Talking about Good Design
So what exactly is Good Design? I know what I think is good and I certainly know what I think is awful. Everyone has their own opinion when it comes to design. Is that a bad thing? Of course not. It just makes the designer's job that much more challenging and rewarding all at the same time. Often I deal with clients who have very strong opinions on colors, fonts and 'fancy' decorations. So how do we deal with a client who simply says 'I Don't Like it!'? Well you should go read Jeff White's blog post at Kula Partners. He knows!
A couple of days ago I tweeted out the phrase "Good Design is Good Business".
10 Tools that help me with Design
I thought I would put together a quick and dirty list to let people know about some of the tools that help me with my designs. Here you will find some handy dandy links, add-ons and free web apps I use on a regular basis.
1. Firebug (add-on for Firefox)
My lifesaver. If you haven't used firebug yet you are missing out. It makes coding those designs that much easier as you can edit a lot of items on the fly. It's also very helpful for troubleshooting problems.
2. Web Developer (add-on for Firefox)
My other lifesaver. Before I discovered Firebug I only used this little add on. Though it might not be as handy as Firebug there are some great features that simply cannot be ignored.
Communication + Content + Site Structure = Success
Nine times out of a ten when I'm working on a web site one of the hardest things to retrieve from a client is content. If you're a designer than you know exactly what I'm talking about. Often you can have a project 95% complete but you end up waiting a few extra weeks while you sit and stare at your 'Lorem Ipsum' text.
Over the years I've tried many different approaches when it comes to getting those glorious emails with Microsoft Word attachments. I've found some success along the way so let me share with you what simply seems to work for me.
Welcome to the new Hop Creative!
Well here we are. Look I have a blog and everything. That means I really have to start posting on a somewhat regular basis. Don't count on that but I am willing to give it a go.
Seriously though. Back in the summer of 2009 I designed a quick and dirty Hop Creative site using the ever so wonderful Wordpress platform. At the time it did the trick and it certainly still could. But this time around I opted to go all in with SquareSpace to develop something that's a little more ...well... me.