An unstructured list of experiences, pet peeves, and advice surrounding interactive design and development.
Let’s make something clear right now: I’m not a trained web developer.
Nor am I any sort of interactive expert in my opinion. But I have been involved in the design and production of websites for clients for many years. So, I was [...]
Just today I was trying to decide whether to bother entering a few of our recent web projects into the W3 Awards and was in a bit of a fence-sitting position about it.
Over the course of a year we are becoming bombarded by more and more award show calls-for-entries. This wasn’t a bad thing when [...]
After leaving my house in Vancouver at 5AM, flying all day to finally check into our hotel in Boston at 6PM, Mark and I were exhausted. Time to check in, take a nap and then find a good meal. Not only did we arrive at a super swank boutique hotel called The Liberty Hotel, but [...]
If I was asked who Stefan Sagmeister was a week ago, I could’ve given a handful of knee-jerk descriptions; he’s a designer, he’s provocative, he’s influential. I could’ve said many things to describe the icon he has become, but I would have failed to mention that he’s human.
“Everybody who is honest is interesting.”
On Friday afternoon, [...]
The drive to improve and succeed has increasingly lead to professionals in all trades to specify down to minute processes in projects. A photoshop artist will focus entirely on fashion retouching, or an interactive designer will draw boxes and arrows all day long. Along with this professional focus, influences and inspiration can also become focused. [...]
As featured on Design Taxi
Macro or Micro?
The new Vancouver International Film Centre seems like the perfect venue for something called VIDFEST, a five day “festival” put on by New Media BC and meant to connect and promote the digital media sector. That said, the location is much smaller than the Granville Island facilities used [...]
London was buzzing for the last two weeks of September. Everywhere you looked, on every street corner there seemed to be something about design. The city was filled with museum exhibits, public art and storefronts with interactive installations. I took in what I could in a week before heading to the south of France for [...]
During the iDesign conference in London I heard Bill Thompson talk about design’s role in the world of technology and he mentioned the locking down of Apple’s newest portable products. I did some reading and found quite a lot under the surface. I was very close to buying an iPod Touch but now I’m reconsidering.
Apple [...]
In the UK, where I’ve been for the past couple of weeks, pay rates for design freelancers are up in many cases, particularly when it comes to digital disciplines, according to DesignWeek’s second annual survey.
Overall, pay increases have been extremely healthy over the last twelve months, with increases of 13% cited, and a further 9% [...]
I was somewhere over Northern California headed south when the fear started to take hold. I remember wondering about what lay ahead thinking something to the effect of ‘what am I doing here?’ As a graphic designer only peripherally interested in animation, 3D rendering, motion capture, or gaming, I was afraid that I might not [...]
This blog was started years ago in part as a repository for our inspirations, yet I think we often drift away from that purpose a bit, so I want to share something that inspired me this weekend: discovering new music.
Obviously music plays a big part in most of our lives. It’s always stated as a [...]
June 4th marked the launch of the new London 2012 Olympic logo and it didn’t take long for the controversy to begin. I’d already fielded a number calls and emails before lunch from friends, designers and even the media. My inbox is filled with emails about the subject from various GDC designers across the country—some [...]
Mark just asked me to take ten minutes and jot down my opinions about what a student (or anyone I guess) should do/include/avoid when putting together and presenting a portfolio. A couple years ago I actually did a post on the topic on this blog.
Since then I have been on the receiving end of hundreds [...]
Well, we did it, again. The Industrial Brand/Legends Memorabilia “PicniCANtics” took top honours in this year’s Canstruction Vancouver for the third, THIRD, year in a row (2005 Award, 2006 Award). For those not in the know, Canstruction is an international design/build competition that benefits local food banks, brings together teams of architects, engineers, graphic artists [...]
The longer I stay in this industry, the more I realize the difference between producing graphically appealing (pretty) solutions and creating strategic communication designs that produce results.
Though I use my training in Graphic Design daily and often find much of what I do professionally to be based on visual language and aesthetics, it is only [...]
Ok, we’ll be the first to admit that the title for this would have been much more suitable if we had actually managed to get this posted for Halloween. But regardless, the above phone call is a little gem that we recently revisited in our archives after one of our clients posed the question, “What ever happened to…?”
So for those of you suffering from chocolate hangovers…enjoy.
Entries (RSS)
November 3rd, 2006 at 9:33 pm
“I just feel horrible, because we had such a great weekend!”
November 7th, 2006 at 11:08 am
There are few “chocolate bars” that I truly dislike, then I think the evil that is the Big Turk — gross!