For those of you who are familiar with the old Obama site that went up early last year you should check back in because some time around the Iowa caucus it seems they launched a website redesign. For those of you who were not familiar with the first site, check this post out to see screen shots of the nicely designed original and read about it’s deterioration over the year.
Anyone who’s ever created an HTML email knows what a pain it can be to get the document to render properly across the numerous email clients out there. Because of the lack of standards for email clients to follow HTML emails are a nightmare to develop and I personally try to avoid designing them at all costs. In the past I’ve used Campaign Monitor which I found to be one of the best resource in easing the burden.
It turns out the guys behind Campaign Monitor in addition to running a great business are trying to do something about HTML email standards too. Taking a page from the Web Standards Project (WaSP) book they’ve created the Email Standards Project which attempts to do some of the same great things for HTML email that WaSP did for the Web. You can help by spreading the word.
A couple weeks back U.S. News published an article titled “Best Careers of 2008” that highlights a list of 31 jobs the magazine considers to have strong outlooks for the future and overall high employee job satisfaction. Although the definition of Usability Specialist by U.S. News is somewhat generic (most likely to include multiple industries ) It’s still great to see a web related career on the list. I’ve always wondered if people outside of the web development community were even aware of usability as a profession and it’s importance to a good consumer experience. It seems so often that even seasoned professionals will often times discount the importance of the user experience so it’s great to see usability getting some recognition from the outside world.
On a somewhat related note, i ran across a new tool called GigZig, from the Payscale people. It’s a “career path explorer” that allows users to type in a career title and see what positions people have held 5 years prior to that title and what positions they might hold 5 years in the future. The tool attempts to give a rough estimation of how many people have followed a certain path by illustrating with little people icons. Using “User Experience Specialist” as an example on GigZig we can see that in the past those people have been Web Designers or Developers and in the future they are Product Managers, Directors. Nothing earth shattering about that profession’s results but the tool could be really useful for those looking to get into certain professions if they’re unclear of what path to follow. The data is a little skimpy at the moment but product is still in beta so hopefully more people take the surveys so the experience is more robust.
I ran across a suite of JavaScript based development tools for web designers called “Design“. The suite is comprised of four tools: Grid, Ruler, Unit and Crosshair. I currently use a lot of Firefox extensions that perform similar tasks but this bookmarklet has advantages because you can use it in Internet Explorer (no IE 6 support), Safari and Opera and it’s an all in one package. It’s also a JavaScript bookmarklet so it’s easy to install in any browser. Just visit the site and drag the “Design button” up to your bookmark bar and presto it’s installed.
“Grid” is probably the most robust and impressive of the bunch. Quickly create grids with any number of columns, tweak gutter space and vertical row height. “Ruler” functions the same way as it would in Photoshop or any other design app with rulers on top and left and it allows you to pull grid rules for alignment. “Measure” is my least favorite. I find the “MeasureIt” Firefox extension to be superior and easier to use for grabbing quick dimensions. The biggest thing missing from the Design suite is a color tool. Maybe it will show up in the next release. If you’re using Firefox a substitute is the ColorZilla extension which allows you to sample colors via an eyedropper.
Chicago based poster designer Jay Ryan of the Bird Machine has an exhibit on display at the University of Illinois’ I Space gallery down in River North. If you’re unfamiliar with Jay Ryan’s work he’s known for his whimsical hand drawn posters promoting rock band shows which often include images of an assortment of animals. I believe the exhibit focuses on some of his newer work from 2005-2007.
Luckily the exhibit just started last week (Dec 7th) so there’s plenty of time to check it out. The exhibit is running through February 12, 2008, check the I Space site for the gallery address and hours.
“See, I’m a designer, and I make my living off my award-winning, mind-shaking creativity. While lesser designers settle for gilded edges, pillow embossing, and premium fonts for their visual identity, my business card is unto itself an interactive experience”
Last week I attended the PhizzPop Design Challenge in Chicago. The event was sponsored by Microsoft and and it was pretty much a big marketing event to raise awareness of Microsoft Expression Suite and woo the creative web community into trying the product. I’m not one for attending events as such but I decided to give it a shot since I heard about it through the IxDA group. I was pretty much clueless as to what was to take place other than the vague description of designers competing in some type of challenge. The event was held at the Underground and I figured at the very least it would be worth attending for the free drinks.
Looks like Adobe is working on a new product that would give designers another tool to help bridge the communication gap between design and development. The product is code named “Thermo” and after viewing a demo video it looks to be some sort of WYSIWYG product for flash/flex applications.
There is definitely a gap that needs to be addressed in product development between design and dev and with the advent of the “Rich Internet Application” a simple tool that would allow designers to work with data and specify functionality and behavior would be welcomed. As the demo illustrates you can start with a Photoshop comp, bring it into Thermo and then turn items into functioning components with just a few clicks.
On the plus side described in the video, Thermo supposedly will write code that’s reusable to developers, so the designer is actually creating a functioning prototype. This allows the designer to contribute more than just static comps. The problem is I’m a little skeptical on how usable the generated code from Thermo would actually be. And Is it realistic to think that a developer would use the code?. It reminds me of the garbage html and JavaScript that Dreamweaver would spit out. Sure, your front end developers loved using that stuff right?
At the very least It could be a powerful tool that would help convey the designers vision, regardless if the code was used or not. It seems like the product could be quicker and friendlier than using flash.
Do you own your dog, or does your dog own you? Regardless, if you’re a dog owner and you like poster design check out www.obeythepurebreed.com. A fellow friend of mine who is also a frenchie owner passed on a link to this really cool French bulldog poster. In addition the site has a slew of other poster designs (as well as coffee mugs & T-shirts) for an impressive list of other dog breeds.
The site concept and most of the posters are reminiscent of Shepard Fairey’s Obey Giant propaganda art work. Vive la Résistance!
I’m a little late to the Mad Men table considering I missed the proper season, but I just caught my first episode last night thanks to AMC for doing an encore presentation of the series. Matthew Weiner, one of the producers / writers from the Soprano’s is behind the series which was part of the reason I wanted to check it out. Let me say, very nice opening title sequence! The opening reminded me of a modernized Saul Bass Vertigo kinda thing, specifically the movie poster more so than the movie credits. Before the show even started I was already very optimistic and looking forward to more good things.
