June 2011
1 post
“Designers have traditionally been paid a lot of money to make what people want;...”
– Enrique Allen
April 2011
2 posts
2 tags
WatchAmazing music video loaded with guest appearances for Beastie Boys’ new track, Make Some Noise. Great way to tease the extended 30-minute version of it—a short film called Fight For Your Right Revisited.
January 2011
1 post
3 tags
“…design is not something that you add in at the end when you’re trying to...”
– Keith Sawyer on design thinking, a movement largely spearheaded by Apple
October 2010
1 post
3 tags
August 2010
2 posts
2 tags
WatchBoot company, Palladium, filmed a documentary about the rebirth of Detroit titled, Detroit Lives. I’ve never been to Detroit, but its rapid decline and hopeful recovery is a fascinating subject. Plus, this type of dual-purpose edutainment/advertising is one I can live with. (via Tyler Shick)
3 tags
July 2010
2 posts
1 tag
A Few Things…
Hey, you! This tumblelog’s been quiet for a minute, but I recently made a couple updates that are worth touching on.
Ads by Yoggrt
Not one for ads in general, I’ve caved in and joined the Yoggrt ad network as a publisher. Really, though, I don’t see it as “caving in” because they’re some of the classiest around — small (160x90 pixels), unobtrusive,...
3 tags
FontFonter →
simplebits:
This is a wonderful tool. Enter a URL and replace its fonts with any of FontFonts web fonts. Hmm, this site looks rather nice with FF Dagny and FF Meta Serif replacing Helvetica and Georgia.
Kinda diggin’ my site with FF Kievit Web.
June 2010
1 post
April 2010
1 post
1 tag
“Getting a large, diverse group of people to agree […] means the designer has to...”
– Paula Sher (via Blake Macleod, Signal vs. Noise)
March 2010
1 post
4 tags
February 2010
1 post
2 tags
January 2010
4 posts
1 tag
Driver's Seat
Growing tired of my current crop of wallpapers, I set out to create something non-distracting and easy on the eyes, and that I could leave up for a while and not get burnt out on. So far, I’m about one month in, it’s still up and I’m not yet tired of it — your mileage may vary. Named after those perforated, breathable seats found in many automobiles, here’s Driver’s...
1 tag
“Whatever work you do when you are procrastinating from other things is probably...”
– Jessica Hische, as said in her Humble Pied interview. (via Shaun Inman)
4 tags
Optimized for Small Screens
Before launching this site, I had plans to create two alternate optimized versions: one for iPhone, iPod touch, and devices that run Android (for simplicity, I’ll refer to this version collectively as iPhone-optimized), and one for all other mobile devices. Shortly before taking off for the holidays, I wrapped them up and they’re now live (iPhone-optimized, mobile-optimized). The...
2 tags
December 2009
7 posts
“The worst thing you can do to anybody trying to be creative is to demand...”
– Chuck Klosterman (via marco)
2 tags
Outasight - Catch Me If You Can
Off...
2 tags
Quick File-Sharing Apps
Lately, there’s been an explosion of quick file-sharing apps bursting onto the scene. Droplr, Cloud, and TinyGrab stick out the most to me and of them I’ve used Droplr and TinyGrab. Cloud is still in invite-only phase, but according to Chris Bowler, it shares many similarities with Droplr and, in the end, he prefers Droplr.
Droplr is well-designed (both the app and web interface),...
2 tags
“Design is a problem-solving activity. It provides a means of clarifying,...”
– Paul Rand on The Politics of Design
2 tags
The Apple Store's Checkout Form Redesign →
Luke Wroblewski takes a close look at recent changes made to the Apple Store’s checkout process. Some nice improvements that make the process simpler, quicker, and easier to visually digest and comprehend. (via blakem)
November 2009
11 posts
3 tags
Tor & Sufjan Stevens - Star of Wonder / None...
3 tags
'Simplenote restyled' is Now Official
Shortly after releasing my Simplenote userscript, Simplenote restyled, the fine folks at Cloud Factory (creators of Simplenote), Mike and Fred, kindly asked me for some help with the look of their web application. I happily obliged and offered to merge my restyling effort into the official Simplenote web application. Just ahead of a significant pending update to the iPhone app (detailed here),...
4 tags
Review: Magic Mouse
I’ve been using a Wireless Mighty Mouse for the past 2.5 years and have never quite understood the vast amount of hate it received—I’ve always liked it. Sure, the scroll nub would occasionally get clogged, but the hold-upside-down-and-rub-with-paper trick always seemed to clean it out and fix the problem. That said, this past weekend I went out and bought a Magic Mouse with no...
2 tags
2 tags
A Collection of Coda Goodies →
Here’s an extensive collection of plug-ins, clips, and snippets for my favorite development tool, Coda. (via stevenf)
2 tags
Driving through a tangled-up SF intersection…
Me: Are we supposed to go now? I guess we're going.
Alanna: I think this is illegal.
Me: If it's not, it sure feels illegal.
3 tags
Notable →
Notable is a web app for collaboratively reviewing designs, code, and copy. I’ve used it just once and can already tell it’s a real gem. I’d like to see a little deeper integration with the core features of the service in the iPhone app—and maybe it’s coming—but, I understand the limitations.
4 tags
Mockingbird →
Mockingbird is an online tool that makes it easy for you to create, link together, preview, and share mockups of your website or application.
I’ve been on the hunt for a new wireframing method and this could very well be it. It looks quick and easy, and mockups can be linked together to test flow.
(Sidenote: Mockingbird is built atop the amazingly impressive Cappuccino framework.)
3 tags
2 tags
October 2009
12 posts
3 tags
phpQuery →
While looking around for a PHP-flavored alternative to Beautiful Soup for Python, I came across phpQuery:
phpQuery is a server-side, chainable, CSS3 selector driven Document Object Model (DOM) API based on jQuery JavaScript Library.
Essentially, it’s most-useful for screen-scraping situations in PHP, but the jQuery-like syntax is a huge plus. I’m already thinking of reasons to have...
2 tags
3 tags
3 tags
Simplenote restyled
Simplenote is an amazingly, well, simple note-taking application for iPhone that syncs with a companion web application. The syncing and, therefore, ability to quickly access notes created using either app make it a great choice for a universal note-taking experience; for me, it has replaced Apple’s iPhone Notes app. The extreme simplicity also wins me over other syncable note-taking apps...
2 tags
Mighty Dream Is Live!
Since going out on my own in May of 2008, I’ve been operating as a web designer and developer under the business name, Mighty Dream, without a real-deal website. A splash page only works for so long. A year-and-a-half in and still without a website is just ridiculous, in my book, especially so for a web designer. My former portfolio, although outdated, served me well and was enough to land...
2 tags
Album Artwork
When I set out to write this post, it was intended to simply show off some of the great album packaging and artwork I’ve come across recently. Instead, it turned into a lengthy post about why I prefer to buy physical albums over digital albums and touched on everything from tangibility, pricing differences, iTunes LP, etc.; but, it was straying too far. Maybe I’ll continue it another...
1 tag
“Real web designers write code. Always have, always will.”
– Zeldman
3 tags
2 tags
@font-face in Depth →
mikemccarron:
Zoltan Hawryluk has written a detailed in-depth post on @font-face. Not only does he go into detail on using fonts via CSS but he also goes into detail on how fonts are rendered in various browsers.
WatchPhotoSketch:
We present a system that composes a realistic picture from a simple freehand sketch annotated with text labels. The composed picture is generated by seamlessly stitching several photographs in agreement with the sketch and text labels; these are found by searching the Internet.
Simply amazing.
“Don’t worry if someone else is already working on your idea. I’m...”
– Michael Lopp [Rands in Repose] on facing the “hurry”.
September 2009
11 posts
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-9-20) →
Braille (16)
Muse (12)
Fashawn (11)
Silversun Pickups (11)
Dave Matthews Band (10)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
3 tags
Some Notes on iTunes LP →
Jay Robinson takes a closer look at how Apple is delivering the “extras” included in their new iTunes LP format. In short: it’s a DRM-free package powered only by HTML, CSS, and JavaScript! (via John Gruber)
2 tags
Optimize Performance in Photoshop CS4 →
More tips, this time directly from Adobe, on how to increase Photoshop CS4 performance on a Mac. From a previously posted set of tips, the following changes seemed to have made the biggest difference for me:
Use proper scratch disks. I added my FireWire 800 external hard drive I primarily use for Time Machine and moved its priority above my local hard drive.
Set appropriate cache levels....