InformationJunkyard

Every once in a while, you hit up something pretty cool over your lunch break reading. Today was two in a row, both dealing w/ design and css-3 properties I wasn’t completely familiar with.

Rotation in css-3. Or moreso it’s application in a baddass little poster experiment: http://www.everydayworks.com/css_typography/everydaytweet.html

And a sweet read on typograpy using css-3 that was well illustrated with some great usage examples: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/03/01/css-and-the-future-of-text/

It’s the kinda reads that make me look forward to my lunch breaks again!

Design, Visuals, big thoughts, living, randomness code, cool websites, css, Design, lunch

A continuing part of my new life in Charleston is the new job that comes with it and re-wiring my brain around what design is. Moving from a creative agency to a software company, an intimate client facing environment to a larger, corporate environment has had some interesting effects. But one of the most interesting things has been the opportunities to design and think about what design can be.

My current morning practice is to get up a bit early and get in an hour+ of design work in, or read a good book to get my day off on the right foot. For the moment, that book is “inside Steve’s brain” – one that’s become increasingly popular around my company, and for good reason. As the company grows, they are increasingly looking for a brand to consolidate their array of products. And looking at the process of design, as the company shifts from one that makes software to one that is selling a brand. Increasingly, design leads such as myself are being looked to for advice – again opportunity.

This morning was Chapter 2: Despotism: Being a one-man focus group. Some really interesting take-always for me, especially considering I’ve been functioning as a one-man design show for years and the context of my new position. A lot of what I read has been reassuring in many ways – coming at design from a different direction than those building the product, gives you a unique understanding. Steve’s main asset isn’t that he understands the technology as well as the engineers creating it, but that he understands the users and is always pushing design. This is a strong concept for me, as it helps me think about where my value as a designer is to a company that writes software and needs that outside voice to help understand how to package and interact with the things they create.

Charleston, Design, big thoughts Charleston, Design

Spent a portion of my morning re-building Depeche Mode’s “logo” for an upcoming event my agency is producing for W Hollywood Residences. Quite crazy, but I never thought of rock music as needing branding or really what might go into a band’s logo. Perhaps this is common in the industry, but the logo and “brand” seems to shift for each album that’s produced. I guess there is a bit more at stake with a headline band than the garage-band w/ album art designed by someone’s brothers friend.

While I can’t say DM was ever a band I truly dug back in the day, the Violator album cover is burnt into memory. The juxtaposition of the title “Violator” next to the stark visual of the red rose creates incredible tension and was brilliant. More so, it speaks towards the music.

The new brand appears a mash of 80’s glory – large abstract bars of colors – with abstract images and colorful gradients that are the pop-art of ‘06. Much like the new music is almost more 80’s now than it was in the late 80’s. The logo cleverly uses these to “bars” to try and spell the “D” and “M” of the band name, but not quite legibly. One aspect I don’t know the answer to, is how much influence the actual band members have over establishing this look, or if it’s cooked up by their record label and stylists behind the scene.

In all respects, a coherent brand. And while I’m personally not in love w/ the aesthetic, it does do an excellent job of leveraging the old glory of a band who’s been out of the loop for a while aggressively trying to make their look contemporary.

Design, Visuals, big thoughts, living, randomness branding, logo, rock, w hollywood

Found this alarming over this morning’s cup-o-coffee and the accompanying design reads, Digital Web Magazine is no more. 

The landscape of web writing has changed. The value of well-edited and reviewed content is giving way to faster, less-refined posts on blogs, comments, and services like Twitter, and it is clear that many writers prefer to draw traffic to their own sites.

It’s a resource I’ve read and used many a time in my learning process, as well as keeping current with some of the bigger ideas that flow behind my profession. The founder statement that refined writing is being replaced the sporadic diarrhea of the mouth that blogs and twitter represent is a scary reality – especially as I sit here blogging about it. Also, it would appear that the increasingly selfish attitude as we all try to curate our “digital persona” are making it hard to get participation in new articles.

In my way, I’ve found myself using this blog increasingly as a vehicle for reflecting on the events that surround me; As a means to continue writing, even if the subject matter varies and is often fuzzy logic. A result of my sporadic writing attempts has been a greater respect for those sites and authors, like Digital Web, who pursue a refined goal with more structured writing.  Not sure how to conclude this thought, so I’ll just leave it hanging here with the hope of returning with some brighter conclusion.

Design, living, randomness blogs, coffee, reflection, twitter sucks

After a nice long weekend of soaking my head in the sun of Palm Springs, I’m back to the grind on Monday and thinking about a few things I’ve been reading up on in the past week.

WebAssist’s Roadmap Series: Having played w/ their products before, WebAssist helps web programers prototype more quickly w/ an impressive array of tools and information. Besides this, they provide some nice information about the what and why’s of web design. Their roadmap series is boiled down, 4-6 page basics of web design. Why is this handy to for experienced designer? Besides some nice refreshers of the basics, the one that really got me thinking was their explanation of SEO, boiled down to 2 pages. I stutter to think how many lengthy emails to clients explaining the basics of search-ability this would have saved me.

The result is it really got me thinking how I could improve my professional practice by creating a series of short documentation myself; Covering theses buzzword topics that clients always ask about. It would help clarify the process and educate the client BEFORE their web-site was designed and built.

Web Designer Wall: Always searching for great sites, especially ones that inspire the web design process. So many times, these sites are garbage “showcase” sites, where you get a bunch of screenshots without qualifying the WHY these sites are listed. This site provides great reading, looking at trends in web design, showcasing great sites as examples of those trends, and backing it all up w/ a great amount of the HOW with their tutorials. In particular, I’m, digging on their JQuery tutorials and thinking of ways to incorporate more Javascript animation into the sites I create. Kudos to these guys for elevating the web-design blog one more notch.

Design Observer: Collect a bunch of rock-star designers from a variety of disciplines and have them write, coherent, passionate articles? What could be better. Great inspiration, and a good read for that 4pm coffee break.

Core 77’s Design Directory: This is my Monday morning treat, their email newsletter id geared towards industrial design, but runs the gamut from furniture design to new sanitation ideas to save children in Africa. It’s the sort of stuff that gives me the brain jitters and informs the soul.

Design, big thoughts, randomness cool websites, Design, professional practice

Just got new business cards back from the printer, and their freak’n SWEET. I’m a bit pumped because they’re the first “real” cards I’ve ever done for myself and my business. Was able to abused the bottom of a half empty press sheet and ended up with at least 3k worth of cards in 4 various designs. Now I just have to find someone to give them too….

BTW, the “Digital Band-Aid” idea came from the fact half the work I seem to do these days is picking up the pieces of others and solving problems at the last minute. Perhaps a “your interactive plunger” might be another metaphor. Still, not a bad way to make a buck or three.

Design, living