August 29, 2008
A few aesthetic changes came to my website tonight. This is me working toward a larger issue, which is that my website has not be working for me. I realized this a while ago, and have been mulling over it a bit, but haven’t had time to do anything about it. Busy, busy. Yada, yada, yada. For now, parts of my website are removed, namely my portfolio (or what there was of it). Also removed are the pages for ‘about me’ and ‘contact me’. Their contents have been revised and put in the left column, always visible, which will remain into the future. A few other aesthetic changes.
In a few weeks, after a few more important projects are finished, this site will see an overhaul in every regard. Most importantly it will be redesigned to really work at selling my services. It’s kind of an important feature when running a business.
Meanwhile, I’ve also started a more technical list of goals to push my skills forward a bit:
Move site to Textpattern (WordPress has grown up a lot recently, but I’m ready to move on, try something different)
Sensible order of content in markup (I’m mainly focusing on the chance visit via screen …
August 27, 2008
A few months ago I got a call about receiving free the Courier-Journal for about a month, and we did. I signed up and we got the paper, and I really liked the idea of reading the newspaper, but we never read it and the papers piled up unread and into the recycling it went. I’m a web guy. I read the news online. I scan my RSS feeds, read what I need to read, and no ink or paper wasted. Needless to say, I didn’t end up subscribing to the paper.
Last week the Courier-Journal called again, this time reminiscing what a great customer I was and how much I enjoyed the paper in the past. I filled the guy in and he offered me a free trial subscription to what they call their e-Edition of the paper, of which he said he had only recently seen and was impressed with. Their e-Edition is a service whereby you get an email with a link to a website where you look at pictures of the actual newsprint spreads. After logging in, this is the first screen you see:…
August 25, 2008
Dino dos Santos makes some of my favorite type. There is an attention to detail apparent in his work that teaches me new things about typography as I use (and dream about using) his typefaces. I really like these ampersands he drew for his newer type Capsa:
August 12, 2008
Among the multitude of household names in web design and development, there’s one in particular that I’ve come across many times, yet have never really bothered to read. That name is Jakob Nielsen, the User Interface genius of our day, yeah?. (Here I risk throwing my own work into the fire.) From time to time I come across comments about the gentleman, like this one from John Gruber:
I’ll just come out and say it: I think Jakob Nielsen’s advice tends to be trite. And his writing style never comes across as actual prose; rather than feeling like reading an essay, reading Jakob Nielsen always feels like reading a summary of an essay.
Admittedly, these reviews have held sway, which I know isn’t credible. Add to that, though, that I just haven’t been able to get past the aesthetics of his presentation. I have the same problem with music. No matter how good the lyrics are in a song, if the music is unbefitting my ears, I simply cannot stand to hear it.
Gruber’s comment was in response to what Hank Williams wrote about Nielsen’s website, here in part:
Unfortunately, I have to say, Jakob has perhaps
…
August 09, 2008
The guys at typographer.com wrote a thoughtful piece about letterpress in response to P22’s recent release of the Stern typeface:
I’ve heard people say that letterpress gives warmth, but I prefer to think of it as giving humanity. That the type’s interaction on a page is so dependent on the punch cutter, the caster, the compositor, the printer, the humidity, the papermaker and inkmaker gives it a humanity, not a warmth.
And:
You would be remiss as a designer to not consider all reasonable options, but the sign of a good designer is the ability to assess that word reasonable, and remember it does not always just mean easy. And as for cost, how much do you charge per hour? And how much did that laminate cost? Or the hexachrome printing? Come to think of it, how may of those cards from the last run went to waste?
Go forth, consider pressing ink into paper. Consider it not from dogma, but from what might just be worth the candle.
Go forth. Read the whole.
