// March 31st, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Uncategorized, flash, photoshop, web, web design
Ever wondered what it would be like to turn part of someone’s face upside down and then spin it round and round? I can’t think why, but you’ve come to the right place. See Upsy Downy Spinny Roundy.
// December 8th, 2009 // No Comments » // design, web design
I recently re-designed the company website: www.sitecaddy.com, which has gone live along with a special offer; free hosting, content management and marketing tools for a year. The free offer is worth about €1500. The consultation and design isn’t free; the signing up to the special offer requires a depost of 1k, so if you know anyone looking for a website, here’s a good chance.
More details of the special offer here: http://info.sitecaddy.com/mysitecaddy/site3/offerirla.htm
// May 25th, 2009 // 7 Comments » // blogging, web, web design
Have been meaning to move from the piece of shit Blogger over to Wordpress for ages now. The only thing that was delaying me was that I wanted to re-design the whole site but could just never get around to it. So I grabbed the irrestable theme instead. It’ll sure do for now. I think most things are working but I’ll probably be tinkering with it for a while. Hope the feed is working as it was, guess we’re just about to find out…
// April 30th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // photoshop, web design
Here’s something I’ve started using a while ago that’s very handy; If you’re a web designer and do a lot of your graphics in photoshop then like me, you’ll probably use Save for the Web a hundred times more than you use Save.
The workflow for this has always been a bit clunky in Photoshop. There isn’t a shortcut for it – and actions don’t really cut it. Well there is a shortcut but try doing lots of Alt+Shift+Ctrl+S without breaking your arms. The simple solution is to swap around your shortcuts so you can just hit Ctrl+S to Save for Web.
Go to Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts > File, then scroll down to Save for Web and change it to Ctrl+S. Then you’ll need to change Save to Alt+Shift+Ctrl+S. Now to save for the web you can just press Ctrl+S and then hit enter. Now and then you’ll need to change file type or location but mostly you can just hit enter.
Another handy workflow tip using shortcuts is to get your Undos working like most programs. Open up the shortcuts again and change Step Backward to Ctrl+Z. And then change Undo/Redo to Alt+Ctrl+Z. Now you can undo like any other program, rather than that single undo. (You can change the number of undos by going to File > preferences > Performance > History & Cache).
// March 5th, 2009 // No Comments » // web design
ROLL THE DRUMS; So, I survived redundancy by building www.survivingredundancy.ie. BUM TISH!!
Was a bit of a dream contract actually. Forget about quotes and estimates and all that annoying stuff that usually comes with contract web design; just come in and work for me until the site is finished. Anything you need me to buy for you? Photoshop, Dreamweaver, a second monitor, 2 extra gigs of ram. Grand; done. And then I will listen very carefully to all your advice, after all, you’re the expert.
What!? No! This isn’t supposed to happen. You’re supposed to ask me for a quote, based on a vague idea. Then I underquote myself. Then you ask for 10 extra sections, a CMS and loads of redesigns while refusing to pay a penny over the quote that. And for in-house work, you’re supposed to give me some old hand-me-down office PC that’s bloated with so many previous-owner-profiles, that it takes 47 minutes just to load the desktop wallpaper. You want software!? Ha! You better get on to piratebay while you still can.
So, yes bit of a dream contract. Therefore I’d happily recommend their services. Check it out: Surviving Redundancy, lots of articles, a forum, and services like interview training and CV advice.
I pretty much finished up with that yesterday and today, having started a new job, I’m back where I feel safest; in the land of permanent employment, and after seeing how scary it is out there, I feel mighty lucky.
// November 24th, 2008 // 5 Comments » // random, web design
You know computers are supposed to make your working life easier not harder right? But it can be easy to forget that sometimes, and some people will downright deny it! We’ve all had moments where we wanted to drop a PC out of a high story building but in general day-to-day work, if your computer is making your life harder, there’s a good chance you’re just not using the right tools. Or you’re not using a fraction of their potential. And that potential is to make your life much easier.
For every repetitive task you do, you could probably be using a dedicated application, an automated function or a macro. Some tasks are so suitable to this, that you can click a button and just watch your computer working away for a minute, doing a task that previously took you 15 minutes by hand. 15 long minutes of grunting and swearing and banging the keyboard.
One of the greatest labour-saving devices in computing is the macro. A simple definition of a macro is the ability to record your keyboard and/or mouse actions, so you can ‘replay’ the actions rather than manually redoing them each time.
I first got into the whole macro thing when I started a job as a technical writer where we were using Word to write our documents; scripts for content developers and voice over artists. All the text had to be in very particular formats, labels, layouts and colour-codes. People spent an unbelievable amount of time on the formatting rather than the actual writing. Word Styles (which looked different on every computer were driving people crazy). They spent a fortune getting some guys to build a dedicated application but that was just as bad. An unfortunate but all too frequent case of programmers with no user interface skills building a useability nightmare. So I dug a bit into Word’s automation and customization and it ended up as the perfect solution.
People slag off Microsoft products – but the level of customization you can do in Word makes it an amazing piece of user centred software. You can record your own macros, then create keyboard shortcuts or buttons to trigger the macros and you can add whole toolbars containing the buttons, or use menus to add new commands. You can also delve a bit deeper with vbscript to add loops and if statements to your macros, almost building applications within the application.
I started off recording simple macros for myself that would make text red bold, green italic etc. Then I would map that to a keyboard shortcut. Then I started adding more complex functionality. I started sharing these with the team and soon enough I took on the role of completely redesigning all the templates, and processes used throughout the whole production team, making use of every level of automation available. I got really carried away with the macros then, using them to build whole tables of information.
The main template ended up with a whole toolbar of buttons, a customized insert menu, and lots of other functionality available through keyboard shortcuts.
Below is a brief video example: At the click of a button, a whole table is split up, formatted and populated. Common phrases are added from the insert menu. That’s just one type of table, we had about 5 different types, all added with one click. At the end of the process, another macro re-formatted the whole script to spit out xml for the developers and a vo script for the voice over artist.
This is an advanced version of the amount of work you can save yourself doing if you use Word a lot and find yourself doing any task again and again.
I didn’t intend to write this as a tutorial, more as a nudge in the right direction, but let’s have a quick go. We’ll create a copyright type sign off.
You can record any kind of macro you want. Very detailed ones. Though beware you can’t just click all over the screen, you have to use your keyboard to highlight text and navigate around text. Find and replace type macros can be very useful too. I have a few macros that I use now to take a word document and clean it up for the web, so it replaces foreign characters and symbols with the proper Unicode / html.
When I was leaving the job where I built all the macros, I was handed a thoughtful customized gift that is one of my proudest possessions: a Macro Man superhero t-shirt! It even has the buttons on the back!
Right so. Word Macros. Great craic altogether. Used wisely they will save you a lot of work. Invest a bit and you get a lot – but what about outside of Word? Now you need an independent macro recorder. I’ve tried a few over the years but recently found one I really like, autohotkey, a free, open source application. Downloadable from http://www.autohotkey.com/
Autohotkey, lets you record mouse clicks and keyboard actions. That simple. You can use it in a number of ways. It’s one of those programs where the more you invest in, the more you get back. I found, I really needed it a few times recently. It was a total lifesaver. If you find yourself cursing a really badly designed user interface, something like autohotkey can make all the difference.
I was working on a job recently where I was migrating from one web based resource centre to another. I had to add loads of images. Three versions of the same image every time. The UI and UX design was terrible. I had to browse through a load of folders every single time I needed to add an image, it took about 5 minutes and 50 clicks to add every image! After recording a few macros in autohotkey, I could just sit there with my arms folded and watch autohotkey do all the work. It’s great to watch!
Below is a video capture of another resource library that I used regularly, and went to the same location regularly. I often had to login and browse through lots of folders ever time, clicking those tiny plus symbols (which should be banned from all user interfaces!). The video below isn’t impressive in itself but bear in mind that I just pressed a button, sat back and watched until the folder with the images I wanted was open.
Autohotkey comes with a recorder but you usually have to edit the script a bit as well. It doesn’t record intervals between actions, so you have to add a lot of pauses, or sleeps. It’s very easy script to edit though. Here’s one example:
Send, {ALTDOWN}{ALTUP}fd
sleep, 2500
Send, {ENTER}
What this does is press ALT F D on my keyboard, waits 2½ seconds, and then hits Enter. When I’m using Photoshop, I run this script with a keyboard shortcut and it goes to ‘save the image for the web’. Something that you do a LOT, yet takes longer than it should; a good simple example of using Autohotkey.
Another example is when I’m editing PHP that has to be previewed on a live server. That’s a lot of clicking for every edit. Now I just press a button, and Autohotkey saves the file (in dreamweaver), uploads it, waits a tiny bit, then switches to Firefox and hits refresh. So much easier. And I had it set up in now time.
You can also use Autohotkey to autofinish phrases that you type a lot. For example when I type JBA, autohotkey types my name and address and when I type btw, autohotkey types by the way for me. Again you can see that investing a bit of time here, could save a huge amount of time in the future. Word has an inbuilt version of this too, called autocomplete but obviously autohotkey works throughout all applications, so you can use it for webmail, twitter, excel… whatever.
The final part in automating your work easily is to have a dedicated launcher for your macros. You can launch Autohotkey macros as you would any other file; by adding a desktop shortcut, or adding an icon to your taskbar, or using a keyboard shortcut but the snazziest method of all is to buy a dedicated programmable keypad. This really ties everything in together nicely. After much research I got an X-keys desktop. It’s got 20 programmable keys. Setting it up couldn’t be easier, it’s got a great interface, you just click a switch on the hardware and the buttons appear onscreen, then you can drag your shortcuts onto the keys and flick the switch again. It’s also got its own Macro software that’s also really easy to use but I mostly use Autohotkey.
X-Keys comes pre-programmed with regular functions like cut, copy, paste and undo, which I’d recommend keeping. It also has shortcuts to launch applications like your browser or email but I think this is a terrible waste of hotkeys. Any application that you open and leave open for most of the day is a waste of a key.
You can save different presets with the x-keys software, so you can have a whole keypad of different shortcuts just for Photoshop, or you can load another full of html code, and another for general use. But as they keys are labelled with stickers, if you change the presets a lot, you have to remember or write down the combinations. I haven’t properly labelled them yet as I’m still changing them a lot. One idea I find useful is to have one key mapped to an autohotkey script called ‘latest’, which will launch whatever macro you’re currently using a lot.
It was very hard to find somewhere I could buy this from Ireland. I eventually got it from Keytools. You can’t use the web form to buy directly from Ireland but you can ask them to fax or email you a form.
I was also going to write about various applications for very specific jobs but this post is already big enough, but just to point you in the right direction, there are applications for everything these days. If you find yourself resizing windows to specific dimensions a lot, then google ‘windows resizer’, if you find yourself taking lots of screen grabs and emailing them to people then download an application to do it for you. Or just have a look around download.com or tucows or lifehacker for some inspiration.
So – I’ll say it again: invest a little and you will get a lot back, stop banging your head against your computer screen, give it a big hug instead!
// November 7th, 2008 // 2 Comments » // web design
I often come across some really bad examples of interactive web sites. But some really stick their head above the paraphet and beg to be made an example of. If you go to recruitment.ie, you are redirected to http://www.sharewatch.com/RECRUITMENT.php. This site contains two iframes; one contains a sharewatch banner while the other loads the whole content from http://www.loadzajobs.ie.
This sharewatch page refreshes every 90 seconds. And when it refreshes, it reloads the homepage of loadzajobs. So no matter what you are doing, including filling out a form for a job or browsing the site, it goes back to the homepage every 90 seconds. Massive fail.
I made a query with loadzajobs (took two attempts to fill out the form). And just got a reply advising me to only go directly to loadzajobs.ie. So I guess it’s the other guys hijacking the site and making a major mess of implementing their hijack.
While on the subject, another recruitment site, http://www.computerjobs.ie/ occasionally have a banner ad with thunder crackling away! Bad enough that they have sound in a banner, tut tut! but cracking thunder underlining the doom and gloom while you search for a new job!? nasty!
// October 29th, 2008 // 8 Comments » // web, web design
I’m definitely like a bus when it comes to blogging, have been quiet for a while and then 3 posts today. All my free time in the last week or so have been spent on building a new site: www.ratemyisp.ie. Our broadband isn’t great at all, so instead of asking the most frequently asked question on the Internet (in Ireland at least) I built a site. Was very surprised to find it didn’t exist yet. I’m quite often pipped to the post on a lot of ideas I have.
It’s still kind of in beta mode. I might completely change the homepage. And I might add a mobile broadband section. Any feedback appreciated. But I’d love if you could take a minute or two to add to the ratings and also spread the word.
// October 20th, 2008 // 7 Comments » // web, web design
(If you have no interest in reading lot’s of web design stuff, you could just jump straight to the why upgrade? bit.)
I’ve noticed a growing campaign among web folk to stop supporting Internet Explore 6 lately:
And that’s just from the handful of web design blogs that I regularly read. If you do a search, you can see there are many more.
Like every other web designer / developer, it would make my life much easier to stop supporting ie6. For the benefit of non web site makers: We have to put in all kinds of hacks and cheats to make web sites behave in Internet explorer 6. I don’t think it’s a realistic or constructive approach to stop supporting it. This goes for my own site and a lot of other sites I work on or manage.
The biggest mistake you can make when you own a web site, or for a company getting a web site built for them – is thinking that anyone else cares as much about your site as you do. People don’t want to invest a seconds more time on your site than they need to. A good few years ago, obviously completely ignorant of this fact, you would see a lot of disclaimers such as: “This site is best viewed on Internet Explore 6, screen size: 800 x 600, Flash version: 6, sitting 1 foot away from your computer, wearing a beige cravat and sipping a tall latte.”
Of course no one bothered changing a single thing to look at those sites. If something doesn’t work they hit the back button, and click a different link. So long sunshine. It’s up to you, not the user, to make your site work for everyone. There’s been a mass shift towards building sites that are accessible to all. Actually it’s a basic standard for any professional these days. Well here’s the thing; you can code to the best standards, and use the most semantic of markup but if you dismiss a widely used browser (regardless of how badly it renders your code), you do not make accessible web sites. I think that factor might be easy to forget. Of course the big difference is that if we’re just talking about web design related sites, most of your readers are going to have the latest browsers – so the question on whether to support or not should be a statistical choice. Like Cloudsteph recently pondered. And this blog there are more IE6 readers than anyone else. Same goes for a lot of much bigger sites I work on.
I think a much more practical campaign is to let the uninitiated know just why they should upgrade their browsers. So I’ll practice what I preach with three main points.
Upgrading to a new version of your browser or installing a new browser is very easy. They’re clever people you know, they think of everything. As part of the upgrade/install they will give you the option to import all your settings and your favourites/bookmarks. So you don’t lose anything and it’s as simple as ABC.
A lot of people hate upgrades and the drastic changes they can sometimes bring. But there are no major user interface difference with browsers. You’ve got your address bar, your back and forward buttons. Then you’ve got favourites or bookmarks. You’d barely noticed the switch. Maybe your home button is in a different place but there’s really nothing new to learn at all.
There are many reasons why you would upgrade. You get a lot of added functionality. Websites will look and function as they should. Page load will most likely be smoother/faster. Probably most important is security. Using old browsers is not very secure. Especially in the ‘always on’ broadband era. You’re making your computer very vulnerable to all kinds of malware/viruses.
So if you’re using Internet Explorer Version 6, you should upgrade to version 7 or install Firefox. To see what browser version you have (and this is the same throughout most software) go to your Help menu and select “About Internet Explorer”. You can see which Browser version you have then. You have two options no: (1)upgrade or (2)Download and install. To upgrade Internet Explorer, go to Tools > Windows Update. This will bring you to a Microsoft Update site, which will tell you what updates you need to bring your computer up-to-date, including the latest Browser updates. Or you could just download Internet Explorer 7 and install it: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/ie/getitnow.mspx. And you’ll also notice that ie8 is on the way!
I’d recommend that you get Firefox. It is faster, more secure, more independent from Windows, and has a lot more functionality. It’s very easy to customise or install plug-ins. For example one plug-in I find very useful is sxipper which remembers all my logins/passwords for various sites. And I recently installed a script that blocks all applications on Facebook, so I no longer receive requests from anyone asking me to poke a zombie in the eye with a virtual pet. Also if you’re a bit unsure about all this but want to give it a go, you can install Firefox without effecting Internet Explorer at all, so you can go back if you need to or use both of them.
So, don’t upgrade for me, upgrade for you!
// August 28th, 2008 // 9 Comments » // rant, web, web design
Rant, rave, fume, spit. I am so sick of web sites who say they deliver to Ireland, then don’t let you proceed without a valid UK postcode. This is 2008. Sort it out! Don’t make me fill out a big bloody form if it is not possible for me to proceed!
While I’m feeling ranty, I’m also sick of the number of things you just can’t seem to buy in this country. I seem to spend so much time looking for things that you can buy in any other country. If you have a valid postal code!
Screw you uk.insight.com you’re first on the list. Yes I just might make a list.
// June 5th, 2008 // 25 Comments » // blogging, css, web, web design, wordpress
This post is both for people with web design experience but who haven’t yet used Wordpress and it might be useful for regular Joes or small companies who want to install a default Wordpress blog engine on a site at their own URL. So here’s how to install wordpress and how to reskin it. I’ve not gone into a huge amount of detail but it should be a good starting point. Let’s try the questions and answers format:
What is the difference between http://www.wordpress.org and http://www.wordpress.com?
On wordpress.com you can set up a blog that will be hosted on wordpress.com, and on wordpress.org you can download the blog engine to install on your own site.
Can you be a bit more specific?
On Wordpress.com you can quickly set up a blog that will be hosted on Wordpress.com, so the address of your blog will be http://websitename.wordpress.com. For example: http://whythatsdelightful.wordpress.com/. You can customise how it looks to some small degree (and a small fee). You would typically choose a template and maybe change the header image as in the example above. However you have limited access to the markup and css and have to access these through a web interface, which I personally hate doing.
However on Wordpress.org, you can download the blogging engine and install it on your site. This gives you full access to all the markup (html code) and the css, so you can do whatever you want with in Dreamweaver or whatever you use to code. The other obvious major benefit is that your web address can be whatever you want, or at your existing site.
What’s the easiest way to install Wordpress?
A lot of web hosts have good hosting packages that make it easy to install extra bits and pieces and this is by far the easiest way to install Wordpress or setup a new site with Wordpress. My web host of choice is www.blacknight.ie . I decided to setup http://www.beatingrsi.com one night before going to bed and a couple of hours later I had it setup and mostly reskinned.
Where’s my blog?
Your blog will now be at the root of your site http://www.yourwebsite.com or http://www.yourwebsite/blog depending on whether you installed Wordpress in the root directory or a sub directory. Now you’re ready to start writing blog posts or pages. It’s very easy to use. Go to www.yourwebsite/blog/wp-admin and you’re ready to go.
Can I reskin it now?
Yes. You have two choices, you can install someone else’s theme or you can reskin it yourself.
How can I install someone else’s theme?
The process for installing a theme or a plugin is much the same.
How can I reskin a theme?
There’s no point in completely starting from scratch. Pick a barebones theme that somewhat fits the layout you want, ie the number of columns, if any, that you want. The default theme that you installed (Kubrick’s theme) is a good starting point for the standard layout. The sandbox theme is another good starting point. It’s unskinned but has all the elements marked up, ready for you to skin with CSS.
The typical process from there depends on your preferences. I tend to design in photoshop. Take a screengrab of the default theme. Then set up your grid to match the width and turn on snap. This will make everything from here on a lot easier. Now, do your design magic! Here’s what I did for www.beatingrsi.com. I didn’t bother with the footer or main content typography at this stage. I prefer to get a basic design and then tweak. This is what a few of those steps look like at a high level:
How did you go from Photoshop to Wordpress theme?
Open the original images from your default theme. You will find them in /wp-content/themes/default/images. For example open header.gif. Then copy the header from your design and paste it into header.gif, position it properly and save (or export as gif and save over original). Do the same with the backgound image for the page, or the wrapper image. And you’re off to a very good start. It’s all tweaking from here on. Start messing with your CSS to match the widths and height to your new images if necessary. Then start tweaking your typography, and add your footer if you hadn’t already worked on it in the original design. Then tweak, tweak, tweak.
It’s easier to work locally when tweaking, so open your blog in Internet Explorer (It’s better than Firefox for saving pages) and save it as testpage.html in your site directory and then change the paths to CSS etc.
I already have a blog. Can I transfer to Wordpress?
Yes. It’s delightfully easy to import all posts and comments into wordpress from blogger or wordpress.com. At the press of a button you can have all content imported. Although you will probably have to reskin from scratch or just go for a new design as the markup hooks will be different (that’s the only reason I haven’t moved this site yet.)
What about blogger?
No! Blogger is fine if you want a blog at www.mysite.blogger.com and don’t want to change the theme much. www.johnbraine.com is completely modified but it was a very slow process. I had to use the online editor, and managed to get most of the CSS into a separate file so I didn’t have to wait on the VERY slow blogger – it was a very slow painful and painful process, as is working with blogger: You can publish blogger to an external URL, as I do, but after a small amount of posts and labels build up, it times out whenever you publish a post. I’m dreading publishing this post! I will have to hit retry every minute for about ½ an hour! So avoid, if you want to reskin and publish to your own URL. It seems the only “fix” for this is to actually host with Blogger.
For writing, management, publishing, or reskinning, a dedicated Wordpress Engine wins hands down.
Update: For a more detailed guide on installing Wordpress, see Gav’s Guide to installing Wordpress.
// April 3rd, 2008 // No Comments » // web design
I’ve been frantically working on a website for the missus in time for her imminent book launch. The new site is www.makingbabies.ie and it went live today. All feedback welcome. Will be re-doing the background/header imagery. Few people already saying its a bit much.
// February 15th, 2008 // No Comments » // web design
I’ve had to lock up RTE NL for crimes against web design. Just what were they thinking? Scrolling text that would give a speed-reader a creak in the neck and no way to stop it from scrolling. That’s the worst crime I’ve seen on the Web in ages. And while I’m on the subject; no www.johnbrain.com is absolutely nothing to do with me. He should be locked up for crimes against web site navigation at least.
// February 9th, 2008 // No Comments » // waffle, web design
Congratulations to The Missus for winning ‘best in blogging’ at the Digital Media Awards. We almost didn’t even go. Couldn’t afford neither tux nor tickets. But we were afforded free tickets at the last minute, and found a tux I could borrow. Then to her shock and horror she actually won the award. The look on her face was priceless.
But all that isn’t the point of this post. And none of the above is going to stop me from saying what I’ve been meaning to say since I heard of these awards; their website is a disgrace. Most of this is from memory.
The reason all that is from memory, is that ever since the awards the site has been inaccessible. A flash movie loads and stays at 8% or doesn’t load at all. Sure there are plenty of bad web sites out there, but someone calling themselves the Digital Media Awards really should have got professionals to build their site.
// October 24th, 2007 // 1 Comment » // blogging, web, web design
It’s about time I got with the program and added a blogroll. So here’s most of the blogs I read in my feedreeder. If you don’t use a feedreeder, get with the program! Why go to the post office to get your letters, when you’ve got a postman to bring them to you. If you have a gmail account, the easiest thing to do is go to www.google.com/reader, and start subscribing to feeds. Or any blog or webpage just look out for a feed icon. If you want to see RSS explained further, here’s a simple video. Subscribe to my feed here.
Anyway, here’s most of the blogs that I’ve get in my feedreader & added to my blogroll…
Just everyday comings and goings of a girl called Annie but I like her style. A very witty kitty.
And if you’re a movie buff check out Annie get your gun too.
Great photo blog, with the occasional insight into good photography tips and techniques.
Mostly technology news, which I don’t follow that much to be honest but there are lots of other interesting bits and bobs of fluff.
Twenty mostly makes up stories about his imaginary mates and there’s also lots of good old down to earth rants about the idiots that live in and run this country.
This really is a great resource to subscribe to if you’ve any interest in web design. Lots of practical tips, advice and downloads.
the first place to look for industry standard techniques. The regular features are great but it’s taken second place in my favourite web resources. Smashing magazine is just that bit more useful and to the point.
I’ve already given this a mention. The designed tree is an Irish based blog featuring well designed sites from around the world.
Good Irish Web design blog, occasionally outing some of the many web design cowboys on the go at the moment. And I love the blog header.
If you haven’t checked out Limmy.com yet do it now. Play with some playthings and watch some videos. Then you’re allowed to have a look at his blog. Did I tell you how good his live show was?
// October 12th, 2007 // No Comments » // css, sifr, web design
I’ve thrown in the towel on trying to get Sifr headings to appear behind my dropdowns. I’d prefer to have plain old text headings and be able to navigate the site thanks very much. Sifr and z-index just don’t want to co-operate with each other. Sifr has caused mucho headaches anytime I’ve tried to use it. I have used it on a lot of sites to do nice headers but I have spent so much time trouble-shooting with it, that the acronym just gives me a bad taste in my mouth now. I’d rather never use it again.
// October 12th, 2007 // No Comments » // css, design, web design
Another Motorbike site I did, hbmotorcycles.com has gone live.
// September 20th, 2007 // No Comments » // css, design, web design
A few of the dealer sites I did, have eventually gone live. I did these about six
months ago. Offices eh?
Semi fluid layout, the navigation buttons resize as the browser window is resized.
Another fluid layout, but this time the image on the homepage resizes depending no the size of the browser window.
Another fullscreen resizable layout.
// July 16th, 2007 // 2 Comments » // inspiration, web, web design
I’m liking the latest addition to my Google reader; The Designed Tree. It’s a frequently updated blog, with every post featuring a well designed site, hilighting the sites best features. It’s also an Irish based site and seems to be ran by a guy called Keith Donnegan. Some daily inspiration, nice.
// June 20th, 2007 // 1 Comment » // css, web design, work
I’m working on building up a library of CSS templates for restaurants. I’ll be doing hundreds of restaurant sites for the rest of the year. I’m currently having bit of fun with a few CSS tricks on one of the sites….
So when you resize the text, it has a knock on effect on everything else, the layout widths increase, the header re-scales, and the photo stretches. The overall effect is that you can zoom in and out of the site. Have a look.
// May 7th, 2007 // No Comments » // css, web design
How embarrassing. I try to make sure all my sites work in every browser/platform/resolution but I forgot to go fix all the things that weren’t working properly in Internet Explorer. The footer was half-hidden, the navigation menu was looking dodge, and the drop-downs didn’t work at all.
So for all you millions and millions of people who’ve been here before and use Internet Explorer, you can actually see stuff in the Art, and Playground drop-down s now.
// April 20th, 2007 // No Comments » // books, web design
What is this book for!? It’s not for me that’s for sure but it’s not for anyone. I don’t know who would read this. It starts with the same old tedious stuff you get for novice web material -history of the internet etc. Yawn. Then when the content eventually starts its mostly related to really big budget web design contracts. The guys who are doing those sites don’t need a book, that thirty pages in is still explaining what a browser is. So it goes from that to the scoping, planning, organization, user testing etc of large and complex sites. There’s nothing for the thousand’s of web designers like me and our clients who do sites for small to medium business and organizations. People who don’t have budgets for a month of research, and use cases and meetings and contracts and other crap that just doesn’t happen in grassroots web design.
I kept waiting for it to get better but it just got worse. It’s packed full of the kind of ridiculously useless common sense that always gets my goat. This nugget takes up half a page: "Clients can find designers in a variety of ways. They may have had personal contact with someone in the company, or the designer may have been recommended by a colleague. The client may know about the supplier from the trade press or work with a client in their industry. They may have found the suppliers name in the directory….." yadda yadda yadda. Might as well be saying "A designer may get up in the morning and brush their teeth. Or the designer might have a shower first".
The language throughout is fairly dubious. Lots of talk of ’suppliers’ and ‘engineers’ and things you don’t associate with web design. Suspicions are confirmed when you get to the test cases. A few of them are unapologetically products of industrial design. What is Web Design? Well It’s not a bloody Arm band Sensor that’s for sure! I thought it might get interesting when I got to the test cases but they very quickly end up sounding like minutes from a boring meeting and aren’t greatly insightful.
In this industry a 4 year old book would be extremely dated and trust me it is, it looks and reads like a ten year old book but that’s still no excuse for all the elements that make it such a useless book. I wouldn’t be so harsh if I just made a bad purchase, and it wasn’t for me but like I said at the start – this book isn’t for anyone! I bought this alongside its more recommended big *sister What is Design For? I’m still interested in reading about good web design practice and theory, but this is a bad start! I suppose I’ve only myself to blame for such a hasty internet purchase.
// April 9th, 2007 // No Comments » // css, web design
Smartbride is a web site that coincides with the launch of a book called “How to have a champagne wedding on a bucks fizz budget”. I got this site done just in time for an Irish Times article it appeared in on Saturday about people cutting costs for weddings. Funnily enough, I got a mention in the same article because I bartered web sites for wedding services (photographer, jeweler, chauffeur, hairdresser & cake maker) when I got married.
I like jobs like these, you get a nice image to work with (shoe from the book cover) and you’ve got an agreed colour scheme and half a banner straight off. The site isn’t entirely finished yet though, there’s a few sections ‘under construction’.
// April 5th, 2007 // No Comments » // css, design, web design
I’ve been working my arse off trying to get this LIFE site finished. It’s probably the best design I’ve done but I’m sick of the sight of it at the moment! There’s a lot of work to it – a member section, and a minisite that’s going to be used as a template for other chemists. I’m looking forward to getting it finished off and getting a full nights sleep!
However I did have a bit of fun earlier (which I’m paying for now because I’m dying to go to bed but have to get this site done). I scanned in a sketch that I did during the week and chucked it into a photo. I wanted to do something better with this – but for now here’s Zippy, the Wonder years.
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