Archive for April, 2009

About a week ago I was fortunate enough to sit in on a discussion about web design being held by a group of design students. The group had been brought together in order to help share information about designing their online portfolios. One of the students – and a previous intern – had asked me to attend to help explain web design to the group. Obviously I was flattered by the request, but also dumbfounded about how to describe such a vast subject in a short amount of time. Aside from mentioning my newest project The Personal Web Design Degree I decided that recommending Mark Boulton’s book A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web was the best approach.

As a freshman in college, in the Fall of 2002 I stumbled upon Speak Up. It wouldn’t be until a year later that I became a regular reader of what can now only be called an iconic design blog. Speak Up is the first design blog I ever read – maybe even the first blog I ever read &ndash and I am sad to see it go. Rather than simply retiring the link from my blogroll, I have reviewed the recently redesigned (or launched?) speak up archives and selected 25 of the articles that had the greatest impact on me.

Well it really looks like I have gotten behind on my posts here lately, normally I like to post my favorite inspirational portfolios when I stumble across 10 – 15 examples. If you want to blame something for my infrequent posting behavior over the last couple of week please blame the Personal Web Design Degree, which has been sucking up all my available free time (and getting some great feedback). However have no fear, all these excuses just mean that this post is crammed full of extra awesomeness!

After what has been a number of hours of work, the Personal Web Design Degree is now live. This initial version of the project contains the overall structure of the curriculum and book list. Both the site and the project are a work in progress that I will be adding to over time; however I feel that this is a project that can truly benefit from the input of the crowd. That being said, I am using this blog post as both and introduction to the project and a request for participation by the global design community.

I am relatively certain that early on in my life I came to the conclusion that easy things are boring. I think my first memory of such an event has to be the Game Genie I owned for my Nintendo. Yes it made the seemingly impossible Metroid conquerable, however it also sucked the thrill out of the game. To the point that pausing to go grab a Sunny D was pointless, as I wouldn’t die even if the flying lava fish things hit me. NES flashbacks aside, I think there is something to be said for taking the harder route, gratification that would otherwise go unknown.