These schools aren't just benefiting the children; their mothers and older sisters can start small businesses and earn a better income, which helps the entire family.  The schools often become community centers in villages that don't have much infrastructure.

Tesfa also helps teen girls who have run away to the capital city of Addis Ababa, hoping to escape arranged marriages or get access to schooling in the hopes of becoming professional athletes but discover that the streets are a difficult place to make a living.  Team Tesfa provides safe housing, education, and proper nutrition so the girls can train and compete successfully as runners.

We redesigned the entire website and Tesfa brand from the ground up, and are having a launch party to celebrate.  It's an open house at 5:30pm - 6:30pm Tuesday August 10 at Westminster Church downtown, in the Meisel room.  Check http://www.ewestminster.org for directions and parking.  This event is free, open to the public, and catered by Salsa a la Salsa. 

Visit http://www.tesfa.org/launch to download the invitation PDF and see the video about how to build an origami rocket out of the invitation.

Please consider stopping by our open house.  Even if you can't make it, check out their website to see how Tesfa is bringing hope to thousands of children and their families.

First, ask the homunculus about Chronicle of Sorrows.  That will get you three journal entries, the start of a whole series of pages ripped from the 404 page journal that you are trying to piece together.  The journal tells a story set in the Bitter Seeds world, just before the events in the book and filled with ominous foreshadowing of actual characters and events.  

Each of the journal pages you find suggests a clue and possibly a method of finding the answer to the clue.  This will involve playing with the website interactive pieces, including the postcard generator (where you can send a postcard to von Westarp, if you like).  

The goal of the game is to find the three login pieces for the file folder on Stephenson's Desk.  Contained within the folder are the DVD extras for the book, an unpublished appendix of sorts.  Also, you'll have the chance to claim your prize by providing your email address so we can contact you about where to send your signed ARC.  

That is all.  Good luck.

OK, it's not a complete walkthrough.  But at least I opened the door.

1) Buy Bitter Seeds.

2) Read about it on Boing Boing.

3) Read about it on John Scalzi's blog.

4) Visit Ian's blog.

5) Play the online clue-solving puzzle game based on Bitter Seeds, Chronicle of Sorrows.  At stake is a signed ARC.

6) Win Bitter Seeds on Goodreads.com

7) ???

8) Profit!

When I was a kid I read the Little Prince and loved the idea of having my own little planet.  My little volcano, a broom, a rose under a glass dome, those were all the things I'd need for real happiness.  I never thought about things like gravity or orbital velocity or tidal forces, just pure unadulterated circumambulation.  

Recently I calculated that if the entire Earth and everything on it except chocolate were to disappear, you'd be left with a sphere about the size of the Little Prince's tiny planet.  How cool would that be?  I mean, other than how you'd try to walk and just float off, or how you'd probably just freeze to death well before you ever got the chance to walk.

Then I discovered the world (pun intended) of Tiny Planets.  

You take a 360 degree panorama of a good spot, stitch it all together and warp it around itself until the planet is bounded by the panoramic horizon so no matter which way you hold it it's the right way up.  What you get is a snapshot of not just a moment in time, but an entire place.  If you stand in the right spot at the right time, you can create a world made entirely of chocolate.

Now all I need to do is figure out a way to get the Earth and everything on it except chocolate to disappear.  Meanwhile, you'll have to settle for these Tiny Planets instead.

When Ian and I first built his website years ago, we built it with this game in mind.  All of the pieces we'd need were eventually put into place, and over the last few months or so we've finally achieved our goal.  We wanted a puzzle game that would tell a story, and this story that Ian wrote is set in his Bitter Seeds universe as a prologue to the novel.  It introduces you to the world, lets you wander around in it, gives you a taste of it that leaves you wanting more. 

Luckily you can pre-order the book right from stephensonsdesk.com while you're cursing the fiendish difficulty of the game.  Did I mention that it's fiendishly difficult?  I feel very fortunate to have the chance to work on this project.  There's no way I would be able to solve the puzzle, I'm just not that smart.  But maybe you can.  In fact, there's a clue somewhere in this very blog post!

The game weaves the clues throughout the story and across Ian's site.  The reward is unlocking the DVD extras for the novel contained in Stephenson's Desk.  I've seen the extras, it's worth it.  Hours of director's commentary, deleted scenes, interviews with the actors, and trailers for the upcoming movies.  Don't believe me?  Solve the puzzle and prove me wrong!

Once you solve the puzzle, don't forget to enter your email address to claim your grand prize.  I don't even know what the grand prize is, we're so sure that nobody will solve it.

Just kidding.  I know what it is.  But because I'm so mysterious (and fiendishly difficult), I'm not telling you.  

The trouble with most of those solutions is, when you apply them your links and input elements often go unclickable.  So you have to jump through yet more hoops for IE6 users, most of which require extra code and lots of headaches.  

I'm pleased to announce that today I stumbled on this astounding method of creating a PNG file that does away with all of the cross-browser issues of transparent PNG files: in modern browsers, the PNG transparency uses an alpha mask, so has the pretty anti-aliased edges and dropshadows that make you want to use PNG in the first place.  And in IE6, the PNG just treats all those semi-transparent pixels as transparent, so you get what you would have gotten using a GIF anyway.  I'll tell you how in a minute.

First, let me start by saying that if you are viewing this site in IE6 right now and you are capable of upgrading your browser, you are the scum of the Earth and do not deserve decent transparent PNGs.  The world would be a better place if IE6 just fell off it.  However, since many corporations have mandated IE6 and don't allow their users to upgrade because IE7 broke all the custom code their intranet uses, we web designers have to just put up with it.  

Like I said, up until now I've had to either design very carefully, or come up with an alternate solution for displaying transparent PNGs.  I used to use conditional comments for IE6 and use a GIF in that style sheet and a PNG for everyone else.  IE6 is still 1/3 of the browsing market, a minority that is far too large to just ignore.  And many of them can't help it, either.

So while struggling with various Javascript methods of fixing all the PNGs in a site, I stumbled upon a simple, almost magic solution: Fireworks.

If you have Fireworks, you can do this.  If you do not have Fireworks, you probably can't.  Like I said, this is not a code fix, this is an image fix.  The idea is to save the PNG-24 with alpha transparency as a PNG-8 with alpha transparency.  Modern browsers will read the alpha mask, and IE6 (the stone-age browser) will see what is basically a GIF because it ignores the alpha transparency and just considers it all transparent.

This means that the fix won't work for all images, but for 98% of them it will.  Here's how to do it:

STEP 1) Open your PNG in Fireworks.

STEP 2) Go to the OPTIMIZE tab (Window -> Optimize, or F6) 

STEP 3) Change the graphic format from PNG 24 to PNG 8

STEP 4) Change the transparency dropdown to 'Alpha Transparency'.

STEP 5) Add your preferred amount of diffusion.  If you have gradients, you may want more diffusion or you'll get banding.

STEP 6) Go to File -> Export and Export it.

STEP 7) Crow to anyone who will listen about your mad web sk1llz.

Seriously, it doesn't sound like it would work, but it does.  It looks reasonable on IE6 and even more reasonable on everything else.  It's not a PNG-24, so don't use it if that's critical to the design, but nine times out of ten this fix will be all you need.

Here's an example.  Check it out in IE6 and any other browser.  Cheers!

As most of you have no doubt already heard, Apple has announced the iPad.  It's an iPhone with a giant 1024x768 touch screen, which to me doesn't sound all that appealing.  What's it for?  Then this business with Amazon goes down, and suddenly it hits me: this fight isn't about Macmillan at all, it's about the Kindle vs. the iPad.  

The Apple bookstore will allow authors and publishers to sell their eBooks directly to readers and take a cut of 30%.  This is a much smaller percentage than Amazon takes, which I've heard is somewhere around 70%.  According to this article by John Scalzi, normally publishers sell to wholesalers who sell to retailers who sell to readers.  Amazon's big breakthrough was in becoming both the wholesaler and the retailer, cutting out the middle man and passing the savings on to their customers after a hefty cut.  Apple wants to turn this around, allowing publishers to be the wholesalers, and set their own prices to boot.

Amazon wants to sell Kindles.  Apple wants to sell iPads.  Macmillan wants to sell books.  Authors want to sell books.  Readers want to buy books.  Clearly, this fight is only hurting the latter three, and if it comes down to a fight between Apple and Amazon's business models, I'll take Apples, worms and all.  It's the only one that helps any of the latter three, while Amazon's business plan is to screw everyone else.

So what can you, readers and authors, do?  Well, not much.  But if it's pointless gestures you're looking for, try adding one of these to your web page, linking to your favorite Macmillan Author on Powells.com:

"But your design looks really expensive," you say.  Well, you're not wrong.  It does look expensive.  But that doesn't mean it's not affordable.  In fact, you can't afford not to have great design.  Would you expect a tailor to wear a cheap-looking suit?  Does your shoe salesman wear sneakers?   Does your hairdresser have a bad haircut?  

Wait.  That last one is a bad example.  But my point is, the way you look has a huge impact on how you are perceived.  And how you are perceived by your customers will make the difference in closing a sale.

See, that's what I do: design that makes you look important, trustworthy, impressive, and above all tells your story.  But what does good, fast, versatile, and affordable really mean?

I'm glad you asked.

Good

There are a lot of cheap-looking websites out there.  That's what happens when you shop at cheap-looking web designer stores.  You can get a design off the rack for peanuts, and for many businesses a template site is exactly what they need.  

But you are looking for more: you want a high-quality site that not only looks good on the outside but under the hood as well.  You want compelling design that motivates customers that is also a compelling experience.  Your design has to not only show clients exactly who you are, but tell them your story.  You need design that is utterly unique to your marketing message, that will give your marketing message the impact it deserves.

You will love the design.  I know this because my design process incorporates you into it.  The design process does not stop until you are happy with it.  

Fast

I'm often asked what my hourly rate is.  I often demur, because comparing the hourly rate of designers doesn't take into account how fast they are.  When I bid on a project my bids are the same as other designers with slightly cheaper hourly rates, but cheaper hourly rates almost always mean lesser design and bad code.  A cheaper hourly rate also doesn't reflect professionalism, candor and creativity.  I also offer plenty of advice along the way.

When in doubt, compare bids.  You will be pleasantly surprised with how affordable great design can be.

Versatile

I'm the guy that gets called when websites from other designers don't work and need fixing.  I'm the guy that gets called when other designers need pixel-perfect cross-browser CSS and search engine optimization.  I'm the guy that gets called when after hundreds of unexpected change orders and far beyond schedule, the project still doesn't work and you need a new designer.  If it's online, I've done it.  But it's not just code: I'm primarily a designer, and knowing how the code works means that I can come up with spectacular designs that offer great cross-browser compatibility.  There's no reason your website has to look like a WordPress template.

Many of my clients are suffering from Post-Traumatic Web Designer Syndrome after getting a low bid from another designer and being handed a website that barely works and looks terrible.  So why call the other designer if you're just going to end up with me anyway?  Save yourself the frustration and expense.  It's one-stop shopping: I can provide everything from brand identity, web sites and interactive pieces, print and online marketing collateral, and marketing consulting.

Affordable

I'm affordable because I'm fast, good and versatile.  Beware of weirdly low bids, as they often hide massive change orders that ultimately cost you more and are often accompanied by bad design decisions.  What else are they hiding from you?

Don't wear a cheap-looking suit!  Your website will look very expensive, but you don't have to tell anyone you paid off-the-rack prices for it.

Why shop anywhere else?

I started working at Jacobs Interactive nine years ago, just after the dot-com bubble collapsed. I'd ridden two dot-com companies into bankruptcy after building successful internal web design departments in each. The economy was tanking and investor money was disappearing.  I freelanced for awhile before Jacobs Interactive hired me. I'd landed on my feet.

Jacobs Interactive is an internal department with two main corporate clients. One of them recently declared bankruptcy and as a consequence many people throughout our department were laid off. Despite the layoffs my job was secure and would have continued indefinitely. Even with the bankruptcy, we still had plenty of work—more than we could handle. It appeared as if the end of the turbulence was in sight, and after that work would remain steady.

I've always done side projects, and two years ago I set up 3232 Design as an attempt to sidestep freelancing and choose my own clients and expand my creative options. Working for myself was always a dream of mine, but the timing for going out on my own full-time never seemed right. I'd always had a day job. Somebody else had to worry about where my projects were coming from, somebody else made the ultimate decisions.

I had plenty of side projects. I had a three-legged plan, a stable seat on which my dream of being a business owner rested. For the first leg of my plan I saved every dollar I made from 3232 Design and only spent money on equipment and software, creating a capital cushion to smooth out the transition after quitting so I'd have time for marketing and building my client list.

The second leg involved reaching half of the billable hours I'd need to be on my own, then making the jump. If I couldn't ramp it up to full-time within a few months, the third leg would kick in where I'd start looking for another job. I was confident I could find another job with my qualifications.

The only problem with my plan was my day job. In 2008, working 60 hour weeks was taking its toll on me.  Even though I worked 20 hours a week on billable 3232 Design projects, I couldn't just quit the day job. How could I be sure that the work would continue and expand? How could I be sure I could afford mortgage payments, daycare costs, and then pay for my family's healthcare on top of that?

So instead I throttled back my side projects. I allowed new leads to cool, and I got my weekends back. The only projects I accepted were from existing clients of mine. The dream wasn't dead, it was just missing a few legs.

I set a goal: by January of 2009 I'd quit the day job and ramp up.

In January of 2009, the economy was in free-fall. There was no way I wanted to quit my job. I'd already heard stories of designers being laid off left and right, and part of my plan was that if I couldn't ramp up my business in a few months, I'd start looking for another job.

Suddenly that didn't seem like an option. January, then February, then March passed, and the economy just worsened. The unemployment rate kept rising. Friends and colleagues were being laid off all over. I began to despair that I'd never get out on my own without that third leg. Pundits and economists were making comparisons to the Great Depression.

My wife has a great story about her Grandparents during the Depression. They ran a furniture store, and they, like most people during the Depression, were very careful with their money. But when things were at their bleakest, her Grandfather bought a trainload of refrigerators. That optimism saved their business as customers filed in to replace their ailing and broken appliances which had been neglected for years.

Her take-home message was that businesses that start in bad economic times are the most successful if they survive. They aren't buying Aeron chairs or corporate retreats, they're reinvesting in the business in smarter ways because they're always keenly aware of the value of their dollars.

In December 2009, the economy was showing some recovery. The unemployment rate was still sky-high, but there was still no sign that companies were hiring again. The one thing companies were doing was spending on graphic design, marketing and advertising. It occurred to me that while nobody wanted to take on the fixed high costs of an employee, everyone needed design services to succeed in this new, smaller, more competitive market. Businesses still needed their metaphorical refrigerators, recession or not.

I kept hoping that I'd get laid off so at least I could get unemployment if things went really south, but I kept not getting laid off. It became clear that if I wanted my own business full-time, I'd have to take the leap of faith and just quit. I felt weird about resigning since I knew so many people who had been laid off. It felt disrespectful somehow. It felt crazy and irresponsible, and I came up with all kinds of excuses not to quit. I began to follow the healthcare bill, pinning my fear on free universal healthcare and if it passed, THEN I'd quit. Or once I found two or three more long-term clients. Or once the kids were out of daycare and into public schools. Or once the mortgage was paid off.

The date appeared to recede into the infinite future. I decided to just quit, trusting that my business plan was still sound, that the numbers I'd calculated would still work. I'd get over my terror and just pull the trigger. Besides, I'd been busy enough that I wouldn't often be eligible for unemployment if I kept getting checks from clients.  But would my three-legged plan survive with only one leg?

The day I announced my resignation things started happening. Everyone offered congratulations and encouragement, which surprised me a little—I'd expected the blank fearful stares that Jerry Maguire got. But more interesting, people wanted my business card. Everyone knew somebody that wanted design work. By the end of the day I'd run out of cards.

I checked into healthcare costs. I looked at my budget. I recalculated my hourly rate. The numbers were still solid. I glanced at the job boards, and to my surprise there were more jobs listed than last January. What was going on? 

I casually inquired around some of the businesses looking for design employees, and ended up scoring another potential client. There was a lot of work out there, and though lots of people are looking for jobs it seems that not a lot of them are looking for clients.  I guess you only need a one-legged plan as long as that leg is wide enough.

So anyone want a refrigerator? I've got a trainload of them.

If you want to fly, the best way to start may be to jump out of a perfectly good airplane without a parachute.  

I started 3232 Design as a creative outlet since there are only so many boat and fishing websites you can do before you start going stir crazy.  After a while, I realized that I enjoyed working directly with clients on projects.   The variety was seductive.

I've been planning this move for several years now, but the timing has never been quite right.  At first, I wanted to have more clients and stability before making the leap, so I waited.  Then the economy tanked, and people were getting laid off right and left.  A lot of good people lost their jobs, and that made me nervous: how would I find a job if things didn't work out, with all the good people still out of work?  I couldn't jump out of a perfectly good airplane without a parachute.  Especially not when so many people were being pushed out.  I'd have to be crazy.  Who quits their job without having another one lined up?  

The economy continued to tank, but 3232 Design was doing well.  After a while, I realized that while companies weren't looking for new employees, they were updating websites, creating ads, rebranding, all in an effort to increase their bottom line.  That's an awful lot of feathers.  Enough to make a pair of wings.  It turns out that the best time for jumping out of airplanes and testing your wings is exactly when parachutes are hard to come by, which is necessarily the hardest time to do it.  

Time to fly.

But at least it's a science fiction book.

It's amazing, they just cropped the image a little, and didn't even remove the full URL.  The publisher seems to be old and well-respected in the middle east.  I'm at a loss to explain why they'd publish such obviously stolen art.

So what's an artist to do?  I have a feeling my options are limited due to the international nature of this theft.  I doubt that I'd be able to recover damages, but I'll be talking to my lawyer just to be sure.  I'll be sure to update as the case develops.

In a way, I'm feeling like I've arrived.  Now I can swap stolen art horror stories with the cover artists I meet at sci-fi conventions.  Also, I can add book covers to my list of services now.

I just wish I knew what the title of the book was.

Map

Theatre in the Round

Preview some of the images

Humans are complicated pattern-recognition machines; our ability is so finely-tuned that we often see patterns where none exist.  Some scientists have theorized that this ability evolved as a way for us to sort through information and instructions for the best way to do things.  Others suggest that it is part of our socialization, as tribal identification, remembering faces and recognizing threats were once (and sometimes still are) survival issues.  

Ok, so what does that have to do with symbols, and can any discussion of symbols avoid Godwin's Law?

Stereotypes and archetypes are ways we compress information using this pattern-recognition ability, extending our current knowledge about something to give context to unknowns.  Often this is a problem (when we see patterns where none exist by relying exclusively on stereotypes and archetypes for referencing our worlds) but that doesn't mean they are useless, either.  Some theorize we evolved this reliance on them as a way of predicting how our prey or a local predator would act based on our previous encounters with them.  So, the story goes, our ancestors taught their offspring about which types of people, objects or places were safe and dangerous.

This is where symbols come in.  Symbols are a non-verbal culturally-based language using archetypes common to that culture to compress information and emotion into easily-recognized bites.  From a cave bear skull on a stick to a US Flag, symbols offer ready identification of anything.  You see a cross, you think Christianity.  You see a swoosh, you think Nike.  You see a swastika and you think Nazis.

Oops, Godwinned already.  I'll soldier on anyway.

Swastikas are a good example of the culturally-based nature of symbols.  In India they are a symbol of good luck.  Here in the West, Nazis imbued that symbol with hatred and anti-semitism.  Clearly, then, symbols can be fluid.  Corporate logos, for example, are just shorthand for the company itself; if the company has a history of good customer relations and high-profile charity work, the logo becomes filled with positive associations.  If, however, the company is scandal-ridden and does terrible things, their logo will carry negative associations.  Enron is a great example of this.

Other symbols are more ambiguous.  Take, for example, the silhouette of an apple with a bite missing.  Early Apple logos showed Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree, a parable of gaining knowledge.  Later it became a more literal apple; Steve Jobs also liked the pun on the word 'byte', and added the rainbow colors to show that this computer could display colors and not just black and white. 

There's a great urban legend that the Apple logo is also a tribute to one of the fathers of computing, Alan Turing, who committed suicide by eating an apple laced with cyanide after being convicted of (at the time, illegal) homosexual acts.  This claim is often backed with the original logo's rainbow colors representing his homosexuality (though the rainbow flag wasn't designed until two years after that version of the Apple logo).  Suddenly their logo is a subversive indictment of stereotypes and bigotry, a call for understanding and celebrating our differences in the face of intellectual achievement.

This is a fascinating ambiguity.  It's believable enough, and the first time I heard it I was impressed with Apple for having such a subtle story behind their logo.  When I discovered that there was no truth to the urban legend, I was a little disappointed.  I really wanted it to be true, because it would mean that Apple had taken a political stance on homosexuality.

Alas, this is not the case.  Corporations rarely want to use existing symbols, charged with meaning as they are, to represent themselves.  They prefer empty vessels with which to fill with their own associations, good or bad. This is why logos tend to avoid charged political or religious symbolism.  This is difficult, because designers often want to use the symbols from their toolboxes as shorthand to say something about the company.

Consider the intention of the original designer of Apple's logo: the designer said that it represented knowledge, as in the Genesis story of Adam and Eve eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge.  it represents the fall of Man from innocence, and the beginning of original sin.  In many quarters this is viewed as a Seriously Bad Thing, so I guess their logo is a little bit subversive after all.

A few years ago Ian asked if I wanted to help him with his website.  The project was such a rush that I decided that sci-fi was going to be one of my specialties and I was going to do everything I could to get another hit into that sweet creative vein.  Design is very addictive when you're exposed to the unleashed creativity of sci-fi authors.  These are people who tell stories for a living, so who better to understand marketing and design?  That's all storytelling as well.

Surprisingly, not all creative types understand that good marketing means telling a story.  It's not always as simple as telling people you have a great product; you have to show them.  The only way to show them the superiority of your product is to tell a story.  Authors and photographers should know this instinctively, but perhaps I was spoiled by Ian--a lot of what I do at these conventions is explain to authors and artists that their work is a product like any other, and while it may be a great product, no one will know unless you show them what it is.  Don't just tell them, show them.  Tell a story.

Unfortunately the link is gone now, but Ian once found a small web forum (unconnected to either of us) asking about cool Flash sites.  His site was used as an example and people on the forum visited and said how cool they thought it was.  One person said, "The book isn't out yet, but I can't wait to read it."  On the strength of the website alone.

I was stunned.  Of course, I knew the whole point of doing the website was to get people excited about the book and to tell a story about Ian and what an awesome storyteller he is, but here was direct evidence that it had worked.  Without having read a single word of the book and having just a short description of it, his website showed them what the book was going to be like and now they wanted to read the book.

Normally the evidence of web success isn't as obvious.  Every web site should have one or more measurable goals (to attract readers, to sell a product, to increase awareness of a brand, etc.), but usually the way you measure success is by reading between the lines.  Is the site getting attention?  Are sales tied to the site going up? Are people coming back to the site?  

When I saw that forum discussion, I knew we had gotten it exactly right.  I understood in a real way the impact of a good story in selling a product.  Why do books have art on the covers?  Because the art tells the story of the book, and provides a window into the experience.  It shows people in a direct way what they can expect, and why this book is better for them than the other books on the shelf.  A blank cover might work for The Beatles, a single logo might work for Nike, but for the rest of us we need to show why our product is awesome.  Web sites are no different from book or album covers, but you've got a lot more space to tell your story.  With interactivity, your viewers can become a part of the story, and you can engage with them on a more personal level.

So what's your story?

Note: the show will be up until August 4th if you weren't able to attend the opening.  Be sure you tell them you came to see the art!

Where: Anodyne Coffee House, 43rd and Nicollet in South Minneapolis

When: Sunday July 5th at 2:00pm - 5:00pm

What: 'EYESORE', the art of Richard Mueller

Who: Richard Mueller

Why: Come and read the artists statement, you'll find out.

How: Indeed.

UPDATE: The web design presentation pdf and links are up.

The CONvergence programming people put me opposite "Battlestar Galactica and Caprica" which is a death-sentence for any panel at the same time, of which there are many.  The only thing that makes me feel better is that they've put up a list of all attendees for each panel, and while 'Galactica' has by far the most, my panel is a solid second place.  

I'm pretty happy with the way my presentation turned out, though.  I think the people attending will have a really good time.  It's funny, informative, witty, thought-provoking, and filled to the brim with zombie rats.  See, the original presentation was going to be "On the care and feeding of zombie rats" because the phone connection was bad and it turns out they said 'Design Tips' and not 'Zombie Rats' at all.  Imagine my disappointment.  

And my audience--I'm sure they would rather know all about fun zombie rat experiments you can do at home.

You know you're a designer if:

You can type the 'Lorem ipsum' text from memory.

Your first reaction to seeing a really clever and compelling design is, "I wish I'd thought of that."

You use a Macintosh, but only because you prefer the font and color management.

You make font jokes.

You hate Comic Sans or Hobo and can articulate why.

Centered body text makes your skin crawl.

You know that body text is not a tattoo.

You pronounce 'leading' funny.

You don't use points for keeping score.

When you drop caps, nobody dies.

You know the next number in the sequence 72, 150, 300, 600.

You know the next number in the sequence 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 18, 24, 30, 36, 48, 60.

You know what the letters C, M, Y and K stand for.

You don't question why K means 'black'.

You know what the letters R, G and B stand for, and now it dawns on you why K means 'black'.

You rarely use tables, yet you don't eat on the floor.

You know the difference between a hyphen, an em-dash and an en-dash.  

You insist that blocks of text have color when they are clearly black and white.

You can convert fractions to decimals in your head easily, but only for multiples of 2 (1/8, 1/16, 1/32).

You can tell when something isn't straight, but you use a ruler anyway.

You can't explain to your friends how to crop their snapshots because they don't have Photoshop.

You don't really care what the words say, just how many of them there are.

You believe that sometimes smaller is better.  After all, it's not the size of the logo that matters, it's the amount of whitespace surrounding it that makes it pop.

The words 'violator', 'die cut', 'bleed', 'gutter', 'alias', 'hero', and 'body tag' do not conjure up a crime scene in your mind.

Are you a designer?

6 or fewer: No.  Why were you worried?  Your hair is just fine.

6-12: Maybe.  Make a salon appointment anyway just to be sure.

12-18: Yes!  Though you might need to find a pricier salon and an edgier haircut.

18-24: Why did you even doubt it?  Quit screwing around and get back to work, you're behind enough as it is.

Way back when I first started in web design, I remember thinking it was cool that you could use this thing they just added to the HTML spec called a table that suddenly opened up the possibilities for layout. Tables were horribly misused and I'm sorry to admit that I was a party to that misusal.

In our defense, web designers were by and large coming from the nascent desktop publishing industry where we commanded great control over text and images, and to enter a world where our only options involved whether to bold the text and center it. We didn't have any other tools at our disposal.

When CSS came along we were ecstatic. Finally, all the layout control we were used to was back (don't ask about fonts, that's still a sore spot).  We never imagined, however, that people would eventually be looking at these sites regularly from their mobile phones.

Because of how CSS is designed, it's up to the local browser to know what to do with the code we designers write.  If the user upgrades their browser they may be able to take advantage of better layout, but it's not entirely necessary to view the page.  In this way, content becomes more dynamic over time as the entire system of users, technology, and designers ratchet up the designs to take advantage of the new functionality over time, while ensuring that for a majority of users who do not upgrade, everything still looks good.  

It's the equivalent of having radio evolve slowly into television, but in that case it was completely hardware-dependent; a radio would never display images unless you upgraded the hardware.  That's why the web is awesome, it doesn't care how I view it.  That's called hardware-agnostic.  It's the difference between a telephone and a cell phone, one will never be able to surf the web.  And that makes me sad.

So when Steve the iPhone comes along, my web page doesn't need to be updated, just a few CSS lines that determine the media type.  It's the same way with printing pages, incidentally.  The same page is rendered differently in a browser, mobile device, and printer.  

I could use a bigger keypad, though.  As awesome and novel as typing my blog on a thumbpad is, I think it's time to stop.  Ow.

When Jeff started Velcrometer at Blogspot they didn't have a nice mobile interface.  He asked me if I could come up with some way to take the content from Blogspot and reformat it for a mobile screen.  Or I might have just done it, having bought an iPaq PocketPC.  Using ColdFusion 4 I scraped the pages, then parsed them for the current entry and the archive links by using the code comments in the page as reference points.  It worked rather well, especially considering he's got years of entries on there.

What I couldn't figure out was why Blogspot had never updated their code in the last decade.  I mean, HTML standards have come and gone since then.  CSS was a pipe dream.  Font tags were all the rage.  Picture this code with long hair wearing a dirty plaid shirt at a coffee shop listening to Kurt Cobain.  That's how old it is.  In internet years that's nearly 100.  

So wait, picture that code wearing a top hat at an absinthe bar listening to Gustav Mahler.

Eventually the band broke up and I forgot all about it until the server upgrade, and spotting the errors.  For code that's a decade old, a few minor errors is pretty interesting.  I could fix it, but then the code wouldn't be a decade old anymore.  That code has lasted through three hardware and countless software updates.  Jeff never updated his Blogspot template and now that it's no longer even offered he wears it like a badge of honor.  

It's a good thing he never updated his template, or I'm sure the code would have stopped working immediately.

Wait, all those things are totally related after all, here on Radical Transparency Theatre.  

I'll start with the hardest topic: web server software.  About a week ago my main web server started experiencing unexplained worker process failures which are normally not fatal that were freezing entire sites.  The worker process is the little guy in the server who actually hands you the web pages when you visit a website.  Each site has their own worker process.  If the worker process stops, well, working, then it is normally replaced by a shiny new worker process wearing exactly the same little jumpsuit.  Last week they went on strike so when worker processes failed they had no replacements.

Why am I telling the world this instead of pretending that nothing happened?  Because I am on a first-name basis with my clients, and they already know what happened.  And I want any potential clients to know that if something should go wrong, I'm not going to try to hide it from them but rather apologize and make things work better than they did before.  I moved to my own servers because I was having endless trouble with various hosting companies being unresponsive and evasive about their server errors and hosting problems, pretending that they didn't happen or worse ignoring me and my clients.  Is it so hard to tell your customers the truth?

If you're not interested in the technical details then skip this paragraph.  It may sound like a foreign language.  The w3wp.exe process would fail, probably due to the newer MySQL ODBC drivers being incorrectly configured and incompatible with ColdFusion MX7 to boot.  Why it worked at all in the first place is a mystery, but installing PHP seems to have tossed it over the edge and the workers revolted.  Every time an application pool recycled the site would stop until a fresh reboot.  My tech guy was willing to debug the entire thing, but it seemed prudent to me to just upgrade to ColdFusion 8, which actually supports the MySQL 5.1 database drivers.  Once the upgrade finished the worker processes ended their strike and it's been 100% productivity ever since.

The moral of the story is, always give your workers what they want.  They want the latest upgrade?  Give it to them.  They want their own separate application pools?  Make it happen.  Shinier jumpsuits?  Sure!  They want bagels every morning?  Good luck stuffing them into the DVD drive.

As a consequence, www.theunincorporatedman.com was unstable during the first day of the book's availability, which is a Bad Thing.  Bad Things tend to make me twitchy, and I spent every waking moment (and some sleeping moments) in front of the server with duct tape and shoestrings with clenched teeth trying to keep it from falling apart before the upgrade was in place.  Now that the server is better than new, I've gone and purchased The Unincorporated Man so I can relax and unwind with a great book.

See how these things are all related?

So next Saturday at 2:30 I'll be at MiniCon discussing the Art of Steampunk (and prints of the Clockwork Frog will be available for sale).  We'll talk about what the genre is, and how seemingly disparate chunks of it are actually related, from the Maker Movement to Cosplay to Craftsmanship to literary themes--all tied together through mass production, authenticity, the Outsider, and the love of beautiful (yet functional) things.  

Unfortunately the Collaboration panel was canceled as the Artist Guest of Honor Stephan Martiniere has had a family emergency.  I was really looking forward to hanging out with him again, and I hope he's doing OK.  

I understand family emergencies, since I consider my servers to be a part of my family.  Or at least I do when I'm trying to make non-sequiturs into secuutus.  That's Latin for 'mash-up'.

I've been in an ongoing in-depth discussion on the nature of Steampunk.  A lot of people think it's dressing in Victorian fashion and donning goggles.  They're right.  Others think it's a literary genre that imagines a world of Victorian Futurism such as the kind Jules Verne wrote.  They are also right.  Still others think it's a revival of the art of craftsmanship, a return to functional pieces of art.  These people are wrong.

Right.  Sorry, they're right too.  I meant to say right.

The roots of Steampunk dig back into the 1980s (and depending on who you ask even earlier) and despite constant claims of its imminent demise (or demise in the recent past) it appears to be taking hold in mainstream culture.  There was a recent New York Times article on Steampunk (which was woefully underreported as this humble web designer was unmentioned) which is about as mainstream as it gets.  There are bands who sing about Steampunk themes, artists who paint Zeppelins and writers who write about clockwork mechanisms running governing the motion of the Earth.

So what is Steampunk?  Is it a literary genre, a costuming fad, part of the Maker Movement, or what?

Well, why can't it be all those things?  

Steampunk is Victorian Futurism, sure.  At least that's how it started out.  Then activists got ahold of it and added bits involving rejecting (or repurposing) a mass-produced culture in favor of a beautifully handcrafted one.  Then people decided that goggles looked cool and started wearing top hats.  And according to some people, it is an expression of post-imperial post-colonialism where the Victorian adventurers stop subjugating distant cultures (the lifeblood of imperial industry) and start heading home to urban spaces to fight the power structure.

Ideologically Steampunk is interesting because the literary sources from which it draws its inspiration are stories about the Outsider in Victorian culture, the Captain Nemos and Sherlock Holmses who fight on behalf of those who can't; the modern movement contains elements of this as well through activism and literature like the Pullman "Dark Materials" series using Sci Fi in general and Steampunk specifically to lambast organized religion.  A piece of this are the costumes, which almost always emulate the avant-garde (and Outside) of Victorian culture: the scientists, inventors, adventurers, the aviators.  Very few dress as upper-middle class Victorians, and fewer still as upper class or royalty.  Most are everyday people (though usually well-dressed), and goggles feature prominently.  It's the thinkers and creative types we are idolizing (the 'punk' in Steampunk), from an era where so much of the world was awaiting discovery that nearly anyone with gumption could discover it.

However, there's another approach to Steampunk: practically speaking Steampunk involves a love of craftsmanship and DIY esthetic, creating unique objects and working with Victorian-era materials and technology (brass, leather, glass, bone, wood) to adorn functional objects, and very little looks new.  Even new things are given a patina of age and authenticity.  It praises working with your hands and beautiful functionality, like Jake von Slatt's computer encased in brass with a typewriter-key keyboard.  It's making the ordinary into something extraordinary; it is a rejection of minimalism. It is at the same time an exploration of authenticity, because these objects are rarely made to look new but are given a patina of use, an inauthentic process used to create the illusion of authenticity and age.  We're idolizing the Victorian-era antiques and era, but not visualizing those objects as they would have appeared in their time but in ours.  Living the future that the Victorians could only imagine.

This has little to do with the Outsider, but still seems inseparably related thematically.  This is my side of the genre, as I work to include not just a stereotypical 'Steampunk' visual style to my work, but to my work ethic as well.  It's a state of mind where you treat your work and the clients you work for as sacrosanct; the mechanisms I create are intricate and almost always look well-used, and all are one-of-a-kind, unique to their purpose.   Nothing is  created in a sweat shop or an assembly-line. 

Idealogically I've described the post-colonial aspect of Steampunk, how imperialism subjugated outsiders to 'tame' the world which feeds their industry; and the DIY and costume side, which appear to be manifestations of the ideals of Victorians as we perceive them, namely beauty and adventure. The two sides of the coin intersect when you realize that the modern Steampunk artisans and makers rely heavily on mass-produced items which they then customize. In literature you can see post-colonialism in stories like 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' where the wilds have been tamed and they've headed back into London. 

So this isn't much of a tutorial.  Sorry.  Maybe next time I'll discuss how to fake some goggles using toilet paper and rubber bands.

Questions provided by our Overlords, Google Keyword Search Terms.

Dear Designer,

css divs text goes outside the div.  css guru hidden.

--Anonymous

Dear Anonymous,

I'm guessing you're referring to a div layer that has text that extends below the boundaries of the div, or an image that extends outside the div boundaries on the right and bottom.  Chances are, you specified a height and/or width for the div and by default the overflow CSS attribute for the div is to show the content anyway.  This means that the content will just go ahead and show itself, because it is larger than the container you provided it.

We must be nice to our content.  We must give it plenty of water, food, and space to grow.  If you want bonzai content by stunting its growth, by all means put your content into a div layer that is not big enough.  But remember to set your overflow to scroll or hidden, which will cut off the extra content, or resize the content explicitly.  If it's a large image, don't think that this will make your site slimmer; you're just hiding the fat which is a no-no.  Sometimes people do this with thumbnail images, shrinking down the original image into a smaller space and then they wonder why it takes so long for the thumbnails to load.  But the large images they link to pop right up, because you've already downloaded them painfully over the last few minutes of waiting.

The art of web page optimization is more than just size-appropriate graphics; it's spreading out the loading times over successive interactions, so you never need to pre-load things.  Also re-use graphics as much as possible since once they're already cached they'll load faster.  This means using the same graphic elements from page to page instead of loading a new custom graphic on each page that's only slightly different from the other pages.

Another trick is to set the display CSS attribute to "none" instead of trying to mess with the visibility.  "Display: none" takes the entire div layer out of the flow of your content which collapses the remaining elements.  If you've ever wondered why there's a large space exactly the size of your hidden div layer, this is probably why.

Just remember this rule of thumb: if you must cage your content, don't be surprised when it bites your hand off.

Dear Designer,

Graphic design self promotion?  Graphic designers self promotion, self promotion graphic design.  Self promotion design--self promotion graphic designers.

--Graphic Designer in need of Self Promotion

Dear GDinoSP,

You're doing a lot of Google searching when you should really be searching your soul.  How does one promote one's graphic design, if one is a graphic designer?  I've said it before and I'll say it again, your clients are your best source of promotion.  Never do for yourself that which somebody else will do for you.  

This means that like div layers, you must never put your clients in a box that is too small for them.  Allow them room to grow, nurture them, and they will reward you with cute little referrals that you can raise into new clients.  This is a time-consuming process and requires great dedication, but I think you'll find that in the end it's rewarding.

Other things you can do: give a presentation to your local Chamber of Commerce on the benefits of good design, and hand out business cards at the end (but resist the temptation of a hard-sell, this is a soft-sell--businesses are coming to you for information and not a sales pitch, and they'll remember you for it); find a niche market that you really want to work in, and go to a few trade shows and conferences (see HOW to Network); get a local coffee shop to host a gallery showing of your recent artwork, and mention in your artist's statement that you're a designer; make sure that your own house is in order by updating your website with your most recent work and optimize it for Google.

So you see, there is a wealth of things you can do to promote your graphic design business.  You're off to a good start now that you're searching your soul instead of the Googles.

When I met Dani and Eytan at Boskone this year, none of us really expected that we'd be working together quite so soon.  I was treating it like a hypothetical situation that could lead to work on their second book, or their author site.  But like many of my favorite projects, this one had too much promise for nothing to come of it.

You might recall the way we met.  Especially if you just clicked on that link above.  If you didn't, it was a hilarious romp through Boston that couldn't have been planned.  In the same way, this new website was a hilarious romp through Boston that couldn't have been planned.  Except that we planned it.  And without the hilarious part.  Or the Boston romp.

Ok, maybe there was a little hilarity.

The site is visually based on their book cover.  Tor wondered if they could maybe get a more interesting background for their existing (let's call it 'minimalist') site and it all spiraled out of control into a complete redesign.  Pretty soon I'd created custom concept art that doubles as their wallpaper, and we'd settled on the concept of 'Retinal Monitor' which is like a heads-up display for your eyeballs.  

You're in a futuristic tunnel looking back at a large indistinct figure at the other end (the brighter end) who is casting a long shadow on one side, and on the other side are a bunch of future-y looking people walking with purpose.  But in the foreground is a figure who has also glanced back at the shadowy figure, his hand grasping a book.  You focus on the book and your retinal monitor scans its barcode, circles the book and up pops your information, streaming into your optic nerve like green flame.  Searing, painful laser flame.  Think Lasik on steroids and amphetamines with a sawed-off shotgun and a pocketful of pink slips who is all out of chewing gum.

See, in the far future you'll just look around you and the bar code on whatever captures your interest will be instantly scanned and cataloged with all the information you'd need so you can choose to purchase one on the spot.  The future is a very convenient place, filled with bar codes.  Here you've spotted a man holding a book, which your retinal monitor has scanned and provided you with all kinds of useful information about the book, including how to buy it on Amazon (sure, it's still around in 300 years--the book is in it's 125th printing), events information (yes, we know that the dates are all from 2009 and not 300 years in the future), the blog (so you can see what the authors had to say about the book 300 years ago) and helpful information about the authors in case you were wondering.  In little helpful boxes outlined with searing green flame.

"Spoiler Alert!" you yell.

No, it's OK.  See, the retinal monitor thing isn't actually in the book.  We just made it up for the site.  There aren't, as far as I know, any tunnels either.

"Spolier Alert!" you yell again.  "Knowing something ISN'T in the book is also spoiling it!"

You're a jerk.

Anyway, pre-order this book from Amazon.  There's a convenient link on their site.  It's a great book, about things that great sci-fi books should be about: expansive explorations of ideas, three-dimensional characters, and an intriguing story that is difficult to put down.  

This is because they've coated the spine with krazy glue.  It's a new marketing technique Tor is toying with.  Once I figure out how to coat my websites in krazy glue we'll be keeping a lot more eyeballs glued to their screens.

It's that or wait 300 years for the searing green eyeball lasers.  In either case, I, for one, am stocking up on eye drops.

Today's installment of 'CSS Guru' is brought to you by the letter C, the letter S, another letter S, and the numbers #000; with special guest stars filter,-moz-opacity, and opacity.  

While I was working on the redesign for The Unincorporated Man last week I invented a nice CSS effect that I'd wondered about before but never had to figure out.  The background is fairly dark, and I wanted hovering semi-opaque boxes above it containing light-colored text.  Unfortunately, part of the background is also very light so I wanted this box dark, but when you add opacity to a div layer it applies the effect to everything in that layer.  Normally you'd set up an absolutely positioned box with some opacity on it, and then lay another div box on top and make sure the height and width match.    But I need my text fully opaque, and the boxes couldn't have a predefined size, and I didn't want to use an image for the background of this darker box.  How to accomplish this?

The trick is in using z-index and a container div.  The outside container defines any borders for the box, and inside the box are two sibling div layers, one with a lower z-index that has the background color and opacity, and another with a higher z-index containing the text.  

The outer container has position: relative, the width, and whatever placement on the page you want, float, absolute, anything.  it just needs position set so the inner div layers' positions are relative to it.  

"What the hell are you talking about?" you say.  Good question.  Allow me to digress.

When you give a div layer a position (either absolute or relative), it takes it's position cues from the first parent it finds that has a position defined.  So a div layer with absolute positioning inside a div layer without position will be absolutely positioned to the body of the document.  If you give the outer div layer a position, then the inner div layer will be absolutely positioned inside the outer div layer.

For example, let's say you have a div that is centered on your page without position defined.  Inside that is a div with absolute position top: 0 and left: 0.  This inner div will appear in the upper left corner of the page.  But if you give the outer div a position: relative, then the inner div layer will appear in the upper left corner of that div.

OK?  Can we move on?

Here's the opacity trick: You have your outer div with relative position, and two inner divs.  The outer div css looks like this: style="border: 1px solid green; overflow: hidden;".  The overflow is the key to this trick.  One of the inner divs is absolute positioned and has a background color of solid black and opacity of 35, a z-index of 1 and a height and width of 100%.  This positions the div in the upper-left corner and it extends beyond the left and right sides of the outer div though you can't see that because the outer div has its overflow hidden.

Then you have a div with the text in it.  This text div has the padding for the box, and all the content.  This div, since it is relatively positioned, will sit in the upper-left corner of the box, and the z-index will ensure placement above the background div layer.

Because this second content div is relatively positioned it will determine the size of the outer div; the outer div will grow with it, revealing more of the semi-transparent background as it does.

Here's the entire code block:

<div id="outerDiv" style="position: relative; border: 1px solid green; width: 500px;">

<div id="semiTransparentDiv" style="position: absolute; background-color: black; filter:alpha(opacity=35);-moz-opacity:.35;opacity:.35; height: 100%; width: 100%; z-index: 1;"></div>

<div id="contentDiv" style="position: relative; z-index: 2; padding: 10px; color: white; font-weight: bold;">here's where the text goes.  Height is determined by this text.  As this content box grows, so does the outer div layer. This content is not semi-transparent, or you would barely be able to read this text.</div>

</div>

Check it out in action here.

I've had a Facebook page for a while now, ever since I wanted to check up on some people I used to know and discovered they were on it.  But in order to find out more gossip about them I had to log in and make them my 'friend'[1].  OK, fine.  

I quickly learned that not only were they then aware of my existence, but that for better or worse this put me back in contact with them.  I filled out my fb[2] page profile and pretended to use it as anyone else would, blending into my surroundings.  Unfortunately, my surroundings were filled with people I actually knew and got a kick out of 'friending'[3].

Eventually I created a page for my business to see if it would bring in any new work.  I'll skip to the end for those of you already glazing over and just say no, it didn't.  The only people who cared were the ones I was already in contact with regularly, but this was just another good way to stay in touch.

Bored with this new social media frontier, I attempted to scale Mt. Twitter.  For those of you with the glazed eyes, Twitter is like Facebook only without substance.  You type 140 characters at a time, and people who 'follow'[4] you can see what you typed.  Sort of like a giant unregulated and highly intermittent party line.  

"Get off my lawn!" you say.  Believe me, your lawn is the last place I want to be.  I don't even want to be on my lawn right now.

There's been a revolution of sorts lately, with 'social media consultants'[5] telling companies that they have to 'leverage their business 2.0 assets'[7] to 'achieve two-way communication'[8] with their 'market potential'.  Whatever that is.  What these people tell you to do is get a blog, get a Facebook page, get a Twitter account and start interacting.  

The problem with this is that even though you've achieved and leveraged your potential, you're not generating any business.  They tell you to put links to your Facebook page and your Twitter account on your home page, and yet the point of those endeavors was to bring traffic TO YOUR SITE in the first place.  What's going on here?

The truth is that it only makes sense if your demographic includes random strangers on the internet.  If you are a well-established company then you will allow your web-savvy users to communicate with you in a way that is convenient to them.  If you're Nike, you're just saturating your market channels with your very presence, which is good for advertising and customer relations, but not really building traffic to your site.  But if you're a small local business then it's probably not worth it unless you think it's funny.  Just remember, the number of followers you have is almost meaningless if they didn't seek you out in the first place.

The proper way to approach online communication is from the other direction; if you do research and discover that your market is spending a lot of time on Facebook throwing virtual snowballs at each other[9] then it behooves you to go there and find them.  This is the point at which you think about hiring a social media consultant[10] to manage your social networking efforts.  Start a blog if you want to drive more traffic to your site looking for your particular brand of expertise.  Have your consultant update your Facebook page with events you attend.

But if they ever tell you that you need a MySpace page, mumble something about 'bricks and mortar'[11] and run the other way.  That place is just a wasteland of vapid animated graphics and stalkers.[12]

[1] 'Friend' is in quotes because they were in fact not a friend at all, but there's no option for 'person I used to know and am currently curious about how screwed up they are now.'

[2] fb is slanglish[3] for 'Facebook'.

[3] A word I made up. 

[4] 'Friending' is what you do when you make a friend.  We used to call that 'meeting' but that sort of jargon is so Web 1.0..

[5] These would be your 'followers'.  Your every whim is their command.  Mostly they just ignore you unless you know them already or are stunningly famous.

[6] This is slangrish for 'the recently unemployed'.

[7] Business 2.0?  Really?  I'm not making that up.  I'm not that funny.

[8] As opposed to 'top-down' communication

[9] You can also throw Emperor Palpatines.

[10] I am not a social media consultant.

[11] Slangrish for 'my house', which is the place behind your lawn.

[12] Don't forget to follow me on twitter.  And tell 'em who sent ya.

Seriously.  My wife does excellent framing.  Call me if you need something framed. Or you could buy the nice frame and pull out the creepy eyeball art and put in a nice 8x10 of you and your dog at the beach or something.  

There's something pretty cool about seeing them all together in one place though.  All those monstrous eyes staring down at you from the wall, as if pleading with you to put them out of their misery.  I really need to write up an artist statement for these guys, something about exploring the boundary between biology and technology, about how, sure, eyes are the windows to your soul, but at the end of the day they're just little bags of jelly that can express solitude, fear, patience, confinement, or nothing at all.  But how much of ourselves to we read into those expressions?  It's not the eyeballs themselves that carry the expression, it's the face surrounding them.  The only thing eyes can do are make the pupils bigger or smaller and move around a little bit.  So why does it bug us so much when you go and staple something to them?

I've been told that children like these illustrations, so be sure to bring the kids.

UPDATE: The gallery reception was kind of boring.  I hid behind the kitties and baby dragon art next to mine (my monster eyeballs will eat your kitties for breakfast!) and tried to suss out what the crowd was saying about them.  Most people seemed to like the clockwork frog, which was not a surprise to me as it's the least disturbing piece.  It's also the only one without my web address integrated into the artwork in some way, which seems to turn people off in a knee-jerk reaction against commercialism.  Fair enough.  I'll find something artier and poetic to ring the lenses for the next show.  Maybe some pithy title for each.

The weird part was how the party was on the unlucky 13th floor, which I've heard doesn't exist in most hotels.  They just skip right from 12 to 14.  And as you can see in this picture here, it's not only the 13th floor, but it looks like somebody tacked on the extra 13th floor button which makes the entire party seem like a sketchy escapade on the roof.

My friend in Boston, Errick, picked me up from the airport and we went out to lunch.  On our way out, he discovered that his tire was flat so we pulled out the spare and the jack from the trunk.  On one side of the jack is a tab that you spin to raise the jack, with a hole through the middle to put the bar.  The bar we were apparently missing.  We cased the car for something that would fit into the hole but came up with nothing.  I figured I'd give my aluminum-barrelled Zebra F-301 pen a try, so I stuck it through the hole and started turning.  I was surprised when it actually held together and started lifting the car off the ground.  We got the silly little balloon tire put on and jacked the car down.  My pen now had two pretty serious dents on either side of it, but it still worked--and I had a good story to start the weekend with.

I met Ian Tregillis and Melinda Snodgrass in the hotel lobby and we talked for a while before going for dinner.  After that we had a panel that was run by Melinda, Ian and S. C. Butler (whom I am now privileged to call 'Sam') that was about treating your writing like a business.  There were about as many people in the audience as on the panel, so they had us all sit in a circle and just talk about things.  There was a CPA in the audience who was very enlightening about how and when you can take deductions.  At this point I was thinking more about absorbing the con experience rather than trying to sell myself so I didn't bring up how marketing is part of running a business, but Melinda and Ian both said they wished I'd mentioned it as marketing is a vital part of it.  So much for my plan of just absorbing and not being active about my own business.  I resolved not to be timid.  

Down at the lobby we started drinking and were joined by Stacy, an assistant editor at Tor and Dani and Eytan Kollin, two of her writers.  I was telling people that Sam reminded me of Dennis Miller, and didn't he look and sound just like him?  Anybody who has met Sam would think I was insane, but they were too polite to say anything.  

"I'll have to think about that," Ian told me when I finally figured out who Sam reminded me of.  "I wouldn't have thought that at all."

I realized after I got home that who I meant was Dennis Leary.  I can't believe Ian and his wonderful friends continued to talk to me, a clearly insane person.

We headed down to the galleria for the opening night party and at some point we were joined by Corry L. Lee, a particle physics teacher at Harvard who had recently finished a book and was looking for an agent.  A lot of people gave me their free drink tickets, which I promptly used.  I must have looked as insane as I sounded, a man in desperate need of a beer.  

I browsed the art with Ian and we were both very impressed with the guest artist, Stephan Martiniere.  His style looked familiar to me, and it turned out that it was because he was the one who did the covers for Jay Lake's Mainspring and Escapement, featuring blimps and vertical cities.  I loved those books, and loved the covers.  Now I made it my mission to meet Stephan and ask him about it as I knew next to nothing about cover design.  The problem was, everyone described him as 'French' which is useless when looking for someone in a crowd.  I went back to the bar and asked the next random stranger I saw if he knew Stephan and the guy actually did.  He walked me over and I introduced myself.  It turns out that when people say he looks 'French' they mean he wears designer glasses.  

I found out that Stephan started doing covers relatively recently.  He said he was an art director at ID (remember Doom?) who does the concept art for the games as well as the marketing materials.  Then he told me that he works on movies, including the recent Star Wars pictures.  I spent about an hour asking him questions about his process, style, influences and work.   He said he rarely reads the books he does cover art for, but that he'd read Mainspring and enjoyed it very much.  He agreed with me that the idea of a vertical city is very captivating.

I wandered around the galleria with Ian and had a brilliant time catching up with him and Melinda, blissfully unaware of my own insanity.

Most of the rest of the evening I hung out with Sam, who is a very fun person to hang out with.  I wasn't sure if he would take offense or not to me thinking he resembled Dennis Miller, so I didn't mention it.  Score one for timidity!  Though I'm sure Sam thinks I'm insane for completely different reasons.  I kind of wish I had recorded the evening as all the free drink tickets made my recollection a little fuzzy.  There was something about furries and filking.  I stumbled off to bed around midnight.

By the morning I had gotten over my fear of talking to famous authors, and went to a few panels on physics and a few more on illustration.  I met Bob Eggleton, Dave Seeley and Daniel Dos Santos, who are all awesome artists.  I thought maybe I might be able to do some book covers, so I talked to Irene Gallo, the art director at Tor.  Then I went to look at the artist's show and realized that I'm not even near their class even though Dan appeared to like my eyeball art.  Those guys are really good.

Ian, Corry, Melinda and I had lunch at the same Irish pub hotel restaurant (downtown Boston is kind of a wasteland) and talked about more physics.  The afternoon was more panels.

I found Ian in line getting his copy of Jo Walton's latest book signed and we discussed a new project we've been kicking around.  

Ian and I went in to Sam's reading but if I wanted to have dinner with anyone else I'd have to find somebody.  I headed down to the lobby to make dinner plans with whoever I could drum up because Ian said Corry was down there.  When I got back up to Sam's reading I found that the door was locked and I went back down to talk to Stacy who said he was a very good reader.  Thanks, Stacy.  Later I got a signed copy of Sam's book and he wrote that he hoped that I wouldn't need to use that pen to jack up a car at the next con.  Stacy, Corry, Eytan, Dani and I crammed ourselves into Dani's Friend's little Civic and went in search of a little Ethiopian restaurant in Cambrige.  The food was awesome.  

Dani actually asked me to write up an estimate on his site, which I never expected to happen.  Normally I hand out cards and eventually hear back from people, but not quite so immediately.  We talked shop for a bit as he's in advertising in LA.  Then, since Stacy paid for dinner, Dani insisted that we drive her back to her parent's house.  It was around 9pm, about when the Tor party was starting, but they said you never want to show up early for those anyway.  

The iPhone is really an exquisite piece of engineering.  Like any piece of art, it is not designed to actually be touched, because to touch an iPhone is to sully it with your dirty fingerprints and hand grease. Steve Jobs sends along a little black iPhone-shaped hanky in the packaging because he knows that you're going to want to touch his flawless work with your grubby unworthy fingers.  I named my phone Steve.  It seemed appropriate.  This is going somewhere, bear with me.

So I bring Steve along to Boskone, thinking he will come in handy to quickly demo some sites or my artwork, and because he comes with a camera and a GPS system linked to Google maps.  The camera worked fine when there was enough light and Flash won't work unless I jailbreak Steve, which left Google maps and GPS to save the day.  And save the day he didn't.

We're driving Stacy the Tor editor to her parent's house in New Hampshire (or within insult-hurling distance, anyway) and as Stacy has presumably been to her parent's house before she knows the way.  She was sure to drill into us the way back to Boston: 128 south to 1 and then straight on till morning.  She must have assumed that Corry would know how to get us back to the hotel once we drove I-93 into the heart of Boston.  Corry is more of a mass transit person though, which we discovered soon after skidding onto the highway and not quite spectacularly flipping the car over in a shower of sparks and bloody carnage.  That Civic packed with people was not so much mass transit as density transit.  The difference is subtle but crucial.

"Which exit do we get off on?" I asked, suddenly mortified that my sentence ended with a preposition in a car full of authors.

"I don't really know," Corry answered.  "Let's get there and I'll see if I can figure it out."  She was going to use the Force.  That seemed to me like a reasonable thing for a particle physics teacher to do on a mini-road trip during a sci-fi convention.

At that Dani asked me to produce Steve, which after a day of taking blurry photos, demoing Flashless websites and tiny 3-inch masterpieces was informing me that I should plug him in soon.  I plotted the route and told everyone that we would be looking for exit 20A and then making a left onto Summer.  That's exactly two turns to reach the hotel, if you include the exit ramp which is more of a gentle curve.  And if you exclude lane changes, which Eytan believes should be sharp turns. Especially when traveling nearly 90 mph down the pothole-ridden Highway 1.  Those turns are understandably missing from the Google route.

"I put on my turn signal," Eytan retorts indignantly.  He is correct, however I don't believe the turn signal had time to inform other drivers of his intentions before we were in the other lane and it was switched off.  Light just doesn't travel that fast.  I begin to suspect his day job is in the pit crew for a NASCAR team and he's working on his moves for his eventual promotion to driver.  I'm convinced that for training purposes NASCAR drivers fill a Honda Civic with people and drive through the Big Dig looking for exit 20A.  This is too bad, since if we die a horrible flaming death in this tunnel I will never get the opportunity to read The Unincorporated Man, the book that Eytan and Dani wrote together which is coming out in the next month or so.  It sounds very interesting.

"Wait, turn here!" Corry exclaims as one of the many forks in the tunnel appear suddenly from around a curve.  "That looks familiar."  Eytan is very good at taking direct turn commands regardless of lane and we were soon shooting down the exit on two wheels. 

"I don't think that was the right exit," I said.  "Steve didn't want us to turn there."  We saw some signs for Logan airport and Corry explained that it felt right.  That was good enough for Luke, so it was good enough for me.  Right before the airport we decided to exit the highway and turn around when Corry announced that this was not a very good neighborhood.  I fired up Steve, who again politely suggested that I plug him in but soldiered on anyway. 

The funny thing about Google maps is that it gives more weight to highways than to surface streets, even if you are only a few blocks to your destination.  And the funny thing about Boston is that Google might just be right, but there's no way to know and I didn't have time to really explore.  I replotted our course and it wanted to send us up I-93 North, back to New Hampshire.  After one balk we circled around and tried to trust Google's instincts.  It became clear quickly that we would need to exit and find another entrance to I-93 South because contrary to Steve's instructions, there is no U-turn on the interstate.  

Normal cities have an underpass or an overpass at an exit that you can cross and just two left turns later you're back on the highway.  Since Boston was built on a massive Boston-shaped Indian burial ground the roads not only have bad dispositions but evil intentions as well.  I believe they eat lost tourists.

"Turn left NOW!" Corry yelled.  Eytan seemed uncharacteristically unsure.  After more yelling he swerved left and we soon saw signs for 93 South.

"I just cut that car off," he said as if it were important.  We had nearly driven over two surly pedestrians (they call them 'Southies' here) after our first misguided exit from the freeway, and cars seemed much more capable of handling the impact of our crowded borrowed Civic.  

After nearly driving the wrong way down a one-way street, we were back on the highway again and repeating "20A" over and over again, the mantra that would hold the evil Indian spirits at arm's length and soothe the angry road gods.  "What's after exit 20A?" Dani asked me, and Steve replied that we'd be taking a left on Summer.  I started to feel like Gwen in Galaxy Quest.  I had one job in that car.  It was stupid but I was going to do it.

The other funny thing about Boston streets is that the ones you need to turn on are rarely labeled, as if the city planners decided that if you're not already hopelessly lost a few signs aren't going to help anyway.  If you don't know how to get where you're going, you probably don't belong there.  Arrogant tourists.  Go back to your gridded charmless cities and don't come back until you have at least a thousand five-way intersections and a four-billion dollar Interstate tunnel system.

Eventually we overcame our testosterone, stopped near a nice-looking grad student and asked him for directions.  His instructions were repeated three times and became more detailed each time as if he felt like we were not capable of following directions.  I'm not sure what gave him that impression, but the fact that we had in our possession a GPS unit with satellite imagery and yet were still hopelessly lost might have been one of the clues.  The final directions included such features as a traffic cop and road work as well as street names that he made us repeat twice.

Dani and Eytan dropped Corry and I off at the hotel where we made our way up to the Tor party, understandably in need of a beer.  They were going to park the car across the street and be right up.  They arrived perhaps 45 minutes later, and I didn't ask how finding a parking space went.  I didn't want to know.  All I knew is that Steve had failed me utterly and completely.  Not only that, Steve was covered with dried sweaty smudges that the little black hanky couldn't remove no matter how much I tried, and he wouldn't respond to my pleas to take photos.  It was very literary and metaphorical.

I discovered later that not only had I missed James Morrow's reading from his latest book, but I missed him giving away free signed copies to anyone who showed up.  That wasn't in my program booklet, so I probably would have missed him anyway.  I asked a few people if they knew what James looked like, and they said he was just at the Tor party but left moments earlier.  I went back inside to drown my frustration in more beer.

When we got to the Tor party we left our jackets in the closet even though my room was just down the hall.  Getting beer was way more important than walking an extra hundred feet.  I had a great time listening to Chad Orzel patiently answer my amateur hack physicist questions about quantum entanglement and time travel.  Pablo Defendini of tor.com thought my idea of writing an interactive story with Ian might have some merit and he gave me his card.

The slackers eventually cleared out and I sat down with Dan Dos Santos and Pablo and played some cards.  We headed down to the bar along with Stephan and were joined by Martha somebody, an editor from Popular Science magazine who had run out of business cards.  We ordered large blue drinks that tasted like coconuts and Dan checked out my eyeball art and appeared to like it.

Eventually we stumbled back upstairs and I got Stephan to write something in French on my print of his cover for Mainspring.  Something French.  "Sure," he said, "but I won't translate it for you.  He wrote, "un stylo qui souleve une bagnolle peut surement souleve un dirigeable" which Google translated as, "a pen which raised a bagnolle can probably raised an airship." I later discovered that 'ma bagnolle' is French slang for 'my car' but it took a serious Google search to unearth this.  Many thanks, Stephan.  Google thinks your tenses disagree, but I think we all know how I feel about Google by now.

By 4:30am we were watching YouTube videos of R. Kelly's rap opera and I realized that I needed to get some sleep before my very early plane ride.  I was disappointed to discover that I'd be missing Ian and Melinda's readings that morning because of bad planning on my part.  I headed back to my room and crashed.  In retrospect I should have tried to change my tickets and damn the cost, but I was not thinking very clearly that night.

At 8am I remembered that I'd left my jacket in the Tor suite.  I called the room and got Dan, who stayed there instead of trying to drive home or sleep on someone else's floor.  I know they were all up after I left, so he can't have been asleep long when I called.  Sorry, Dan.  If you hadn't remembered that it was me who woke you, please don't read this.  Though it is lucky for me that you decided to stay or nobody would have been in that room and I would have lost my jacket at Boskone.  An offering extracted at knifepoint from the angry gods of the Boston roads.

This trip confirmed my suspicions about writers and the market for good design in the sci-fi community.  As anywhere, the people who are savvy about treating their writing as a business will also understand the need for good design and marketing.  I had a great time meeting the artists, writers and editors in the sci-fi community and I know I can make a place for myself among them.  Ian said that becoming a writer involved a little talent and a lot of luck; Sam added that luck will bring you the opportunity to hit a grand slam, but it's still up to you to hit it out of the park.  But I know things will work out well, because the whole time I felt like I was with my kind, and they were very welcoming.

I now have actual real-world numbers that prove a site redesign can more than double the organic traffic to your website.  That means higher visibility in search engines and reaching more customers.  The website was one I'd done years ago and the design as well as the search engine optimization were well outdated.  The first thing I did was get the old site on Google Analytics while I did the redesign, and got a six-month collection of baseline data.  I was asperimentin.

The best part is that all other variables stayed the same, so this increase is entirely due to my recent redesign, as that's the only difference.

The numbers here are the two date ranges.  The 'organic' numbers are people coming to the site through search engines, and higher numbers mean the site is placing higher in search results.  The direct numbers are people typing in the URL directly, so they've either heard the address in an existing radio spot or piece of literature, or used a bookmark to the site.  

The other referrals are links from other sites, and those more or less track those sites' traffic rates (so if they go down it's probably because those sites didn't have as much traffic).  The inbound links and direct traffic are the control group, which wouldn't change because I redesigned the site.  The organic traffic is a direct result of redesigning the site.

The percentages are the percent of total traffic.  You can see that even though Yahoo had a much higher increase, it's only six percent of the total traffic.  But Google went from twenty to forty percent of the total traffic, a 150% increase.  In your face, Yahoo!

The other new statistic was that the site now gets 20% more traffic overall since the redesign.  Since the direct traffic actually went down, that means that the redesign more than made up for the decrease in direct and referral traffic.

If you're reading this and your website is more than two years old, you should consider getting it updated.  In internet time, that's like 50 years.

I think their original product name was stupid and had too many numbers in it.  I like mine better.

There's been an increasing demand from my clients asking for web hosting services.  Normally I'd arrange 3rd-party hosting with a hosting service such as GoDaddy or HostMySite.  Unfortunately the affordable hosting plans are all shared, meaning your site is on a server with thousands of other sites just waiting to get taken down by some lousy programmer's barfing code.  

"Barfing" is programmer jargon, meaning "code that barfs".  It's code that needs unbarfing.  It's like staying at a Motel 8 with a drunken wedding party and their entourage.  Somebody barfs in the pool and everybody has to get out.

I was getting tired of calling these so-called hosting providers and telling them that their service sucked.  I mean, is it really necessary for me to wait an hour on hold so I can tell you that your customer service sucks?  I'd had the development server running forever, and it was pretty good at serving web pages--but not so good at being quick about it.  

So there I was, staring at the brand-new server that arrived on my doorstep, thinking, "why is that box so big?"

Turns out, when you order a real server (as opposed to the old 700 MHz desktop computer masquerading as a server) it comes in a very large box.  That's because they are very large.  Monstrously large.  Big enough to fit the internet inside, with room to spare.  Put it in a smaller box and it will stick out.

This thing is amazing, once you cut through all the redundant monitoring, 4GB RAM chips, 2.6 GHz dual-core processors and hardware RAID backplanes and begin to grok the computer-ness of it.  It serves pages so fast that it makes the shared hosting places look like chumps.  Which they are.  And how many hosting providers know you by name?  Or even answer your emails?

I'm really looking forward to this, now that it's fully operational.  I'll be moving clients off their crappy hosting services and into the five-star luxury resort of web hosting.  Concierge service, poolside drinks, and not just one mint on your pillow, but an entire buffet of chocolate mints right up on the bed.  You'll start complaining about how many chocolate mints are on your pillow.  

Don't worry, there are extra non-chocolate-mint-buffet beds in each room just for sleeping.  That's how nice it is. 

I'm just glad I don't have to worry about somebody else's code barfing and bringing down the server.  If anybody's code barfs, it will be mine.  But at least then I'll be able to unbarf it myself while the rest of the guests are relaxing in their private pools.

These eyeballs were an obsession of mine last year for about a month.  I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them, but I felt driven to create them after seeing this piece by Derek Prospero, a digital artist in Florida.  Something about the rusty gear and the techno pupil drove me into a frenzy of Photoshopping.  I didn't want to recreate what he'd done, but create my own interpretation of the feelings it evoked in me.

It's not as if I was looking for anything in particular, but something about that image really resonated.  It made me feel creative. That sometimes happens with certain guitarists I listen to, and it makes me want to write and play music.  Though I have yet to find a band that makes me want to draw or a picture that makes me want to strum, I understand it's possible.  

The point is, inspiration can happen specifically when you're not looking for it.  Or rather, when you're always looking for it.

"How effing Zen," I hear you say.  "But how does it work?"

Okay, man.  Do you want a hug?

It's a frame of mind that allows you to process information through filters you've set up by immersing yourself in the ouvre of a project.  Surround yourself with the keywords, images, and even logos of the project, then leave them behind and visit the world. 

Often the initial concepting for a project I won't even touch my computer after thoroughly reading the creative brief worksheet.  I'll go about my life for a day or two, but in the back of my head it's all churning around.  Everything I see is through the filter of my next project.  Then I'll happen on something (once it was a billboard, once it was a desk, often it's things I see on the internets) and in a flash I get that feeling of rightness, a visual or conceptual description of the morass in my head.  Things get weird when I'm working on more than one project at a time.

It's a state of being receptive, open to everything coming into your senses and filtered by knowledge.  A lot of creative exercises involve limiting your field to one item and seeing how many different ways you can treat it.  Still lifes are an example.  What I'm talking about is the opposite--not focusing on one thing, but opening up to everything and like a whale eating krill, skimming all that information off the surface until something sticks in my baleen.  

Yes, I said baleen.

Once the dust settled on my weird eyeballs, I was hesitant to use them to promote my business.  A few were, after all, borderline gross.  I hadn't approached them as a project with a purpose but as a pure artistic process.  That's why they don't really work as promotional material for 3232.  But they still make me stare at them.

So I'm putting them up for you, dear reader.  Maybe you'll be inspired to create something of your own.

I've won design awards before, but not one with so much tough competition and recognition.  I can hear those of you not in the design world asking, "What's a W3 Award?"  Well, here's what they say about themselves:

The W3 Awards honors creative excellence on the web, and recognizes the creative and marketing professionals behind award winning sites, marketing programs, and video work created for the web. In honoring outstanding websites, web advertising, and web video, The W3 Awards is the first major web competition to be accessible to the biggest agencies, the smallest firms, and everyone in between. Small firms are as likely to win as Fortune 500 companies and international agencies.  

It's run and judged by the International Academy of the Visual Arts, an invitation-only body consisting of top-tier professionals from a "Who's Who" of acclaimed media, interactive, advertising, and marketing firms.  IAVA members include executives from organizations such as Alloy, Brandweek, Coach, Disney, The Ellen Degeneres Show, Estee Lauder, Fry Hammond Barr, HBO, Monster.com, MTV, Polo Ralph Lauren, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, Victoria’s Secret, Wired, and Yahoo!.

The thing I like about the W3 Awards is that it isn't a popularity contest where they only pick winners based on the agency's existing name recognition.  These awards allow smaller design shops like mine to rub elbows with the big boys from New York, San Francisco, and yes, Minneapolis, on an equal basis, based on merit alone.  I've looked through the list of winners, and I've heard of most of them.  And I won two!

I know it's hard to tell by looking at me, but I'm thrilled as hell.  

This site was much like Ian's in that I spent more time on it than I should have.  There are a few more pieces to clean up before we start hitting the promotion hard (and submitting the site for awards) but it's up and working now.  

This site, and it's proprietor Mark Heath, were a pleasure to work with.  It reinforced my desire to work with creatives as I think that's when I produce my best work.  The process went well and the end result is pretty interesting.  I usually try to make the sites I design so distinct and unique that they'll stand out from the crowd.  This is what happens when you want a hand-crafted piece of interactive art for your website.

I don't know if doing desks is a permanent thing or not, but they sure are a fun metaphor.  It seems like the people who want sites from me see the photorealistic artwork I create and the fun Flash gadgets and want those things for themselves.  

Mark told me that in the cartoonist's world there is a debate about whether they are writers who draw or artists who write.  I'd like to think of them as writers who draw, because I like working with writers.

I'd really like to work with science fiction authors.  If you know any, send them my way.  I know authors tend not to care about their websites as much, but I think a really excellent website will get you notice, recognition and respect that you may not have had otherwise.  People like to hit the internets to check up on names they hear, and if a smashing website is what greets them then they'll assume you know what you're doing.  And they don't have to be that expensive to be done well.

I guess the problem is that most writers don't have any money.  But how are you going to get more money if your website looks like dreck?  It could be the difference between an editor who remembers the name on your manuscript because they were impressed by your website, and your manuscript languishing at the bottom of the pile.

Be nice to your editors.  Have some awesome eye candy waiting for them when they google you.

I was working with a young (and maybe a little arrogant) print designer who was creating a web design in Illustrator.  Since his design featured text with an outline (a stroke), I asked him to just stroke the text instead of having two layers of text.

"In illustrator  you NEVER simply stroke text," he replied.  "The stroke cuts in to the typeface ruining thicks and thins. The professional way is to double the stroke  and drop it in behind."

Well, now.  I can see I've been schooled by a professional.

I don't use Illustrator unless I'm creating a logo or need good bezier curve control for shapes, or text, but an awful lot of print designers mistakenly do everything in Illustrator.  This is because you can scale your illustration to any size without losing sharpness, which you can't really do in Photoshop.  But, since everything online is at 72dpi and that won't change any time soon, Photoshop is the web designer's tool of choice.  Photoshop lets you choose whether the stroke goes on the inside, center, or outside of the character form, so it's never really been a problem for me.  But what about all those helpless print designers who have to type everything twice?  Can there be no reprieve from the tedium for them?

Will nobody think of the print designers?

OK, Mr. "NEVER-simply-stroke-text".  Stand aside and I'll show you how an amateur does it.

Open Illustrator.  If it's already open, slow down, I'll be right with you.  Brown-noser.  In a new document, type some text that you want to stroke like an amateur.  Holy crap, that one's going to bring in some weird Google hits.  If your Appearance Palette isn't yet open, open it from the "Window" menu.

Click on the Appearance Palette drop-down menu just beneath the palette's close button in the upper-right hand corner.  Curse the Adobe usability expert who put it so close to the close box and re-open the palette.  From the drop-down menu (careful!) choose "Add new stroke" and drag that layer behind the fill.  

Choose the miter join option which will make your text sexy.  There, that ought to bring in the porn-reading design professionals.  Here you see the familiar "Stroke" and "Fill" options.  Choose a pretty color for the stroke.  In the "Stroke" palette, type in a stroke size that is double the actual stroke thickness you want, since Illustrator strokes from the center of the shape.

"But I need two strokes," you say.  

Pffft.  Professionals.

Just add a new stroke from the drop-down menu, drag it behind the fill, adjust the stroke thickness and miter join option to taste, and serve.

That's it.  Not only is it easier to do, it is easier to edit since there's only one layer of text.  

But if any of you reading along use Illustrator to design your web pages, I'll break your legs.

It starts with one email advertising their new site design.  No problem, I'll just click on the unsubscribe link, and think nothing further of it.  But  there's no unsubscribe link, so I reply to the email with the request that they remove me from their email marketing list and that I can't seem to find the unsubscribe link anywhere, and could you possibly add an unsubscribe link to these emails?  I don't expect a reply.

I get an email from some spam-killer service requesting that I click on a link to 'verify' myself so the sender won't get spam.  I google the name on it and it appears to be from the CEO of the company sending me the emails, presumably to tell me why its OK that his company is sending me spam.  This doesn't just suck, isn't just a bummer, isn't, in other words, Alanis, but is honestly and truly ironic.

I'm not going to click on a link in some third-party email, as it could lead to a malicious browser script, or who knows what else.  Especially not one protecting the guy sending me spam from getting spam.  I reply again to the spam, requesting to be removed from their email list.

Then I get a new marketing email from them.  This one actually had an unsubscribe link at the bottom.  I happily click it, grateful that they've taken my advice.  It takes me to a site selling shoes under a different domain name, but appears to unsubscribe me from something which is sketchy as hell but still in the realm of OK.

At this point, I'd have been fine if I just didn't get any more marketing emails.  I'm not against marketing emails in general when they're done right, and requests to be removed are honored.  I'm even on a few by choice, because I like being informed about the new toys at ThinkGeek or when the next AIGA event is.  I even understand technical problems and broken unsubscribe links, having created my fair share of them.  

What I don't understand is receiving a duplicate of the second marketing email in response to my attempt at unsubscribing.  I send out an email of my own to their info@ address, asking again to be unsubscribed.  Now it's getting irritating.  I can't just set up a rule to bin their emails since it will interfere with the aforementioned legitimate business relationship.  Nobody has made an honest effort to contact me or sort out the problem.  This is starting to make them look at best, incompetent, and at worst, malicious.  

I've sent them another polite email pointing out the delicious irony along with another request for removal.  If that doesn't work, I think I'll mail their CEO an envelope full of Spam® with my email address on it along with a note saying "Do not open until Christmas."  

It should keep.

1) Discovery phase: I ask you probing questions about what you're looking for. I'm good at ferreting out what you need and what you don't need through a standard set of questions I ask and follow-up questions to those. I do research on the answers and brainstorm for things you may not have thought of. During this phase we rough out the site and identify the site structure and content, as well as timelines and schedules. We'll also discover how you intend to measure the success of your site. I now have enough information to send you a detailed estimate which is fairly accurate in scope and costs. Typically I'll require 1/3 payment in advance, the rest due at launch. This depends on the size of the project.

2) Concept phase: I present several concepts to you and we discuss the relative merits of each, tweaking the ideas until we both have a pretty good idea of where we're going.

3) Design phase: I work up the concepts into a design and variations. I present them to you and we discuss them and identify changes.

4) Once you've approved the design I'll code it and provide a test site for you to see how it works and make changes to the interface as necessary.

5) Once the coding and testing is complete, we launch the site when you send the last 2/3 of the payment. At this point you are entirely satisfied with the final site.

6) After the site launches you can measure its success over time by the metrics we identified in step 1.

This process ensures you not only are aware of what I'm doing but approve of it at each step of the way.

Read more...]]>Fri, 22 Aug 2008 08:57:00 +0000 3232 Design Laws of Small-business Marketing, Amended

1) Always make time for marketing.
1.a) Unless you don't have time.
1.a.a) If you're too busy with work, let it slide but make sure you keep it up enough to stay in the habit. Seriously, how hard is it to write a blog entry every few days?
1.a.b) If you're too busy with marketing, see Law of Small-business Marketing #2.
1.b) Unless you're on vacation. Always make time for vacation.
1.b.a) But you can still write a blog on vacation if you really want to. Hey, it's your vacation.
1.b.a.a) Unless your spouse doesn't approve. Hey, it's her vacation too.
1.b.a.b) On second thought, just enjoy your vacation.
1.b.b) And make sure to plan your vacation so you won't have to work or feel guilty about not working, i.e. after finishing a major project but before starting another one, or during your slow season.
1.b.b.a) Quit using "i.e." -- FireFox is so much better.
1.c) Even if you don't want to.
1.c.a) If it's not fun, you're doing it wrong.
1.c.a.a) OK, it's not all fun, but it shouldn't be that time-consuming anyway. See Law of Small-business Marketing #1 section a and Law of Small-business Marketing #3.
1.c.b) You'll regret it later if you don't. Sure, you're busy now, but the marketing you do now is what will keep you busy later.
1.c.c) Because I said so.
1.d) Do one little thing each day.
1.d.a) If you haven't done one little thing each day in a while, do one big thing.
1.d.b) If you haven't done one little thing each day or one big thing in a long time, see Law of Small-business Marketing #1.
1.e) Hire 3232 Design to design your website. It won't help you make time for marketing, but it will prove that these Laws of Small-business Marketing work.
1.e.a) You want the Laws of Small-business Marketing to work, don't you?

2) Always make time for work.
2.a) Unless you're too busy marketing.
2.a.a) Maybe you need to work a little less.
2.a.b) You're taking this way too seriously.
2.a.c) You are boring at parties.
2.a.c.a) Which is fine, considering that you no longer attend parties.

3) Keep it simple.
3.a) Simpler is better.
3.a.a) Don't make it more complicated than it needs to be.
3.a.a.a) Seriously.
3.b) Concentrate on maximizing your efforts where you can get the best responses from potential clients.
3.c) If you can't be bothered to write a blog entry, at least hand your business card to one potential client.
3.d) Forget all that. Just keep it simple.

4) You have to spend money to make money.
4.a) And time is money.
4.b) Money is also money.
4.c) Sometimes little beads made from seashells are money.
4.c.a) Do not under any circumstances accept this currency.
4.d) You don't have to spend money at 3232 Design, but it's probably a good idea.

5) Focus on the long-term impact of your marketing strategy.
5.a) Focus on your market as much as possible.
5.b) It takes seven points of contact with a potential client for them to associate you with your service and call you when they need your service.
5.b.a) Cold calling is a point of contact.
5.b.b) An advertisement is a point of contact.
5.b.b.a) Hire 3232 Design to help you with your advertising campaign.
5.b.c) A website is a point of contact.
5.b.c.a) Hire 3232 Design to develop or redesign your website for more impact.
5.b.d) A business card or brochure is a point of contact.
5.b.d.a) Hire 3232 Design to create more memorable collateral materials.
5.b.e) An existing client talking about you is a point of contact.
5.b.e.a) Create some kind of a referral program.
5.b.e.b) Do something nice for clients who refer new people to you. They didn't have to do that.
5.b.e.c) Hire 3232 Design. You'll get exposure on 3232design.com in the portfolio.
5.b.f) A story in the local business section is a point of contact.
5.b.f.a) Mention 3232 Design in your press release.
5.b.f.b) A story on the front page of your recent high-profile arrest for tax evasion is a point of contact.
5.b.f.b.a) Avoid using this method regularly.
5.b.f.b.b) Avoid using this method entirely if you run an accounting business.

As you can see, remembering these simple Laws of Small-business Marketing will help you create and maintain a successful marketing strategy.

Read more...]]>Sun, 17 Aug 2008 10:38:00 +0000 Ok, that's one word. But I'll say it twice. The benefits of outsourcing are that it's cheap and fast; the drawbacks are that you get what you pay for.

Besides, how much does a design start-up on the other side of the world know about high-end American design requirements? Moreover, being on the other side of the world means we're doomed to a Ladyhawk-like existence, never really meeting or talking in person since when I go to bed they wake up.

All of my personal experiences with outsourcing have been at best a waste of time and at worst a waste of money. If the code is dumb or the design trite, there's no way to make it right once they've got your money. All of the communication is via email, which in design can be a challenge since you don't pick up on the details without at least a phone conversation.

The best was the one that claimed that they were "Lected in Web Creme" which took me ten minutes of deciphering before I decided that they were not talking about some bizarre techno-fetish but about being featured in webcreme.com, a pay-for-play awards site. Hey, for thirty bucks I could be lected in web creme, too. Talk to me when one of your sites gets into Adobe's Showcase.

Some of these outfits just want to take my designs and turn them into web pages for me. I guess they think that code is code, and to a large extent they're right. But I hand-code each and every one of my sites because in most cases I create the design knowing exactly how I'd write the code for it, and that usually involves some pretty arcane CSS tricks that I really couldn't trust to anyone else cheaper than me anyway.

What I'd like to do is outsource my project management. How come I never hear from any companies lected in web creme for that?
Read more...]]>Sat, 12 Jul 2008 10:01:00 +0000 I was talking with a client yesterday about how it was possible that I could design websites that were cheaper and better-looking than some big-name companies have. My response is that I can't believe that all big-name companies don't have crappy web design due to committees, beaurocracies, and ego-driven advertising agencies who don't know the first thing about interactive design.

A typical mega-corporation design project goes something like this:

1. The need for an interactive project is identified and outlined by the company.


2. The company decides that the importance of the project dictates that they hire an outside agency who has convinced them they have the experience to pull off said project. The decision-maker chooses the agency whose account executive has the best tickets to the local sporting events and delegates the project to a committee.


3. The agency quotes a ridiculously large sum, which convinces the company decision-maker that the agency must be competent.


4. The agency spends much of the sum on overpaying its account executives and their expense accounts which include the best tickets to the local sporting events.


5. A round of meetings is attended by all of the five or six principal players, all of whom are billing the entire cost of the two-hour meeting, first-class plane tickets, and five-star hotels to the client.


6. The agency subcontracts the design to a print designer who claims they can do web design. Perhaps they can. It won't matter either way.


7. The company gets the initial designs and sends it to a committee for evaluation.


8. There are no standards for how committee members are chosen, and each member's voice is equal. The design is sanitized and eviscerated from sometimes contradictory input by competing committee members and their individual agendas. One person dislikes purple and another likes green, so the color scheme is arbitrarily changed.


9. The designer attempts to include the changes communicated by the account representative, but is confused by the contradictory changes. They were not one of the five or six principal players and did not rate plane tickets or hotel stays.


10. The agency account executive tries to explain to the company committee why several of the changes will not work. Words like 'synergy' and 'proprietary creative process' are used, but only in the vaguest way possible. If those words fail, the account executive may resort to technical-sounding sentence fragments such as 'Web 3.0' and 'the limitations of open source'.


11. Meanwhile, the agency account executive continues treating the company decision-maker to local sporting events where they talk about the project only briefly. "It is going really well," the agency account executive says, closing the discussion by making plans to attend the next local sporting event.


12. Repeat steps 6 through 11 until the subcontractor moves to New York to become a fashion designer. The agency hires another subcontractor who recognizes that the project is so fubared that they cannot fix it without a total redesign. The agency is already over their budget and timeline due to aforementioned account executives' expense accounts, and directs the subcontractor to 'just get it launched'.


13. The company finally shows the project to an actual decision-maker (who has been attending local sporting events instead of the committee meetings). The decision-maker recognizes that the project is crappy and hard to use. The account executive explains that it has already been approved by the company committee and is currently over budget so no significant changes may be made.


14. Decision-maker realizes that the agency is not a good fit and begins accepting bids from other agencies who have spent large portions of their expense accounts trying to get their foot in the door.
    
15. Repeat from step 3.


16. When the project deadline passes and the project launches, the decision-maker justifies the enormous expense by pointing to the interactive efforts of other large corporations that are similarly crappy. The decision-maker may actually use the enormous expense as a supporting argument that the project is, in fact, well-designed.

OK, maybe that's not exactly how it happens. Sometimes golf trips are used in place of local sporting events.

Read more...]]>Thu, 26 Jun 2008 07:04:00 +0000 The answer is nearly none. Maybe it was a boring story. The upshot is, if you want to drive pointless traffic to your website, stick to posting really insightful comments with your URL in your sig. The traffic is much higher.

Not only is it higher, it lasts longer. The total increase in hits from a front-page story submission appears to be about three. A good +5 insightful post can attract between 20 and 50 hits over a day or two. You know, from my one data point.

Hey, I never said I was an actual scientist. I'm a web designer. What do I know about statistical analysis?

Now I need to explore other avenues for my guerilla marketing tactics. I hate Digg (though I keep their button on my blog because I think it's funny) and LinkedIn seems too co-dependent for me to spend much time exploiting it. Maybe ExpertsExchange would do it, but then I'd actually have to post relevant and helpful answers before the rest of the relevant and helpful crowd posts them.

I still think Slashdot has the most bang for my buck on an ongoing basis, especially since my coolhomepages.com traffic has slowed considerably now that my site is no longer on the front page. It had a really good run there, pulling in over 3000 hits so far. I've got submissions in for a few other web awards, and I'll let you know how those go if they actually win. The problem with more traditional awards institutions is that they can take months to finally decide who they like, and the competition is a lot fiercer.

So far the best online marketing has been blog mentions. In those cases it doesn't matter how many hits they drive but the fact that those hits are much more likely to result in a project, which is ultimately the whole point of marketing. I'd still be paying Google for AdWords if even a single project had come through one of their links.

Weird. I usually have only nice things to say about Google. I'll get a good night's sleep and I'm sure I'll go back to being a fanboi.
Read more...]]>Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:04:00 +0000 Next question:

Dear Design Guru,
How much does a website cost?
P.S. Where's my T-shirt.
One of your loyal six readers

Dear OOML6R,
You are correct. You have clearly read my entry on how much a website costs. Give me your address and shirt size and I'll mail you your 'LOYAL 6' T-shirt.

Dear Designer,

Good question. Since you didn't leave your name, I'll call you Knobby. Well, Knobby, to answer your blank question, you have to actually type letters using your keyboard after clicking in the box on the contact form but before clicking 'Send Missive'. For example, if you wanted to type in your name, you'd click on the box under the label 'YOUR NAME:' and type in "Knobby". You'd apply the same process to the other boxes, including the one labeled 'MISSIVE:' and ending with the captcha. Once you have completed these steps, then and only then should you click on the submit button.

Dear 3232 Design Blog,
What's the difference between a CSS stylesheet and college?
Long overdue lurker

Dear LOL,
One is a rigidly hierarchical structure containing classes, and the other is a great place to get laid. Here's another one: How many designers does it take to change a light bulb? One. But he'll complain the whole time about how his original 'darkness' concept was more on-message.

Well, that about wraps it up for this installment of Ask a Designer. Tune in next time when we answer more questions, hopefully about design and marketing for small businesses.

Read more...]]>Mon, 16 Jun 2008 06:30:00 +0000 Google Analytics does a great job of telling you the keywords people used to find your site. Sometimes I wish it would tell me what people were thinking when they typed them.

steampunk graphic design
This one's easy. I try to incorporate elements of Steampunk in my design and writing whenever I can.

ckm magazyn
JA nie jestem pewnien jak wy kierowaliĹ?cie (dawaĹ? sobie radÄ? z) pisaÄ? na maszynie co (ĹĽeby; ktĂłry) do *Google* i otrzymujÄ? (dostawaÄ?; rozumieÄ?) tutaj. JA jestem doĹ?Ä? pewnne JA nigdy uĹĽyĹ? co (ĹĽeby; ktĂłry) kombinacja listĂłw (litera) przed (zanim). ChociaĹĽ teraz JA ma, jestem przesÄ?dzany do setek Polskich mĂłwcĂłw zdumiewajÄ?cy gdzie ich magazyn (czasopismo) piersi jest.

I'm not sure how you managed to type that into Google and get here. I'm pretty sure I've never used that combination of letters before. Although now that I have, I'm doomed to troves of Polish speakers wondering where their online booby magazine is.

Klingon generator
I don't think that this technology should ever reach the masses. What would we do with all the Klingons we generated?

300 dpi screen savers
I hate to be the one to tell you, but graphics at screen resolution are only 72 dpi regardless of the number of pixels your monitor actually has. If you have a 300 dpi monitor then this search wouldn't know what resolution your monitor is and wouldn't find you what you want.

As it turns out, I love to be the one to tell you.

Here's the difference: dpi stands for dots per inch, which is a physical measurement used in printing. There are a certain number of dots you can print in an inch, and the more you have the sharper the image--but only up to the physical limitations of the printing process and the paper you use.

But you also have to have a measurement of how many inches the image is wide and high to know how many actual pixels wide and high the image is to know how big it will be in a computer. Since monitors can have many pixels per inch, that just means that the actual image will appear three times smaller if you have a 300 dpi monitor as opposed to a 100 dpi monitor. But screen graphics (and screen savers) are always 72 dpi, regardless of how many pixels wide and high they are. Also, monitors shouldn't use dpi, they should use ppi (pixels per inch) since they don't really have dots so much as pixels. Unfortunately, dpi and ppi are functionally interchangeable which leads to the confusion over what 72 dpi really means.

So why 72 and not 100? Time for a history lesson. A 'point' is the smallest unit of measurement used by printers through the ages, recently standardized by desktop publishing at 72 'points' per inch. 12 point text means text that prints at .166 inches high (12 / 72). 72 point text would print at an inch high. When pixels came on the scene, they used the same scale since a pixel is the smallest unit of measurement on a monitor.

For example, to print an image at 300 dpi that will be one inch wide, the image needs to be 300 pixels wide. This is the same thing as saying the image is 300 pixels wide at 72 dpi. Dots per inch is a meaningless measurement without knowing how many inches you're talking about. That image will appear to be one inch wide on a 300 dpi monitor, and three inches wide on a 100 dpi monitor. But the image itself is still only 300 pixels wide.

What you need to search for is '1600x1200 screen savers' or whatever resolution your monitor is.

3232 sex
I don't know if I want to know what else you turned up with that query.

3232 sreem
Is my blog full of typos that nobody tells me aboot?

birthday card design pig
I'll design your birthday card, but please refrain from the name calling.

blog for people that like graphic design
I will. I will also blog for freedom, and for peace.

cool home page design
Thanks, man. I appreciate it. How many thousands of results did you have to wade through before you finally made it here?

feeding people logos
Web design alone can't solve world hunger. But maybe branding can.

Tell me, what does a logo taste like?

Read more...]]>Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:21:00 +0000 A majority of my projects come from referrals. 'Referrals' can mean a client tells a friend of theirs, who then gives me a call; but it can also mean people who have clicked on a link to my site from another site I've done, or from browsing the home pages of some of the awards my work has garnered.

As it turns out, some clients come from people who have linked to sites that I've done on their blogs. Catherynne M. Valente's blog brought several leads from the link she put to Ian's site on there one day. (Catherynne, if you're reading this, thanks! And give me a call.) Check her site out, she's doing some really interesting things with online writing.

I also get a lot of traffic from Slashdot, where my link shows up at the bottom of any post I make. If my loyal six readers remember the entry on 'Attempting to Artificially Inflate My Page Hits For No Particular Reason', I discovered that this sort of traffic is spotty and hasn't yet resulted in a lead. I keep it on there mostly because you never know who might need a website, and the more eyes you get the better chance you'll have those people show up at your doorstep. Also, I'm posting there anyway so it's not like it's hard.

The other way people can get to this site is through Google searches. This very blog has turned out to be a pretty good source of traffic, especially when the keywords people are searching for turn up in the title and teaser. It's more traffic than $50 a month of AdWords ever brought in, anyway, and it's totally free. I'd highly recommend putting a blog on your site as a way to drive hits. Only if you plan to update it regularly, though. Nobody likes four-year-old blog entries.

Google searches also turn up image results, and those are often the stickiest visitors. Unfortunately, Google Analytics doesn't record the keywords that returned those particular image results, so it's hard to say whether people found what they were looking for.

Finally, there are the hundreds of business cards I hand out. People have actually kept them, and called me months and even years later. I was as surprised as anybody. Who knew business cards served a purpose?

The point is, you never know which vector of your self-promotion will work. I sent out thousands of postcards to my demographically perfect businesses, and yet it's still referrals that work the best.

"Aha," you're thinking to yourself, "how can I possibly get referrals if I'm just starting out?"

You got me. Start with your friends. Maybe they know somebody who wants what you're selling. If they do, presto! That's a referral.

So if you don't know me yet, please introduce yourself. You never know when I might need what you're selling. Unless what you're selling is web design. I think I can handle that myself.

Read more...]]>Thu, 12 Jun 2008 06:04:00 +0000 Make_the_logo_bigger.mp3. Current mood: Whiny baby.
There is the old saying that those who cannot do, become art critics. Everyone has within them a recognition of what they like, designs that resonate with them. But without skill, talent, and experience, it's tough to actually create good designs--even with the latest and best software. Sure, you can lay some fonts down and throw some images in there, but that's not really what designers do.

The power of computers is allowing a generation of non-designers to create. Many websites are creating customizable interfaces that a person can have a degree of control over, such as changing backgrounds, moving content around, and even choosing the content they want to view. iGoogle is a great example of this.

This is Web 2.0. It is a meshing of technologies that allows the consumers of media more control over the media itself. It goes beyond just the personalization into creating community, which is why social networking sites like MySpace are so successful. People enjoy rearranging their worlds to better fit their internal vision. Sometimes that internal vision can lead to good design, but more often than not, without schooling or experience people tend to make the same design mistakes over and over again. For example, not all text should be centered or justified. Also, busy backgrounds make text hard to read.

One way for a designer to stand out is to create hand-drawn illustrations. This proves beyond all doubt that there was an artist and not just a computer involved. This is a branch of the shabby-chic/ornate family of design that celebrates the hand-made and all the imperfections of the analog experience. There's a tendency for non-designers when viewing some hand-drawn pieces to think that they could have drawn that. Well, maybe. But design isn't just about execution, it's about concept, subject matter, and balance. It's how to integrate illustration into a design that makes sense.

Designers are telling story and making choices more from knowledge than gut feelings. It's not a science, but there are almost always logical reasons for design choices. Each font has a character and a personality that conveys subtle meaning. Serif fonts are more formal. Bolder weights can imply stability or substance. Colors have the same effect. Designers weave these subtleties into a complete whole. Occasionally clients want to make what they think are small changes that ultimately destroy the harmony of the design. It's tough to talk them out of illogical changes that they want to make because they don't like the look of them. Yes, the client is always right, but they should also remember why they hired a designer in the first place -- to analyze their audience and make design choices based on how that audience will interact with the design, and what the purpose of that design is.

I am proud of the quality and workmanship that I put into each site, often things that the client wouldn't even understand; I hand-code my HTML so there aren't any extraneous pieces or browser-choking thickets of weird CSS. Lots of web designers know their clients don't care, but I think that's almost criminally negligent and almost always requires bug fixes when browser updates come out.

Hand-coding a site is the programming equivalent of the hand-drawn look. If you look at the code you can tell by how clean it is whether it was written by an authoring program or by an actual person.

I saw a designer at the HOW conference wearing a t-shirt that said, "I draw pictures all day." To me, this belittles designers and risks squandering the enormous influence a good design can have. I want to be proud of my designs. I want to put each site into my portfolio and have every site win design awards. Often this is not possible because ultimately the point of design is not to win awards but to convey the client's message. That doesn't mean I can't try to do both, though.

Lots of people do their own designs these days. When you hire a designer, you have to ask yourself why you aren't doing it yourself. Sure, you could spend some time learning how to fix your own car or write your own contracts or engineer a building. But would you really feel safe in a building designed by an amateur architect?

Read more...]]>Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:11:00 +0000 The AIGA put together the Standard Agreement for Graphic Design Services, a modular contract for design projects. I'm sometimes asked what the contract is for, or what's in it. Clients are always surprised when I explain that it's to protect them from their designer.

Very few people know that unless they're your employee, the design your designer creates belongs to them even after you've paid them for it. It's the way copyright law works, unless explicitly spelled out in a contract. The other things that the AIGA contract spells out are limitations of liability for copyright infringement (meaning if I use a copyrighted image without permission in your design, it's not your fault), the project's timeline and costs, and it establishes the confidentiality of your proprietary business information.

Also in the contract is a mechanism for change orders when the project exceeds its original scope. This is so you know exactly what you're paying for, and how much any changes will cost.

The contract really isn't all that scary, and is written in plain English. There's even a handy guide that goes through it step-by-step at the AIGA website. It's remarkably free of lawyer jokes.

I don't always use a contract, especially for small projects or established clients.

I guess that's how you can tell if I think your project is large, or whether you're an established client or not.

UPDATE: It's not 5:30 am anymore, and now that I'm reading this entry back I have to wonder if maybe my recent vacation has made me incredibly boring. I'll try to work a lot more and see if that helps improve the quality of my posts.

Read more...]]>Tue, 10 Jun 2008 05:34:00 +0000 I was really looking forward to writing a lot of insightful blog entries, and maybe even coming up with a few "Ask the Designer" and "Steampunk'd" entries, but instead I sowed grass seed, wired up the new A/V center for ethernet, phone and cable, and rearranged the living room.

I learned that you can't work all the time, as much as you might want to. I love my job. I love what I do. It's sometimes hard to turn that off and just take care of the little things.

Now all the little things are taken care of. Now it's time to get back to turning websites into pieces of art.

Read more...]]>Sun, 01 Jun 2008 08:45:00 +0000 A while ago I wrote an entry about networking in preparation for the HOW conference in Boston. I sent it along to the fine folks at HOW thinking it could be useful to a wider audience than the 3232 Design Blog currently enjoys (you know who you are, my loyal six readers).

Bryn Mooth linked back from the HOW Conference Blog today. She says she liked my tip about not dancing with the one you brung. My favorite tip is the one on nicotine networking for nonsmokers.

There are a lot of other great networking tips in there. If you haven't checked it out yet, head on over for a spell. It won't help you lose weight, but it might make you more money in the long run. At the very least you'll make more friends.

I'm still holding out hope that Bryn liked my tips so much that she's thinking about having me expand it into an article for HOW Magazine. Or present a seminar on networking next year. Or redesign the HOW website. For $50,000.

Hey, it could happen.
Read more...]]>Thu, 29 May 2008 03:59:00 +0000 Lego makes little plastic blocks. They don't sell little plastic blocks, they sell the picture on the box of the various things you can make. This is the angle from which they chose to frame their product. They could have just had photos of the blocks in random piles on the outside and it would have been just as physically descriptive. There's no rule that says you can't make what you want out of the legos in the package. But without a starting point to frame the message to us, we're unaware of the possibilities.

There are a few problems with Lego blocks, not the least of which is stepping on them in bare feet. "Hey, man," I hear you saying, "didn't you just get through telling us about describing your subject completely and honestly? Why don't they put that on the box?"

Yes, dear, that dress does make you look fat.

Lego is not lying, or trying to obscure what they sell. They are not so much hiding their deficiencies or inflating their benefits, rather they are framing the discussion to focus on your creativity instead of your feet. They are motivating you to buy the plastic blocks as a means to an end, not as the end in itself. They are selling you your own creativity as pictured on the outside of the box, embodied in fire trucks, cars, spaceships, and houses, and the ability to reconfigure those things into whatever you want. The picture on the box is just a starting point to get you thinking.

Patrick Smith, the pilot over at Salon's Ask the Pilot described two airlines with successful marketing messages:

Looking globally, one notices that the highest-ranking carriers, year after year, are Southwest and Singapore Airlines. No two airlines could be more different, with business models at opposite ends of the spectrum. Southwest is effectively the Wal-Mart of the skies, while Singapore offers superlative perks and amenities, even in economy class. Yet they both excel at making their customers happy. At first this seems perplexing, but when you think about it, it's simple. The key to any carrier's success is nothing more elaborate than giving people what you promise.

This is true for the success of any business. If you tell people they're going to be pampered, you'd better pamper them. You can herd them like cattle if they're expecting that as the tradeoff for the cheapest flights. In both cases you're photographing an airline, but the angle is different. Both are successful because both show their market how their market would like to see themselves: in the former, bragging about how luxurious their flight was; in the latter, bragging about how cheap their fare was.

When I tell you that 3232 Design offers agency-quality design at small business prices, it is likely that you recognize the high value of design and are probably willing to pay well for it, but you simply can't afford to burn money. 3232 Design is the economy class of Singapore Airlines. It isn't the cheapest flight, but you can afford it. And you get a little heated towel to wash your face and hands before each meal.

Tell people what you're going to give them, then give it to them. That is the subject of your marketing message photograph. Walk around your business until you find the angle that not only doesn't make it look fat, but shows its pretty face. Then take your picture.

It's also not lying to Photoshop out the zits.

Read more...]]>Fri, 23 May 2008 06:58:00 +0000 I've known since the name change from 3232 Zoo that the zebra image is confusing. What's it doing there? What does it have to do with 3232 Design? I kept it because it was a striking image, and I spent about eight hours painstakingly creating it so I didn't want to bin it just yet.

Since the conference, though, I've gotten to thinking about where the business is going and how it is in desperate need of a makeover so that the whole thing makes sense. I've also thought about the type of projects I want to chase and how I can position 3232 Design to take better advantage of my strengths, which are mainly in the cost savings I can offer while still delivering agency-quality design.

Designing your business is more than just a logo; it's finding out what it is that you do and then examining all aspects of your business to make sure that your message comes through in each detail. What you do isn't just the service you provide or the widgets you make but the way people feel about your company and how they interact with it.

I know people come to my site and are looking for cool web design with a personal touch, but the message of the cost savings versus advertising agencies isn't as strong. Part of the problem is the cobbler not having enough time to make shoes for his children. However, I have to show prospective clients how it's done so they can do it.

On the other hand, I've never been busier. Maybe the zebra is working. If it's quirky and memorable enough, maybe it doesn't have to make sense. At some point in the next few months I'll be doing a brand review and see what's really going on.

I have a feeling I'll be killing me some zebras.
Read more...]]>Thu, 22 May 2008 05:56:00 +0000 The conference has been a resounding success so far. I've better learned how to quantify the ROI of design, how to integrate research into my design process for more successful results, I've met a lot of really nice people and seen some great design.

I was a portfolio reviewer for the people who wanted to show their work and get some feedback. Some of the work was bad, some of it was good, and some of it was really really good. I didn't get a chance to see much of it since I was spending twenty minutes on each portfolio, but the ones I did see I got to explore in-depth. Also, free beer for the reviewers.

The big Black & White party was last night, which seemed successful. It was pretty loud and I'm not much of a dancer, so I spent most of the time sipping $5 ginger ale and trying to scam free drink tickets off of unsuspecting designers.

It's been a great conference, and I'm looking forward to getting home and applying what I've learned.

The keynote is on now, and they'll be shutting off the wifi soon. Next stop: Minneapolis, and my own bed.

I'm really glad I don't have to walk home.

Read more...]]>Wed, 21 May 2008 08:22:00 +0000 The design conference is going well. I'm being exposed to some amazing design, which is always inspiring. I've heard some horror stories about one presenter who appeared to be crazy. She spent the first twenty minutes describing the horrible abusive relationship she just left, and when people started walking out she chased them down and called them chickens. I'm glad that my seminars and workshops have been more useful.

Yesterday afternoon I took a class called "The Designer's Guide to Research" which was eye-opening. It was perfect, exactly what I wanted to get out of this conference. The husband-and-wife team explained how to do research for a design project, and how to use the results to inform the design. There are at least four research steps before getting to the actual design, then two research steps after to ensure the design had an effect.

My other class was about using Photoshop, but it was aimed beneath my skill level so I left early. The most interesting class I took was about decoding symbols in design. It was mainly a book pitch, but she went through the numbers one through five and explained their symbolic or archetypal meanings. I may actually buy the book. One is a circle, whole. Two is the MasterCard symbol, with an almond-shaped intersection. It represents division, but also multiplication. Three is a triangle, which can mean several things like man, woman, fire, earth and also the number three. Which seemed a little circular to me. Get it? Circular?

*chirp* *chirp*

After classes we went to Cambridge for dinner. There was a great bar called The Miracle of Science where we met a guy from Tank Design who was only there because it was his neighborhood bar. He didn't even know there was a design conference going on. I unfortunately misplaced my Geek Card, but Errick had his and it was worth some free drinks.

We headed to a bar called the People's Republik where we played darts with a few more locals. They were very friendly. I could see living here, as it reminds me of Uptown in Minneapolis.

I'm heading into a class on combining type and images. I'm weak on typography, so this should turn me into an expert. I hope they don't show too much more excellent design, though. It's getting hard to walk around here for all the horse corpses.
Read more...]]>Tue, 20 May 2008 08:46:00 +0000 There's often an adversarial relationship between an artist and their audience. There's a tendency to view the audience as a demographic, and to blame the audience when a design fails.

The relationship should be a partnership. An author depends on his readers not just to know how to read, but also to get his cultural references and ideas. To pick up what he's putting down. It's the same for a designer: my audience must not only understand how my designs fit into their culture, but tell them a story which describes to them why I am trying to motivate them.

This implies that the audience is an integral part of the design. This is why market studies are done, if there is enough money being tossed around by the client. We are trying to get a feel for our audience, to understand their current motivations and how the new concepts we are supplying fits into and overlays those existing motivations.

The best design takes advantage of what the audience already knows and reinforces that, framing the discussion to point to the inevitable conclusion of the purpose of the design. It is a living partnership, and if the design fails it is the fault of the designer for not telling a good enough story, or using the wrong words to tell it.

User interface design is crucially dependent on the audience. User interface testing identifies how people actually use a website and helps them get where they're trying to go. If they can't find the information they're looking for, it is not because they don't know how to use their mouse, but because the designer has not tapped into the intuitive ways that people navigate their world.

This brings me back to Joe's seminar: he explained that he assembles a visual creative brief for his everyday life such as vacations and building his cabin. You could take that further and craft for yourself a visual identity, from the clothes you wear to the cars you drive to your interior design, fitting everything into a cohesive whole that represents who you want to be instead of who you are.

Everyone does this constantly and haphazardly; designing your life would put an order to this process, and provide reasons for doing what you do and liking what you like. A person is much like a brand identity, and instead of rejecting labels and consumerism one could embrace them and use them to create the image of the person they want to be.

This would involve some market research. After all, how many people know who they want to be? You'd be a focus group of one, highlighting some ideas and rejecting others, finding the patterns in your lifestyle and creating a template for the new you. The clothes, car and house would fit the pattern and though your audience might not grasp its entirety, they'd sense the underlying order and you'd begin to approach that vision of yourself as a brand.

My visual creative brief will have to include more naps.
Read more...]]>Mon, 19 May 2008 12:23:00 +0000 My search for food was nearly derailed by a search for sleep. After the late keynote, we went to the opening reception and used our free drink tickets, which were unfortunately not good for food, only more beer. There was some cheese and grapes, but that's not dinner.

I'd last eaten at lunch, and the beer was not very nourishing.

We walked all over Boston in search of an open restaurant. My local connection kept saying that the restaurant was just up ahead, and when it turned out to be closed he knew of a place just around the corner. After ten miles I began to develop blisters, and after the 25th mile my shoes gave out and I went barefoot for the last mile.

I mutinied after dinner and dragged the crowd to the Westin's hotel bar so that I'd be close to my room. I ended up meeting several people from Minneapolis, which was fun. We sat there and made dour Midwestern faces at the more, shall we say, promiscuous tables and talked about how small Minneapolis is.

By the end of the night the total number of international designers I'd met was 5. Britain, Australia, France, and Canada were well-represented. Apparently they don't have design conferences in Europe.

On today's agenda is Decoding Design, Research for Designers, Creating Digital Composites, and Design Evangelism. I probably won't get dinner until about 9pm tonight, so I'll have to avoid the Happy Hour for as long as I can.

I should have stashed a bagel in my bag.

UPDATE: This is not what I wanted to see in the skyway on my way to the Hynes this morning.

Read more...]]>Mon, 19 May 2008 07:38:00 +0000 Wifi rules. I'm sitting here and there's plenty of signal, which is good because even though coolhunting has been an interest of mine since Gibson's Pattern Recognition, he's not telling me how to hunt cool. So instead I've checked my Google Analytics, read a few emails, and missed dinner plans with a few of the presenters that I'd met at the opening reception.

On the bright side, I met an Australian, and found a few people that I'd met last year. Some of them remembered me, which is cool. They scheduled the thing between last classes and keynote and neglected to provide nourishment other than beer. Thus the lack of attention span at the keynote.

Note to self: live-blogging is not drunk-blogging. Be very careful.

This morning I took Stephanie Sullivan's CSS class, which was aimed more at print designers moving to the web. There were still a few good choice bits, such as adding zoom: 1 to a style to see if it fixes bugs in IE. She also talked about SPRY, which is the built-in AJAX for Dreamweaver.

My next class was Jim Krause's photography class, which was really interesting. I talked to some of the other attendees, and they seemed on the fence about it. I think they missed the point: he's not teaching photography, he's explaining how you have to use your native creativity in approaching photography to achieve interesting results. It was more about how to build your own stock photo collection by setting restrictions on your photography: only take photos of a fork, with one light.

I really liked it. I took a photo of the paint in the crosswalk that looked like a duck. I'll see about getting it up later.

Now the keynote is using audience participation. I hate that. Put the fourth wall back up and let me sit here and blog.
Read more...]]>Sun, 18 May 2008 06:42:00 +0000 6:45 am, Boston.

All the times quoted are CST. I refuse to believe that I'm in a different time zone. It's unfair. You bastards.

I got in just fine though late last night and instead of heading to the hotel bar for a drink I decided to settle in. My room was 'upgraded' to one with a treadmill in it. So many bad metaphors for business, life, design--its red LEDs kept me up half the night, or perhaps it was the excitement. In retrospect I'm not sure what I was excited about. So far it's just been a lot of walking. I could have stayed in my room and done that.

I navigated the skyway to the conference center at the butt crack of dawn. I live in Minneapolis so I've seen the Mall of America, it it has nothing on this monument to commercialism. Hundreds of stores streamed past, with security guards every twenty feet to ensure that the hordes of designers wouldn't be breaking in and helping themselves to Armani and Sushi.

After walking to the other end of Boston and back (I swear the skyway is a giant spiral, dumping you off not far from where you entered it) I registered and found that the entire place is wifi-accessible. Good. At least I can download my latest spam and appreciate the buzz from my Starbucks while trying to figure out what my agenda is, since they appear to have neglected to hand them out this year.

My first class is on designing CSS, the next one is about photography. We'll see if being up this early affects my ability to take photos and understand div layers better.

I've been getting text messages from an unknown phone number. I assume it's one of the people I met last year since they are talking about lunch. Mmmm, lunch. I hope I make it until then.

I didn't even drink last night and I'm worried about making it to lunch. This could be a long conference.

Read more...]]>Sun, 18 May 2008 06:36:00 +0000 After I returned from the Atlanta HOW I developed a concrete list of things that I did to make my networking more successful. Here's how to meet people and make those connections actually useful.

1) Big groups are always better
Statistically speaking, you'll make a solid connection with one in ten people. Make sure that one person is having lunch with you by inviting ten people along. Which brings me to my next point,

2) Drag singles along
People standing around by themselves are waiting for you to invite them along to lunch. Even if they're waiting for another person or two, absorb them, too. Pretty soon you'll have your big group, and everyone benefits.

3) Don't dance with the one you brung
If you come with a group from work, leave them behind. You already know them. Also, there will be little chance of them finding out about how you acted while on the furry bus.

4) Nicotine Networking for nonsmokers
Even if you don't smoke, spend some time talking to smokers. They're usually alone and really want to talk to you.

5) Plan fast, eat slowly
Find a good meeting place and make sure you tell people to meet you there. Don't worry too much about where you're going, just pick the first suggestion that anyone makes and pretend like you've heard good things about it.

6) Use other peoples' business cards for notes
You will discover useful information by talking to people. If this information is useful enough to save, try to write a quick note on their business card so you can associate it with that person.

7) Organize your business card collection
Each day and when you return home, organize the business cards you picked up into piles based on how likely you will be contacting them in the future. Or how much you liked them.

8) How to remember names
When you first meet a person, instead of paying too much attention to the small talk try to say their name in your head every few seconds. After a minute or so, try to use their name out loud by introducing them to someone else.

9) How to remember faces (hint: bring a camera)
Bring a camera. Go through the photos frequently, and assign names to the faces. Faces are easier to remember than names. Later, change the filename of the photo to the names of the people in it. If you get an email from somebody you met, check over the folder of photos to jog your memory.

10) Don't drop the ball - use your new contacts
As soon as you get back, check over your business card collection for notes you made. Send them an email. Otherwise, why did you write those notes down?

When I got back from Atlanta, I sent out an email to each person that I had a business card for. I asked if they wanted to be a part of a small email list to talk about design, clients, life, or whatever. That list became the basis for planning this year's conference.

You never know when the next person you meet might be your next big project, or employee, or friend. The only way to find out is to talk to them.

Read more...]]>Sat, 17 May 2008 01:12:00 +0000 24?
To be honest, I have no idea whether or not the X-Files really exist, and that Jack Bauer isn't based on a real person. But that's exactly my point: we're willing to believe things that sound plausible regardless of the actual substance or facts of the claims.

Enter the ARG: Alternate Reality Game. The first example of an ARG was in 1996, and there have been many successful examples since then. The movie The Game, starring Michael Douglas, was cited as an inspiration for the first really successful ARG, The Beast in 2001.

The entry point to an ARG is called 'The Rabbit Hole'. ARG players then find clues by calling phone numbers, visiting websites, sending emails and occasionally getting in their cars and driving somewhere. It's an elaborate treasure hunt that at all points makes pains to appear as if it is not a game at all. The players do not have to pretend to be anyone but themselves, and ARGs take advantage of the sometimes spontaneous online communities to solve puzzles as a group.

This blurring of reality and entertainment is fun. It allows a player to star in the game by participating, and it allows the story to unfold in a non-linear way, like life. The story is told through the clues, and takes place in real-time and in real locations.

Many ARGs were designed as marketing campaigns, though several have sprung up that appear to be free-standing. ARGs are a clever way to get people intrigued enough to sell them something. It's hard to say if they're more effective than a traditional marketing campaign, but they sure are more interesting.

So back to my original questions: do Americans think what they see on TV or marketing is reality? More importantly, do they care?

I'm starting to think that I don't. After all, most of this article was based on information I found in Wikipedia, which is quite possibly the best ARG I've ever seen.

UPDATE:
Speaking of reality, here's me with my first catch of the season out of Lake Calhoun:

Read more...]]>Wed, 14 May 2008 08:45:00 +0000 The New York Times recently published an article mentioning several luminaries in the nascent steampunk movement including Jake von Slatt and Abney Park. I think that this has increased awareness of this very important cultural phenomenon, and I will attempt to do my part to help you poor lost souls looking for guidance in these confusing times.

Let me begin by saying that steampunk is more than just antiques, though actual period items help. It is more about how those period items are used, and whether they have any gears on them or not. It is brass, wood, leather, and velvet working together to produce a vision of a Victorian future without plastics. It is mechanical rather than electrical; coal rather than nuclear; and above all goggles. Let's get started designing your new steampunk persona.

First, acquire eyewear such as goggles. Goggles may include anything from aviator goggles to motorcycle goggles. Spectacles may replace goggles as an accessory, but they should probably have more than two lenses, or alternatively one lense. Bonus points for gears. You may purchase this most required necessity at many fine establishments, or create your own from toilet paper tubes.

Next, you need a chapeau. For those of you unfamiliar with continental languages, that's headgear. You may opt for a leather aviator's helmet, a fine top hat, derby, or riding hat. Women may consider a large, wide-brimmed hat to keep the sun off of your delicate temperament. If you do not have a delicate temperament, strongly consider developing one. Otherwise, dressing in drag is always an option.

Clothing styles vary dramatically but may include tails, corsets, jodhpurs, hoop skirts, petticoats, and cloaks. Remember, layers are important. And no Kevlar or Gore-Tex. Well, OK, but only if you can find Kevlar coattails.

Shoes are left to your discretion, but the more buckles the better. No Velcro, but zippers are acceptable if no other options are available. Bonus points for spurs.

Now that you are properly attired, your environment should reflect your new outlook. Steamer trunks, pocketwatches, a velocipede, and any experiments you're doing in bio-aetheric feedback devices should surround your work and home. If you have an actual working steam engine, don't hesitate to hook it up and power your Brazil-style computer complete with typewriter keyboard.

To top it all off, give yourself a complicated and possibly unpronounceable name and make people use it in your presence. Perhaps a sword cane will help with that.
Read more...]]>Tue, 13 May 2008 10:14:00 +0000 I was going to design a cool coupon, but then it occurred to me that you wouldn't need a coupon since I'll know if you referred a new client to me.

It doesn't matter if you're not a current client, or if I've never met you. Though to collect on this deal, you will need to contract the services of 3232 Design for your next design project.

If you'd prefer cash, then I'm afraid you're out of luck. However, it's possible that you may receive a complimentary gift basket of 3232 goodies. Or flowers. Some people like flowers.

The point is, the bigger your next project, the more you could save by sending your friends and colleagues my way. So think carefully about how you'll use this windfall. Just think, you could save $10,000 off your next design project. But only if your next project is $100,000.

If you have a $100,000 project in mind, be sure to let me know. I'd consider giving you 10% off even without a referral.

Read more...]]>Fri, 09 May 2008 11:09:00 +0000 One of the nice things about working on a Mac is that I can test nearly every browser and OS combination from this one computer. I stick to the latest Safari, Opera, and Firefox on OS X, IE6, IE7, and Firefox on Windows XP, and Firefox on Linux. The latter being what my wife uses, and if it doesn't look good for her, I hear about it.

She doesn't like it much when I tell her that less than one percent of my hits are from Linux users. She gives me that look that says, "You told me Linux was really cool when you installed it on my computer, and now you're telling me that not only am I part of a minority not worth coding for, but that your site still doesn't work for me."

Her looks can be complicated.

Take 3232design.com, for example. I've known since the start that it didn't look all that great in Linux because of a bug in the Adobe Flash Player for Linux that doesn't render transparent backgrounds. See, that little spinning Flash animation up in the right corner that pops down so you can browse the portfolio was taking advantage of a transparent background: as you rolled over the device it would pop down in Flash. That meant that the entire Flash movie was covering up the part of the page it rolled into all the time.

That's fine if you don't have links or anything interactive underneath the movie, though I've had to do some creative writing to keep my text links in the blog entries from appearing under there.

But now I'd like to announce that 3232design is now better than government work. I've re-written the Flash to be static and now the movement is controlled using javascript instead This means that I can link wherever I want in the blog, but more importantly, the site is usable for Linux users.

I haven't exactly tested it on Linux Firefox yet. It's late, and I'm just happy the code works. There are still a few pieces to clean up, but now at least I can quit apologizing to all four of my Linux users for a broken site.

Also, I don't have to sleep on the couch anymore.

Read more...]]>Mon, 05 May 2008 10:32:00 +0000 Ok, that might be a little mean. What I'd really l like to do is start a discussion about art and design, and if they are necessarily different things.

When I started 3232 Design it was with the notion that I wanted to be proud of every site I created, that each site would have artistic merit or at least look really cool. In some cases this has led to me spending way more time on them than I charged because I wanted a show piece or because the site really wanted something special. Since then, I've been pretty happy with the results, much of which can be attributed to my clients.

There was Ian's site where I spent extra time on the visuals, paid close attention to the details, and whose flash bits on each page are really cool. I'm working on a design right now that you could take the words off, print it out, and frame it. There's another one in the bag that's not really art, but is pretty interesting for a web design.

However, when you get right down to it most web pages are really vehicles for information, and the design should always clarify and be subservient to the marketing message because at the end of the day people need to buy something.

That doesn't mean that you can just put a few paragraphs of text on a page and call it a day, though. Even with text-only layouts you have to pay close attention to the layout and usability of the site.

It's more like writing a haiku. There are some pretty stringent rules you have to follow, but that challenge can lead to some unexpected and interesting results.

I'd like to hear from you: do you think that web design can be art? List examples for the class.
Read more...]]>Fri, 02 May 2008 06:05:00 +0000 One of the most valuable skills a person can learn these days is how to properly construct a keyword phrase on a search engine. Often asking a question in English will work, as will boiling your search down to the most unique words.

I've been looking through the search phrases people type in to reach my site. This is a handy feature of Google Analytics. Often I'll type in the exact same search phrase just to see how far down the list I am. For some keyword searches like "steampunk photoshop tutorial" I'm coming up first. Which is sad, since it's not really a tutorial at all.

I've compiled a list of some of the most interesting ones. Here are the answers to the burning questions that you asked Google:

3232 design
This one makes sense to me. But why not just surf to '3232design.com' if you already know the name?

photoshop steampunk tutorial
This one refers to my first 'Steampunk'd' article. The fact that I'm the #1 spot just shows how little there is out there on this subject.

how much does a really good website cost?
I get this one a lot, but the answer I provide probably isn't as concrete as people would like. For those of you who haven't read the archives, the answer is 42.

google analytics why so many direct hits
Oh, Google Analytics, you confound me; why, can you tell me why?

graphic design and fear
Please, use your gifts for good and not evil. Unless you were looking for intentiophobia resources (that's the irrational fear of graphic design), or this article.

how much charge design blog
Design blog not charge much. Have cash? Also accept goat.

how much costs the graphic design hour
Much better. Very poetic. Ask not what cost the graphic design hour; rather ask what your budget will get you.

identity theft fear appeal
I show up as #4 on the list for this keyword construction. I'm not sure whether to be worried or not.

most hit design blog
Thank you, really. I'd like to thank my clients, fans, and family for this award. I couldn't have done it without you.

radical graphic designers
Totally.

simply put everything we look at is the result of graphic design
I think you might be trying to find evidence of plagiarism. I tried this search, and it looks like nobody's plagiarized you yet. Including yourself.

steampunk he man
I think you were searching for this (which is pretty cool), but how did you end up three pages into that search on my page? You've got too much time on your hands, my friend.

that's nice that is design blog
That's not that is makes sense. I can has search?

top rated business logo design
Again, I'd like to thank my clients, fans and family...

what is a two-page spread
A 'two-page spread' is the term for a design that crosses the gutter (where it's stapled or sewn together) of a magazine or book. Think of a playboy centerfold, but without the fold-out bit and not necessarily on the center spread. Care must be taken not to place important text or graphic elements too close to the gutter or they may be obscured do to misalignment of the pages.

what was expected of a renaissance man
I'm sorry, could you phrase that in the form of a question?

what was expected of a renaissance man?
I couldn't say for sure. I believe they were required to hunt and gather, as well as recite poetry. And come up with witty blog entries every day or so.

Read more...]]>Thu, 01 May 2008 11:23:00 +0000 WTF, 3232 Design Blog? That's not even English!

No, my loyal six readers, that is what designers call Lorem Ipsum (or 'Greeking') text. It is used in design layouts to show how the text would appear if there were any actual text. It's like FPO images. FPO stands for 'For Placement Only'.

Some agencies use humorous text that they have written about their agency as a text placeholder. This is fine to show how the text will look, but using nonsense is better because people are not distracted by textual content when they should be paying attention to the design. People will read text if it is in front of them. They can't not. See? You're doing it right now.

You're still doing it.

There are many lorem ipsum generators online, some which generate actual English words, some generate other types of eye-pleasing gibberish. My favorite was the Klingon generator from within Quark.

OK, my spellchecker wants 'Klingon' to be 'Clinton'. That's just sad.

So why is it called 'greeking'? A medieval Latin proverb reads, "Graecum est; non potest legi" (It is Greek; it cannot be read) -- as Latin was the lingua franca of scholars, Greek words were unintelligible. They might have been telling a joke, though. It's hard to tell with medieval Latin scholars.

The roots of lorem ipsum go way back to the 1500's to the dawn of mass printing itself. The Latin is a garbled chunk of Cicero's The Extremes of Good and Evil, the translation of which reads:

But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?

...

On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammelled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains.

For a comparison, here's how my spellchecker translates it (the words in parenthesis are untranslatable, so I've taken--um--liberties):

Lore opossum dolor sit met, (award-winning design) elite, seed do (awesome) temper (top-notch websites) out labor et dolor magna Alicia. Ut enigma ad minim venom, quasi nostrum execration (3232 Design rules) labors nice out Aliquippa ex ea. commode consequent. Dues ate inure dolor in (really nice guy) in (and funny, too) veldt Esc cilium dolor emu fugal null parroter. Excepted snit (the best designer in Minneapolis) non provident, sun in cull quid office dessert molt animi id set labium.

Heady stuff. How can Aliquippa, PA (pop. 11,734) be in my dictionary but not 'Klingon'? Must be the opossums.

The reason I'm mentioning all this now is because last week at Home Depot I saw a box with a ceiling-mount light fixture that had the words 'Lorem Ipsum' on the side in the spot where the Spanish translation of the fixture's name should have been. Then I discovered that the Spanish word 'gringo' probably comes from the word for Greek, 'Griego'. As in 'It's Greek to Me'. You know, because gringos like me are unintelligible, almost as if I'm speaking in Greek. Well, speaking in Greek to a non-Greek speaker, anyway.

Though when it comes to my non-English fluency, I instead prefer to think of myself as having FPO conversations.

Read more...]]>Mon, 28 Apr 2008 11:33:00 +0000 Ask a designer?" The answer, BIT, is a resounding yes. Come on, people, if you don't do it I'll do it myself. And that could get ugly.
To be fair, this is really the first time you were aware that there was a semi-regular feature called Ask a designer. Well, here it is. Next question!

Dear Design Guru,

I really, really like this one font, and I want to use it as the body copy on my web site. It's not one of the usual PC fonts, but it does come with Windows Vista. What do you think?

Torn in Tallahassee

Dear TIT,

I am really happy that you have a favorite font. It's like having a favorite color. I'm partial to #FFCC00. That color isn't appropriate to use in all cases, much like your favorite font.

Fonts have personalities. Some are strong and forceful, some open and casual. Some are happy, some are sad. Some, like Comic Sans, appear to be happy but are really sad. Some should never be used under any circumstances, like Hobo.

Think about what personality your favorite font has. Is that really the message you want to convey? If it is, then congratulations. If not, check around for other possibilities. For web pages, try to stick to the common PC and Mac fonts. They're ugly but serviceable. Don't mess with trying to force downloading fonts to peoples' browsers as it's not reliable. You can use images for the text, but you'll need to do some fancy DHTML work to get search engines to read them. Same with using Flash to embed your fonts.

For body copy, keep it simple. Use custom fonts sparingly and where they'll have the most impact.

Also, see if you can ditch Vista and find an old copy of XP. You'll save hundreds in therapy bills. Next Question; Cancel, or Allow?

Dear Design Guru,

How important is perfect code in a web page? Can I use multiple CSS files for different browsers?

Lost in Arkansas

Dear LIAR,

I'd like to tell you that all of my code is perfect and I only use one style sheet for each website and each page looks identical across all browsers back to Netscape .93, but I won't. CSS is difficult to master, and eventually the goal is to get all of your styles into one file and not use any hacks. Usually Firefox and Safari track pretty closely, and IE versions are very similar. Occasionally I'll need to do something different with IE6 as the way it deals with the CSS box model is broken and fonts can be funky.

I guess what I'm saying is, strive for perfection but don't beat yourself up if it doesn't work out. Ultimately it is the user experience that matters, and if nearly all of your users see the page correctly I wouldn't worry too much about the last 1%.

Just don't tell my Ubuntu-using wife I said that. She's still mad about the broken Flash nav in Linux.
Read more...]]>Thu, 24 Apr 2008 08:30:00 +0000 I may have been a little harsh on the aforementioned student designers. As a member of Generation X, I know what it is like to graduate into a crappy economy with crappy job prospects. So here's my advice to the budding morsels of the graphic design world: stay in school.

I'm serious. Figure out some way to put off graduation until next year. Two years, if you can fund it.

If not, be prepared to work a lot of jobs where you are unhappy and not doing much design. Put up with these jobs. Try not to complain that you went to design school, dammit, and you got a design degree, which makes you a designer and not some receptionist at an ad agency. Or in sales at a printing company. Or whatever.

If you hold out for the dream jobs, you will waste precious time where you could be networking with coworkers in a related industry, which is where you'll find your next job. And the one after that. And so on, each job getting you closer to landing that dream job as a creative director at some hip, well-paying ad agency.

The alternative is to start your own design business immediately. Do not be tempted to charge too little for your services as you will eventually starve and seek employment elsewhere. Read up on what it takes to start and run a business (The Creative Business Guide to Running a Graphic Design Business, lengthily though aptly titled, was indispensable to me) and be prepared for a lot of work. But it's better to starve now than to starve later, and if you're thinking about going out on your own do it while you're young and your mistakes will be less expensive.

Above all, never complain about the lack of design jobs. Get out there and find something in the field, get some experience and use that as a place to jump to something better. Eventually you'll stop jumping and you'll discover that you actually like what you do. If you're lucky you'll remember why you wanted to be a designer in the first place.

On a related topic, I'm planning on going to PIVOT, the 2008 MCTC Portfolio Show. Student shows are often hard for me to see. In the one hand you have a lot of substandard work that feels student-y; knowing that someday they will be pretty good if they keep at it doesn't make looking at bad design any easier. The other hand contains the really talented students, the ones who are better now than I'll ever be. Those are the hardest to look at, because the design is so good and will only get better with experience. And they're just graduating.

My only hope is that I'll eventually get to hire some of them, and make their lives hell until they quit for a better job elsewhere. I should change my name to Salieri Design.

My spellchecker wants that to be 'Salary Design' and I can't blame it given the current economy. Good luck, class of 2008.
Read more...]]>Wed, 23 Apr 2008 06:53:00 +0000 I'll pick the first one, since the rest of you have obviously dropped the ball today. Be sure to comment or send me an email to suggest the next site, though. There may be prizes involved.

Today's makeover is Google. How can we take a fairly boring search engine and turn it into a waistcoated, begoggled steampunk monstrosity? Google makes it easy for us with all those Os. First, we'll need some gears.

There are plenty of places online where you can find free stock art for non-commercial purposes: Morguefile, deviantART, NASA, and Flickr.

Wait, Flickr? Isn't that copyright infringement or something?

It is important to note that all images are copyrighted from the moment of their creation. Many people choose to put their images in the public domain, or allow certain uses.

The great thing about Flickr is that it can list images by license type. Search on images that allow derivative creations in their Creative Commons license. Often these images will contain a requirement to credit the artist or send them an email. USE ONLY IMAGES THAT YOU ARE ALLOWED BY THE ARTIST. Underlined. Three times. In red ink. Unless you modify the image so it isn't recognizable anymore*.

Back to our gears: once you find something appropriate, copy the image and fire up Photoshop. Or create one from scratch.

What's that? GIMP? Sure, use the GIMP, you cheap bastard. I'll wager your goggles are made of toilet paper tubes.

Draw a bezier curve around the gear to create a clipping path. Eh? You don't know how to draw a bezier curve? I'm sorry, this is the steampunk tutorial. You'll want Photoshop tutorials, Room 42.

Cut the gear out and place it so it's over the first O. Find or create a nice semi-circular bit for the G and create a nice little handle doohickey for the tail of the G. Now we get tricky.

We're going to take out one of the O's and replace it with another G. Ggogle? Silly, no: Goggle. What's steampunk without goggles? Google 'goggles' and see if you can turn something up to use. If all else fails, you can use the circle marquis tool and make some from scratch like we've done here. Or toilet paper tubes, GIMPster. We'll stick these over the tops of the two Gs.

What about the L and E? We don't want them to feel left out, do we? I think it's time to get creative.

I found a nice vertical doohickey a long time ago which we'll use for the L. I use that doohickey a lot. Make it appear as if it belongs there by adding some drop shadows. For the E you can try another gear, but here I've used something a little different.

Et voilĂ ! Goggle, you've been SteamPunk'd.

* I'm not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. I'm a designer, and this is design advice. So don't sue me, but feel free to draw nasty pictures at me.

Read more...]]>Sun, 20 Apr 2008 04:28:00 +0000 When I explained how I like to check my email while on vacation, I thought I was just being funny. Today I got an email from Adobe informing me that Ian Tregillis: An Author's Sketchbook is today's Adobe Site of the Day.

This is one of the nicer awards. Adobe is the giant of the industry, producing Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver, and every other piece of major design software you can think of. Their Site of the Day is a way for them to showcase sites built using their products, but it has a much wider audience than just designers and developers.

I was totally right yesterday. If you don't check your email while on vacation because you're worried that you'll get a bad email that will ruin your vacation, you're just being cynical. You'll also miss the emails that will make you really happy.

I should go on vacation more often. Or better yet, I should just stay on vacation until I retire.
Read more...]]>Fri, 18 Apr 2008 07:05:00 +0000 Taking time out for vacation is hard. It almost makes one want to just stay home. I've always heard that you should leave the laptop home so that you don't end up ruining your vacation by checking your email and discovering that your client needs changes by Monday.

The idea is that you won't be able to do anything but worry until Monday, so why ruin your vacation with things you can't control? I've also heard people use this as an excuse not to read email in the morning.

I think that these people are wrong. I'll bring my laptop on vacation and check my email, but for opposite reasons: it makes me feel good to know exactly what it is that I've left behind. Not that I don't like my job; I love what I do. But vacation is a time to explore and see new things, relax by the ocean with a bottle of stinky imported Mexican beer and chuck your cell phone into the water. How can you really enjoy that if you leave your laptop at home?

I'm just worried that I'll be tempted to chuck the laptop into the water, or use it as a frisbee or something. Stinky Mexican beer will do that to you.
Read more...]]>Thu, 17 Apr 2008 08:39:00 +0000 I'd like to start out by saying that I'm not trying to be snarky (I can't believe I just had to teach my spellchecker the word 'snarky'), as I am not normally a snarky person--my spellchecker can attest to that. I mean, I can get my snark on, but this isn't that.

'Snark' also added to the dictionary. Check.

I'm always curious why some businesses will hire designers and then ignore their dearly-bought design advice. Clients often like filling in white space, making logos bigger, and lots of other little design tweaks done for the wrong reasons.

Designers can have some big egos, though few admit it. Ideally ego size would be irrelevant and designs would be unambiguously better left alone. Yet some designers want to bully their clients into a design rather than explaining the logic and psychology of why the design works with a smaller logo or more white space. Or they go the other way and surrender completely, allowing their client to run wild and the message loses focus.

I usually try to find out why my clients want to make changes. More often than not, the change may be accomplished by tweaking the design in other ways. The way I see it, they're paying me to be an expert, and part of that is understanding what they're trying to do and helping them achieve that.

There is a temptation to find out what monitor, browser, and operating system a client uses and design their website so that it will look good with that setup. This will give you a measure of comfort with your client, but is ultimately self-defeating as there is so much variety out there that much deviation from common browsers and screen sizes will lead to the site being less successful if the client's setup is nonstandard. Plus they'll be mad when they get a new computer and the site looks all funky. Also, you can miss things when you try to design to one browser and shoehorn the others in later.

My clients are usually looking to me to be the expert in this area. I will tell them that colors can shift quite a bit between monitors and operating systems, so what looks tinted blue on their screen may actually be a neutral grey most everywhere else. It is up to me to explain to them how their 3360x1050 monitor is not the norm (thanks again for stopping by, Mr. Jobs), and that most people are split between 1024x768 and 1280x1024. And that no matter what it looks like on their weirdo screen resolution (or mine, for that matter), what's important is how most people will experience their site.

I take it as a challenge to design the site without knowing how they will see it, and trust my judgment and expertise to make the site appear good on all browsers and platforms on at least a 1024x768 monitor. Note that I said 'good' and not 'the same' since differences can creep up. If the CSS is done right, there are no differences between the browsers and platforms, and at the launch party I'll fire up Opera for the first time, like a tightrope act, defying wrapping floats and variable box models to show off a site that looks exactly like the one they just saw in IE. Which is a pretty boring tightrope act for them.

It's more like a tightrope act where the audience is blindfolded. They've got no idea how nerve-wracking it really is up there, your Opera swinging in the breeze, with nothing between you and the broken CSS but three hundred feet of Open Source air.

My clients usually look to me to help them make decisions about what types and how much technology to stuff into their sites. In a lot of cases I'll advise against things popping and pinging for no good reason, and will firmly put my foot down when it comes to sound. "But we want the logo to go ping," you say forlornly.

"Look at it from the point of view of your hypothetical user," I'll tell you, "stuck at work and bored, hitting your site and *PING* your site busts them with the audio. They won't be coming back soon."

I don't know if anyone is dumb enough to surf at work without headphones, but nobody wants to get other people in trouble so the logos stay silent. (Mental note: find a browser plugin that makes whatever web page I'm on look like a spreadsheet when the boss comes around.)

Flash isn't always the best way to accomplish something, either, though sometimes it is. That sort of thing really depends on what you're trying to do. Pinging logos, apps and games are fine for Flash, but you can do plenty of interesting navigation in DHTML instead. It's tempting to just tell clients that the navigation is in flash, but it's really better to explain why I just used DHTML instead.

Ultimately, if you're the client, you're the boss. You are paying the bills, and if you feel strongly enough to override your design expert, then you might as well get exactly what you want, pinging logos and all.

Just don't be surprised when you read a snarky design blog entry about pinging logos.

Read more...]]>Tue, 15 Apr 2008 05:22:00 +0000 This morning page hits were through the roof. Google was showing an absurdly high number coming from something called stumbledupon.com. What was happening? Had somebody planted my website address in a high-traffic area as some kind of a practical joke?

I had heard of this site from a friend of mine a long time ago but hadn't seen its utility. It appears that somebody else added my site to their list yesterday. The bounce rate was extremely high, and page views were low. The traffic was perfect for figuring out what random users would do on my site, though.

I sifted through the data since the launch. What I learned was that traffic spikes are fairly useless in and of themselves, but if they create a proportional amount of repeat traffic then they're probably worth it. In this case the repeat traffic appears to be around 10%.

Mmmm. Percentage signs. There's nothing that spins data quite like them. Good old SHIFT-5. I'll type more soon, but first, let's define our terms:

Unique Page Views: A rough measure of how many people actually visit the site.
Page Views: The total number of pages viewed.
Average Page Views: The average number of pages viewed per visitor.
Bounce Rate: The percentage of people who view just one page and leave.
Average Time On Site: The average time a user spent on the site.
Direct Hits: People who were not referred to the site; they typed in 'www.3232design.com' into their address bar or used a bookmark.
Hits: That's you.
Hit Feeder: That's where you clicked the link to get here.
Repeat Traffic: Anyone who has previously visited the site and not cleared any Google cookies.

The slower but steadier page hit feeders (deviantART, coolhomepages.com, Google AdWords, direct hits) are the highest quality hits. You can define quality in various ways for various sites, but for business brochureware sites like this one a good measure is high average time on site, low bounce rate, and high average page views. This means that the hits are spending more time on the site (2.5 minutes average time on site) viewing more pages (3.9 average page views). Presumably this means they are interested in the content, and interested people lead to sales. I don't know what it is about Germany, but they're spending upwards of 1/2 hour on the site, viewing over 10 pages each. I'm like the David Hasselhoff of web design.

The spike traffic sites (deviantART Daily Deviation, Slashdot post signature link, stumbleupon.com) are pretty low-quality hits. The bounce rate is between 60% and 90% (as opposed to 20% to 30% for the steady hit feeders), the average page views are below 2, and the average time on site is less than a minute.

But that doesn't mean they aren't useful hits, they're just less targeted. And out of those hits, a small percentage appears to be returning later, building repeat traffic overall. Higher traffic means greater exposure.

For those of you who like statistics, here are some percentage signs: Mac users are 23% of the audience. This is probably high due to the deviantART and coolhomepages.com traffic, since a lot of web designers check those sites out and a lot of artsy people work on Macs. Of the Windows users: XP: 77%; Vista: 18%; W2K: 1.5%; Server 2003: 1.5%. Quit surfing from your web servers, people. That's how you get pwned.

FireFox is 53% to IE's 30% (of those: IE6: 38%, IE7: 60%, IE8: 0.7%.) Holy crap, when did IE8 come out? It's possible that it's been out for a long time but it's so broken that nobody can actually surf the web. Safari is 12%, and specialty browsers like Opera trail the last 3%. Those would be our mainstream-bashing Slashdot friends.

It would be appropriate to note here that if javascript is disabled in your browser then you are not counted by Google. This appears to be less than 1% of the traffic, based on a differential analysis of Google's page hits vs. the raw server logs.

Nearly everyone who visited had Flash 9 (95%), which is not surprising since most people are here to check out the cool Flash design. The most popular screen resolutions are 1280x1024 and 1024x768. The highest resolution was 3360x1050 (thanks for stopping by, Mr. Gates) and the lowest resolution was 800x600 (seriously, would it kill you to buy a new monitor?).

The final round of stats is connection speed. This was the area of most concern to me, since my page weighs in at almost 150Kb with the page background image and Flash movie. Luckily, only .02% of the hits were on dialup. I was pretty surprised by that number.

So what do all these numbers mean? For this type of web site, it's a good start. Repeat traffic is 10%, which by extrapolating for this hit volume means that in several months I should have an ample supply of leads from the website. An overall bounce rate of 30% to 40% is pretty good, and with 2-4 average page views people like what they're seeing.

But the most important thing I learned is that my spellchecker doesn't know who Rick Astley or David Hasselhoff is. On the bright side, it also didn't know what getting pwned was. You are in sirius treble win your speelchecker gets pwned.

Read more...]]>Mon, 14 Apr 2008 03:37:00 +0000 There's a very funny term called astroturfing, which means to engineer a marketing campaign to make it appear to be a grassroots campaign. Get it? Astroturf is fake grass.

Astroturfing campaigns work on the crowd mind. If a person thinks that a lot of other people believe something, they are more receptive to the idea. It's the "Everyone else is doing it" approach to marketing.

Astroturfing strives for verisimilitude, and is most effective when the message is one that actually resonates with people. It is very difficult to do well, and if it fails it will create blow-back because there's nothing people hate more than discovering they're being manipulated. This is true of marketing in general, but more so with astroturfing.

Astroturfing is Wal-Mart creating and funding 'Working Families for Wal-Mart' to appear as if actual Wal-Mart families had joined together in a grassroots campaign to support the company; guerilla marketing is Office Max's dancing elves.

Well, maybe the Office Max example isn't that great; it was the only project that went viral out of twenty that they tried. Guerilla marketing is best when it's low-budget and outside the mainstream. That's why it's called guerilla. Office Max may have been better served plowing all that cash into a more traditional marketing campaign.

Since my page launched almost a week ago I've tried various guerilla tactics to see how they would affect page hits. I have discovered some amusing and useful information along the way.

First, let me apologize now to the Linux folks over at Slashdot who showed up to see great design and instead saw a semi-broken page. I was aware of the issue before launch. I made my wife switch to Ubuntu a few years ago, and she's sill kind of mad that the site doesn't work on her computer. This site is using Flash in a slightly unconventional way, and since Flash on Linux doesn't do transparent backgrounds yet, that big black box you see covering the content (while not intentional) wasn't a big enough bug to warrant fixing immediately. Normally a web site will see maybe one out of a hundred hits from a Linux box. Unless that site advertised itself in a sig on Slashdot, hotbed of Linux users.

I don't know how many people read the comments I posted with my website in the sig, but I only got a handful of hits from it, and most people didn't stick around very long. If people just graze your site, then they really aren't interested in what you're selling anyway. It's not as useful to target your campaign to an audience who doesn't need your product.

Getting a Daily Deviant on deviantART.com was by far the largest number of hits, mostly localized to one day. There are still one or two hits a day coming in, though. Coolhomepages.com, on the other hand, has been sending a larger but steadier stream of hits through; Ian's site still gets between 2 and 20 hits per day, and the initial two-day spike for both sites was around 100 hits per day. These hits are more likely to stick around and check things out, but it's too early to say if they'll buy web design or not.

My loyal eight readers will note that there are new Digg and Reddit buttons on the site. Later I'll be adding Fark and some Buzz thing from Yahoo. I'm collecting them like stickers. I submitted a story to Digg to see how it worked, and predictably, nobody cared. I'm more of a Slashdot guy anyway.

These hit-inflating tests aren't really astroturfing, since at no point do I misrepresent what I'm doing. If I were to sprinkle the web address in forums pretending that I had no connection to the site then it would be astroturfing. Submitting your own blog to Digg is getting close. Posting on a forum with your site in your signature is guerilla marketing.

One thing I learned is that outside of the home page my web page gets about one click before people will wander off, unless there's a good reason for them to stay after clicking. This makes sense from a marketing standpoint: you need an obvious call to action. In my case, most people check out Ian's site, which is what I want them to do.

Be honest, now: do those Digg and Reddit buttons make my blog look fat?
Read more...]]>Sat, 12 Apr 2008 04:12:00 +0000 I am a red vampire. I don't tan in the summer, I just burn. When I see the sun I tend to find cover quickly or I turn redder than a Target Logo in a Winter Sale Catalog. I'm sure I don't have to tell you, that's pretty red. Also, I don't look good in shorts.

So I moved to Minnesota where I hoped it would stay cold enough to keep me in long pants and indoors. It was just lucky chance that I was a web designer in the middle of the dot-com boom living in a ground-zero design capital. It was unlucky chance that even though it snows relatively little and stays cold for nine months, the summers can bring 100-degree heat for weeks on end. WTF, Minnesota?

Despite the weather, it's beautiful here. Some of our monstrous architecture notwithstanding, there is a high level of design here as a result of so many designers living together in one place. Target has a lot to do with that, as they employ hundreds of local designers. There are also quite a few national advertising agencies based here. You can't throw a snowball in these parts without hitting a design student. Well, you can, but it's not nearly as fun.

The Minnesota chapter of the AIGA is really quite large, and one of the first local chapters of the national organization. I've been a member for two years now, and it's been a great way to meet other designers. I got hooked into a great community of people who made me feel like I was coming home--people who would understand my font jokes and commiserate about making logos bigger and making logos bigger.

Designers don't like making logos bigger. Please don't make them do it, or they will make merciless fun of you in amateurish YouTube videos.

Designers on a whole are normally a pretty good-looking bunch. You might expect that from people whose sole purpose is to make things look nice. Their sense of design helps them to dress well, they have well-marketed hair, and very few of them are walking around with peeling lobster heads from their 10 minutes of weak sun on that mostly cloudy day last weekend.

But even those bright-red designers aren't really ugly; their self-design is simply too avant-garde for you to understand. Haven't you heard? Red is going to be huge this year.

Oh. Well, maybe next year.
Read more...]]>Fri, 11 Apr 2008 04:47:00 +0000 CoolHomePages.comâ?˘ just featured 3232design.com today. Installment 3 in the 'Attempting to Artificially Inflate My Page Hits For No Particular Reason' series.
When I was looking for a nice free way to get the word out about Ian's website I turned to that font of internet wisdom, Google. "Cool Web Site Award," I told Google, "I'm feeling lucky." The first response was a place that, well, let's just say they won't take my calls. But the second was Cool Home Pages. Dot com. â?˘.

I noticed that it was free. That was good. Sure, you could pay for faster review (payment does not guarantee an award) but I figured, hey, I have a few weeks, let's just see if they notice it. Within a week they had Ian's site prominently displayed on their home page. Since then over a thousand visitors have spewed forth from that cool mouth. Ian's site now has 9 out of 10 stars, and is hovering at the top of its categories.

I submitted my site with the knowledge that it wasn't as strong as Ian's. It wasn't as detailed, and I hadn't put as much time into it as I had on Ian's. Honestly, I couldn't afford Ian's site on my budget. Yet this very evening I was informed that Cool Home Pages, Dot Comâ?˘, had indeed chosen 3232 Design as worthy of their link.

I knew from Ian's site that the page hits were going to go up a bit. But drunk with power, I wanted more.

I am a registered user of Slashdot and it occurred to me that if I got highly-rated posts and put my address in my signature file, that should generate some traffic. But how much? To really test it, I'd need a +5 first post.

Before I go much further, let me point out that today I have been very, very lucky. Also, if you don't know, Slashdot is a self-moderated forum disguised as a news outlet. Randomly-selected users moderate posts positive or negative, from -1 to +5. This self-policing has the effect of allowing the best comments to rise to the top and the worst to slide down under the radar.

There was a nice little comment I added that (if I say so myself) that got moderated to +5 Funny pretty quickly. I'm a funny guy, what can I say? It was near the second comment, and so far it's brought in about 40 page hits. But I wanted more.

I somehow managed to be extremely witty and post a +5 funny first comment, the most-read of any story. Then I sat back and waited for the hits to roll in.

And waited.

And waited.

Come on, Google Analytics. Why don't you have real-time statistics? It's been twelve minutes, already!

I waited the rest of the afternoon. Several hours later Google finally, grudgingly offered that I might have gotten five hits from my +5 Funny First Post, and would I mind laying off the damn reload button already?

Oh, well. At least I have a few months of Cool Home Pages (Dot Comâ?˘) traffic to look forward to.

Read more...]]>Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:07:00 +0000 In the world of advertising and publishing there are a lot of shady marketing practices. Everyone's heard of the subliminal advertising messages hidden in ice cubes, hair, and drawings of camels that suggest sex, death, or both.

Some of these stories are true, and there is evidence that subliminal messages can influence buying decisions. Some of it is overactive (and presumably under-sexed) imaginations, but everyone agrees that sex sells.

Women's magazines have long Photoshopped pounds off of models to make even rail-thin supermodels skinnier, thereby dooming more than one generation of girls to body image problems and eating disorders. The problem is that it works: the girls don't buy food, but they do buy the products featured in the magazines.

All marketing appeals to our lizard brain on some level. That's not inherently bad; it only crosses the line once you start using damaging appeals to fear or sex, or downright trickery. Recently I received what looked like a bill for a domain name. It wasn't from any company I'd done business with, but all of the marketing copy suggested that I was in danger of losing my domain name unless I sent them a check. I knew it was crap, but how many people see what looks like a bill, then pay it? That's only one step away from identity theft.

Marketing is not social engineering. You should not need to trick people into spending their money with you. All your marketing message needs to do is explain why your product or service is better than the competition.

This raises an issue for people of conscience in marketing and advertising: how can we break free of the problematic marketing messages and focus on selling products without using sex or fear to sell them? You know, for everyone except brothels.

A good marketing message will tell a story. In order to do that you need to figure out what it is that sets your product or service apart from others and identify specific consumer benefits it fulfills. If your widget is fluffier or cheaper than other widgets, how does that benefit your clients? Your marketing message becomes: "40% fluffier so your widgeting goes faster. And cheaper so you have more money to spend on fun things." You can then begin to create marketing concepts that support that specific message, and put them in places your audience is likely to frequent.

If your product isn't stronger or more valuable than the competition in some way you should re-think your business plan. Once you have to resort to lying or shady marketing practices there's no way you'll build trust or customer loyalty, and that will only hurt your business. I'm looking at you, Enron.

It takes some care to craft your marketing message. You have to know your audience, and your competition. Discover how your product is superior to a competitor's. Take a look at what your audience needs, and what their interests are. Instead of using fear or sex, appeal to their sense of logic or humor. Tune your message over time by measuring the success of your project.

Good design is just one piece of your marketing plan. You must have the other pieces, or your competition will stomp your business into the dust leaving you penniless and alone...look over here, naked ladies at 3232 Design!

Read more...]]>Thu, 10 Apr 2008 04:55:00 +0000 Radical Transparency Theatre. The good news is that our little blog endeavor has increased traffic over 600%*! That's right, based on a pure statistical analysis of page hits, in less than a week the 3232 Design Blog gained six loyal readers. That's you!
The real question is, are page hits a good way to measure the success of your website? That all depends on what you're trying to do. The ultimate goal of the website should guide your decision, and page hits are only one measure. If your site is a content destination and you sell ad space, then page hits are a great measure. If you are a restaurant and you sell plates of food, then page hits won't tell you as much.

There are several secondary goals of my website, including being a contact point and providing contact information, driving traffic to other sites I've created, and eventually winning design and design criticism awards to increase the stature of 3232 Design (and you six will be the first to know when that happens). But these secondary goals really just enforce the main goal: to entice a potential design client to pick up the phone and call me, or send me an email.

If this goal is not satisfied, the site cannot be considered a success. It's fortunate that my time frame to reach that goal is longer than a week. I'll know it worked when I get that call and they tell me that they simply must have their project designed by the guy who made this site. Since I know how much my site cost to produce, I should be able to calculate the ROI (return on investment) of the redesign based on how much money that call and all the others bring in.

In the case of our restaurant friends, measuring success is not as obvious; sometimes the return can't be measured in dollars alone. You might consider it a success if customers stop calling to ask when your restaurant is open. Page hits can help you measure success by telling you how many people are looking at your menu, or you can ask a random sampling of your customers if they've seen your site and how helpful it was to them.

In other cases it may be helpful to examine your competitors and measure your success against them. Is your site easier to navigate? More informative? Easier to Google?

When the day comes that my site pulls in hundreds of loyal readers a day and several calls from potential clients each week, I'll remember you first anonymous six people fondly. Maybe I'll make you t-shirts that say "I was here first!" They'll be collector's items that you'll cherish forever, or until you sell them on eBay for a hefty profit.

I suspect it will be very difficult to prove you really were here at the beginning if the six of you don't start posting more comments soon.

* No calculators were harmed in the production of this statistic. Or even consulted.
Read more...]]>Wed, 09 Apr 2008 02:35:00 +0000 If done right, using a juxtaposition of two seemingly disparate concepts can help your marketing campaign. A while back Target had an ad campaign that used two otherwise unrelated objects that had something in common, whether a similarity in names, colors, or shape. The ad campaign worked pretty well because it showed the diversity of what Target sells, and it took advantage of the momentary confusion of viewers trying to figure out why those two items were in the same ad. The image of the Target brand was cemented in their brain in that extra few seconds and the 'Aha' moment that followed.

See how that works? You probably thought that brains and cement normally only have one context, and not a pleasant one. Of course, now you have a more unpleasant image cemented in your brain, and you still don't know about the meat thermometer.

When TigerOx Painting came to me looking for a new winter marketing campaign, we sorted through and rejected several ideas as too costly or not interesting enough. I sat down and brainstormed more ideas. What was their goal? To do more interior work. When? During the winter months. The holiday season. When people bake turkeys and hams. And they use meat thermometers to make sure their meat won't kill them.

That lead to an interesting visual with a close-up of a meat thermometer stuck into a baked turkey. That concept was rejected because a close-up photo of a baked turkey is actually pretty disgusting, and to save money they wanted to go one-color which would have rendered the image unintelligible. But they liked the tagline I'd written: "This holiday season let TigerOx make sure your interior is done right," as well as the meat thermometer concept. With a few tweaks the thermometer was on its own but instead of the types of meats displayed with the temperatures at which they're cooked was a list of the TigerOx services.

It was a weird idea, but it worked--it was eye-catching and relevant. It worked really well in black and white, and was easily repurposed to a variety of ad sizes.

Though now I can't stop thinking that I need to figure out an ad campaign based on brains and cement. That would be some graphic design.
Read more...]]>Tue, 08 Apr 2008 08:20:00 +0000 "42 what?" You ask. Dollars? Pounds? Quatloos?"

Well, yes.

That's because there's not enough information for a meaningful answer. The cost of a given website depends on what goes into producing that website. This is related to, but not entirely dependent upon, an hourly rate for the concept, design, coding, and administration.

"Great!" You exclaim. "What's your hourly rate?"

Hold on, there. Let's suppose a designer uses a rate of $10 an hour. As a designer gets more experienced, she will create better designs, and at a faster pace. What used to take an hour now only takes twenty minutes, and the quality has improved. As time goes on the designer realizes that she is making less money for creating higher-quality websites. So she does the obvious thing and raises her hourly rate to $30.

Now how much does that website cost? For the quality and amount of time it takes, not much more--because our more experienced designer is much faster now and the quality of her design has gone up. But you don't know that, all you know is her hourly rate is more than that other guy ($10), and way more than those generic HTML templates where you can get 12 for $25.

So our designer then decides to charge on a bid basis and not use an hourly rate except internally to aid in estimating the project. This way her clients can make more reasonable comparisons between designers based on a total cost for the project, and they want our more experienced designer because her designs will tell their marketing story much better. And with her added experience, she may have suggestions on how to improve their marketing message.

Which brings us back to the original question. How much does that website cost? Once you know what you're doing with your website you can begin to find meaningful answers. If your site is just a few static pages, it probably won't be as expensive as one with a lot of programming, which adds to the cost depending on the complexity. If you want a really exceptional design that will win awards, that will take longer to develop and might cost more. But the designer needs to know what you want to do to figure out how long it will take, and thus what your site will cost.

"OK," you say, "I want a website like yours. What would that cost me?" So I break down what was involved in designing my company website: the marketing copy, the conceptual design, coding the blog, contact forms, portfolio page and Flash navigation...

"Hey, I don't need all those things," you say. And you're right, unless you are me. And even then maybe your marketing message doesn't require a blog, or a Flash navigation. You may need similar elements, but customized for your applications. "Just give me a ballpark range," you say.

42-ish.

There can be a lot of variation even in a website that just needs a few static pages of content. Will you need stock photography? Do you have your copy written, or will you need a writer? Maybe your copy includes a lot of complicated tabular data that needs to be translated into HTML, or it turns out that you really need something entirely different from what you thought.

A good design firm will walk you through a process where you can answer all those marketing, design, and technical questions in a straightforward, step-by-step manner. You can then compare pricing from different design firms based on the costs for creating the same content, and when the costs are different you can factor in the quality of design or whether or not you think your designer will be loads of fun to work with, and will offer you creative solutions that will make you stand out from the crowd.

And when you've gone through the process, you'll finally know it won't cost 42.

It's probably closer to 43.

Read more...]]>Mon, 07 Apr 2008 06:46:00 +0000 came to dinner yesterday. Apparently getting a Daily Deviant on www.DeviantArt.com will drive traffic to your door--and right into your living room.
I've always known the power of belonging. I belong to several trade associations (AIGA and NAPP, to name a few) and am a strong believer in the networking opportunities that such organizations offer to a budding young business owner.

That's not why I signed up at deviantart though. I really just wanted a place to stick my weird eyeball art where it might be appreciated.

After I finished up with Ian's website I thought it would be a good audience for his steampunk wallpaper offerings, so I posted one of those a while back. It turns out that today it was nominated for a Daily Deviant, which puts it into view of thousands of eager eyeballs. Ian's site has been under heavy load all day, and mine has been getting a nice bump through the reciprocal links.

I'm sure my Deviant friends filing through are the perfect demographic for Ian's books -- after all, if they liked his wallpaper enough to visit his site, they're probably science fiction fans, and who better to read a science fiction novel than a fan? Though in retrospect it would have been wiser to time adding his wallpaper to the site until just before his book release, but then you never know when something like this will happen. That's the nature of using PR as marketing, it can be very unpredictable. Not that I'm complaining, it's just that I feel more comfortable with predictable marketing successes.

I'd like to take the credit for being a PR genius, but I had no idea it was coming (damn you, Radical Transparency!). I mean, I thought I might get some traffic by joining deviantArt, but I'm flattered at the response the designs have been getting.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to find some more organizations to belong to. Which is the one where all the members need me to design them new websites?
Read more...]]>Sun, 06 Apr 2008 01:12:00 +0000 The reality is that there is no such thing as a final website. They are never finished. It's not like print design, where once the piece is printed you can either re-run the entire thing at full cost or just live with the typos. Web pages, on the other hand, are very easy to update. So easy that it's hard to resist the temptation to skip steps, just make sure all the links work, and call it a day. After all, it's not going to cost $10,000 to fix those typos, right?

This is why the soft-launch was invented. It forces you to actually read the copy, because despite the 'soft' in the name that website is live on the internet and anyone stopping by will see it in all of its misspelled glory. For a brand-new website, only the few who know the URL will be looking at it, and for a redesign it's really just a hard-launch without a PR campaign. Keep that thought in mind as you read on.

Ignoring the advice of the little chef in my head (never launch a site on a Friday, which guarantees a working weekend for all parties), yesterday became the soft-launch date for the 3232design.com redesign, in anticipation of the hard-launch later this week. After a week or so on the development server it was finally ready for a hand-picked focus group to run through it on the production server. Well, them and anyone that Google sent over, but those people are the fire that heats the soft-launch stew to a rollicking boil. Besides, everything was mostly done, except for the main navigation and some minor bugs in the blog and contact form, but those would be fixed before the hard-launch anyway. Piece of cake. Er, stew.

This was not the hard-launch. Nobody was supposed to send the link to their friends, who would send it to their friends in some crazy Ponzi scheme gone wrong. Yet somehow the site ended up with about ten times its normal daily traffic, getting hits from all over the world. Without a fully-working main navigation. On a Saturday. The first really beautiful day of Spring in frigid Minneapolis.

The moral of the story is that even though changes are easy to make on a website, that doesn't mean you can go ahead and launch until you've made sure all the ingredients are actually in the stew. You never know who might show up for dinner.

Read more...]]>Sat, 05 Apr 2008 05:14:00 +0000 Over the past year I've been submerged in the relatively new steampunk subculture. For those of you too lazy to click on the link, steampunk is a genre of science fiction that envisions a future from a Victorian perspective. Imagine if electricity hadn't been discovered, and every major technological advance since then incorporated steam power and gears. The current 3232 Design site was inspired by steampunk, as was the site I did for Ian Tregillis which I completed recently.

I love this subculture, mostly because of all the brass and wood contraptions people make, and also the word 'aether'. I'm intrigued by the philosophy of the Victorian scientists -- they're all about self-reliance, discovery, and observing nature. The Victorian scientist was expected to be a renaissance man of sorts, part artist, part engineer, and part inventor. It's Leonardo da Vinci in coattails, and now wearing telescoping goggles.

In my line of work, I've picked up skills from widely divergent fields. My clients generally know that I do all the designs and concepts as well as writing the code and database structure, as well as a fair bit of marketing plan analysis. It's not often that you find an excellent designer who is also an excellent programmer, and I am no exception (here comes that Radical Transparency we blogged about last time): I've always been an artist who programmed as a hobby and I'm pretty good at it, yet I know too many excellent programmers to count myself among them.

However, I think there's tremendous value in knowing what goes on behind the scenes. When I'm creating a web design I'm always thinking about how to implement it. There are cross-browser issues, file size issues, and SEO (search engine optimization--I'll write about that soon) to think about, in addition to defining my client's marketing message clearly in the design. Knowing the flaming hoops I have to jump through later will affect my design choices, and speeds development time immensely. If all I knew was the design side, things could go pear-shaped pretty quickly when it came time to code.

I'm the first to admit that I'm not a master programmer, but I don't have to be. I just have to be good enough to know that if I'm designing a database application it has to scale to 10,000 users because that's what my client's business plan calls for, or how I can use a programming trick to make a page full of graphics load faster. Most designers don't know anything about the back end at all, and I think they're hobbled by that lack of knowledge.

If the project needs perfect code I have a ton of resources I can call on to get the perfect code. Most of the types of projects I handle don't need much programming, though, and I can stick to the areas where I am an expert -- design, CSS and Flash. That doesn't mean I can't code up an extranet, blog or forum, it just means that if that's all you want then I'll help you find a master programmer instead. It does mean that I can help you figure out your marketing plan and how solid graphic design is a necessary part of it, and I can charge less because I don't have the overhead of employees and subcontractors.

Beyond being skilled in related fields, I think there's value in expanding your knowledge to include areas outside your field of expertise, because you never know when it will come in handy. My weird hobbies have included electronics and circuit design, music, Unix server administration, urban fishing, and writing. Sometimes those things will inform a project I'm working on, so I find myself learning new things constantly. That leads to approaching problems from an unusual direction, and creating unique solutions for design challenges.

Take Ian's website, for example. How do you make a rookie science fiction author stand out from the crowd? Use elements from a not-yet trendy and up and coming science fiction genre like steampunk, and apply a liberal dose of equal parts creativity and coding. Most of the left bar graphics are interactive in weird steampunk ways, which adds to the atmosphere of the site. Everyone he talks to now remarks on how cool his website is, and he ends up looking like an old pro.
Read more...]]>Wed, 02 Apr 2008 08:38:00 +0000 The idea is that in being honest with people (or at least the appearance of honesty) you can engender trust and understanding. You can let people in on secrets, or tip your hand to future trends. For me, it's all about educating passersby on what goes into really good design and how to avoid common design mistakes.

There are other good reasons to blog on your website; if your blog is set up right, Google will index it for searches. You can bring tons of traffic to your site when somebody searches for "zombie monkeys" and you happen to have written about that very topic. You never know who a potential customer might be. Another reason is that if you have something interesting and relevant to say, you may become a local authority on your blog's topic. Finally, if your blog allows comments it's another good way of interacting with the people surfing by on the internet, and finding out what they think about what you think. If people find you to be open and accessible they may remember you first when they need the product or services you offer.

There are a few guidelines for blog success: first, don't blog about your personal life or off-topic rants too much. It might be interesting to you, but if your readers are looking for web design tips then what you ate for breakfast and how you feel about it now are not really relevant.

Also, try to keep your blog narrowly focused. You are probably more of an expert in what you do than the average net user, and the more narrowly you define your topics the better chance you have at capturing a niche and steady readers.

Finally, you must be able to write. I'm sure all those big-wig CEOs have an army of zombie monkeys to write their blogs for them, but the rest of us are not so lucky. If you are a little rusty, try keeping an offline journal before publishing online. The more you write, the more your writing will improve. And mind your spellchecker.

We'll see how my experiment in Radical Transparency goes. As of this writing it's a dismal failure, but then this is only my first post -- yet I'm looking forward to seeing hordes of zombie monkey salesmen pop by looking for web design tips.

Read more...]]>Tue, 01 Apr 2008 08:39:00 +0000