Archive for March, 2008

Every designer out there has one, they hang around us at all times so that we may fill them with our sketches, thumbnails, and thoughts. However, finding the perfect sketchbook has always been an issue. There are a number of issues to consider when selecting a sketchbook, including the paper quality, size, price, gridded or plain, and most importantly the cool factor.

Lately I have been searching for websites that really are different than the millions of other sites on the web. And while not having a web 2.0 aesthetic has been part of my search, I am beginning to wonder if I should now add grunge to that list. Is grunge becoming the new reflected image? are designers reaching back to the grunge style to fill the void left by the backlash against all that is glossy. I think that there has always been a good number of grungy designs on the web (this blog included) but now I think that it is starting to gain popularity because it is the exact opposite, dirty and textured. So what do you the reader think, should I filter out the grungy sites from this series as well?

Ever since the iPhone originally came out industry experts have been buzzing about he future of the mobile web. If you are reading this blog, you are probably very aware of the face that Apple announced the iPhone SDK, and other new features that will be launching this July. With this announcement (read the details on Engadget and the roundup on gizmodo) I finally decided to make the plunge, and not because of the new features. But why would I decide to buy a $400 phone if I wasn’t really that interested in the release of the new features and I hadn’t already made the move?

For some time now I have been working on redesigning my portfolio site. Like many designers, I have found it extremely hard to narrow down one direction and have completed more than four developmental versions of the site that have all been scrapped. In an effort to finally get it right (On the fifth try) I have been doing some extensive research into what makes a successful and visually interesting portfolio site. So lately I have been searching the web in search of the most inspirational portfolios I can find, and rather than keep all the results to myself we find ourselves at post number three in my Sources of Inspiration Series (Number One & Number Two).

In addition there have been a number of great articles written on how to design the perfect portfolio site. Each one has helped me to define what the actual goals of my new portfolio will be, something that I had thought of in the past, however for some reason forgot along the way.

Today I was thinking about what is referred to as the “digg effect” and how awesome it would be if my blog finally made that jump to the digg homepage. Like most people who have came close to making the front page of dig know, as some point fear takes over. “Will I run out of bandwidth, Will my host turn off my account?” Then for some reason I recalled an article I recently read about Denial of Service Attacks, and how your server can be crashed by hackers utilizing these attacks. Where this gets interesting though, is when you think about how a web server could be attacked at the same time that an article of page is pushed to the front of dig or a similar social bookmarking site.

To those of you who follow this blog, you may remember that about a week ago I hinted at the release of a new personal project of mine. I also recently released an article about starting you own personal design project, and some of the benefits of doing so. Well, after a couple of more days than I would have wanted (due to real client work of course) I am finally able to reveal my latest project, Barackas.com. In an effort to share this project I am so proud of I am going to take some time to discuss the project and my design choices.

Every designer knows what I am referencing, those little changes that clients ask for at the last minute. They are requests that are not thought out or followed by reason, yet they must be completed in order to reach a sign off or finish the project. You have heard it numerous times before “I am not sure if this would work, but can you just quickly try making the copy more bolder.” Let’s take a second to discuss why this is not an ideal situation to be in, and actually how insanely counter productive they can be.

Ever since I was a kid I have had the entrepreneurial spirit, making things to sell at my aunt’s store and selling golf balls that popped over the creek into our back yard from the neighboring golf course. In high school when I was a little older and a little wiser, I began selling my creative services. I had always been creative and loved to draw and around this time I discovered the internet. So I started selling websites and then I started thinking about developing my own websites without a client. Trying to make something that would be profitable.

But this all stopped, quickly. Why? It was fear. Not my own fear either. Unluckily for me I had been exposed to those who had tried a project in the past only to fail. I was completely naive and open minded only to have these dreams smashed by disabling fear. Here are some of the questions I heard when I brought up my ambitious internet plans to others: