Peyton Crump on Web Design
on Web Design
New Viget Site and Blog Strategy Paying Off
The Viget team launched our new corporate site and blogging strategy nearly two weeks ago now, and the hard work seems to be paying off. The community is engaging us, stats are showing increased and sustained traffic, and the design is getting good reactions from other designers, colleagues, and clients. The gist is that we decided to harness our creativity a bit more, demonstrate stronger expertise, and expand our blog presence/focus by creating individual blogs for our strategy, marketing, design, and development labs. As always, it’s hard to find/make the time to work internally on projects (even when it’s as important as your corporate site), but it sure feels rewarding and pays off when you do. Here are a few screen shots:
Teen Artist, Shaina Crump
So today’s a big day. My youngest sister, Shaina, turns 13. I have to say she’s amazing in so many ways. Kind-hearted and genuine are a couple that come to mind. Shaina also has a passion for art and even design to some extent. She has always loved drawing and I have seen flares for fashion, interior design, and photography along the way too. So, I simply wanted to wish her a great day and to share one of her many talents via a few of her sketches. She’s been down on her drawing skills the past year or so, but as you can see, she’s talented. Here are three sketches that I snagged from her sketch book over a year ago.
A Tip for Cleaner Resizing in Photoshop
I’ve always overlooked it for some reason. When resizing images in Photoshop, notice the ‘Resample Image’ select menu at the bottom of the ‘Image Size’ window.
A Term for “inducing illness”, Usability Style
We have a gut feeling for it as designers. It may even scare us away from making a needed change, because we know one simple rework can lead to the need for many others. IATROGENIC, while not officially a usability term, is an adjective which designates a problem as being fixer-induced.
Wooden Redesign
Wouldn’t you know it? I’ve injected some wood grain goodness into my redesign. I’ll soon get enough of the wood grains, really. It was quick and fun (and is a work in progress), but in the meantime here’s a look at the man, the sites, the photos, and yes, the debut song (thanks Jayson) that I smiled about as I went wooden.
20 Web Design Books for 2008
I poured through some of the Amazon listings for 2008 pre-orders to see what web design books might be coming our way, and here’s a list of some to keep an eye out for. They range from beginner to advanced, theory to software, Nielsen to Budd.
Making the Cosmos Accessible
Here’s a perfect example of how accessibility matters and should demand our attention when designing and presenting information. “Images from NASA telescopes are jewels of the space program, marvelous to behold. But how do you behold them when you can’t see?”
Beauty in the Details
A lot is being said within the design community about Barack Obama’s site, which I agree is beautifully done. Many times there’s the instant wow that you get when you visit a well designed site. Then there’s the wow that you get when you explore things a bit more.
Guidelines for Accessible Flash Ads
The RNIB has shared some tips for making Flash ads accessible. These include providing text equivalents for animations and providing alternative non-Flash content, nothing new. On a wider scale though, it’s perhaps a visit or revisit to the resource links that are provided that serve as a good reminder:
Creative Over-Thinking
I posted some thoughts recently on the Viget blog about creativity versus constraint and having improper measures for successful web designs. The article offers some ideas for staying properly oriented and suggests useful ways to prevent over-thinking.
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Shaina you're a great artist and we love the sketches. Keep drawing and stick with what you love. You're very…
I would strongly suggest a modern graphics program should make use of font technology for its symbol set, with specialist…