Sketchcast Review
A recent comment led me to Sketchcast.com, a tool that allows you to draw and record what you’re drawing, with the idea that the visualizations can help you communicate your ideas. As a designer who is always open to new methods of visualization and communication of ideas, I set up an account and created the [...]
Microsoft Silverlight Competition Very Lame
On Friday I went to Microsoft’s Express Yourself event in San Francisco. Five design firms competed to solve a “real-world design problem” using Microsoft’s new Silverlight technology and Expression Suite of design tools. Silverlight is the alleged “flash killer” that I had never heard of. I blame graduate school for my ignorance. But perhaps it’s [...]
Busy and Blog Broke
The end of the semester sucked up all my time. And while that was going on, my comments got corrupted. When I tried fixing that late one night (or early one morning, depending on your perspective), I only succeeded in breaking the site more so that I could not access the admin section. Hence, no [...]
Brief Update
I finished my resume, but it’s not online. It was sent to companies that will be coming to the school of design’s job fair. Also, I have yet to update my online portfolio. I hope to find time to do that soon. But I don’t know when I’ll find time. The Emergence team got some [...]
Fitwits
Before the Thanksgiving break, Kristin Hughes, who is currently teaching my graduate typography class, asked me to help her put up a placeholder website for Fitwits. I don’t really know what it is: I didn’t have time to ask. But I built it, and thought it was cool she asked me.
Blinksale Integrates Basecamp
Two services that think are very useful for any small business, Blinksale and Basecamp, are now integrated. And it appears this is only the first round: Soon we’ll be adding support for Basecamp projects and time-tracking, creating the ultimate one-two punch: Get your job done—and get paid. Now if only Basecamp would lower the cost [...]
My Opinion of the CMU.edu Redesign
For the first time since the Internet was invented, Carnegie Mellon redesigned their website. Hurray for breaking out of 1996! I applaud the grand undertaking of overhauling a university website. Having worked at the University of Pittsburgh as a web developer for three years, I understand that this is no small or simple matter. There [...]
I Was a Guest Lecturer
Over the summer, during my design fundamentals training, I had a bit of an argument with the instructor of one of my software training sessions about table-based web design versus CSS web design. The argument was positive, however, in that it ended with the instructor, Cheryl Riedel, offering to have me be a guest lecturer [...]
ShaunInman.com Redesign
Shaun Inman, a major force in sIFR, the man behind Mint, and a very nice guy whom I had the pleasure of talking to earlier this year, once again redesigned his site. And it’s damn interesting change. While his process of designing in the browser first and then going to Photoshop for only minimal pixel [...]
Cursed Process Book
The process book for my data visualization project is due tomorrow. I initially finished it on Friday. On Saturday, I printed a draft and showed it to someone. Too much white space, he said. Six weeks into design school, I simply cannot ignore a comment like “too much white space.” So I spent time on [...]
Design Studio and Grad Type
I’ve mostly been talking about my Design Seminar class with Dick Buchanan and my Interaction and Visual Interface Design with John Zimmerman because those classes involve more discussion of ideas, which are easier to write about. My other two classes, Design Studio with Dan Boyarski and Graduate Type with Karen Moyer (and later Kristin Hughes), [...]
Control Redesign: Gas Stove Knob
In my previous post, I failed to mention the control I redesigned. I choose a knob on my gas stove. Problems Turning the knob to Lite, which is also the highest gas setting, releases more gas than is necessary for pilot light to ignite gas. There is no indication of the lowest gas setting. Gas [...]
Emergence Conference Website
Last week Dan Boyarski popped his head into class, pointed to me, and told me to see him after class. So I did. He wanted to know if I could help out with maintaining and updating the Emergence Conference website that the School of Design is hosting September 8?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú10. Sure, I said. Even with the [...]
Bad Industrial Design Web Sites
What I didn’t say yesterday was that we had to choose an industrial design firm for our one-page write-up. I looked at a half dozen sites before deciding. The determining factors for the company I chose were the site didn’t totally suck, and they had photos of the products and text I could grab for [...]
Going Past Midnight
I had a pretty full day. CMU classes from 9 a.m. until about 3 p.m. Then I had a initial strategy meeting with a new client. Then a lot of post meeting discussion. And now I’m sitting down to do some homework that I foresee taking me into the early hours. This week we’re being [...]
End of Week 1, and Lunch with Dan Boyarski
Today concluded our week with Karen Moyer and typographic hierarchy. I’m not sure if I mentioned this before, but we will have a new instructor who will explore a different aspect of design each week. Next week has to do with 3D objects, I believe. After class we were treated to lunch with Dan Boyarski, [...]
Last Day at Pitt
Wow. Hard to believe my time at the University of Pittsburgh is coming to an end: tomorrow. Because there is no developer yet to replace me, my workload has not decreased, and I’ve been scrambling to finish up a couple of projects. I completed one yesterday, but another will likely not be done before the [...]
Top Ten Accomplishments at Pitt 2006
My director recently asked everyone in the department for their top 10 accomplishments for 2006, as the end of our fiscal year and reviews are approaching. Even though I’m leaving the University of Pittsburgh on June 30, I decided to submit a list anyway. The list that follows is what I submitted: I introduced the [...]
Working as the Crowd Cheers
It’s easy to keep working into the night if you have a soccer match with the constant cheers of the crowd in the background. It also helps if the match is a replay of a game (US vs. Czech Republic) that you would rather not focus on too much so that it’s not visually distracting.
Why Use Wireframes?
I was reading The Guided Wireframe Narrative for Rich Internet Applications Case Study: Prototyping Complex Interactions by Andres Zapata on Boxes and Arrows and within the text was this question: Why continue using wireframes? At all? Sometimes my coworkers and I struggle with this same question. Since I often find myself arguing in defense of [...]
Got Mint?
I finally ponied over the $30 for Shaun Inman’s web site statistics software, Mint. I talked to Shaun at SXSW. He’s a really nice guy, who also happens to be an excellent designer and programmer. I have been inspired by his code and design more than once. And Mint does not disappoint in the least. [...]
Drupal CMS Switchover
A while back I wrote about my first weekend with Drupal, which after exploring other content management systems and a little bit of soul searching, I decided to use for the International Transplant Nurses Society site. While I had already built the site according to a Dreamweaver/Contribute model with custom PHP/MySQL functionality for certain features, [...]
How Old Am I?
I had dinner recently with several woman from ITNS – “the nurses,” as one friend coined them. It was the first time I had met most of them. The woman I had met with previously thought I was 24. I was flattered, of course. Another woman, whom I email a lot about updates, thought that [...]
High on Amsterdam
I have been told I brought the nice weather from Barcelona here to Amsterdam. Yesterday, I think it was actually nicer than Barcelona. Amsterdam is a very stimulating city, on many levels. I have an excellent personal tour guide who has shown me a good deal of the city and all of its novelty in [...]