Opera Small Screen Rendering Mockups, HTML templates, databasing, content management, hosting – there’s a lot to consider when developing a website. In the rush to put a site live on time and under budget, one important aspect of the process is often woefully neglected: testing. Sure, debugging a website isn’t most people’s idea of fun, but early testing and...
I’m thrilled to be guest-blogging here on Notes on Design! I’m an art director by day, illustrator by night, and hands-on-at-all-times Mama to three preschoolers. This means I am very good at organizing, but I’m ready to get creative at a moment’s notice. I’m a great believer in keeping your creativity alive by always trying something new to spark...
It’s official…the 2007 International Davey Awards Call for Entries was just recently launched. They’re looking for the best of the best in smaller firms and companies worldwide. Focusing on creativity, the Davey Awards honors smaller agencies that often do the best work but rarely get their fair share of accolades. With the introduction of an online entry system and...
As creative veterans will tell you, starting a project without a creative brief is like starting a road trip without a destination or a map. Creative briefs are an essential tool for gathering pertinent information, setting clear objectives, and aligning expectations. Since briefs provide a common ground for managing creative projects and evaluating their success, it’s critical that you...
Typography is a sadly neglected aspect of the web design process, an oversight traditionally blamed on the technical limitations and unpredictability of the medium. While it is true that the web may not offer designers the same typographic freedom as print, all it takes is careful consideration and a little typographic fine tuning to bring website layouts to life....
Attention CG animators: you’re invited to participate in the first international FJORG! competition – an animator event being launched at SIGGRAPH 2007. Competing teams will be called on to try to create the best character-driven animation the world has ever seen, within a limited window of 32 straight hours, while overcoming multiple staged distractions in a test of skill,...
Thanks to the wonderful world of “Web 2.0″ we have recently witnessed a proliferation of web applications, offering services from mapping to social bookmarking, photo sharing to user generated video. For a web developer one exciting aspect of this new breed of web apps is the ability to extract data from them by means of an API (Application Programming...
Travel broadens the mind. Learning other languages increases our awareness of other perspectives and expressions. Using two page layout programs is a pain in the butt – kind of like travel or language lessons. I’ve noticed that I long for abilities on one application that are in the other application. But then, I (and probably everyone else) has longed...
The Greatest American Designer Who Ever Lived —What We Can Learn From A Master Frank Lloyd Wright is widely acknowledged as America’s greatest architect. I would like to totally disagree with this statement. I would put forward that Wright was actually America’s greatest designer. Design was everything to Frank Lloyd Wright and Frank Lloyd Wright designed everything. Architecture, graphic...
