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Hicksdesign Go to the source

Drew Strojny from the ThemeFoundry (who I knew from his lovely Traction theme ) recently asked me if I’d like to create a new WordPress theme for him. The offer-I-couldn’t-refuse was complete creative freedom, and the opportunity to make the design process visible. That doesn’t mean ‘open’ in the sense of ‘everything being up for discussion with the internets’ (that way madness lies), but documenting the steps as we go. Everyone has a different workflow, and my workflow isn’t necessarily the right approach for anyone else and vice versa. However, I still love hearing others explain their thought process – the ‘Design Eye’ panels at SXSW spring immediately to mind as being good examples. So on this blog, and on my dribbble account, I’ll be recording what happens as it goes along… Read the rest here

SimpleBits Go to the source

“I found myself resorting to the same button styles, shading techniques, etc… and having to force myself to go back and change things up. I figured that if these guys can spend a year making a single piano, I could probably spend an extra couple hours here and there on refining these details.” - Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain on his redesign of Steinway & Sons … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Steinway & Sons Redesign : Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain, describing (and showing) his approach to the redesign: One of my personal goals for this project was to get away from relying on the same techniques that I’ve become comfortable with over the years… and it was actually harder than I thought it would be. I found myself resorting to the same button styles, shading techniques, etc… and having to force myself to go back and change things up. I figured that if these guys can spend a year making a single piano, I could probably spend an extra couple hours here and there on refining these details. At his request, I had the fortunate pleasure of critiquing Jesse’s work along the way. Like “That’s horrific” and “You really need to consider another career”. Of course, I said that only because I couldn’t man up to confessing how beautiful his comps were… Read the rest here

SimpleBits Go to the source

Q & A with Jason Munn of the Small Stakes : Grain Edit interviews the prolific music poster designer. Have long been a fan, and now purchasing the book , which collects over 150 of Munn’s poster designs for various indie bands. … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

Just as it was with their first album “Alpinisims” , the School of Seven Bells second album ‘Disconnect from Desire’ is in heavy rotation at the moment. It’s another one of those albums that even when I’m not playing it, it’s still playing in my head . Especially the closing number “The Wait”, which is nearing 25 plays in just a couple of days. There’s already a few contenders for favourite album of the year, but this is the top of the list. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Future of Web Design - New York : More about this later, but for now a brief announcement: I’ll be joining a marvelous crew of speakers at this year’s Future of Web Design in New York, several of whom I’ve known virtually for years but have yet to meet in person. Register now for early bird tickets and save $300. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Khoi Vinh Resigns as NYTimes.com Design Director : A good friend and long-time inspiration for me, Khoi is moving on: It wasn’t an easy decision. I’ve been at The New York Times for four and a half years now, four and a half years that will doubtless figure prominently in my life for years to come. There were some rough patches, as there are with any job, but on the whole it’s been the best job I’ve ever had…. In the short run, I’ll be doing lots of stuff on a smaller scale: personal projects that I’ve been tinkering with, a few public speaking appearances, a bit of writing (including finishing a book I started earlier this year), some short-term work for companies with whom I’m friendly, and more. … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

Delicious packaging design for Gail’s Artisan Bakery. Comment on this … Read the rest here

SimpleBits Go to the source

A hard copy of Jeremy Keith ’s HTML5 For Web Designers arrived in the mail today. It’s wonderful to finally see how well-designed it is as a physical object. Most importantly, it’s the clear explanation of a confusing subject that’s made this little book a must-read. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Is CSS the New Photoshop? : John Nack, Photoshop’s principal product manager: As people can do more and more in code, it makes sense to ask whether even to use Photoshop in designing Web content. I think Adobe should be freaking out a bit, but in a constructive way…. As for Photoshop, we could either teach the app to speak HTML natively (via live HTML layers ), or we could translate Photoshop-native artwork into HTML (e.g. ‘copy this button/text as HTML/CSS’). It’s not yet clear to me, however, how such code would smoothly integrate into one’s projects… Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Inc. Magazine: How to Design and Build a Mobile Website : In which myself and several others offer advice to those diving into mobile. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Fracture Custom Glass Printing : This is a unique idea: Print your photos on a sheet of glass, ready for mounting. I found out about Fracture’s service through their listing on Authentic Jobs for Web Developer / Visionary / User Interface Guru / Design Master . Pricing is affordable, from $8 for a 5”x7” print up to $25 for 11”x14”. And they’re located just a few hours away in Gainesville, Florida to boot. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

The Scent of Search : Essentially a list of recommendations for searchbox, search results, and query refinement design and layout, this should be unsurprising reading for anyone experienced in designing for search. Nonetheless, it’s a good overview blended with links to related resources. … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

I’ve finally been through the entire site, and kicked out any legacy stuff (some of which went back to 2003!) and implemented the new responsive design. Originally, I’d intended to change the layout in the various sections, but in the end I’ve used the same one. After trying the other options, it just felt right. Wallpapers One of things I’ve changed is a new Goodies section. With the exception of the Hill House font (download link now works!), everything is new, including brand new desktop and iphone(4)/mobile wallpapers. Icon Reference Chart Another new goodie is a little labour of love: The Icon Reference Chart . … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

Comment on this … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Firefox Home for iPhone : Mozilla has submitted its first app to the App Store, and it’s a “lite” version of their Firefox browser. The entire premise seems to be built on picking up where you left off on your desktop PC. While a nice idea (and one possibly forced by Apple policy), it ignores the context of mobility — something I repeatedly hammered on in Mobile Web Design and something that still holds true today. Frankly, I don’t see my phone’s browser as an extension of my desktop browser. I wouldn’t place any bets on this app doing remarkably well. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

FontShop Educational PDFs : Each of these PDFs are brief but packed with plenty of examples. And they’re free. (Skip to the “ Download all Educational materials ” link at bottom.) /via Brian Hoff … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Tapworthy Book: Designing Great iPhone Apps : Josh Clark’s Tapworthy is now available from O’Reilly Books: Tapworthy takes you from concept to polished interface design with plain-spoken principles and a rich collection of visual examples for designing exceptional interfaces for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The ebook version, which is available in the ePub, mobi (Kindle), Android, and PDF formats, is on sale for $9.99 today only (normally $31.99). Use code DDTAP. The print version is also available on Amazon . … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

One of Textpattern’s drawbacks has always been that page templates are saved in the database. Editing them means using the textarea in the TXP admin interface, but I’m sure most people would prefer to use their favourite text editor. Here’s a workaround that works in TXP 4.2.0 (I haven’t tried other versions). Once you’ve enabled ‘Allow PHP in pages?’ in Advanced Preferences and set up your sections and page templates, put everything in your page template into a file (such as ‘pagetemplate.php’), and replace it with a PHP include: <txp:php>$docRoot = getenv("DOCUMENT_ROOT");include($docRoot.'/pagetemplate.php');</txp:php> You still need to setup your templates in TXP admin, but from there on in, you can edit the templates in a text editor and upload them. There may be a performance hit doing this, but all TXP tags work. Much easier! Update : Thanks to Sam Brown for this much neater version: <txp:php>include(txpath.'/pages/default.php');</txp:php> This is much shorter, but be aware that the ‘txpath’ value takes you to the textpattern folder rather than the site root… Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

With the iPad and iPhone 4, there are as many, if not more, different size icons to create for iOS than there are for desktop apps. While there are plenty of templates and reference sheets for Photoshop users (see Cocoia ) I prefer to use Illustrator CS5 to create mine. So I’ve made my own template, and it’s available here if you find it useful too! Download the iOS icon template for Illustrator CS5 The top layer of the file contains labels and a mask to add the rounded corners of the icon. Don’t forget to hide these before you export. Corner Radius Something that Apple doesn’t include in it’s documentation are the various corner radius dimensions for all the icon sizes… Read the rest here