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March 5, 2008

SXSW Interactive 2008

I’m headed to Austin in a couple of days and couldn’t be more excited about spending time with friends that I only get to see once a year, meeting new people, eating, drinking, bowling and oh yeah, going to the conference itself.

In preparation I’ve made a few tweaks to the site. There’s a major redesign in the works, but that will have to wait until later this year. For now though, the content has been is the process of being updated and the new home page format will now allow for shorter, but hopefully more frequent posts.

Spring Recap

May 30, 2007

Well spring is almost over and I have to say that it’s been really busy and exciting these last few months.

Austin

SXSW Interactive I was in Austin again this year for SXSW Interactive and as usual, it was an awesome experience. It was great hanging out with friends, meeting new people, and putting faces with others who I have talked to over the past year. There also were several really good panels and the screening of a movie with a typeface as the leading role.

National Multiple Sclerosis Society Not too long after that, I again participated in the annual BP MS150 bike tour from Houston to Austin. I didn’t think it was possible, but this year’s experience was even better than last year’s.

Recently Launched

There are three projects that I’ve been heavily involved with lately that have recently launched.

designgive

designgive This was and still is a great project for me; I truly enjoy working on it. I’m collaborating with Chris from Tomato Creative to create and develop this apparel site for designers by designers. All designs are by featured artists, and with each purchase, a donation is made to the charity of your choice.

Montechino

Montechino I designed and developed this web site for Montechino, a master-planned lakefront community reminiscent of European villages on the edge of Lake Travis, just outside of Austin.

Stewart

Stewart Along with my team members, we recently redesigned Stewart’s corporate website. In addition to creating a new look and feel, we have also added some new functionality. You can read Matt’s post for more information.

New Job

whiteboardlabsLastly, as of May 1st, I am now the Senior Designer at whiteboardlabs. It’s a great opportunity and I’m very excited about becoming a member of their team and working on some great projects.

However, I will greatly miss the team of talented individuals who I had the pleasure of working with at Stewart.

Front End Alignment

March 8, 2007

I’ve performed a little facelift on the front of the site. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, since I felt the home page wasn’t a correct reflection of content within. The blog is a main section, but I don’t consider this site primarily a blog, and it was one of the most prominent elements on the page.

Better use of space

There are other areas of the home page that also get updated and they were being relegated to the sidebar. I wasn’t very happy with that and I also really wanted to break away from the the big column and sidebar look for the home page. Reducing the the real estate for the blog really opened up the space. Now there’s also more room for the other dynamic elements to balance out the most recent blog entry.

Fueled by Design

I’ve also taken the opportunity to incorporate a new tag line Fueled by Design that ties in more with the theme of the design. Most importantly, the area directly below explains what Supercharged is about and directs visitors to other areas of the site.

The message was always there, it just wasn’t be communicated as well as it could have been.

Rebooted and Rebuilt

November 1, 2006

The changes may not seem like that much at first, but it’s definitely more of a realignment than a redesign. When I originally set out, I had just few goals in mind that I wanted to accomplish. I kept adding more changes and it ended up being almost a total code rewrite.

More contrast and tire marks

My first objective was to increase the contrast. On some monitors the older version had a washed out look. I wanted the graphic elements to be subtle and not overpower the content, but I think they were a little too subtle. So, the colors and the graphic elements such as the pin-striping have been adjusted for greater contrast. I toyed with the idea of changing the background color to something light, but in the end I decided to keep the background dark. My next goal was to have the page load faster and reduce the file size of the background images. That meant getting rid of the huge gradient background in the previous version. It has been replaced with a much smaller and simpler gradient. The biggest visual change however, is the addition of the dark footer at the bottom of the page.

Page structure and new templates

In order to implement the footer, the XHTML had to be restructured. Originally the footer information was not last in the structure of the XHTML and that’s something that always bugged me. Now when the site is viewed with CSS off, the pages make more sense from top to bottom. The PHP templates that power the site have also been redone. When I first implemented them along with Wordpress, I had two sets of templates. One for the main part of the site and one for the blog. Now they both use the same templates, and while I was at it I upgraded to the latest version of Worpress.

Designing with rules and breaking them

One of my other priorities was to establish consistent rules in which to treat different types of content. Take links for instance, on the last version links might have been a myriad of different colors. Now white text indicates that element is a link. Other rules have also been established, text is a grey, headlines and elements are orange, and buttons all have the same treatment. Rules are always meant to be broken, it’s knowing when and how that makes it acceptable. The one place the links are not white is in the bottom part of the footer. The decision to do this was based more on an objective than it was on aesthetics. The need to have this information recede overrode the need for it to be identified as a link.

Doing more with less

There were two reasons behind establishing rules for the design. One was to establish consistent behavior of elements throughout the site. The second reason was that in writing CSS, I have been trying to establish general styles for the different types of content, and then writing additional styles only as needed. When new or different types of content are added, there is a lesser need to write new styles to accommodate them. The last goal was to not just simplify the code, but also the presentation of the content. There seemed like there were too many pages for the amount of content on the site. The main area of the site that this affected was the portfolio. Instead of individual pages for each item, all the pages have been merged into three main pages. To accomplish this Thickbox was implemented with some modifications. The result is fewer clicks to access the same amount of information.

Standards Reboot

For the first time I participated in a community reboot. Standards Reboot launched earlier this month and it is focused more not just on the aesthetics but on the code behind it with an emphasis on Web Standards. This was in line with the changes that I was making to this site, so I decided to participate. I really never intended to recode mostly everything, but it really helped with updating the way I approach a project. This is important in a environment where techniques and processes are changing daily.

Beauty and Design

February 23, 2006

Making an impression

Exactly what is it that influences our perception of a nicely designed piece? Well, obviously, the way that something looks plays a large role. I think that it’s also everything coming together as a result of a well-thought out design that elevates our opinion to a much higher level. You know something is different, but most of the time you don’t take the time to really think about it. Subconsciously you are aware of it, but haven’t identified each piece.

A closer look

First off, it looks amazing, but why do we think so? For me, it is usually clean lines and simplicity. But, lying underneath that, it functions well, and it’s also intuitive. I understand how to use it with little or no instructions.

As I am using it, I begin to notice the way that it provides functionality and I am amazed at its approach. The design actually enhances the functionality. I think of similar products that I might have tried and remember how certain issues were addressed, and this approach to solving the same problem is different, innovative. Now, why didn’t someone else think of doing it that way?

Instead of just figuring out what I need it to do, I take the time to explore what else it can do. I am not disappointed by its limitations, instead I am satisfied, impressed by the efficiency of the functionality. It does exactly what it was designed to do, no more, no less.

Inciting passion

At this point, I am wondering how I ever got along without it. I am definitely not going to use a similar product that doesn’t work the way this one does; it seems like going backward, a total waste of time. I again marvel at how it looks, and think design doesn’t get more perfect that this. I am so totally impressed that I tell anyone who will listen how great this is. I start to consider taking out a full-page ad in the New York Times, touting the greatness of this achievement. Ok, I’m getting carried away here, but you get the picture; I’ve become passionate about it.

Would I feel this way if just looked cool? Probably not. If it didn’t function the way that it did, I would have reservations. If it didn’t do things in an innovative and simple way, if I wasn’t as amazed at how it approached a previous problem from another direction, if it wasn’t as intuitive, I wouldn’t think it looked as nice. Visually, it would be flawed. Because, I would long for it to be great if only…

Judging the cover by the book

Now, I realize not everyone is as passionate or as observant about design as I am, but it takes everything; style, form and functionality, problem-solving and problem-setting working together to make something totally amazing.

Great design inspires others to emulate it and incites passion among its users. When all of it comes together, whether you realize it or not, it can greatly influence our impression of how it looks.

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