Doesn’t tilt shift photography (or the fake photoshop version) look good? Having seen some of these shots it’s hard not to look at the world in a slightly different way.

Reminds me of Patrick Heron’s claim that art doesn’t reflect what we see but rather dictates what we see. In the case of tilt shift, we thought model villages and railways looked that way because they were models and not the real thing. Tilt shift shows something different is happening: we can now make the real thing look just like a model if we wish.

“I have always claimed that painting’s prime function is to dictate what the world looks like … What we imagine to be the ‘objective’ look of everything and anything is largely a complex, a weave of textures, forms and colours which we have learned, more or less unconsciously, from painting, and have superimposed upon external reality. The actual ‘objective’ appearance of things (of anything and everything) is something that does not exist…”
Patrick Heron, 1996 “Solid Space in Cézanne”, Modern Painters Vol 9 (1).

There’s more at Smashing Magazine.

Russians at their best: Webdesign in russia!

smahingmagazine.com

Check out these neat designs from russian web design agencies. Nice inspiration for all of us, from russia with love:

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/10/17/global-web-design-russia/

Da beschäftigt man sich nun mit der Schaffung eines Wireframes und weiß letztendlich garnicht genau wie. Einfach nur drei Boxen, “Header”, “Navigation”, “Content” reinschreiben, fertig?

Nunja, so einfach ist die Sache nicht wie ich gerade selbst feststellen musste, auch wenn ein Wireframe nur die Grundstruktur einer Website visualisieren soll. Ich könnte jetzt einen Riesentext schreiben, aber ich verlinke einfach mal zu zwei Artikeln, die (mir zumindest) sehr geholfen hat. Die empfohlenen Tools sind meiner Meinung nach nicht so unbedingt zu gebrauchen, da bin ich in den bekannten Adobe Programmen schneller bin und man muss ja auch nicht immer für alles ein Tool nutzen

The Importance of Wireframes in a Web Design
The art of applying rule of five plus or minus two for an effective wireframe

Und wer schonmal auf der Seite ist, unbedingt umschauen!
Gerade für den Bereich Webdesign sehr zu empfehlen, aber auch allgemein für Designer sehr interessant und ähnlich dem Smashing Magazine, lediglich etwas kleiner.

So, nun aber wieder zurück zum Wireframe…

On the Website Babble Forum someone mentioned custom Twitter backgrounds and it sparked an interesting exchange amongst us babblers. Here’s some insight on the topic.

Why is Twitter so hot?

Twitter is a great way to increase blog traffic, stay in touch with friends, meet new people, and build popularity for a brand. Usage of Twitter has skyrocketed and currently it is reported that there are over 6 million registered users which might double by 2010. And with literally hundreds of Twitter 3rd party services and applications that can accessed via the web or your cell phone it seems there’s always a new tool being introduced to enhance your Twitter experience.

How Do You Line It Up?

Twitter backgrounds are regarded as your introduction to what I like to call Twitterville. You want to make a positive “first impression” and possibly influence people to follow you.

If you use PhotoShop, RC Concepcion of Layers Magazine has an excellent tutorial on PhotoShop User TV episode #205. Don’t have PhotoShop? Then take a look at this article I came across on from Smashing Magazine called Effective Twitter Backgrounds: Examples and Current Practices. This article demonstrates the basic layout and pixel width of the Twitter home page and ways to avoid overlapping the background design with your tweet stream. I actually followed the layout rules in the article to create my Twitter background. It took me about an hour because I keep going back and tweaking it so it would be just right. I was all excited and ready to pat myself on the back.

I asked my friend to and take a look at my shiny new background. She really rained on my parade when she said – “I’m using Tweetdeck – I never see anyone’s background…”

So I rushed to open Brizzly and then over to Seesmic and sure enough, no backgrounds. I guess I never thought about it before then. Just, take a look at your twitter stream to see where the tweets are coming from. You’ll only find about 2 or 3 that are from the web (and I bet one of them is from me).

Twitter Backgrounds are for the birds!

I truly hope you didn’t spend money on a Twitter background before you read this post, and I hope you didn’t spend an hour (or more) creating a stellar background in PhotoShop like I did. Look at the bright side of things. Having a perfectly aligned twitter background does not make people follow you.  Here are some examples of very popular Tweeples and how their Twitter backgrounds appear on a standard 15-inch monitor.

Ellen holds the number 2 spot on Twitter with over 3.5 million followers. Yet, her logo is cut off on the left and so is her face on the right. So much for branding.

@TheEllenShow

It’s been said that Pete Cashmore’s Mashable Rules Twitter and having 1.5 million followers is not bad for a non-celebrity. Hey, I can’t really read what it says about him over there on the left…But I think I’d better follow him anyway.

@mashable

Cutting off the Whitehouse, well I never dreamed that would happen. Did you? OMG on the bottom left it looks like it says the White Ho!

@whitehouse

Well at this point, I guess some of us are glad this guy is getting cut off!

@kanye

It’s a good thing no one ever sees these things. These guys might not get followed.

Well I hope this made you smile. Leave a comment and let me know.

Smooches!

UPDATE:

Here’s the link to a gorgeous free Twitter background from artist Nicholas Patten

Infiniti Magazine has free modern Twitter backgrounds and colorful ones also.

Building mobile applications and designing mobile sites are some of the hottest topics in tech in 2009.  It’s no secret that the iPhone is the mobile platform with the most momentum in terms of applications – mostly due to the simplicity and usability of its user interface.

Smashing Magazine has put together a showcase of top Web designs optimized for the iPhone.  Keep in mind that these are not iPhone apps.  These are Web pages designed for the iPhone’s 320×480 screen.  There’s more at:  http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=3026&tag=nl.e019

Today is Friday and here are five things I love.

1. Moe’s Southwest Grill. My absolute fav is their Funk Miester taco and it comes with super yummy chips and salsa. I will honestly admit I eat at Moe’s once a week. At least!

2. Suave Double Dutch Apple Detangler Spray…it takes me back to my younger years and it smell sooo yummy! Lately my hair has been super tangly..not sure why, but I love this stuff!

3. These awesome twitter backgrounds. I so need to make one now.

4. Phil Wickham’s new cd… so glad I splurged to get it early! Plus it came with an acoustic version and I am a sucker for anything acoustic.

5. My cat, eddy. I used to think cats were super creepy until I got one.

]]> http://kendellwarner.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/swamped-and-loving-it/ Fri, 25 Sep 2009 23:17:32 +0000 kendellwarner http://kendellwarner.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/swamped-and-loving-it/

Apologies about the lack of posting guys. Your friendly neighborhood designer (me) has been swamped these past few weeks. There seems to be a good pick up in people wanting design work (who would have thought!)

I’m interested to know if anyone else has been receiving a healthy surge in work, so feel free to leave comments. In the meantime I’ll keep you guys entertained with come really great links I’ve Stumpled upon while doing inspirational research:

Great tips and photography collections: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/

Catch up on some companies and their re branding efforts: http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/

For all the print fans out there (including myself): http://www.underconsideration.com/fpo/

Enjoy folks!

O famoso portal americano SmashingMagazine.com fez uma pesquisa com seus internautas e uma das sugestões mais populares foi um estudo de caso detalhado de sites de portifólio. Foram selecionadas 55 agências de design e agências de desenvolvimento web, seus porfolios analisados e identificados por padrões. O principal objetivo do estudo foi o de fornecer aos freelancers e agências de design indicações úteis para projetar sua própria carteira.

Foi feito um brainstorm sobre as questões mais importantes do projeto e pedido para os designers dizerem quais decisões são feitas durante a concepção de um portfólio. Pediu-se também ao designers quais perguntas que gostariam de ver respondida ou analisadas em nosso estudo de caso. No final, chegamos a um montante de 40 carteiras sólidas classificadas, agrupadas e re-classificados de acordo com importância. Por fim, buscou-se uma boa mistura de agências de design estabelecida e bem desenhadas tanto de pequeno como grande porte.
Por fim, foi criado um questionário com 40 perguntas e estas passaram pelos sites de todas estas agências de design, observando padrões de projeto e preenchendo nossas formas, algo bastante demorado. Globalmente, o estudo levou mais de 75 horas para ser preparado.

Este post apresenta os primeiros resultados do estudo. Abaixo, discutimos a concepção visual, estrutura, layout e navegação de sites da carteira.

1. Design claro x Design escuro

Uma questão que surge frequentemente é se é melhor projetar um site visualmente atraente e escuro (ou seja, usar uma tipografia bold grande e cores vivas para dar ao usuário uma experiência memorável e colorida) ou um mais macio, mais leve (com uma estrutura simples e tipografia limpa).

Surpreendentemente, de acordo com nossos estudos:

• 82% dos sites são claros com cores neutras e calmas. Os backgrounds desses sites podem ser um tom claro de cinza ou amarelo, em vez do branco puro (ex.: Happycog, SimpleBits, 80/20 and Concentric Studio).

• 29% dos sites de portifólio têm cores vibrantes e marcantes (ex.: 45royale, Hicksdesign, Duoh, Frexy and Odopod)

• Sites escuros sãomais propensos a terem grandes tipografias e imagens fortes (ex.: Adaptd, OrderedList, Carsonified, Blue Flavor, SidebarCreative and pod1).

Dois exemplos de sites escuros com grandes fontes.

Evidentemente, a escolha de um projeto claro ou escuro depende fortemente da sua abordagem pessoal e metas individuais para o seu portfólio. Dizer que a “tendência” favorece cores fortes, ou desenhos claros seria impreciso porque cada tipo serve a um propósito e contexto particular.

2. Quantas colunas?

Curiosamente, muitos dos websites de carteira pesquisados tendem a variar no número de colunas entre as seções. Cliente e About costumam ter duas colunas, enquanto páginas iniciais muitas vezes têm três a quatro colunas e apresentam os pontos mais importantes do site em uma visão compacta. Na verdade, vemos as páginas ganhando mais e mais colunas: A cada 6 sites vistos, pelo menos um tinhauma página com quatro colunas.

Segundo nosso estudo, poucos sites se arriscam experimentando com os chamados out-of-the-box layouts, ou portifólios de navegação com rolagem JavaScript ou outros tipos de layouts original. A maioria das carteiras têm o estilo tradicional de layout em bloco, com duas a três colunas claramente separadas e um menu de navegação simples e conveniente.

carrot creative tem um layout original de uma página com navegação JavaScript, o que é diferente e memorável, mas não necessariamente intuitivo.

A maioria dos sites portfólio consistem em múltiplas páginas detalhadas, com sub-seções. Carteiras minimalistas raramente são encontrados: apenas 5,4% dos websites que vimos têm desenhos simples e minimalistas (são eles Neutron Creations, Fish Marketing and 80/20).

3. Bloco introdutório no começo?

Sites de portifólio normalmente tem um grande bloco de introdução no cabeçalho da página, essencialmente, uma breve declaração amigável sobre o que a agência oferece e quais as vantagens que um cliente vai ganhar usando seus serviços. O bloco irá normalmente misturam imagens vívidas com tipografia grande. Ela transmite a imagem geral, tanto da empresa como seu tom pessoal e dos funcionários da agência, tornando-se igualmente profissional e amigável. Tais blocos geralmente aparecem logo abaixo do logo na primeira página.

Segundo nosso estudo, 79% dos sites de carteira têm algum tipo de um bloco introdutório na sua região superior. Percebemos, no entanto, que algumas carteiras renunciam ao um bloco introdutório em favor da exposição de seus projetos mais recentes (concentric studio, HUGE inc. and Wishingline são exemplos). Para tais projetos, um pequeno bloco “Sobre nós” é colocado em outro lugar na página.

45royale Inc. tem um texto introdutório amigável na primeira página. Dizendo que o site pertence a um estúdio de Web design localizado em Canton, Georgia e cria sites limpos, únicos e com usabilidade.

4. Alinhamento do layout

De volta aos 90, layouts de website eram tradicionalmente alinhados à esquerda, quer com navegação vertical na lateral esquerda ou de navegação horizontal perto da cabeça. Com a crescente adoção de telas wide-screen, isso mudou. Mais e mais designers estão centralizando as inforações no site para que as áreas em branco fiquem nas laterais. Notamos também uma orientação original do alinhamento à direita, mas nem um único portfólio do nosso estudo tem um layout alinhado à direita.

Segundo nosso estudo,

• Layouts de portifólio não são alinhados à direita,

• 89% dos layouts carteira são horizontalmente centralizados

• O resto são esquemas adaptativos (Method and Carrot Creative), uma imagem de fundo vívida que preenche o espaço restante da tela (Duoh) ou apenas deixou-o vazio (e.g. Ideo, maybe.for.you and Area17) – Claro, você vai ver o restante espaço da tela se o monitor for wide-screen.

5. Alinhamento da navegação

Onde colocar a navegação principal no layout? A questão não é trivial e muitas vezes leva a um debate entre os designers. Surpreendentemente, o nosso estudo revelou que o lugar principal da navegação é o canto superior direito do layout. De fato:

• 80% das carteiras de tem grandes navegação horizontal,

• 51% dos sites têm de navegação horizontal com elementos alinhados à direita (e.g. Concentric Studio, Mark Boulton Design)

• 16,4% têm navegação horizontal com elementos alinhados à esquerda (e.g. Squared Eye, Adaptd, BarbarianGroup),

• 11% possuem uma full-width faixa de navegação horizontal com grandes elementos clicáveis (e.g. buffalo, SimpleBits).

Navegação vertical é raramente usada, e outras abordagens (como a navegação horizontal na parte inferior da página) são encontradas em não-convencionais layouts, embora ainda pouco comum.

Continua no próximo post…

This is a link to a great article from Smashing Magazine that details the specs for customizing your Twitter background. It also includes a gallery of all kinds of different background themes to inform and inspire. Pictured above is the Twitter page of @adamplitt.

The web design industry is a fast moving one. It can be hard to keep up with the latest updates, changes and developments.

Browsers are constantly updating and new ones being released. Mark up and coding techniques evolve and new design trends appear everyday.

This is where Twitter can help you. If you are a busy web designer you may not have much spare time to read blogs, newsletters and forums.

Twitter - the web designers firend

Twitter will sit neatly in the corner of your screen and directly feed you nuggets of web design gold. Set up Twitter and follow some of the industry experts and let the tips, advice and guides drift across your screen all day.

Here are a few to follow to get you started:

@studiowebdesign
@boagworld
@smashingMag
@NetMag
@mike9r
@chriscoyier

It’s official, one of the most dugg websites, smashingmagazine.com is down. This is what you see when you visit their website:

(Update: 16:11 CST, 23:11 CET) SM’s servers have a problem, possibly an attack. Temporary solution: we are loading a backup on an external server cluster. Please stay tuned.
(Update: 15:59 CST, 22:59 CET) We are working hard to find a solution. Meanwhile, please follow us on Twitter to keep informed about updates.
(Update: 14:58 CST, 21:58 CET) Smashing Magazine is down for maintenance, please check back later, thank you.

First they say they’re down for maintenance, and then they say it’s an attack (maybe a DOS attack). Wonder how long and how severe it is… Hope they’ll be back soon!

If you’re one of the reader of Smashing, you’re well aware that Smashing forum have this interesting activity where they give out free book. Well, I’ve tried my luck last year to get Smashing Magazine 2nd Anniversary poster but too bad I didn’t get it.

I just contacted by Smashing author that I’ve chosen out of more than 110 comments to receive this book, “Universal Principles of Design” by William Lidwell, Kritina Holden and Jull Butler. Only 3 copies and I’ve got one of it.

Wondering whether I’ve to pay for the shipping fees or not. Hopefully not. Thanks to Smashing Magazine! Thanks!

A couple of days ago I was yet again cruising Smashing Magazine (a great online magazine for pretty much anything to do with web development / design, etc). The post I was reading was all to do with the best way to communicate with your web developers and the author brought to my attention a small but brilliant website, Project Cartoon.

Providing a sequence of images, each referring to a stage within a project complete with editable captions, you can modify the strip and create your own version; this one sums up my current project pretty aptly.

Because we all have projects like this

It is definitely worth a visit for all those disillusioned projecteers out there; it is a surprisingly cathartic experience to commit frustration to cartoon. Like voodoo. But somewhat less agressive. If only passively so.

Atlanta tech-media items of the day. Click here to listen.

Sites where goodies mentioned in audio note can be found are:

• “How to Create Your First iPhone Application” – SmashingMagazine
• “Class of 2009″ – ShotPut Ventures

VM provided by ShoutNow.

by Cat Johnson

In early 2009, Smashing Magazine published a post on their really great website (Hint: Get over there if you don’t know about them yet) entitled Web Design Trends for 2009. I revisited it recently and found it to be inspiring, informative and enlightening.

Part of our job as developers is to stay on top of what’s happening in the web world so we can offer our clients tools and styles that will represent them in the best light and keep them up to date.

I follow Smashing Magazine on Twitter, so I receive “tweets” about new articles and have found their frequent, informed and thorough posts on a variety of web-related topics to be very helpful. They also have great freebies, tutorials, a job board and a lot more.

The designs that they showcase are generally VERY good…and bulletproof and lean, filled with perfect images and flawless code, which I’ll admit can be a bit intimidating, but it really is helpful to see what the best designers in the world are up to and the direction that web design trends are taking. After all, how can we improve if we don’t know where we’re going?

Voici une selection de 50 blogs les plus tendances

(via smashing Magazine)

Duiwaigh

Iemai

Douglas Menezes

A Crayons Life

Blog me Tender

Nice Web Type

Foodtease

Mike Matas

Questionable Characters

idsgn

SushiMonstr

Brown Blog Films

Addicted to New

Nalden

The Klog

Guns & Donuts

moradito

Daustralala

Digital Mash

Jack Cheng

Huwshimi: A robot blog

Cocoia Blog

Metalab

Mateus Neves

Ryan McMaster

Rin & Wendy

Markup & Style Society

Get and Give

The Astonishing Adventures of Lord Likely

Fritz Quadrata

Argee

Steven Mullen

Owltastic

Snailbird

Henry Hoffman

Guillermo Esteves

Skylab

Gary Nock

5Pieces

Ethan Marcotte

Dino Latoga

theCpeng

Darren Hoyt

Elliot Jay Stocks

From The Couch

Mike Rundle

Boris Forconi

Nasendackel

via attias.net

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• 70 Wallpapers to Dress Up Your Dual Monitors (lifehacker.com)

Design

I love Smashing Magazine, an online design-oriented magazine. I can’t say enough about it. They cover advice, tutorials, free stuff, and knowledgeable articles from experts.

Their most recent article is entitled Ten Harsh truths About Corporate Blogging. This is particularly relevant to me because the company I work for is having the creatives get experienced in blogging by getting their feet wet and starting their own blogs, this one included. My blog isn’t entirely new or an experiment though. I started a version of Food & Design several years ago, but then got busy with other things and strayed away. I’m happy to be back and I hope my readers are as well.

On to corporate blogging. As Paul Boag points out in his article, the biggest challenge in corporate blogging is letting go. Blogs are not newsletters or press releases. They are not one-sided communications. Blogs are meant for feedback and discussion. And, not all that feedback is going to be good. Everyone from myself to corporations need to realize that when you offer a service, expect both the good and the bad.

But what is bad? Is it misinformation? Is it someone just hell-bent on saying bad things? Or, is it bad press because of a failing or perception? Blogs are public relations on the most intimate level. Use the medium to your advantage. Educate, inform, correct perceptions and answer questions directly.

Give the article a read and then set it into practice. Remember not all feedback will be bad and you will gain trust and loyalty through your attention and honesty.

There is second publication (the first publication) in Smashing Magazine where my portfolio website www.dreamerlines.lv is listed among 50 fresh portfolio websites for Your inspiration.