Posts Tagged ‘Web Design’

I love my virb

Tuesday, March 6th, 2007

About five days ago I was given an invite by a co-worker to a new social networking site called Virb. If I had one line to describe Virb to anyone else it would be this: Virb is MySpace’s hot sister who has a ton of experience and a ton of class.

Currently Virb is in beta mode, which means invite only. Which means it’s the “Who ya know” network. I really want Virb to succeed, so after my initial invite frenzy, I have slowed down a bit and will only give invites to those who really will use the service to pass along to others. People should not be on MySpace, they are trying to build a walled-garden and the whole site feels cheap. Virb is the designer’s MySpace.

Having already skinned my profile page, I have a few feelings on Virb, what’s hot and where they can improve. And let me say this, I really truly love it.
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building with layers and pngs

Tuesday, February 27th, 2007

Traditionally, when cutting up a Photoshop layout, we all used to think of the entire thing like a jigsaw puzzle. Overlapping elements were an illusion because the element that appeared to overlap was really being cut up and then fit back together.

And then came the png. While the PNG most definitely has issues across the different browsers, there are ways to get it to play nicely with whatever site being built. Yes, it usually involves a CSS hack. No, it does not validate. However I believe it is more important to start thinking of a layout as a series of layers overlapping, versus the traditional jigsaw puzzle.
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James good ol’ harvest

Monday, December 4th, 2006

James Hall recently relaunched thegoodharvest.net. It’s got all kind of interaction and goodies now. While James coined the term “bloatfolio,” I think he does a nice job of letting us find the bloat, versus shoving it in our face, like this silly site.

He’s done some really cool stuff technically and visually I think it makes any of us think POW! Always interesting to see what he comes up with. If you haven’t checked out The Shins site, you should see that as well.

Good job my friend, always good to see you pushing.

level of difficulty – part one

Wednesday, November 29th, 2006

Life is a beautiful hustle. Last night I launched my second site in two weeks. Both sites are built using WordPress. Both sites had a little bit of a learning curve in building them. Both sites are for people who have an admirable attention to detail.

On a scale of one to ten, I think my level of difficulty is about a 6. I’m a little burnt out from the constant work, but as always launches are gratifying.

The first site was to help a good friend of mine, Nicholas Galanin, launch his site to showcase his work as well as earn a little cheddar. Nobody likes to see a starving artist. Especially one with a baby. Congrats mate.

The second site was also to help a good friend of mine, Theresa Tran. She is leaving Nike on Dec. 1 to start a small marketing firm. Be sure to check out the Tease Marketing site. The design was a collaboration between a few people. The branding was handled by Erik Ries, the site design by Jeff Reynolds, the flash by Steve James, and the wordpress/html/css install by myself.

I do enjoy the collaboration by so many hustlers. Check out Tease Marketing.

Now less busy so back to the blogging.

In Respect to Web Professionals

Wednesday, October 18th, 2006

Lately my company has been in the process of hiring a Production Artist. It has shed light on a lot of interesting truths. Some good, some not so good. Either way, there is definitely a scale of talent regardless of experience or not.

It seems strange with the applications we are getting that the longer people have been claiming to be involved with the web, the worse their work gets. There seems to be a direct relation. As with anything there are exceptions to the rule, and taking a sample size of say 150 versus 10, the data would most certainly change. Counter to most professions, where experience is a “must”, I don’t see the production artist, or design position as one of those.

I have a few thoughts as to why this trend happens.
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CMS Made Simple – Part One

Monday, October 16th, 2006

A few months back I was tasked to find a CMS that was easy to use, easy to implement, and had a solid foundation. Initially I had push back to go with a “partner” CMS provider, but after dealing with that situation in the past, it was a no brainer for me to really stress the freedom adopting an opensource CMS would provide.

Initially I had Joomla! in my mind due to it’s success and popularity. I had followed the Joomla!/Mambo split and it seemed like they had a good thing going.
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Publove: Design Meltdown

Monday, August 14th, 2006

I first discovered Design Meltdown about a year ago while browsing the web for good design resources. The premise of the site is to write about, “Design Elements, Trends, and Problems in Web Design.” What is covered is anything and everything related to design and the web. I have, on more than one occasion, pulled from resources listed. The examples are always very nice and right on for the topic covered.

So why the Design Meltdown plug? I was doing some of my daily browsing and when I reached their site, I saw a new post for beautiful blogs. As I love the blog format and design, I was excited to see what was to be written about blogs. Low and behold, this site was put into the examples list. I am quite honored to be in a list of blogs as beautiful as these. Veerle’s blog, one of my favorites, was on the list as well.

Very nice to get some publove. Design Meltdown is a incredibly useful tool to use if you are a aspiring graphic designer.

Top 20 Blog/Portfolio Designs = Bloatfolios YEA!

Wednesday, August 9th, 2006

CSS Bloom just pushed a post up entitled, “Top 20 Weblog & Portfolio Designs Part 3.” Of course I am posting this because I was listed. It is very gratifying to put a lot of work into something and get some community recognition. Thanks whomever decided I was worthy enough.

It’s the third top 20 list, so perhaps I am in the top 60. But that totally works for me. There are some really really good designers in this list and if one is feeling like being inspired, you should check it out.

I am tempted to call this my first bloatfolio post.

six stellar free ways to market your site

Thursday, August 3rd, 2006

There are those folks out there who do great work, speak at panels, and have a loyal following of admirers. And then there are those who would like to be doing something similar, yet can’t seem to get the traffic they so desire.

Since the launch, of what James Hall defines as a “bloatfolio” (i believe he has a new one coming any day now), I have been engaged in a few practices that I believe are succesful traffic drivers to this site.

What follows is a list of what I have done to drive traffic. I was toying with the idea of making it a top ten list, but I think I will save my big top ten list for, “Top 10 reasons why I am the most amazing blogger on the internet” post. Ha! Anyhow…
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the shins, the shins!!

Tuesday, August 1st, 2006

I happen to be a big fan of The Shins. They are from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and currently living and recording here in my home city of Portland, Oregon.

My good friend James Hall over at The Good Harvest just redesigned/rebuilt/relaunched their website. It is very fun and many easter eggs have been planted throughout the site. I love easter eggs.

I am normally not a big fan of pure flash sites, but this site works for me. Here are a few reasons why.
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