I Spy With My Little Eye » Design
I thought Google’s Panda update was supposed to kill bad links?
A little under a year ago, Google’s algorithm update, codenamed “Panda” was all the rage on the interwebs. And by “rage” I mean, loads upon loads of site owners were mad enough to spit nickels. The issue was (to sum it up), Panda was meant to cull all the “bad” site, thereby improving the listings for all the “good” sites. But in the end, loads of good sites got hurt, and loads of bad sites remained … Read entire article »
Filed under: Design, SEO, Website Optimization
Words mean things in “Engrish” too!
Someone in Japan needs to bone up on their profanity a bit… As if to prove the point of my previous post: “Remember: Words MEAN things” from 1/3/12, the photos below are all the rage on the interwebs. Now THATS what I call a sale… Source: Japanese Sub-culture Research Center Source: SuperHappyAwesome … Read entire article »
Filed under: Advertising, Design
Case Study: Redesigning Graveshow.com (Part 1)
They say “the cobbler’s children go barefoot” (interestingly, back in 1773 the proverb was listed as “The Shoe-maker’s wife often goes in ragged shoes”)… And this site is no exception. I’ve wanted to redesign for some time now, and this current design is just a free theme I found somewhere and decided to use, “in the interim” I thought. Well, its been months now, and the interim carries on. So, taking a cue from Paul Boag and his site, BoagWorld, I’m going to redesign right here in full view of you, my readers, and thereby give you a glimpse into my thinking and my design process. In the past, I’ve created a redesign in obscurity, and just launched it when it was done. But this time I plan to approach it … Read entire article »
Filed under: About, Case Study, Design, Web Design
Interesting ideas from Paul Boag…
Just saw this piece by Paul Boag, written for Smashing Magazine, and found it quite interesting. I will have to give the topic some thought, as I’m not sure where I fall on the subject (I’ll write my thoughts later). But in the meantime, give the article a read. In recent years there has been a move away from generalist Web designers to specialists such as content strategists, user experience architects and front-end coders. Where once there was a single job, there are now many, with ever-narrower spheres of responsibility. While my peers are becoming more specialized, I have stoically refused to do so, remaining a generalist. If anything, my interests have broadened, encompassing subjects such as marketing, psychology and business strategy. This has drawn criticism from some who view generalists negatively, which … Read entire article »
I’d LOVE to think GoDaddy listened to ME
Exactly 20 days ago, I did a post entitled Web Tip: Look at things from ALL angles. The point of that post was that we, as designers, get so involved in what we are doing, we often cannot see the forest for the trees. So occasionally we need to step back and look at things from a new perspective to make sure we are still headed in the right direction. Like I said: Back in art school, I had a drawing teacher who would compel us to stop from time, and turn our drawing upside down the figure out what was wrong with them. Sounds goofy…but it works. I used as my example, the home page of GoDaddy. The example wasn’t some screw up, or me pointing a finger saying “GoDaddy sucks!”. In fact, … Read entire article »
Design Inspiration: “Improves Digestive Transit”
C’mon. Let’s face it. As designers, very few of us get to work on the “sexy” projects. We’re not doing all the beer ads with ladies in bikinis or the ads for Trojan where we can hide playful innuendo. Most of us do ads, designs and websites for normal everyday stuff. And truth be told…what we do is HARDER. I mean, its easy to sell beer when you attach a scantily clad blond to it. But if you’re trying to sell refrigerators? Or car tires? Or “widgets”? But there are designers out there who have it even tougher than we do. Imagine trying to sell something, that, to be honest has one benefit that is hard to even SAY with a straight face. “It makes you poop. With regularity.” … Read entire article »
Filed under: Art, Design, Inspiration
Cool web tool: Find Me By IP
Came across a cool little web tool and thought I would share it. This will come in handy for Designers and developers AND their clients. (Its actually two tools in one) Find Me By IP is a great web based tool for viewing browser support for HTML5, CSS3 and more. Now, although the tool may seem overly simple at first…give me a second to reveal the good bits! … Read entire article »
Filed under: CSS, Design, User Experience
Web Tip: Look at things from ALL angles
Back in art school, I had a drawing teacher who would compel us to stop from time, and turn our drawing upside down the figure out what was wrong with them. Sounds goofy…but it works. The idea being, by forcing yourself to look at something from a new angle, you notice the irregularities you might not have previously seen. This is something we should adopt in web design as well. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Design, Tutorials, User Experience
Web Inspiration: Web Designer Wall
The blog of Canadian Nick La, Web Designer Wall is a space for tutorials, interviews, solutions and more. (I wont hold the whole Canadian thing against him either….LOL) Chock full of little design and coding gems to cure all ills, I discovered this blog while trying to fix a perplexing little jQuery accordion issue. Not only had Nick fixed the issue, he had already coded it out, so with minor tweaks I was able to solve a problem that had been bugging me for over a week. Of course…ten minutes after I had the fix in place, the client didn’t want it anymore..but that’s no reflection on Mr La or WDW. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Design, Inspiration