Posts Tagged ‘web design’

Both articles in this month’s A List Apart (issue 276) asks us to help improve the state of web education, something I have been advocating for a long time now. Even as a student I quickly came to the conclusion that the education I was receiving was far from what I needed. This is ultimately what made me pursue more traditional design education and further my study of web design outside of the classroom. But what is the future of our industry if students are leaving school without a solid understanding of what is undoubtedly an ever-increasing segment of graphic design?

If you are like me, there is no doubt December was a busy month with the holiday season, and end of year business to attend to. My end of year vacation officially came to an end today, and what better way is there to get back into the swing of things than doing a roundup of my favorite website designs of December.

Earlier this month I wrote an article entitled “iPhone Application Marketing: What Every Developer Needs to Know” which discussed my predictions for the future of the app store. If you haven’t read it I suggest you go ahead, otherwise the point I make that you need to know is that in the future simply placing an application in the app store is not going to be enough. As the app store becomes flooded with applications, it is those that can market themselves effectively that will ultimately be able to raise their prices about the 99-cent point and sustain profitability. After writing the article, it became obvious that I should look to see who is doing this right now.

Jason Santa Maria recently posted an interesting article about blog comments that I found intriguing and really had me thinking. In his article Jason explains a very common occurrence in which a blog article has received so many comments that new responses get lost in the clutter. The time necessary to read through such a large number of comments and then respond is so great that most people would rather not, or they might respond without reading. Jason has a devised a hypothetical solution, however I can’t help but draw a different solution.

OK I admit it, I am a little late on posting the November roundup of amazing website designs. The Creative Advent Series took a little more time to manage then I thought, however the results so far have been great. If you haven’t had the time to check out the series yet, you can find all of the articles by clicking here. November was an interesting month full of both well designed and beautifully art directed websites. No matter what the technology, each of these sites has reinforced the fact that intelligent design is more than possible on the web.

Today I was watching CNN’s Green Warriors program when they did a feature on an interesting piece of software called GreenPrint. The idea behind the software is that it can help reduce the waste caused by typical office or home printing, by automatically identifying pages with little or no text on them and flagging them not to be printed. The software conserves both ink and paper by allowing the user to select exactly what makes it to the printer. However what really caught my attention and had me thinking was the online demo of the software.

October is over and with it came another great group of websites. This months selection of websites does share some common traits, vibrant colors, tons of texture, and some great typography. Regardless of the technology used, this months collection of sites shows that elegant design is more than possible on the web.

When I wrote my article about the AIGA and web designers I stumbled upon the refresh group. For some reason, in all my time as a designer, I had never heard of the group. Naturally my first thought was “I hope there is a Chicago chapter.” But for some reason we are without one. So here we are a couple of weeks later, and the idea is still sitting in the back of my head chewing away at me.

Today I decided that I would do some quick research. a couple of Google searches later and I have a couple of bits of information:

I am happy to share with you all the insanely creative portfolios that I have been frequenting lately. This is another great grouping of work that continues to impress me.

Those of you who have followed Positive Space for some time now may be aware that I am the lead Art Director for a design firm called AssociaDirect. Over the past year AssociaDirect has grown from a niche offering of its parent firm LEVEL2 Marketing Group to become an agency of its own. This growth was so profound that it affected the culture and approach of the firm. As a result, the redesign of AssociaDirect.com was not only necessary, but also an opportunity to showcase the unique experiences we have gained within the association world.