Webdesigninformer.com

Cameron Moll Go to the source

HOW Interactive Design Conference, November 2-4 : HOW Magazine , synonymous with excellent graphic design and the exposition thereof, understands the challenges facing the modern print designer. Many have begun embracing interactive design, whether by choice or necessity. In a major way this Fall, HOW will broaden its coverage of all things design and assist traditional graphic designers in making a successful transition to (or simply adoption of) web design. The HOW Interactive Design Conference is a three-day event in San Francisco. I’m honored to not only be on the speaker roster but on the advisory board for the event, as well. Please consider joining us, or pass this along to a design friend who’s ready to make the leap. … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

Tickets for dConstruct 2011 went on sale last Tuesday. Tickets for dConstruct 2011 also sold out last Tuesday. That’s kinda crazy: a conference for almost 800 people selling out in one day! I think it’s partly down to the great reputation that dConstruct has established for itself over the year’s as the thinking geek’s gathering. But I think it must mostly be down to the fantastic line-up of speakers : Don Norman , Frank Chimero , Kevin Slavin …it’s going to be quite a day! If you didn’t manage to get a ticket, don’t despair. Technically, there are still some tickets available… Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

June was a busy month. I went to Newcastle for the DIBI conference , which was quite excellent. I was very pleased with the talk I gave—called “ One Web ”. I think the talks were recorded on video so I hope they’ll be showing up on a video-sharing site before too long. I spoke on the Using Blue podcast about all sorts of design- and development-related topics. … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

It seems like just a fortnight ago that I was in the States for An Event Apart Atlanta . Wait a minute …it was just a fortnight ago! It would be utter madness, then, for me to willingly make another trip across the Atlantic so soon after that. And yet, that’s exactly what I did for Indie Web Camp . Now, admittedly, the fact that the event was taking place in Portland may have swayed my decision; it’s a place I’m very fond of, filled as it is with good coffee , a giant bookshop , food carts and excellent geeks most dear to my heart. But the premise of Indie Web Camp also tugged heavily at my heartstrings: the desire to have control over my my own data—living at my own URL—syndicated out to third-party sites …the Pembertonisation of personal publishing. … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

It’s all too often the case that as soon as a project is finished, I’m on to the next one in the queue, without any time to stop. I’m sure others know this feeling – there’s no time to reflect and blog about the work you’re doing. So here starts the catch up… Back in April, a project I was involved in was finally launched, the new Identity and website for Five Details , previously known as ExtendMac, whose “Flow”: FTP client won a Runner up prize in the prestigous Apple Design Awards in 2008. Brian Amerige, who created Flow was getting ready to release a new iOS app called Seamless to coincide with the relaunch, and Hicksdesign were bought on board to create a new identity and website. After a few different explorations, we settled on the simple logo of the 2 ‘D’ shapes that together form a ‘5’ in the negative space: The logo has white and orange variants, working on either a white or dark background, as well as ‘layered’ version, for use in backgrounds: Brian and I discussed suitable type treatments, and I felt that LFT Etica was the right fit for this project… Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

WWDC 2011: Everything in One Handy List : A list by Nancy Messieh for those of us who missed yesterday’s Apple keynote. I opted to not watch the keynote and spare myself a couple hours of work time. Since then, I’ve probably spent at least an hour trying to find and digest all the announcements I missed. I’m not convinced skipping the keynote really saved me any time. (The keynote video is also available. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Activate : What a terrific idea (and site). Get geeks out of the office and into the outdoors. A full-day event for web designers and developers in Kent, England. I vote for holding the next one in Escalante, Utah . Anyone game? … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Hiring: Lead Web Designer at Apartment Therapy : I have to admit I’m feeling a little special right about now seeing these guys post a listing on Authentic Jobs. I’ve been quietly following Apartment Therapy for several months, along with its sister site Unpluggd . What’s really exciting for me is that, while the content they post is fantastic, I’ve always felt the formatting and layout could use a little fine-tuning. Looks like that’ll be part of the job: The first job will be to join in our redesign process with our art director, Thomas Porostocky, and work through a complete redesign for launch in September. After that, you will be working on everything: site pages, email templates, cross browser compliance, media kits, and ad driven event campaigns… Read the rest here

Andy Budd Go to the source

This morning I’m going to be standing in front of a room full of SEO people to let them know how I feel about their industry. Here’s a rough outline on what I’m planning to say… Capitalist society needs the banking institutions. It needs them to raise money, store money and move it around the world. Bankers provide the financial lubrication to grease the wheels of commerce and keep the market moving. However If I ask how many of you respect the banking institution or feel that it’s an honourable or worthy profession, I suspect few hands would be raised. The recent banking crisis has exposed what many of us knew all along. … Read the rest here

Andy Budd Go to the source

A few evenings ago I watched a really interesting TED talk by Barry Schwartz on practical wisdom . Although his examples were rooted in education and law, I couldn’t help but feel that practical wisdom was also the core of good design. After all, what is design except the ability to improvise novel solutions to new problems based on your knowledge of a set of rules and your ability to apply them with flexibility? The talk also made me think about my own personal feelings towards project management. I believe that project management processes are often used as a series of inflexible rules (or sticks) intended to ensure average teams reach a minimum level of performance. However this will have the opposite effect on good people, constricting them and eventually demotivating them. … Read the rest here

Snook Go to the source

It’s been a long time coming but I and the rest of the folks in Sidebar Creative are back this year with a brand new edition: the Web Design Master Class . We’ve partnered with UIE to put on not one, not two, but three workshops this year. Crazy, I know. Even crazier is that we’ve actually been rather quiet about the whole affair (well, except for the occasional tweet or two). Allow this venerable blog post to rectify that. What is the Web Design Master Class… Read the rest here

Andy Budd Go to the source

At Clearleft we’re an incredibly business focussed agency. So we work closely with our stakeholders to understand their business needs, and then turn these into Key Performance Indicators to track. In the vast majority of cases, our clients KPI s increase after working with us. However on the rare occasion that things go in the other direction, we take it as a matter of professional pride to rectify the matter. Thankfully we’ve only seen this happen on 4 occasions in our 6 year history. … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

The date for this years Tweed Run , the metropolitan bike ride with style, has been announced as the 9th April. As mentioned back at Christmas, I’m planning to do next years Tweed Run as I need three things: Tweeds, obviously! A bit more fitness (yes, even for a 10 mile bike ride!). My stamina has been getting so much better since October, and I’m losing weight steadily. It’s a great feeling, but I want to be a more confident cyclist before I take part in anything social. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

That was a nice 10-day break from blogging. I’m back after turning my attention to some projects that needed full-time attention. Accordingly, I’m growing convinced that, unless one works late nights and weekends like a Bay Area startup, it’s difficult for an independent team of two or three to move much faster than a corporate team of twenty. The team of twenty has quantity on its side — more hands and specialists to execute the work. With that, of course, comes all the red tape, political baggage, and countless meetings that accompany such teams and the organizations that employ them. … Read the rest here

Eric Meyer Go to the source

Hey, any interest in spending a few days in a luxury lodge in the Great Smoky Mountains this coming spring with me and Aaron Gustafson, learning about and working with HTML5 and CSS3? Then you might want to sign up for Retreats 4 Geeks: HTML5 & CSS3 in the very near future, because it was announced late yesterday and as of now there are only six spots still available. It’ll be a very focused two days of training and a day of hands-on project work with a very small group of people, and it’ll be a ton of fun! Personally I’m looking forward to this for many reasons, but two stand out: this sort of very-small-group training and team project work setup is a new thing for me, and it’s the sort of thing I’ve thought about doing on and off for more than a decade but never quite found the time to do. Aaron, thankfully, did find the time and I’m honored that he asked me to take part. I hope I’ll see some of you this April in Tennessee! … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

Now that the Shelf Theme is finally launched, I wanted to write up some of the process and challenges that The Theme Foundry and I faced in it’s creation. I’d started with the intention of dribbling everything, but constantly found that I wanted to show more than 400×300px, so I started documenting the process in a Flickr Set instead. This post will flesh those out further. Creation I had a very clear picture in my head of how it should look, so my first step was to create what I call a ‘ HTML Sketch”: This is where I set up basic text and positioned boxes to make sure the layout was actually possible – a series of horizontally arranged ‘cards’ on a shelf, where the card height collapsed when the viewport was too small and the cards didn’t wrap. … Read the rest here

SimpleBits Go to the source

I

SimpleBits Go to the source

I’m back in the saddle this week after returning from Build , a conference in Northern Ireland, expertly assembled by Andy McMillan . It was a great event, and a nice way to cap off a busy year of speaking. Build was my last event till 2012. I decided I need some time off to recharge, focus on some other things, not be away from the family, and take a good long while before thinking about diving into Keynote again to construct a fresh talk. … Read the rest here

Eric Meyer Go to the source

I recently found myself asked for advice, which feels odd even at the best of times, and this was (it seemed to me) of a particularly serious nature. I’m curious to know what you think is the proper answer. A few days back, I got e-mail with the following questions: …in your opinion, how useful is a computer science degree for a career in web development? I’m a second year CS major, and considering dropping out because I don’t see the value in it anymore. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Things have been, and will continue to be, quiet around here this week and part of next. I