Latest blog posts

Responsive Web Design

25th May 2010

Ethan Marcotte shows us how we can make use of CSS Media Queries and flexible layouts to build a gradient of different experiences across platforms. With the mobile web growing as quickly as it is, this is a must read.

Dribbble

09th April 2010

Dribbble is a cool design community where you can post sneak previews of projects you are working on. Previously an invite only site, for better or for worse, Dribbble is now open to the public in as much that you can now view the work people post there. It’s still invite only if you want an actual account to upload your own, but at least you can see the work others post there if you don’t have an account. I’ve posted a few sneaky shots of some projects I have been working on, so head on over and have a butchers. If your lucky enough to have an account give me a follow to keep up to date with additional shots I post. There will be more!

Jon Hicks trials Fireworks CS4 alternatives

23rd March 2010

For years Fireworks was my tool of choice when it came to interface design for the web. I found it better suited to my workflow in comparison to the other dominant industry tool, Photoshop. I used to swear by it, even converting colleagues from Photoshop to the magic that once was Fireworks. However, this changed after Adobe released what I find to be one of the buggiest, unreliable pieces of software I’ve ever had the misfortune of using. By this I mean Fireworks CS4.

Eventually it got to a point where I decided I couldn’t use Fireworks any longer due to constant crashing and having lost hours of work (sure you could argue I should have saved more often at times, but when you get in the flow, you get in the flow and sometimes you don’t want to save if your not sure the end result is a worthwhile direction). At the end of the day these lost hours cost us money and sometimes even jeopardise deadlines, which is unacceptable. So now I find myself back using Photoshop but desperate for Adobe to do something about Fireworks, restoring it to it’s former glory.

I’m certainly not the only one, and Jon Hicks has a great post detailing other software on the market that could potentially fit the bill. None of them are quite what I am personally after just yet but it’s well worth a read as are the software worth a try. Fingers crossed in the future they will implement some of Jon’s suggestions and there will be a perfect tool for the job.

I find myself in agreement with Jon that Opacity is the closest of the bunch to what I am after. What I am really hoping for though, is for Pixelmator to introduce vector tools, which I believe they plan to do. I’ve been incredibly impressed with Pixelmator and love the software’s interface and lightweight feel. One encouraging sign is vectormator.com actually links through the the Pixelmator website, although I hope this doesn’t mean two different software applications. One for vector and one for bitmaps. I’m looking for the perfect fusion of bitmaps and vector tools that Fireworks offers.

Selling user experience to large companies

23rd March 2010

Alan Colville shares his insight and writes about selling user experience to large companies.

Some facts about web fonts

22nd March 2010

For those of you who still haven’t quite got your head around fonts on the web yet, this is a great little introduction to get you started.

Colosseo Letterpress Poster

09th March 2010

Every now and then something comes along and renders you speechless and Cameron Moll’s Collosseo masterpiece did exactly that to me when I saw it. Truly remarkable work that my words can’t do justice. You can see the time, care and passion that has gone into this through the quality of the video that Cameron produced covering the process of it’s creation.

Logorama

09th March 2010

Logorama was the winner of the Oscar for Best Short Film. Be warned it contains fairly strong language and some violence, but it’s very clever and well worth a watch.

OK Go - This Too Shall Pass video

07th March 2010

Yet another amazing video from the band that brought you the unique music video of them all performing a sequence on treadmills, OK Go.

Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous’s ass

25th February 2010

An interesting article arguing the reasons as to why Tumblr is currently a more successful “tumblogging” service then Posterous in terms of users. I’ve been using Tumblr on two or three projects recently and it really is the quickest way to get cracking with a simple blog. Of course it has it’s limits, but these are limits that they have in place on purpose to keep in with the idea of being the easiest way to blog.

If I were to look for something with a little more flexibility and the potential to extend over time, I would without question go down the route of ExpressionEngine or Wordpress (if the budget doesn’t allow for an ExpressionEngine license) still. But for these quick fix, straight forward, simple-style blogs, you can’t go wrong with Tumblr.

Thinking for a Living

23rd February 2010

Thinking for a Living, is a publisher and curator of thought-provoking design content and a creator of meaningful experiences. They just relaunched with a great new design, which features some nifty navigation features.