The Fold Does Exist
February 22, 2010
Above the fold, most web designers out there absolutely hate that term. If you don’t know what it means, where the hell have you been? It’s a term mostly used by clients when they want more eyes on a certain piece of information and want it repositioned further up the page where a user doesn’t have to scroll to see it.
The general feeling on this one from the world’s web designers is that the fold doesn’t exist and to a degree they’re right. Obviously computer screens and monitors don’t fold, the terminology has been adopted from the graphic design world where newspapers were folded for display purposes – hence the important information being displayed above the fold. (more…)
Design | 2 comments
He Who Shouts Loudest
February 18, 2010
Pick up an industry magazine, read an industry blog and it won’t be long before you come across some kind of list of the best designers in the industry (and let’s face it, there’s no shortage of list based blog posts out there!). The problem I have with these lists is, while they often do feature some good designers, they are almost always centred around the most prominent bloggers. And there’s a difference. (more…)
Design | 11 comments
Adobe Browserlab – First Impressions
November 9, 2009Browser testing, it’s a pain but it has to be done. As a mac user it’s even more painful. I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of installing VMware Fusion and Windows on my Mac, it just doesn’t seem right. (more…)
Featured On Gracesmith.co.uk
November 6, 2009I’m really pleased to have appeared as part of the very popular ’show me your dock’ series over at www.gracesmith.co.uk.
For those of you that aren’t familiar with the series, it offers an insight into the applications that designers use on a regular basis and a little bit of info about why they use them.
So if you’re a bit of an app junkie like me, read the interview!
Uncategorized | No comment
Upsetting The Apple Cart
October 19, 2009
I’ve always been an Apple Mac user, I’ve never used a PC to do any work on in my life. The truth is, I can’t use a PC – I don’t know how to find my way around one of the damn things and I’d always intended to keep it that way, that is, until recently.
Over the past few months I’ve been having all kinds of trouble with my one time sweetheart, my 17″ Macbook Pro. It all started 4-5 weeks ago when my mac was fast approaching it’s 2nd birthday – after a long day at work I put my mac to sleep, tucked it into it’s second skin and made my way home. Now I’m a bit of a workaholic and truth be told, my mac never gets much of a rest. But when I went to wake it up – nothing. I scoured the net, tried every trick I’ve ever learned, but nothing worked. So I took it to an authorised Apple service centre. As I was passing the Mac to them, I heard something loose rattling around inside. Not good. (more…)
Workflow | 4 comments
Twitter And The Freelancer
June 12, 2009
When I first signed up to Twitter, I wasn’t quite sure what I was signing up for. I’d heard countless mentions of it but nothing that really explained what it does. The Twitter site wasn’t doing a particularly good job of explaining things either. But, I like to think of myself as an early adopter, so I signed up and only over time am I starting to learn what it’s all about.
Twitter and the freelancer seems like a perfect fit. As a freelancer you either move around quite a lot or you end up working at home on your own with little outside contact. (more…)
Workflow | 1 comment
How To Be A Successful Freelance Designer
April 23, 2009Following on from my post about breaking into web design, I’d like to talk about how to be a successful freelance designer. What qualifies me to talk about this? Well that would depend on what you define as being successful. Success in the freelance world is all about keeping busy, avoiding barren patches and retaining clients – which is something I have thankfully managed to achieve.
Over the past 4 years I have established a method to my work, a set of rules that have formed my working code which have now become habit… (more…)
Design | 4 comments
How Many Design Concepts?
February 8, 2009
I was recently asked by a client to provide multiple different design concepts (3) for the same website, yet this is something I haven’t done in years. I don’t have a problem with it, but in my opinion it’s the wrong way of doing things, and here’s why…
The way I see design, it’s all about educated decisions. From the very start of a project you will make numerous decisions and you will discount certain things based upon a combination of the current brief, your experiences from the past and what you believe is right for the project. Producing multiple varying visuals goes completely against this. (more…)
Design | 4 comments
Do Web Design Trends Even Exist?
January 19, 2009So here we are in 2009 and it’s my first post of the year. The big talking point across most of the popular design blogs and industry magazines seems to be what trends will emerge in 2009? I have to admit, it was initially something I wanted to post about, but having now given it more thought – I’m not even sure that trends exist in the way they are made out to. (more…)
Design | 2 comments
The Deadline Is Your Friend
November 28, 2008
This industry runs in fear of deadlines. Designers cower when the word is spoken and developers – well, ‘it takes as long as it takes’ is the standard response.
Just lately, as I approach probably the busiest I’ve ever been in my career I’ve learned to embrace the deadline and it’s become one of my biggest allies. (more…)
Workflow | 3 comments