subvisual » design

reset. WordPress 3 ate my theme.

adam — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 00:35:51 +0000

My previous layout here was a fairly simple custom theme. But not simple enough for an upgrade to the new version of WordPress, which broke it.

So I have a default layout with a shoe-horned header image.

Todo, tofix.

links for 2009-12-18

adam — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 23:10:53 +0000

Please Scroll

(tags: webdesign humor)
War? There’s an iPhone app for that | Technology | guardian.co.uk

My first thought was, surely the military would not expose itself to the risks of a consumer device? But then I thought it is inevitable that technology as ubiquitous as the iPhone seems to becoming gets put to some usage that many of us would not feel comfortable with. It’s usually the other way round anyway, we get the military gadgets that have been civilianized. But as the article points out – the applications have their place in disaster emergency situations.

(tags: iphone technology apple apps)
How to recognise a good programmer

Another checklist to run your decisions by. There is probably a lot of sense in this article, but the truth is, when you are in the interview situation, from either side of the table, you know when you have a match. Sure there are basic skills that must be met, but most important is the idea that you can work with this person. If you’re starting from a checklist, you are probably starting from the wrong angle.

(tags: interview jobs programming)
Rally Wants To Bring Location Back To Its Core, With Only Your Real Friends.

I haven’t so far really got into Foursquare. I have checked in a few places, but no-one else I know is playing. (Let me know if you are) This aims to be even more limited in terms of social circles – and I agree with the principle. I think there is something to be said for deeply valuable connections over multiple, transient ones. Unless you’re like me and no one else you know is playing, in which case you have to resort to real conversations, perhaps face to face.

(tags: apps iphone socialmedia)
The secrets behind menu design – (37signals)

No not user interface menus. Some good business principles here taken from restaurant menus, understanding what you really have of worth to offer your clients and users, and what they are willing to pay for. The basic idea: know your customer.

(tags: design pricing business)
Dishwashers, and How Google Eats Its Own Tail

Paul Kedrosky points to what could be Google’s weakness, whereby it is the victim of its own success and via adword fuelled top search results its search results become useless to the average user. Google eats its own tail. This of course assumes the giant is incapable of accommodating a changing landscape and reacting to this threshhold. Will a new pattern emerge?

(tags: google advertising seo future)
Using Google Reader “Send To” with WordPress | thingelstad.com

This could be useful for my blogging workflow!

(tags: wordpress tools)

Turner Media Innovations website

adam — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 22:02:22 +0000

Earlier this year at Clinic London we launched the new website for Turner Media Innovations, the advertising and media consultancy part of Turner Entertainment representing Cartoon Network, CN Too, Boomerang, Cartoonito, TCM and Adult Swim.

I developed the bespoke application that runs the site content and CMS.

Should we ban Photoshop?

adam — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 23:08:12 +0000

We’ve only just got the print designers to stop sending us their web page and html email designs in Indesign. They get it now: pixels, not points. RGB, not CMYK. 72 dpi. Limited fonts. Photoshop. We’ve had to really drum it in. So you can imagine the looks I got when I suggested we ban Photoshop from the web design process.

We currently have one of those jobs in the studio that is going around in circles. “Photoshop ping pong” our designer called it today. The client has a designer, we have designers schooled in n web design and the best logo design and branding tradition, and everyone’s trying to serve an ace. Our client-side developer waits in the wings for his turn, but the deadline has passed and the designers are still lobbing each other.

Hence my assertion. Get rid of photoshop. Ban it. Mark up the content semantically in HTML and get started with CSS design. Let the client see what it’s really going to look like and how it’s really going to behave in a browser. That is web design.

One day they will understand what I mean.

Defining the undefinable

adam — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:29:02 +0000

Today was a day of meetings. In one afternoon session we reviewed some new proposals for an existing client. It’s been almost a week since the feedback meeting from our initial proposal, and things are all looking very positive, but the client manager feels under pressure to follow up with revised proposals and costs. So we are meeting to 1) get the report back from the client meeting, 2) think up some features to add to the list, and 3) plan a way forward. “We need to show them something…” This is probably familiar to anyone in a design or creative agency. Managers want to jump into pleasing their clients. Perhaps it’s nervousness, or an understanding of clients that I don’t get. But it’s this approach that leads us to create complete static high definition Photoshop mock-ups before any functionality has been discussed or content has been written. Never mind research, identification of user needs, definition of requirements and consideration of the design’s technical feasibility, the client apparently doesn’t understand these or want them anyway. They want to see their logo bigger. And a blue background. In situations like this the Photoshop designs become the specification, and the development team are left too little time to interpret this vagueness into something that works in a browser, while the pixel shift design and sign-off merry-go-round with the client continue to eat up all the remaining project time, and we need to deliver. Now. “The functional spec? oh never mind that, it’s too technical for the client, they won’t understand it”

I am by no means a stickler for paperwork and requirements or over burdening a project with admin. I think there is something in approaches like 37 Signals’ Getting Real, where the most important verbs in the interface come first, and the initial spec can be sketched on a napkin with a ballpoint.

As a developer I like the idea of an agile approach, jumping straight into code and trying out a few things with test users, or even real users, and adapting to feedback with new, quick releases. But the brand custodians, and the managers in creative agencies are nervous of this kind of gun slinging approach. And perhaps rightly so. The project and budget could disappear down an iterative whirlpool, get stuck in a recursive loop, or simply fail to launch.

In the design agency world we tend to have this version of ourselves where we sell our great ideas to the client with a bit of a bang. Revealing our process is bad. We think they are paying us for our moments of genius. We are the hot shot “creative guys…”

I think in practice, neither the agile or the big bang approaches are quite right for web design. Something between could work. We need to temper our egos and work consistently towards a big release. A product needs to take shape, not be drip released or served on a platter after a brain storming meeting. Ideas need to be invented, tested, thrown away, reabsorbed and simplified. A plan needs to be laid out, with stages of progression towards a final release. Decisions need to be made, and communicated to all concerned. Feedback needs to be gathered, and converted into something useful.

Involve the client in this process, and they will understand it. They will feel like they are getting “something” because every stage is building on the previous one. And apart from the sense of involvement, they’ll get a better product for it. If our client manager gets that from our meeting this afternoon (I think he did) we may have the chance to put the thought into producing something really good.