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Written on January 19, 2010 1 Comment » design
Oh gosh. It’s that time again isn’t it. Just a month into the release of my new site, I’ve taken my brand and extended it further. I guess this is the one thing that as a designer we all suffer… the never ending search for happiness (props to EAK for the link).
Then, having read a 24Ways Article by Meagan Fisher who insisted that Photoshop was evil and you can build your site fully in markup… I gave it a go and the current blog (not in the image below) was the output.
I’m not saying she was totally wrong… I’m just saying she’s either really gifted not to need the use of pencil + paper to write down her ideas super quickly. It’s sadly not a gift I acquired.
Sure, if you’ve got a nice basis to work from which is really clean and concise then why not design in your markup. However, I’ve found that my markup is best to ask Information hierarchy questions while the visual and graphic design side best done on paper or Photoshop. How do you build a site? Do you use just paper prototypes, mockingbird, photoshop or go straight into the final output using markup and CSS? Should it be different for personal projects…?
What I did get out of Meagan’s post, was a really awesome app called Slammer – which enables you to use grids with suggestions such as the Fibancee sequance, the golden rule, uniformed grid and a few others. Extremely useful and inspiring! Go give it a try.
Speaking of which, it’s been fantastic to finally get back into the flow of using the Pho of GUI editing suites. Having a break from it for a while was useful… but now I really feel like I’m back to full speed, adding in shortcut keys for all those annoying and monotonous clicks. Oh it’s great to feel like an action per minute ninja.
Right. Enough!
Written on January 18, 2010 1 Comment » portfolio
My latest project was for a recruitment agency client – Pool Digital, whom required a CMS custom built to their needs with a design that worked ubiquitously around their brand and logo.
The build involved photography, jQuery, PHP, HTML, CSS, Google Analytics on top of a install WordPress in rather short turn over time during the Christmas break. I got the chance to work alongside acclaimed ‘SheSays Golden Stiletto Winner‘ award winning copywriter, Yasmin Quemard of Iris, Dare and AKQA fame.
Written on January 7, 2010 0 comments design
Home through ice, food on grill, vacuuming buddy Sookie cleaning like the little domestic robot she is and I’ve got a presentation to complete ready for tomorrow (I started writing this on Friday!).
Suki has still been working hard on those pine leaves that my little Christmas tree left as a parting gift. They are pine leaves right?
To cap off a great week, I thought I’d just share my thoughts on a book designers should pick up if they haven’t already. It’s an oldish book, but still a brilliant one by New York based Ellen Lupton of Pentagram who I’ve just started following on Twitter. I’m lucky to have had the chance in the past to meet one of the co-founders/partners of Pentagram and have the chance to discuss the JustGiving brand with them, so I know just how they cherish graphic design like no other agency.
One of the best parts of the book is how it shares creativity with the reader. Explaining how to break the mold while working within it, as well as pointing out type crime (user experience problems with typography). Which has fascinated me since my time at PartyGaming, when our Creative director strongly pushed for people to avoid using center aligning of content willy nilly (see below for comic sans, poor grammar, typos and awful center aligned example).
Center aligning text is a technique that people apply all too easily, my rule of thumb was if it’s over three words… don’t even think of centering it. Yet, Ellen goes on to say that if used correctly it can “create a formal and classical, bearing rich associations with history and tradition. It invites the designer to break a text for sense and create an organic shape in response to the flow of content.” Which explains just why French menus use it and apply it so well. Some of the time… Below you can see an example of great center aligning that falls into the category of having a history and tradition from the use of the crest and the rich colours.
Center alignment in 'Orientierungsplan - Demokratisches Berlin. DDR Hauptstadt. 1964' taken by sludgegulper
She goes on to say how text is important and often in GUI icons get used on their own without text to highlight it’s meaning. I found this fascinating as the first time I saw this:
It was the most bizzare and random combination of icons I’d ever seen before. My mind was immersed with numerous colours and different icons and initially it made me think of skull and cross bones on the machine itself. Yet, if you look away from that green and white monstrosity, and towards the ‘One laptop per child’ site and logo, it’s a totally different story.
Which made me wonder if this was what she was referring to by saying icons alone cannot always work… The GUI on 1PPC clearly didn’t do Pentagram any justice, yet Ellen’s book and ethos for design really does.
So why should you buy this book, if not because I’ve said so? Type crime. Yup, I randomly blurted it out. The sole reason for you to go out and buy this, is that it explains proof reading and typography no nos without a pointy stick and a waggle of an index finger.
Time and time again, authors write so many things and don’t practice what they preach, yet this book does everything that makes me proud of being a designer. Ellen. We salute you. Okay enough geek talk for me for one night.
If you were to suggest a book to read based on design, typography, layout, inspiration or creativity… what would it be? My next book of reading is currently Chris Anderson’s – Free, which my wonderful mother purchased for me after reading a Christmas tweet. Isn’t life awesome? That was rhetorical in case you were about to answer in the comments box. What the hell, just reply that life is awesome.
I’m also excited that following up from that is an awesome read my wonderful girlfriend got me when I moved into my flat last year (it’s a huge book okay), by Alan Fletcher – The art of looking sideways.
Fin.