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Quote of the Week:

All solitary dreamers know that they hear differently when they close their eyes.
-Gaston Bachelard

Notes from Notchcode

11.28.2005

Hand-Crafted HTML

I spent the better part of this afternoon doing web production on a medium-sized site due to go live in a few weeks, so I thought I'd talk a little bit about how I like to work.

Now, there are many decent, hard-working web page composition programs out there, most notably Dreamweaver; and I have used them extensively...in the past. But I've come to the conculsion that for 90 percent of all HTML, XHTML, CSS, XML, PHP, and other acronymed web development work, I prefer to code by hand.

Old School!

Why? Well, once you learn the syntax, it's quicker. Trust me! And it allows you to create fast, clean code, without many of the pitfalls and extraneous bits that GUI-based programs like Dreamweaver can place into your pages without your knowledge. Anyone who has ever waded through Microsoft FrontPage-created webpage code will know what I am talking about.

Pretty much any text editor will do--even Microsoft Word, in a pinch--but I prefer BareBones Software's BBEdit. It's long been the de-facto standard in programming text editors, especially for web code writers. Why? Well, it's no-frills, function-specific approach to its interface is a big selling point.

And it is very user-friendly.

Case-in-point: it color-codes your code so you know if you are looking at an image source element, or a formatting element, or actual content, for example. Their motto: "It doesn't suck", says it all.

Yes, yes, Dreamweaver has a "code view" mode, so you can see the code as you mess about in GUI mode, but BBEdit also has a Preview mode, which allows you to see things as the browser will display them, so that arguement is a wash.

It comes down to this:
  • did you grow up in the age of learning BASIC in school?
  • Were you amazed when you found out that you could upgrade from a VIC-20 to a Commodore 64 and get all that extra processing power?
  • Did you make ASCII art with your dot-matrix printer?
If so, you will prefer to code by hand. If not, you will probably prefer something like Dreamweaver.

Not that I'm judging you.

So if you really want to understand what this web thing is all about, look at some of your favorite webpages using "View Source", borrow a copy of O'Reilly's HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide, and learn something new! Trust me, you'll love it!

posted at 9:15 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

11.23.2005

Notation



We all have our own ways of keeping track of things. I have adopted many of the industry-standard practices to keep jobs organized here in the shop...job jackets, routing numbers for each project, a big white board to keep track of current status, even software! But when I go to meet with clients, I like to look put-together; and showing up with a mere legal pad and ballpoint pen just doesn't do the trick for me. So every year or so, for the last three years, I've run down to Meinninger's and picked up a lovely, red leather-bound unlined journal. It's about three-quarters of an inch thick, and about five by seven inches in size. It's a great size to carry around, and not too big to be cumbersome.

In a meeting, or when creating ideas for a project, I simply write the job project number and the date in the upper left-hand corner, and start writing. Later on, I will transcribe important data (like client decisions on concepts) into a computerized note. And of course, I always keep the journal, as backup. This is great, because I end up with a chronological record of everythign I've bene working on. If I need to refer to a meeting I had earlier in the week, I simply page through the week's entries. Even finding somehting written down months ago takes just a few seconds. It's a nice, low-tech system.


But I am finding some disadvantages to this system. First, you have to remember to have it handy. This may seem like second nature to one who carries a purse or european man's handbag, but I don't, and while I have made a habit of taking it with me whenever I stroll out the door for anything, sometimes I forget, and end up jotting notes down on a napkin or something (not as professional as I'd like, but us artistic types can get away with a lot more than, say, someone with an MBA who works as a CFO). Also, since the journal is made up of bound pages, everytime I want to cc stuff into the job folder, I have to either make a copy (using the copier at Kinko's, or scanning then printing the page, as we are a copier-less office here), rip the page out of the journal, or copy it by hand. All not ideal options.

But I really, really like it. So, any suggestions for me? I have about 20 pages left until I have to make a decision. That's about two weeks. Let me know!

posted at 2:46 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

11.21.2005

blocked

So, you if might imagine that good designers are trained to never run out of ideas, you would be wrong. Like any creative professional, we occasionally run out of gas. It helps to have some inspiration around (see the post below for more on that), but often, one has to take a break and stop being used to the feeling of banging your head against a brick wall.

I try all sorts of stuff to get out of my creative ruts, and not keeping "normal" business hours helps. Mind, I am ALWAYS available during so-called normal hours to take calls, and am schedulable for meetings and what-not during those times...but it doesn't mean I feel the need to chain myself to my desk from eight to five every day. Now THAT is a way to crush the creative spirit! So, with this more flexible schedule, I can go cycling in the mornings (which I do almost every morning, as it's a great way to have solutions pop into my head and fight off "office belly"). I can pull out one of the many creative problem-solving games given to me by friends and associates. I can sort through my PEZ collection. Or I can get away for a hike or a quick walk with the kids.

The one thing I try not to do is stay in front of my computer; when I'm in a rut, it tends to suck my time away, rather than make me more creative.

The point I am trying to make is this: what we think of as the "standard workday" is an invention of the Industrial Age, suited to workers who do repetitive tasks. Go back in time and ask a blacksmith in the 1600s if he worked a solid eight hours; or a sculptor; or even a farmer. These guys would work like crazy when there WAS work to do--and often worked from before dawn to after dusk--but they didn't try and make work for themselves just for the sake of hanging around a workplace. I think it is time for more of us to work smarter, and therefore allow our brains and bodies the time in-between spurts of good work to rest, recharge, and think of ways to do our work even better.

n.b. After consulting this article, you can see that the average work-hours per year was a bit higher back in the 17th c., but I think my point's still valid, especially if you look at the 19th-century hourly numbers...which are the ones I am referring to in the first paragraph. This article from the Guardian is also interesting.


posted at 6:25 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

11.18.2005

Blogging from E-mail

The ubiquitous blogosphere never rests, and you can even contribute to it from your cell phone, blackberry, laptop, et. al. This post is being written from my e-mail program, here in my nice comfy office, but I could be blogging from a coffee-shop. Or the Sahara Desert, or Antarctica, or wherever...the point is, you can be your own remote correspondent, which is kind of cool.
Old hat for veteran bloggers, but I get excited easily.
In other events, I started a brand re-imagining for a client today, so I am stoked. STOKED! I think that some clients may view my stok-i-tude with amusement, but what can I say? I love this stuff. Almost as much as chocolate mousse or Italy in the Fall. Sigh.

posted at 7:07 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

Post Secrets




A very interesting blog, which at last count had over 15,000 links to it, caught my eye the other day. It's Post Secret, an online visual diary of anonymous postcards sent to an address, then scanned, and posted online. These cards detail little--and large--confessions of their senders.

Why hear about this in a design blog? Well, the postcards are very interesting, visually. The seem to serve as totems for the authors' fears; almost like the eponymous Native American totem poles, these cards are created to serve as a vessel and a storybook for their transgressions, which I find facinating.

posted at 1:43 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

11.17.2005

Fonts, Fonts, Everywhere

Well, I just spent the last two hours culling duplicate, corrupt, and unwanted fonts from my Mac, and let me tell you: there's a reason I've been putting it off for so long. I had over 750 separate font files, comprising over 200 distinct typeface families, sitting around. It's by far NOT the largest font library around, even within a two-mile radius, I'm guessing; but it nearly brought my little first-generation TiBook to its knees.

Apple has its FontBook application for managing fonts, which comes as part of the operating system. I use the term "managing" loosely here, as it is nowhere near as powerful as the old Adobe Type Manager Deluxe was on the Classic pre OSX platform. But it's what I have, and I haven't had time to find a decent font-management tool, yet. But others have, and I will be reviewing them here, at some point as well. I ended up finding every single font file on my Mac, spread over six different locations, and plopped them into one directory so I could see what I had. Oh, and there was one file in there that kept quitting my OS everytime I saw it being listed in my Finder window...argh. Eventually I got them separated into usable but unused, often-used, system-necessary, and plain junkable categories.

I ended the evening by archiving about 50 font families that I haven't touched in over three years...I'll break them out of mothballs if I really need to, but I suspect they're in cold storage for good. I still have a fair number of active typefaces: over 130 faces made up of almost 500 distinct variations...should be good enough for most projects; and hey, if nothing fits the bill--well, I love having an excuse to go buy more typefaces!

posted at 10:35 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

11.16.2005

You Talk, I Record

I bought a Griffin iTalk today, to help me keep track of our creative musings in meetings. It basically makes your iPod a voice recorder. The best reason for something like this is so now I can focus on actually having a conversation with clients, rather than jotting into my notebook. I can then transcribe relevant notes later on.

This will let me be more "there", when I'm there.

posted at 7:10 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

11.15.2005

Job Board

It's always nice to see a nearly-full job board. All those pretty lists of projects, stages, job numbers, and deadlines!

It's something that makes a design shop owner's heart warm, and at the same time sends his mind scrambling over the rocky terrain of arranging deadlines, work sessions, meeting prep, and conceptual sketching sessions. But it always works out, and the clients are always happy. Always? Well, yes. Because if they're not happy, we aren't happy, and we come back to the shop and Do Better. That's the one rule at Notchcode: A Happy Client is a Good Client.

I was going to write a screed about how surprising it was to me to find out that a lot of shops tend to ignore this rule with long-time clients, but it seems a bit unnecessary. After all, customer service is king, in a service economy, no?

Anyhow, we think happy clients are important, so we make that a priority. And it feels great today to be making so many people happy. Now if I can just find an extra four and a half hours tomorrow afternoon, I think I can squeeze in that nap I need...

posted at 8:59 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

Today's Plug for a Designer that's Not Me:

Heather, is there anything you can't do?

Webmonkey, Project Manager, Non-Profit Web-synergistic Guru, Strategic Designer, and so much more: check out my pal, Heather. And hire her! Don't take my word for it, though. Talk to any one of the scores of organizations that have benefitted from her multitudinous skill-set. Like an octopus, but in a good way, she has her arms around all the sides of your problem.

She even has one of these "blog" things I keep hearing about, here.

posted at 7:26 AM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

11.14.2005

Inspiration?


Ever wonder what a designer looks at all day?

Well, now you have your answer, for one of them, at least.

My first design mentor, Ellen Bruss, had an enormous wall full of interesting stuff, pinned up for inspiration. It's a great way to relax your brain and let it wander around for a creative impulse. My only regret is that my wall is nowhere near as large as Ellen's was.

Well, someday, my wall will come...

posted at 8:30 AM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

11.13.2005

Bzzzzz.....

If you live in the Denver Metro area, and are a graphic designer, you owe it to yourself to join the AIGA and head on down to BUZZ, every third Tuesday at Paris on the Platte. They discuss a lot of issues that matter to people who own their own shops, who are looking to make their shops run better, and who want to meet other designers.

Plus, it's hosted by the first place I drank coffee habitually, and even sang and played guitar, as a kid. Ahhh, memories. But I'll be going to hear about the differences of an S-Corp versus an LLC for my business structure, this Tuesday. Times have changed, haven't they?

posted at 7:34 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

11.12.2005

Things I be working on

Some updates on some interesting projects I'm working on lately:
  • a website for a mountain-states book publisher, including commerce back-end integration;
  • a website for a photographer in the Northeast;
  • a website for a new and very busy law firm in Florida;
  • and a nice booklet for an existing client, celebrating a major milestone in their existence.
All very cool stuff. The first three mentioned are for new clients, too, which is always fun! I'll mention certain techniques and design problems that we overcome on these projects as we apply them, so stay tuned for updates.

Speaking of technique, we've been coding all our static stuff using exclusively CSS 2.1 to style and layout pages...unlike the site you're reading this on, notchcode.com. It was created way back in the late '90s, and table tags were the only way to come even close to managing design layout. Who knows, maybe someday we'll have enough "free time" to actually re-code our own site in CSS! These days, of course, you have a lot of options, but CSS is the one for me. And with great CSS wizards out there, showing off their technique and encouraging us design professionals to learn from them, I think CSS is here to stay for some time.

posted at 7:45 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments


So, It's been a really long time since I've used this blog...and I'll be posting it here at Notchcode, once again. This blog will try to focus on design, photo, and web issues, and not personal stuff. I also will not talk about specific clients, or their jobs unless they approve it in advance...we value our clients' trust in us, and don't run off at the mouth.

Today's featured site is PositionIsEverything.Net, which is a wonderful resource for people like me who make at least part of their living making web sites look great. I recently used their trick on 3-column layout for a client, who wanted a navigaitonal sidebar that was always only as high as the content of the body cell to the right of the sidebar--no more, no less. This is not easy to do, as you know (if you're a web designer). So check out the hint...it's pretty cool, and rather easy.

posted at 7:17 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments


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