With a bit of humility and even a little nervousness, it’s time to take the wraps off a new design I’ve been working on for nearly a month. My hesitation comes not from revealing the new design, but from my decision early on to make the site more personal, and feel less like an “agency”. I also hesitate because of the elephant in the room: the fact that, up until now, my writing here trickled down to a few entries a year. read more
Getting back into the swing of writing regularly here never really happened in 2006. When I look back at my archives, I see I only posted 11 times the entire year. And that includes three posts (1, 2, 3) that weren’t really writing-based, as much as they were simple design and code experiments. read more
The more you see, the less you know
The less you find out as you go
I knew much more then, than I do now
—Bono, City of Blinding Lights
Turns out I’m not the only one who’s been thinking about XML syndication feeds, publishing redundancy, and how we link to those feeds. Dan Cederholm was wondering last week why we still support multiple feed formats. A few weeks before, Molly Holzschlag surveyed a few sites to determine how they link to respective feeds, and where those links are located on the page. read more
Prior to seeing The flop, you make judgements as to how strong your hand could be based on two cards dealt to you, face-down. You peek at the cards, calculate the odds, then call, raise, or fold, knowing the flop is coming. Remember, the flop can change everything in an instant. Just don’t get too cocky, because a turn and a river are potentially just around the bend. read more
With the return of the full-color, fixed-width design to this site over the weekend, Stopdesign received numerous messages and even a few comments regarding the switch back. Some of the messages and comments are in favor, heralding the welcome return. Others cry foul as their Bleach is stolen away.
“More power to the people!”
… the crowds shout from all around. And just like that, their wish was granted. read more
Ever wanted to ditch what you’ve got and start over? No, wait a minute. This sounds like a broken record.
Ahem. Let’s try that again.
Ever wondered what your site would look like devoid of most of its color and imagery? Bleach the entire design, remove the saturation and leave behind the basic visual structure on a stark white background? Sure, some sites already use a white background for their design. But Stopdesign has been filled with deep colors and prominent header images since I launched this design a few months ago. read more
By now, many of you may have seen François Briatte’s recent survey of 10 web sites he reads on a regular basis. My props to François for assembling an insanely detailed, and very well documented and explained study.
Perhaps you’ve also already seen responses by Jon, Dave, and Eric. There’s no need for me to rehash anything they’ve already stated. I’ll just add a few notes relative to Stopdesign’s position within the survey, as well as my overall perspective of the results. read more
Next in the series of photos used for header images on Stopdesign is a candid photo I never would have expected to make use of in any kind of design, let alone Stopdesign’s Company pages. There’s nothing spectacular about this photo at first glance. Maybe even at second and third glances. In fact, any other designer probably would have passed it over. This… is Office Shopping.
Picking up where we left off a couple weeks ago, I direct your attention to the header for the Examples section. (And no, you’re not just imagining a drastic shift if you looked at it soon after the redesign. I did change the background of the page from dark to light.) The original photo for this header image was taken during a recent trip down to San Diego, where good friends, Jason and Megan, took me to one of the best barbecue spots in the country… Phil’s BBQ:
In the first of a series, I present the original, undoctored photo used for one of the header images on Stopdesign. This one: the home page. There’s a story behind each one of them, which will help humanize the abstractions I’ve used for each header. This photo was taken while I was visiting Miami in November 2002 for the AIGA I|O: Interaction Only Conference. I dubbed it… The Drive-By.
Welcome to Phase II of the new Stopdesign. Baby’s got new shoes. As if I weren’t busy enough as it is with current projects. For some reason, two weeks ago, I decided to start a full-blown redesign by yanking my own style sheets, encouraging me to do something sooner, rather than wait for a lighter workload. For those that count, this would be design version 3 (not counting the short-lived lightly styled version this one replaces). read more
Remember what was said about a work-in-progress? Certainly you didn’t think Stopdesign could be left stripped of proper attire for long? Phase II is already well underway…
The subject is covered frequently in the blogosphere. It’s nothing new for many of you. I’ve been bitten by Stopdesign’s Google page rank for specific search queries several times. I just noticed the most recent instance. When John Gruber published “Writing for Google” earlier this month, he provided advice for getting a good rank for one page or article so those seeking its content are likely to find it. Follow his advice for content you want people to find.
There’s a flip side to this issue though. What happens when Google gives a particular page too high a page rank? read more
Ever wanted to ditch what you’ve got and start over? I sure have. I’ve been wanting to completely wipe the style sheets clean for this site and start over with a blank slate. Finally jumped off the cliff. Wonder if anyone saw me do it. And if they did, will they understand why? read more
Ah, that feels comfortable. Like a whirlwind travel adventure to a new place you’ve seen in lots of pictures, but never experienced for yourself, then returning home and being able to slip back into your own comfortable clothes, and collapse in your own bed. There’s a familiarity here with the markup, style, and templates that feels good. read more
Feeling inspiration from others who’ve been redesigning, I finally decided it’s time to take this site’s design in a slightly new direction. I’ve been working on this one in the background for a while, whenever I’ve had spare time. The colors were inspired by a photo I took of the Brockton Point Lighthouse in Stanley Park while visiting Vancouver last year for the AIGA National Design Conference.
I’ve seen some approximations that are different enough to write off as pure coincidence. The Stopdesign identity is intended to be strong, bold, and memorable. But I will freely admit it’s a simple concept as old as Chinese Taoist philosophy and the Yin Yang symbol they use to represent harmony and equilibrium in the universe. read more
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