer.”

I would work for Jim Coudal, as Jeff said, “He’s a man’s designer.”

He framed his general theory as a spark between the known and the unknown, the variable or the constant – it was slow to start but then once he got going, he was on fire. I must say that his booking the band exercise was perfect for his concept.

At the end of his talk people had a Q/A round – this is where I decided how much of a badass Jim Coudal was. Again, I lost my notes, so I am going from memory. Small teams are better and meetings are bad news. That’s pretty much all I remember – sad.

Conclusion

First day wrapped up and it was unbelievable, each panel progressively better than the last. I must say with this year’s SXSW and the whole working for myself thing – I definitely feel a lot more happier in where I am at, it’s been a great year. I have also learned I need to take more pics at panels, doh!

The “e” means we are empowered. As consumers, as professionals, as social networkers, as voters, and as evangelists. Believe me, you want us on your side. What we lack in numbers we make up for in determination and knowledge. Leveraging the internet to make real changes is second nature – and it will happen. We can’t be bought or sold by a television network – we really aren’t into TV, it’s too – linear, too “photoshopped,” or too fake. Our real news media has become satirical and our satirical news media has become real, and we recognize that.

We are fearless, bold, and fresh. Yes, we are a top heavy country consisting of many baby boomers who failed to topple the old guard – but that won’t stop us, you see, for we have the internet. Whereas America has been the melting pot for different cultures and race, the internet is the melting pot for ideas – and the best always come bubbling to the top.

I have been fearful of my generation being complacent to all of this – do we really care about our country and the world surrounding us?

Last night I was at a dinner full of the influencers – people who are striving for social change not only with their words, but their actions. They make a strong case that we do care – that we are empowered, and that we do live up to the hype. I think it’s only a matter of time before we wake up and turn the old guard on its head.

Our ideas are strong and our hearts are pure – we get the new world and we have embraced it. We have big corporations lobbying Washington D.C. to get their way – followed by the same corporations limiting which candidates the American public see (and in what light) on their broadcasting networks. This is an example of the competition, deceit, and old guard mentality which is taking our country down a path of destruction. If you’re getting your news from a TV, consider it skewed – not one major news network has a clean reputation. They all do it.

I watched Oprah introduce Barack Obama in Iowa and she said it best:

“I’m not here to tell you what to think, I’m here to tell you to think”

What we need is transparency and open doors. I’m a fan of Barack mainly in part because he is a fan of the transparency ideal. Transparency is something we all need to get behind.

For now, I have placed an Obama ’08 badge on my site for a candidate that stands for so much, but most importantly acts presidential. Grab the code, do the same.
<a href=”http://www.barackobama.com/index.php”><img src=”http://www.eleven3.com/wp-content/themes/eleven3/images/cause_obama.jpg” alt=”Vote Obama ’08″ style=”margin-right: 10px;”></a>

“We hate it”

If one could predict what projects are going to go awry and why – perhaps the “Designer’s Crisis” could be avoided. It seems there are a few situations I have found in my limited experience which have a higher risk than others. It’s tough to design for designers, work under tight deadlines, and to follow someone else’s brand guidelines while resisting the “Designer’s Touch”.

Designing for Designer’s

First off, let me say this – everyone is a designer on some level. From the critic to the creator, being a designer not only means to create, but it also means to have an opinion of something designed. When I walk by a beautiful building, I may comment about its design, I may not. But I certainly have an opinion of some sort, just ask. It works this way with about any object created with some aesthetic forethought. Now I don’t mean that everyone can design – just that they probably, at least, have an opinion.

“Can you move it a little to the right?”

How much qualification does that opinion get someone? It depends. Have they designed something similar? Seen a lot of similar work? Or is the subject of the design something they feel they truly know better, such as a brand? With every project, a designer will be designing for a stakeholder – if that stakeholder is a true designer, one that can create, chances are the project has a higher chance of the “Designer’s Crisis.”

Tight Deadlines Effect End Product

If time is a designer’s best friend, then lack of time must be a designers worst enemy. Once again, I have been inspired by Veerle and decided to include the topic of deadlines and end product. The process of creation isn’t about clocking in and clocking out. Which also means as time on the clock is running out – it doesn’t really register – often affecting the end product.

In all reality we need those deadlines, as the discussion that followed Veerle’s post pointed out, we just need to be good at managing them. In a perfect world, I could say a project will take 15 hours, clock in and out, and be done. But it never works that way. A design is on my mind 24 hours, including dreams. Things like saying yes instead of no, or slowly gaining the ability to accurately estimate times before hand is a huge step in the right direction.

Style Guides and a Designer’s Touch

When viewing a brand guideline document for the first time there are usually two thoughts that cross my mind; the first being, “wow, I can’t believe someone had to put this together.” The second is overwhelming feeling of walls closing in. We design because wevwant to create something new. Whether it’s a mashup of different things or something completely original – we want to put our own touch on it. An extensive style guide can be stifling.

There is really no way to avoid projects with style guides, so the answer is to handle it case by case. On some projects you will receive direction to follow a style guideline to a T. Some projects leave breathing room to accent the project and make it better. But never assume – because when it goes awry and one gets accused of not following the guidelines, the Designer’s Crisis ensues and things get ugly. Always ask how much creative rope is available.

In Conclusion

While the time before handing over completed designs tests a designer’s ability, the time following a Designer’s Crisis tests a designer’s resolve. To take criticism period is difficult for anyone. But when criticism gets ugly or mildly offensive, it invokes a sense of failure – followed by frustration. As difficult as it may seem, the best thing to do is to stay positive. It’s totally ok to feel like throwing a chair on the inside (maybe that’s just me (-; ) but on the outside one must retain composure. Relationships and reputation are what get us through our careers. One or two bad design reviews are a minor blip on the radar compared to the dozens and dozens of good reviews one may get over the course of a career.

Additional Resources

• Handling Criticism
• Top 10 List for Handling Criticism
• The Delicate Art of (Web) Design Critique

With any creative work, the longer you expose yourself to it, the more stale it becomes. That’s why, about three months ago, I got the itch to redesign my site.

So here we are, one year ago and change I launched version 2.0 of eleven3. Today I launch version 3.0 – and yes I am just as excited as my last redesign. There are a lot of reasons for my excitement, but mainly it’s just a new look, a new focus, and more flexibility. Gone is the rigid and closed-source Movable Type and arriving is the flexible, fluid, WordPress.

Continue reading for the off chance of relating to the requirements of the relaunch, the design phase, the challenges of coding the front-end, and the use of WordPress and a plethora of plugins that now make up the site. A lot of work went into it, my hopes are that it is well received.

Redesign Requirements

The Tools
There are many examples out there of great tools facilitating great work – but let’s not forget the old adage, “It’s a Poor Craftsman that blames his tools.” I had become the poor craftsmen. Movable Type was my tool and I had grown fully tired of it. It kept timing out when I created new entries and the comment spam kept getting worse and worse. Overall the system felt bloated and rusty. In the end – your tools can put you in a rut, the old adage is only half true.

The Focus
If version 2.0 had something to say to new visitors, it would have been, “Hey! Look at my portfolio.” My life has change considerably since then and the portfolio is no longer my focus. There are two main reasons for this change. After blogging for about a year I found out how much I really enjoyed it, and then I realized how secondary and unimportant my blog seemed in the context of the rest of the site.

Notice the hierarchy of the page and the prominence of the portfolio.

My content wasn’t really findable and old posts just seemed to die. My primary focus in the redesign has been to put the spotlight on the content I am generating, both old and new.

The other reason I have decided to place my portfolio as a secondary element is due to the fact I have started a creative shop called We The Media – this is where the main body of work will reside. I will discuss WTM and it’s goals in another entry.

Inspiration and Design

There were many steps and components to the project – but I would say one of the most important is the feedback I received from some really talented designers. Without them pushing me to explore further, I may have stopped short of what I feel has evolved into a solid site. While my name is on it, it was a group effort.

Sketches
As with any web design project, I started by sketching out a few ideas in my book. I will be the first to admit that my drawing skills directly straddle the line between almost mediocre and really really bad (ironically my webdesign skills were described the same way once).

This sketch was nowhere near my final design other than in layout, initially I wanted to do something more ornate.

Inspiration
Danielle, my fiancee, came home one afternoon with a pile of old magazines from the 40′s, 50′s, and 60′s. Immediately I discarded the vintage coolness factor and traded it in for the, “Where are we going to put all this crap,” attitude. As always, I was proven wrong and over time I grew to love these magazines. The ads were so rich and copy-driven, the pages so big, and the content had substance. So one night I started scanning them in and collaging them together in photoshop. This ended up being the foundation for the site.

My good friend Nicholas Galanin should write about why I chose to use those ads – he has a way of describing his work that gives it depth and artistic merit. Me? I just say things like, “I used those ads because I thought they looked cool.” Lame lame lame.

The Grid
After being exposed to Khoi Vinh’s gridding exercise from SXSW ’07, I have applied it to everything I do. I usually opt for the 12 column grid and this project is no different. What a wonderful approach. For those Photoshop users out there, here is a great little plugin for setting up a quick grid, courtesy of Andrew Ingram. I’ve never heard an argument for not using a grid – but I am certainly open to it.

The Elements
Tape – My early comps had tape in them – it just wasn’t the masking tape. It was more like the transparent tape with lines in it and is really hard to tear. It also was really hard to make it work – which is why it was eventually ditched.

The masking tape was an evolution from that and I am quite happy with the outcome, for now at least.

Rounded Corners – The first version I did felt really boxy. It was one of those things you feel, but don’t necessarily have the courage to overcome till someone says something. I slowly migrated from the abrupt edges to the rounded corners. While it may not necessarily go with the look and feel of the ads in the background, it does separate the side bar in a way which gives it a “site within a site” feeling. A goal I wanted to accomplish with the new sliding sidebar approach I am trying.

The Side Panel - I’ve been using mootools for a few projects lately and as stated above, I am experimenting with a new solution to avoid the long scrolling sidebar. I’m not a fan of blogs that scroll forever, unless one updates the content more than once a day.

By creating a consistent look and feel, I was able to have continuity across the four panels and allow the user to access the information without leaving the page or having to scroll down. It also separates the content into groupings of information that become clearer by looking at the navigation. What’s worse? A click or a scroll? Who knows, but what has a fun factor?

The Carpet - It was around 2am when I came across an old advertisement in a vintage Esquire Magazine. For many reasons, it seemed like the perfect footer for the site. It was greeny, shaggy, and had the little up curl which had so much potential for customization. Eventually it became what is visible now.

I think it’s a carpet ad, but I am not totally certain.

Front-End Fun

Browser Compliance
Ask anyone who builds websites what the biggest thorn in their side is? I have no doubt the majority will likely name Internet Explorer 6.0. At the time of writing this post, IE6 has 36.6% browser share. I’m not sure what the breaking off point for IE6 users will be, but for my personal site – it was almost 36.6%. Eventually I caved under statistical pressure and rest assured the site is working just fine in Internet Explorer, but it did not get by without my nasty poem.

MooTools and (Slimbox)
I wrote code for the sliding panels not too long ago and used it for a few projects. Once I had the moo.fx implemented, I moved on to setting up lightbox – another favorite piece of JavaScript trickery. Unfortunatly, MooTools and Lightbox didn’t seem to be compatible, and that is when I stumbled upon Slimbox – a Lightbox clone. Once again I was happy having my fade to black photo slides.

Standards
I was so tempted to keep this site as “Transitional” and keep my target=”_blank” tag in some of my external links, yet I decided to go strict. Why? So I could shake my tail feathers just a little bit more. Seriously though, standards are very important and if I am going to sell clients on their importance, I have to walk the walk myself.

A splash of WordPress

This was my first attempt at migrating a Movable Type blog from a WordPress blog. It was surprisingly easy and it makes me very happy to be in the WordPress camp. There are a few reasons for this.

Ease of Maintenance
I handle all WordPress maintenance in Dreamweaver and do not have to rely on an internet connection to get between different templates. I know Movable Type had a way to do it – yet it seemed like an afterthought. Using a WYSIWYG editor to edit code is nonsense. I had gotten to a point where I hated logging into make any edits. Not to mention having to rebuild the entire site for things as simple as a date change.

MT4 has been released and I hear good things, but as I stated – it was too little too late for me.

Extensive Plugin Library
I am using several plugins to make this baby hum. The development community for WordPress is huge and getting plugin to work is much easier than in Movable Type. Just about every little thing I had the, “I wish it did this,” thought for was actually floating around somewhere and just needed to be tracked down. Brilliant!

Putting it all together

After extensive testing, a migration to Media Temple, and a lot of little tweaking, eleven3 Version 3.0 is ready for all the scrutiny and praise it deserves. It will always be a work in progress, but at least now I feel liberated to make the progress. Now if only I could figure out a way to make the size of the document go from high to low without sacrificing aesthetics or functionality.

I decided to write this post because I always liked it when designers wrote out in detail their processes – it’s how I learned myself. For some people, this will be a big repeat of what they already know. But I am hoping that others will find it useful in discovering their way as a designer. It’s a great field and everyday I feel fortunate getting to do something I absolutely love.