Notes from Notchcode

providing graphic design, branding, photography and marketing expertise to denver and the world

Quote of the Week:

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

-Gaston Bachelard

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Notes from Notchcode

2.03.2010

One more reason to stop using Internet Explorer 6 and upgrade already

Google announced that it's discontinuing support of Internet Explorer 6. This is welcome news, as it's one of the largest resource sinkholes any web developer has to face when working on site design and development. And there are some much better, more compliant browsers out there for people to use, in any case. Now, some organizations' audiences still skew heavily toward IE6, and I (and others) will assuredly continue to develop sites that are IE6 compliant when necessary; but I think it's safe to say that it's no longer a standard that most developers will hew to automatically.

Google is the latest, not the first, large web-based concern to move away from IE6 compliance. IE6 accounts for just over ten percent of total browser usage as of January 2010. That's down nearly 50% from January 2009. At this rate, IE 6 will account for something just north of 6% total user share by January 2011.

IE6 denial message image courtesy of RobotJohnny
Labels: usability, UX, W3C, web design

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12.16.2009

New microsite design for the Environmental Defense Fund is live

I worked with the fine folks at Fenton Communications last month to create a web page UX for the Environmental Defense Fund's Catch Shares advocacy program. The site went live late last week, and it's full of good info on how to take action to support this important effort.

The site design was done via a Photoshop master file, which took into account elements of the end-user's CMS that would be strictly CSS and php-based, as well as strictly graphical elements such as icons and the larger call to action image used in the main section of the landing page. I worked with Fenton to ensure we complied with EDF's new brand identity guidelines, and to make sure the graphics, language, and presentation stayed on-message and appealed to the target audience.

To see how things can change, subtly, between the final design phase and the coding and implementation, here's a side-by-side comparison of the final interface design and the executed, coded page. The fact that the CSS and PHP elements so closely match the design file is due to attention to the details of sizing, color, etc. on the design end, and the great follow-through on the coding end at the EDF.

Here's the design:

And the final site rendering. Note the change in language in the call to action image:

Labels: interface, nonprofits, UX, web design

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10.26.2009

GeoCities, we hardly knew ye (really, does anyone remember GeoCities?)

...I do!

Back in the day, there was a lot of cool content there. It was easy to set up a page and show the world how much you loved black backgrounds (wait...if you're seeing this blog in its native state, um, I guess you see how much we still love black backgrounds. Anyhoo....)

Well, xkcd is commemorating the closing of GeoCities, and you should check it out. It's brilliant.
Labels: humor, usability, web design

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9.25.2009

Getting grass-fed beef into the hands of people who love good food

We're working with Dan Merewether at Prairie Lane Ranch on a web site and online presence for his grassfed beef operation. Dan's ranch is located out in Karval, which is southeast of Limon on the Colorado prairie. I went out there last month to help bring in some of his herd for vaccinations and branding the new calves, and was very impressed with his approach to his cattle and the land on which they graze. You can visit the flickr set of my visit there and see how we walked the herd in; no horses, no motorcycles, trucks, or ATVs here to stress the cattle out.

You'll hear a lot more from Dan himself, once the site is completed; in the meantime, we've created a placeholder site for his ranch, with a link to a form to stay up to date on what's happening out on the plains. The ranch also has a Twitter presence. Check them out, and let us know what you think of it so far.
Labels: twitter, web design

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9.22.2009

Slow blog month, obviously!

It's been a slow month at the blog, so I appreciate the robots, passive readers, and (most importantly) loyal fans who haven't hit the "delete" button in their feed-readers yet.

Some news:

We're updating notchcode.com at the moment. Right now it's got the basic new framework, but not a lot of content. The new front page can redirect you to the old content (including the blog, for now) until we get the new site fully functional. Anyone who has some good ideas for how to integrate our notchcode into the fluid css of the site, e-mail me and you'll win a prize if we use it!

Aside from the new site, we have two new kindergardeners in the house, so that's kept us very busy:

Labels: web design

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9.03.2009

Mmmmm...beefy.

I'm working on a nice social media and online branding campaign for a small family ranch in eastern Colorado, and it's a heck of a lot of fun. I'll point you to a placeholder site page once we have it up, and then we'll be moving into a content rich, visually enjoyable site experience where you can find out all you ever wanted to know about what ranch life is like, what you can do with a Pikes Peak Roast, and what the heck "certified Angus Beef" means, anyway. The owner of the ranch is a great writer, so I expect the site to be not just a great place to buy your beef, but also a nice window into the world of a small family ranch.
Labels: beef, food, social networking, twitter, web design

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7.23.2009

XHTML 2 dumped, HTML 5 ascendant. Does it matter?

Here's the short version: XHTML was based on XML, back in the '90s when people thought XML was the future.

As mentioned in Techworld.com a while back:

XHTML 2 will not become a W3C standard, [W3C spokesperson Ian] Jacobs said. "We're investing in HTML 5 for the future," he said. Work stops on the XHTML language, but W3C still plans an XML formulation of HTML 5, to be done by the HTML working group.

A prominent AJAX and web development proponent applauded the W3C decision.

Firefox and Safari also include HTML 5 support, as well as Google's Chrome and Android.

So, what's the practical difference for us web designers and developers; people who need to know the code underneath the user experience, but aren't necessarily considered "coders"?

XHTML info from Mike:
XHTML 2.0 is based solely on XML, forgoing the SGML heritage and syntax peculiarities present in current web markup. XHTML 2.0 is supposed to be a “general-purpose language,” with a minimal default feature set that is easy to extend using CSS and other technologies (XForms, XML Events, etc). It’s a modular approach that allows the XHTML2 group to focus on generic document markup, while others develop mechanisms for presentation, interactivity, document construction, etc.

...and HTML 5:
While XHTML 2.0 aims to be revolutionary, the HTML working group has taken a more pragmatic approach and designed HTML 5 as an evolutionary technology. That is to say, HTML 5 is an incremental step forward that remains mostly compatible with the current HTML 4/XHTML 1 standards. However, HTML 5 offers a host of changes and extensions to HTML 4/XHTML 1 that address many of the faults in these earlier specifications.

Read his post for more.

Another post explaining the difference had a nice example of the structural, easy-to-understand nature of XML:

<farm>

<barn>

<horses>10</horses>

<tools>

<hammers>1</hammer>

<shovel>2</shovel>

</tools>

</barn>

<field>

<cows>8</cows>

<pigs>30</cows>

</field>

</farm>

The structure shows the hierarchy of elements, and makes no effort to style of make them act a certain way. XHTML is simply a version of HTML that is valid XML code.

HTML 5 will contain more support for web applications, APIs, and other stuff that wasn't as built-into earlier versions of HTML. And as mentioned above, it will be (mostly) backward-compatible with BOTH HTML and XHTML.

So why, or should, we care? Probably not a lot, at the moment. But be prepared to make adjustments in the nearish future, and bone up on the new specification with the Definitive Guide of your choice. O'Reilly, here I come, once again!
Labels: advice, coding, W3C, web design, XHTML

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6.01.2009

CoTrip.org has a new interface

For travelers in Colorado, the state's Department of Transportation has given you a little gift for your summer journeys: an updated user interface at their site, CoTrip.org. They've smoothed out user interactions for finding traffic cameras (something I look at when planning a ride in metro denver, or heading up to the mountains to go skiing), and the programming seems to have speeded up load times as well. At first glance, it's a great improvement over the functional but hard-to-navigate version I was looking at just a couple of weeks ago.

A few other items worth noting: all the most-accessed info is now right there on the front page, including latest road conditions/weather, traffic speeds, and alerts.

Labels: usability, visual information, web design

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4.21.2009

For those of you who think print is dead:

Did a little research on search terms over at Google Trends yesterday. Think print is still dead?

"Print" is three and a third times more searched than "interactive". I admit that "print" may be a bit more broad a category, as it isn't used as exclusively in media-lingo as "interactive" is, but it's worth a little more research. I'm sure there's lots out there. Send it to me for my edification.

"Graphic design" and "web design" were closer, as were "advertising" and "interactive".

Note that these results are limited to searches within Colorado, over the last 12 months.
Labels: printing, web design

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3.06.2009

Web Interfaces: Not just about the hockey stick, people.

I love the variety of purpose-driven interfaces that you can leverage to deliver info on the web successfully:

This, and a heck of a lot more, here.
Labels: information graphics, interface, usability, web design

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3.02.2009

Top 3 % in blogs: that is us, people.

I don't want to make too much of it, since there are still a couple million blogs ahead of this one, but a recent analysis of our blog at Notchcode shows it ranking in the top 3.58% of all blogs, everywhere. And the notchcode.com site? Despite it's antiquated layout and design (we put it up in 2002 and haven't refreshed it since, being busy with work, and all) it has a respectable Google PageRank of 4 (same as a number of "hipper" agency sites in town) and with over 3,000 inbound links and a bunch of other stats, it's in the top 10% of all sites, according to Alexa.

A lot of this probably has to do with the longevity of the site. It's been up and running for nearly ten years, (although similar sites with longer uptime have been ranked lower), and we've got a lot of traffic and referrers pointing our way. Plus--hopefully--we're actually serving up some useful content to everyone.

Not that this makes us complacent. We'll be completely redoing the site this year, with a nicer UI and easy to use CMS tool, get a little SEO-fu integrated into the site, and make things generally more interesting. But it is nice to know we're still being seen and heard, despite (what the trolls say) our "lame" site. We plan on hitting the top 1% in blogs and top 5% in sites, so watch out.
Labels: blogs, seo, web design

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2.24.2009

A user interface straight from a 1990's German car radio

VW has been using this blaupunkt-style navigation menu interface for a couple of years now, and even when it was new, it looked pretty old.

Takes up a lot of space, too, and doesn't integrate with the look and feel of anything on the rest of the site. Wassup with that, VW? I love the chunky german radios in your older cars as much as the next guy, but what are they doing on my computer monitor?

Labels: branding, cars, interface, usability, visual information, web design

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2.11.2009

Local Business Plug o' the Week: Indra's Net

I do a lot of web design, website development, and website consulting--in addition to the marketing, print design, etc.. Probably 60-75% of my current in-house project load is web work. That means lots of web hosting!

The range of clients' web-hosting-savvy is pretty broad: everything from people who have had a web presence since the mid '90s at the same provider, all the way through clients who are getting a site up for the first time and don't know what they need.

I've dealt with discount and higher-end web host providers, both national and local, and have one recommendation for anyone who wants web hosting done right: Indra's Net.

They have been in the biz forever, and have excellent people, facilities, and services for all sorts of web implementations. 24/7/365 live local support is a given, as is their friendly, non-condescending attitude when you need to get some advice.

They aren't the cheapest. But they are the best I've found. And that makes a difference worth paying for.

The real Bonus: they are right up the road in Boulder!
Labels: b2b, colorado, web design

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2.03.2009

Browser window tools: how big is my browser?

Came across this today:

And I'm reposting Bakedal's study on actual browser window sizes here because I can never find the link when I need it. Like now. You might also find it useful.
Labels: web design

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1.26.2009

Why You Should Celebrate Your Mistakes

I've been literally snowed under here in Denver today, with 6+ inches of snow keeping me in the office while I work on a web site design for a great client, and help others plan their content management strategies. So, in lieu of any original thoughts today, I wanted to share the best post I saw so far this week., from Zen Habits:

Here's a little reminder about why humility and humanity are so important in business, in design, in art in life: Zen Habits' most recent post, excerpted in part, here.

Why You Should Celebrate Your Mistakes:

...mistakes should be cherished and celebrated for being one of the most amazing things in the world: they make learning possible, they make growth and improvement possible.

By trial and error — trying things, making mistakes, and learning from those mistakes — we have figured out how to make electric light, to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, to fly.

........

Think about how we learn: we don’t just consume information about something and instantly know it or know how to do it. You don’t just read about painting, or writing, or computer programming, or baking, or playing the piano, and know how to do them right away.

Instead, you get information about something, from reading or from another person or from observing usually … then you construct a model in your mind … then you test it out by trying it in the real world … then you make mistakes … then you revise the model based on the results of your real-world experimentation … and repeat, making mistakes, learning from those mistakes, until you’ve pretty much learned how to do something.

......

So if you value learning, if you value growing and improving, then you should value mistakes. They are amazing things that make a world of brilliance possible.

Celebrate your mistakes. Cherish them. Smile.

—

(Via Zen Habits.)
Labels: advice, performance, web design

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1.22.2009

Notchcode Creative and the Native American Community Development Corporation announce the launch of the new NACDC.ORG website

The Native American Community Development Corporation launched their new website today, allowing stakeholder communities, funders, and the general public to easily access information about this important organization and their work. Notchcode helped them make it happen.

About the NACDC, and what they needed in a website

The NACDC works with Native communities to address underlying factors that inhibit economic development and the productive use of available financial capital. NACDC focuses its efforts in key areas to include financial education, housing, the re-acquisition of indian lands, agricultural lending, small business development and finance, and school-based mini-banks for students.

The NACDC's new website needed to be functional for its audience, and inform prospective funders and current stakeholders about the programs and initiatives that advance the mission of the organization. The website offers an inexpensive outreach option for a group that is dedicated to smart allocation of resources, and focuses primarily on its programs. Current Tribal partners, as well as prospective partners, can use the site to find out more about the initiatives the corporation has that would benefit them. Prospective funders and granting organizations can get supplemental information on the NACDC, facilitating funding decisions and further discussion of their goals.

Notchcode worked with NACDC staff to identify the best information architecture to meet the outreach and marketing needs of the organization, as well as presenting the organization as best in class for Tribal community financial outreach and education.

About the web site's new design and interface

The new web site was designed by Notchcode Creative, working closely with the NACDC, to showcase the vitality that their organization brings to Native American communities nationwide. An analysis of audience needs, demographics, and usage patterns resulted in an improved information architecture and W3C-compliant user interface. An existing financial education minisite is also integrated into the site.

The website also incorporates a new brand identity, developed by Nakota Designs, a Native American branding and design firm. They collaborated with Notchcode to deliver source files which Notchcode staff adapted for use on the site. Notchcode also utilized the brand's typographic and color themes to integrate the site into the organization's other anticipated marketing efforts.

Online donations integrated and trackable

Notchcode also integrated an online donation component throughout NACDC.org, utilizing Groundspring and Network For Good's Donate Now! suite of online tools. Donors can make singular or recurring donations from any page on the NACDC site. Each page has a unique tracking code for donations, enabling the NACDC staff to analyze what page content generates the highest value donations.
Labels: b2b, b2c, clients, interface, nonprofits, W3C, web design

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1.20.2009

Change Comes to the White House Website

There will be time later for a more thorough analysis of the new look and feel of the Obama Administration's revamp of the site of the Executive Office of the President, whitehouse.gov, but in the meantime, the folks at NashvilleIsTalking.com have a visual comparison of the before and after images of the old and new home pages.

The first thing I noticed is that the glossy button effect on the left side of the feature pane ("Change has come to America") is carried over into the photo (or rather, over the photo) that appears to the right. Nice way of tying both of them together. It's a subtle enough effect that you might have a hard time seeing it, but such subtle acts of integration speak well of the attention that has been paid to the website refresh.
Labels: interface, web design

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1.16.2009

It always feels good, even when it's soft

By which I mean launching a website.

I'm putting the finishing touches on a nonprofit site this afternoon, in preparation for a soft launch--that is to day, launching the site without telling anyone. So, of course, I can't tell you who it's for.

Yet.

Stay tuned. It's a nice site, for a great cause.

Labels: marketing, web design

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1.14.2009

Thoughts on Hirschfeld declaring bankruptcy, and the future of newspapers

102 years old and Bankrupt

I heard yesterday what was made official today: National Hirschfeld was closing their doors, citing a lack of financing. Over 250 people were laid off immediately. Hirschfeld had been in business in Denver for 102 years.

I have also heard from industry insiders that national Hirschfeld owed nearly $2 million to at least two paper vendors, along with debts to other smaller vendors.

Hirschfeld had a number of reputations in town. For a while they were the go-to printer for large offset work, and even some web, depending on who they were competing against. They wanted the big-name, glamor pieces, and would price aggressively to get them. Because they had so much printing capacity on the floor they often underbid the competition by a substantial amount in order to keep the presses running.

Unfortunately, I never had much luck with the projects I sent to Hirschfeld. I would say well over half of them developed issues related to poor prepress preparation of the job, inadequate proofing internally, and a lack of attention to detail. This caused myself--and many of my design colleagues--to avoid printing at Hirschfeld whenever possible. I hadn't sent a job there in over eight years. But Hirschfeld kept rumbling along, powered by Barry Hirschfeld's good humor, charisma, and an eventual merger with two of the other largest printing concerns in town.

But in the end, even Barry's smiles, bow tie, and glowing white halo of hair couldn't keep things moving. National Hirschfeld is declaring chapter 7 bankruptcy; the presses and other assets will be liquidated in order for outstanding debts to be (at least partially) repaid.

What does this mean for designers?

As a designer with over 15 years' experience in print, it's disheartening to see any established printer go. Even though Hirschfeld wasn't one of my preferred vendors, the reduction in competition will hurt, a little. And I feel the pain of the prepress folks, the pressmen, and the sales reps that all worked hard to get our projects turned into a tangible product.

Mostly, however, it's a sign that, as a designer, if you're not diversified into online, experience, or other forms of interactive design, you'd better get started. Print will never completely go away--it's an important part of almost any integrated marketing campaign--but that's just what it is: a part.

The future of the printed newspaper

On a related note, I listened to two good podcasts this morning regarding the future of the printed newspaper. The local angle was handled by Colorado Matters, produced by Colorado Public Radio. They interviewed Mike Littwin, columnist for the beleaguered Rocky Mountain News, and Andrew Hudson, former press secretary for Wellington Webb (among other things) and man-about-town. The upshot was that the Rocky is probably going out of business, despite its history as a founding father of the city of Denver. Hudson would like to save it as a cultural institution, using a sales tax to support its operation.

On June 12th's broadcast of Fresh Air, Terry Gross interviewed the former managing editor of the Washington Post and the publisher of the Christian Science Montitor. She discussed the future of the printed news with both of them. Both interviewees said that while the daily paper may be in decline, journalism has never been stronger. Delivery of a newspaper's product online has a broader reach, and in the end, may provide the successful way out for newspaper companies. The Christian Science Monitor, for example, will cease publishing a daily paper, and go all-online with its daily content. A weekly edition will remain in print.

The CSM's strategy seems like a good one. Reading ink-on-paper newspapers is more of a luxury, and something that you like to take your time doing. I get the Sunday New York Times delivered to my door, and I take two days to get through it (longer than that for the Crossword). I read the Times' website during the rest of the week because it's more convenient, and more in step with my workweek pace. Don't doubt that the Times, with around $1 billion in debt, won't be watching the Monitor's strategy unfold. I wouldn't be surprised if, by 2011, even the Gray Lady will be cutting her newsprint diet back to one helping a week.
Labels: advertising, advice, b2b, b2c, customer service, denver, graphic design, paper, press check, print, printing, web design

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1.13.2009

Non-Profit Design Feature: Education

I'm in the process of redesigning the website for our childrens' preschool, Steele Cooperative Preschool. The current site is static, and takes someone with knowledge of HTML to maintain it. This makes even small changes (like tuition amounts, which change yearly) hard for the layperson to perform. I'll be using Joomla to create an easy-to-use, simple-to-maintain website for the Co-Op, which will allow parents and teachers to spend more time where it counts: in the classroom!

You can check out these resources if you want to know more about the cooperative preschool model.

As long as I'm talking about education nonprofit design work: I also wanted to show off the work I did in the 2004 general election cycle for the National Education Association. They needed an information packet and resource guide for their campaign to raise awareness of education issues in the general election, and asked us to design the components. We created an original visual concept, to match the information and delivery concepts the NEA staff had created. The result won a Pollie award, as a component of their online campaign (which was handled by CTSG/Kintera).
Labels: graphic design, nonprofits, web design

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12.31.2008

You know what I am FOR SURE doing in 2009?

REDESIGNING THIS WEBSITE. It is so old it's set in TABLES. Which is basically the web developer's equivalent of a "Your momma's so fat" joke. Ugh.

I have some solid ideas for how I am going to retool the site, but anyone who has advice, send it to me. Don't spare me my feelings, either--straight shootin' is what we're all about out here.
Labels: web design

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12.17.2008

Website refresh: BalePhoto.com goes live!

I created a website a couple of years ago for Andrew Bale, an excellent photographer and teacher in Pennsylvania. After it was up and running for a while, we both wanted to make some tweaks.

The refresh of the website has just launched, and it looks and works great. Check it out at BalePhoto.com.

The main differences are in the portfolio categories, and in the way we present the images. They are similar to the galleries I used for CarlSanderSocolow.com, but more refined: we have back/forward/close functionality (both by clicking on the image, and using the keyboard). And the load time is better.

Andy was great at letting me know what he wanted the site to do, and what his priorities were. In some cases, you have to sacrifice one preference in favor of another, and he knew what he wanted. I was also able to show him some alternatives that presented opportunities for usability and presentation that make his images look good.

But, really, a photography portfolio site is only as good as the images in it; Andy has some lovely and compelling work, and I hope you head over and check it out!

Congrats, Andy!
Labels: branding, interface, photography, web design

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12.10.2008

Six marketing ideas for a recession

Now that the recession is "official", why not use it as an excuse to tighten things up?

Not tighten your belt, necessarily, but tighten up the way you use your marketing? What serves you well in a recession will serve you well when times are good, too. So, to that end, I bring you:

Six marketing ideas for use in a recession (and when things bounce back):

The amuse-bouche.

Give your clients a little something extra, that you enjoy doing and also benefits them.

Nontraditional uses of traditional marketing pathways

Forget about the coupon in direct mail. What about a "secret word" that brings your customers a discount or access to special services...that only "select" people receive via your permission-based email blasts...or getting your clients involved in an online dialog that benefits all of them (on your site, of course)...none of these suggestions are groundbreaking, but think about how much they cost, compared to traditional direct mail, etc....

Redefine what "essential" is, in relation to marketing and brand expressions

What's more important: meeting someone face-to-face, or sending ten people a direct mail piece talking about your services? Getting new clients, or strengthening ties with existing ones? Or both? Having that nice rounded die-cut corner on your letterhead, or spending that extra $250 on overhead for an informational seminar for your clients?

Now is the time to think hard about what you really need, and why you are using the marketing strategy you currently employ.

Less is more, and now's your chance to prove it

Do you really need a fax machine? Need a fax number on your business card? When was the last time you actually sent a fax versus an e-mail? Use cost-trimming as an excuse to streamline your communication pathways, clearing out the chaff of old technology and ways of thinking and replacing them with methods and channels that are relevant to your audience.

An opportunity to enter new markets or new marketing channels

How about an iPhone app that pushes relevant info to your target market? Outdoor advertising to get someone's attention focused on your issue? Permission-based e-mail campaigns to build brand impressions? If you haven't thought about these options, now is a good time to do so. Why? Because approaching people from another angle allows you to catch them off guard, and hopefully even give them information or motivation that they really need in order to get your company in their life.

Redefine your brand

Why not? If things are really going down the tubes, take a hard look at your existing brand. Is it reflective of your organization, your product, and your culture? Does it address the relationship between your organization and the public at this moment? What about in five years? Time and money spent refining your brand right now, when things are down, will get paid back in spades down the road, as other organizations play catch-up.

What are some ideas you have? Let's hear about them in the comments!

photo by jtloweryphotography
Labels: advertising, advice, b2b, b2c, branding, clients, creativity, design, graphic design, marketing, nonprofits, process, productivity, small business, web design

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12.09.2008

When are enough revisions enough?

The short answer is: when either your budget is exhausted, or your are satisfied that it's perfect, whichever comes first.

Why a set number of revisions in an agreement?

Some graphic design and web design clients may have trouble respecting your revision cycle. That's why designers have a set number of revision cycles for conceptual development and typographical edits built into their agreements. But it's up to the designer to keep the lines of communication open to make sure the client knows they are approaching the edge of the cliff that is The End Of The Revision Cycle.

What Happens if you don't tell them they have run out of time?

If you don't let a client know that they are nearing the end of the revision cycle, expect to pick up the tab of your client's extra revisions; it's unprofessional to let them keep revising and revising and then expect them to pick up the tab on a bunch of AAs without giving them fair warning. Additionally, it will help to keep the client's process tighter; if they know they only have a set number of shots at refining a concept down to razor-sharp accurate expression, then they WILL pay better attention. Trust me.

The end goal: a great design that does its job

In the end, the most important thing is making sure that the design clearly articulates the vision set forth by the objectives set forth by you and the client in the design brief. Keeping the lines of communication open, and having respect on both sides for each others' time and effort will go a long way to making this happen.
Labels: advertising, advice, branding, design, graphic design, performance, web design

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12.08.2008

Great Graphic Design makes everything better

One thing I remind people about all the time: everything anyone has ever made has been designed by someone. Great graphic design makes products, companies, and ideas more accessible by more people. Bad graphic design just makes products, companies, and ideas more opaque.

What differentiates the good from the bad? Lots of things. Focus. Brand integration. Accessibility. Grokability.

Paying someone $150, or $400, to design a logo will almost always result in bad design. Does that mean the designer who made it is not a good designer? Not necessarily. What it does mean is they aren't taking the time to find out what the essence of that brand should be. The same thing goes for paying a similar amount to design a website. Or a brochure. Even if you think about that money in terms of an hourly rate, rather than the value the design has for you (which is really how you should look at it), what does $150 translate to, in hours? I'll tell you: very, very little.

Would you trust a lawyer to draft the articles of incorporation for your business for $50? Would you let a $400 doctor operate on your heart?
Labels: advertising, advice, aiga, b2b, b2c, branding, graphic design, illustration, information graphics, interface, licensing, logo, marketing, nonprofits, packaging, process, ROI, seo, typography, visual information, web design, work

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11.30.2008

I hope it's a graphic designer they're hiring

Noticed this teeny-tiny "people wanted" ad on the front page of nytimes.com today....an ad for the CIA. Have a look at the nasty dithering in the background gradient! Nothing says "we're a government agency that's ten years behind the times" than a static GIF for an ad. For that matter, the "www" at the beginning of published URLs is also becoming quickly obsolete. If it is a compound word, or an acronym, and has a dot after it, followed by two or three other letters, (like, you know, .com or .tv) people get the fact that it's a URL:
Labels: graphic design, marketing, web design

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11.25.2008

Great Design Firms have Great Clients

A big slice of roasted turkey, heap of mashed potatoes and gravy, and a side of dressing for my wonderful clients and creative partners who have made this year so good (listed here in no particular order):

The Division of Reclamation, Mining, & Safety

the signage and exhibition display design projects, in particular were a lot of fun!

The National Association of Abandoned Mine Lands Programs

the National Conference branding, website, and print materials turned out great!

Leichtling & Associates

2 new websites and lots of book cover design

Gillingham & Associates

they were so successful that they were purchased by a larger firm--who kept the existing brand we developed for them

Walker Media

a new company branding effort and some product photography

Classical Public Radio Network

ongoing website support

Clear Creek Watershed Foundation

consulting with them on a branding effort, which helped them clarify their vision

University of Denver College of Law

work on a to-be-completed project, that is shaping up to be awesome

Colorado Organization on Adolescent Pregnancy, Parenting and Prevention

design and production of their annual report of pregnancy and prevention-related issues in Colorado [PDF]

Native American Community Development Corporation

an excellent website design, which is almost ready to launch

Whitman Interior Design

we're creating their website as I write this

Carl Socolow

we designed an excellent website for this Guggenheim-recipient photographer

Andrew Bale

a website design and subequent revision for another great photographer

Tamzin Architecture

notchcode did brand identity development and a website (in development) for this Evergreen-area architect

Rhombus CGI

a website design which builds on their existing branding and raises their profile
Labels: branding, design, graphic design, information graphics, web design

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11.13.2008

Open Source CMS tools like Joomla make it easy to manage your own content

For years I have hand-coded all my clients' websites. When developing a website it's just been the quickest, most reliable way to get the clean code I want. It makes me sound like more of a nerd than (I think) I am, really. Lately, however, I have a number of clients who need to update their own content on a daily or hourly basis. Conference websites, non-profit organization websites, NGO websites--they all utilize the web to get time-sensitive information to their audiences. This is where open-source Content Management Systems like Joomla or Drupal make it a breeze for the client to update their site.

It's also dead easy to develop for, once you learn the syntax and structure of these CMS tools. Joomla, especially, is very flexible when it comes to designing the user interface which is most appropriate for the information architecture and user base. Use of standard CSS for styling makes it easy to design a site to integrate with branding and other materials used by your organization.

I still manipulate a lot of the code by hand, just because it's easy for me; but the end result is a lot more dynamic than the static, XHTML-only sites many clients used to think of when they heard the term "website".

One example of a Joomla-based site I've recently developed is 4ToAll.org. It's the online companion to a national conference I created the branding and marketing materials for, which was held here in Colorado last month. Since the conference ended, the front page is now mostly a "thanks for attending" page, but check out the sections on the events, etc. at the top to see just how information-dense this site is!

Contact me today for more info on what notchcode can do to help your organization create a content-rich, dynamic website that anyone in your organization can administer.
Labels: CMS, web design

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9.30.2008

I am so glad I am not a full-time content manager

TO all the content managers in the world, WE SALUTE YOU!

I have just completed an initial content import for a lovely website I designed, for a national conference taking place in Colorado this fall. I did all the branding, too, and am assisting the organizers in other marketing-oriented ways as well. One of the things I am helping out with is getting all of the conference sessions, papers, tour descriptions, and other content up online. There's a lot of it. Well over a hundred thousand words' worth, by my back of the napkin calculation. And after all of that, all I can say is: I am glad I spend most of my time creating brands, and not managing online content. I am not wired to do it on a daily basis. That, and thank the music gods for the Talking Heads, who got me through the last 24 hours.
Labels: branding, coding, talking heads, web design

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8.12.2008

Downing Street has a new address

...on the web, that is. The British Prime Minister's office just updated their site, and it looks nice. My guess is it's either Joomla or Drupal-based, too. Either one would be perfect for a large staff to update the PM's site with ease, while maintaining an easy-to-use interface.

The overall layout is definitely designed to get information out to the masses. It's not fancy, but does provide a navigable front door (if you will) for information relevant to Number Ten's audience. Visually, the palette is neutral, with a little slate blue to call attention to section headers and menus. I wish the site designer had been able to match the "10" from the iconic address a little more closely, especially in the main header, since it also includes the "10" graphic from the PM's front door. Something to shoot for later on, I guess.

From a content perspective, there's a lot of aggregation going on, which makes this site a vast improvement, say, over the White House's less interesting site (sorry Yanks, it's dull, without much to offer in terms of aggregation or interactivity): flickr, YouTube, and Twitter are all here. A secondary sidebar has some more static info...an interactive tour of the residence, a bio of Churchill, and a guide to the new site. The majority of the space is for press releases and news.
Labels: politics, web design

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7.28.2008

Site Refresh: eMusic

Looks like eMusic has updated their user interface. And increased the number of uploads for basic accounts from 30 to 40, too!

From the presser on 7/22:

Beginning today, eMusic customers will not only see album information and track-listing on the page, they will see imported content from YouTube, Flickr and Wikipedia for the artist whose music they are exploring.

eMusic’s “taste-making” customers can also now share their finds outside the eMusic community. They can bookmark the album page or send it to their social network feed on 18 of the most popular social media sites, including Facebook, Digg, Del.icio.us, Twitter, Stumble Upon and more. eMusic will add support for more sites over time.

Here are the old (left) and new (right) interfaces:

Definitely more "Web 2.0"-ish...glossy buttons (these are getting a tad overused, yes?), mixed with the Leopard-style njonmetallic gray rewind/play/forward buttons...it's a little confusing, graphically. But there is more content there, and it is slicker than the previous interface, which made it's debut about a year ago (according to the wayback machine, anyhow).

The logo and top navigation takes up less space, which optimizes the usable area for content, and the "25 FREE DOWNLOADS" isn't omnipresent everywhere, which also makes for a better experience. The overall navigational structure hasn't changed much, which is good...the browseability is retained, with some added context brought to the table by eMusic's integration with feeds from other content providers.
Labels: design, interface, web design

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5.02.2008

Making a case for good marketing...even when the economy stinks

Oh, Closet Entrepreneur, you've just made my morning. Their post from yesterday warns businesses not to skimp on

advertising,

Website development and design, and

Freelance services.

It's like they built the yellow brick road right up to my office door.

If you're in the market for any or all of these items, it just so happens that notchcode offers high-quality branding, marketing, advertising, and website development and design. And since I'm not part of your staff, I guess I qualify as a "freelance service" as well.
Labels: advice, branding, graphic design, web design

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4.21.2008

Ask the Design Director of nytimes.com a question

Designers: ever want to know why the New York Times' website looks or operates the way it does? What decisions go into the user interface and information architecture? Khoi Vinh, design director of NYTimes.com, is answering questions from readers April 21-25. Questions may be sent to askthetimes@nytimes.com. from the Times article about Mr Vinh:

As design director, Mr. Vinh leads a group of 11 visual designers, information architects and design technologists in continually improving and extending the user experience at NYTimes.com. Mr. Vinh also writes and lectures extensively about design and technology, and serves on the national board of directors for AIGA, the professional association for design.
Labels: design, information graphics, interface, newspapers, web design

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4.14.2008

Site Launch: CarlSanderSocolow.com photography

I completed a gallery site for Guggenheim Fellow Carl Sander Socolow this morning, and I encourage you to check out his work, entitled Scenes from Civic Life.

His latest project involves documenting the town of Mata Ortiz, in northern Mexico. He writes,
This work is a photographic study of the ongoing transformation of a number of heretofore isolated northern Mexican villagers into a community of world-class ceramic artists. This transformation is having a profound historic impact on their lives, the life of their village and on the social, economic and cultural life of the surrounding region. I began this project three-and-a-half years ago with the ambition of depicting the harmonies and paradoxes shaping these artists and their village as both are inexorably compelled, by virtue of an event in the history of art, to confront the modern economic and cultural world and find and take their place within it.

In a town of 3,000 people, more than 400 potters are now working in what has become recognized as a form of high art, he continues. This has an enormous impact on the economic and social life of Mata Ortiz, and Carl's documentation of it it touching for its humanity, artfulness, and compassion. These are real people in his images, not just stereotypes or one-dimensional characters. They are potters, fathers, mothers, daughters, cowboys, baseball enthusiasts, and more.

His other work from the US and europe are also worth viewing. His scenes of a debutante ball and of Venice are especially compelling.

Some notes on the site: we experimented with several navigation methods, including a sliding scroll of thumbnail images on the right side of the window, but eventually settled on an arrangement of squared-off elements of each photo, set in a grid, with links to the full image from each photo element. A Java Script runs the enlargement, which also includes title and date information. This format is hierarchically simple, and will make it easy for Carl to add more images whenever he wants by simply adding a thumbnail image to the grid, and linking it to a full-size image with the included script.

above: Courtship with Dog, Mata Ortiz, Mexico, 2004, © 2004 Carl Sander Socolow. All Rights Reserved.
Labels: art, clients, interface, photography, web design

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4.07.2008

...and if I code all four by then, I get a cookie!

I am web interface boy this week, with three web site projects all hitting the user interface design phase at the same time. What kind of project manager let that happen? Oh, right; that would be me. In any case, it's all good: doing a lot of the same sort of work can improve the quality of work done on all of the projects I'm working on...you get in a groove, and just keep refining and making things better. I told myself when I rolled out of bed this morning that if I got all three interfaces done by Wednesday I'd treat myself to an afternoon by myself at the art museum, or maybe the Museum of Contemporary Art.

I also have another site which had the final bits of content land in-house last week, and am hoping to get that completed and live. It's a great little site, and I can't wait to share it with you guys. Stay tuned.
Labels: art, interface, web design

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3.25.2008

sign Up Forms Must Die

From A List Apart:
You load a new web service, eager to dive in and start engaging, and what’s the first thing that greets you? A sign-up form. We can do better, says Luke Wroblewski, author of Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks. Via a technique of "gradual engagment," we can get people using and caring about our web services instead of frustrating them (or sending them to a competitor's site) by forcing them to fill out a sign-up form first.

Amen, brother.
Labels: interface, web design

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3.14.2008

Why typography matters online

This from the archives: a popular little link, short but sweet.

Today's tip: Typography does matter on the web. Really. A List Apart has a nice summary of why. One thing they mention that I've been telling people for about seven years: SHORT PARAGRAPHS GET READ. Oh, and don't capitalize whole words, much less sentences.

My favorite line from the 2001 article:

Cary Grant, that most stylish of British gentlemen, warned: "it takes five hundred small details to make one favorable impression."

This is a typographic truism (and really, a design truism) if I've ever heard one.
Labels: typography, web design

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2.09.2008

Best. 404. EVAR.

A lot of other designers have talked about how kickass the Barack Obama branding is, especially regarding how their site pulls it all together. But in case you head on over there on a day where their servers aren't overwhelmed by donors and news-seekers, this is what their 404 page looks like:

"Thanks to your overwhelming support,
our servers are a bit overwhelmed right now...."

What's great about this is that for one thing, it's not just a generic 404 page (which any smart company will already have replaced with a custom one). For another, the language speaks to the essential brand identity of Obama, that is to say: "hey, we are the underdog candidate, right? We're happily surprised that our server is being hammered right now. Isn't it cool?"

That subtext, reinforced by the subtle silhouette of the masses of people above the text, makes this one of the best 404/error pages I've seen.
Labels: design, illustration, interface, web design

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2.08.2008

Google Analytics part 2: tracking outbound links from within a Flash document using Google Analytics

>Geek-out alert<
Tracking intrasite links using GA is pretty easy: as long as you have the tracking code installed in the body of each page, Analytics is doing all the heavy lifting for you. The one exception would be if you have a Flash-based site, in which case you need to do the first half of the below bit. The second half applies to tracking outbound links, either embedded in a Flash file or in normal XHTML. Let's get to the Flash-embedded link-tracking first.

You can track any Flash or java-enabled event using Analytics. The trick is calling out to Analytics in each event (or action in Flash, say) using GA's JavaScript. Here's the note from Google. Specifically for Flash event, you just include an action that tells GA to create a link entry to a fake directory or page. Clicks on those actions in Flash are then recorded by GA as links to that directory/page, and you can then access stats for them in GA. Confused? Don't be, it's simple.

Say I have a map, like this one, and I want to know when people are clicking on, say, Boise. I would place this in the action for my Boise button:

on (release) {
// Track with no action
getURL("javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/city-clicks/boise');");
}
I'd then see an entry on my Analytics page for /city-clicks/boise and could measure how many times Boise was clicked. Remember, this works for _any_ action, not just clicks. Over, Hit, Release....lots of possibilities to measure how people interact with your Flash file here.

Now for part 2.

The map example above was developed for one of my clients, who needed a gateway page that their member public radio stations in different states could send people to when they wanted to donate money. They wanted one simple URL to announce on-air, to keep their branding and messaging consistent. Easy enough. As you can see on the example page, there's a list of stations below the map with clickable logos and text links to the member stations' giving/donation pages.

But we wanted something more compelling. Something that would make station location easy for geographically disprate listeners easy. The idea of a map came up, and we realized we could do something special with it in Flash: the user rolls their cursor over the map, landing on their city. The city's state is highlighted, and a balloon with the call letters and station logo appear, linked to the city location. Not too flashy, but it provides necessary information for the user (is this my station? If I click here am I giving to my station, or to someone else's?) and does it without making things too crowded (a list of stations and call signs or cities).

The problem was this: With all of this in Flash, Analytics has no way of tracking the links out to the member stations' donation pages. So all GA tells us is how many people visited the map page, not where they went afterwards. Not very useful when the client wants to be able to tell a particular station how many potential donors they sent them. Enter the JavaScript call mentioned above, but slightly modified.

Before we implemented this action, the action to send people from the Flash map to, say, Boise, looked like this:

on (release) {
getURL("http://radio.boisestate.edu/members.html");
}

...and they were sent on their way to KBSU in Boise. But they weren't being tracked.

So we added this:

on (release) {
getURL("javascript:urchinTracker('/outgoing/kbsu');");
getURL("http://radio.boisestate.edu/members.html");
}

and now Analytics reports each click for KBSU as a link to the fictional directory "/outgoing/kbsu", making it a breeze to track.

There are a few additional things to do, like placing your Analytics tracking code ABOVE the Flash element that contains your embedded tracking calls, but really it's pretty easy. I mean, it's not rocket science. So give it a try, and your Flash-based design clients will love you.

For more information on how to embed tracking code for outbound links, see these Google Analytics help documents:
How do I track Flash events?

How do I manually track clicks on outbound links?
Labels: analytics, flash, interface, seo, web design

posted at 7:30 AM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

2.07.2008

Why Google Analytics matters. Part one: the overview

>Geek out alert<

Tracking links within your site is really easy using the Google Analytics tool. Oldsters may know it as Urchin, too. To use GA, you place a little bit of JavaScript code in the body of your XHTML which basically sends info to Google whenever that page is accessed. Or maybe little gnomes do it. I am not a programmer. In any case, Google gets the info and you can assess your access stats for any page with this code on it from within the increasingly-ever-more-useful Google Analytics tool.
But Alan, you say, I am just a designer. Who cares? Let the programmers take care of all this stuff. Well, wouldn't it be nice to be able to tell your clients "hey, we can measure how your page is accessed, where people go within your site, and what is so unpopular you might want to consider sending it out on the ice floe to die with dignity"? These sorts of metrics help the client (and you) to assess the value of:
their content (information)
their site's structure (information flow)
the usability of their site's navigation (flow control)

How would you like to be able to tell a client "hey, you should structure your site in a certain way so as to maximize your revenue"? I bet they would be willing to pay you more for such value. Eh? Eh? Never dismiss (more importantly, never let your clients dismiss) the value of measurability.

Getting started in Google Analytics is easy. Head on over to www.google.com/analytics/ and get going. Really. If you have a gmail account you are pretty much ready to go. I'll let the online tutorials and Q&A take it from there.

Once you have a site set up, there are lots of ways you can use GA to analyze data. Lots of books have been written on this, so I won't go over much more here. Let's just say that you can assuredly show your clients how awesomely their content is (or isn't) being received. You can then use these stats to retool the site structure and content to better reach your audience with the content you really want them to see. The web is iterative, iterative, iterative, itera----- you get the idea.
Next post: Solving the problem of tracking outbound links (or any links, really) that are embedded within a Flash document.
Labels: analytics, flash, interface, seo, web design

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1.04.2008

The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web

If you are someone interested in hiring a designer or team to create/improve/reimagine your web presence, you owe it to yourself to know what the term "user experience" means. Sure, it means, basically, "how the user sees what is on the screen", but it's really a whole lot more involved than that.

I would recommend to anyone who touches a website project (from designers, to writers, to illustrators, to programmers, to clients) the book I'm reading now: The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web by Jesse James Garrett. Good info that you can go back to time and again for reference or additional understanding of underlying concepts. The diagram here is by Garrett (a snippet of a larger whole, which can be downloaded from his book's site) and is the basis for the idea that spawned the book. Check it out, and if you are intrigues in the least by what is there, buy the book. You won't be disappointed.

Labels: interface, visual information, web design

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1.03.2008

It's funny because it's true

This, from The Net is Dead, via Heather G-M:
The sad thing is this is (mostly) true. You can, actually, do anything a table can do in CSS, but there is a lot of tweaking to make things look lovely in all the browsers your client might require. The bit about Internet Explorer is completely true, and probably under-reports the amount of time we spend making any site work as expected in IE. The folks in Redmond follow their own laws. It's like they are vigilantes in an old-west movie, strutting into town while the marshall is out catching cattle rustlers, occupying his office and saying, "law? Law? Ma'am, we are the law, now."
Labels: css, humor, IE, visual information, W3C, web design

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12.03.2007

Ellen's got a new website

Ellen Bruss, my favorite boss of all time (from back when I had a boss), has a new website up for her firm, EBD. I'd like to say it was an incredible amount of foresight that made me recommend to Ellen that she use the very desirable three-letter "ebd.com" as her domain, way back in the mid-'90s, but really it was that I thought people would be too lazy to type out "ellenbrussdesign.com" into their browser. I can tell you this: I bet her domain is misspelled a lot less than mine.

This new site has a ton of whitespace in it: something we all wish more of our clients would allow into the concepts we create for them. It has a novel navigational grid, which overlays the viewing area. And lots of nice portfolio images from the last few years' of their environmental, collateral, print, identity, and web design work.

So: Yay Ellen, and crew! Good work.
Labels: ebd, ellen, flash, interface, web design, whitespace

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11.21.2007

Color

If you ever need some color inspiration, check out ColourLovers.com, an online community devoted to sharing ideas about color, color palettes, and trends. It's a great place for getting some inspiration, and if nothing else, an idea of what other designers out there are using.

Here's a particularly nice, cool, bold palette from deus that caught my eye this morning as I was searching for some inspiration.
Labels: advice, color, creativity, design, web design

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9.13.2007

Keep the Music Alive

i just finished a nifty little funding gateway page for a consortium of public radio stations that play classical music, and I am rather proud of the map. The rollover areas pop up little info bubbles with the location and logo of the stations represented. More stations will be added in the future.
Labels: flash, public radio, web design

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4.19.2007

Congrats, it's a website!

Launched another one of my babies into the world last night: ClearCreekWater.org is the website of the Clear Creek Watershed Foundation, an organization devoted to "sustainable watershed management". In english, that means they want to keep threatened waters safe to fish in, cycle by, play in, raft through, and drink--even when it's used my countless thousands of people each day. They have a very holistic approach to watershed management, and their site shows how important that is.

The site is four months in the making, on my end, and involved many hundreds of hours on the client's part, organizing reams of content into useful areas for their prospective users. While the current version of the site is fairly content-heavy, there's a lot of relevant information for their audience. In phase II of their web development plan, they will be adding more educational resources for teachers and students, and creating useful sections for the layperson with a casual interest in what a watershed is. Phase III is anticipated to bring forums and interactivity to the site. Stay tuned to their site throughout the year to see how it evolves!

For my part, this site was a great opportunity to use the Jello Piefecta self-adjusting CSS template from the folks over at PositionIsEverything.net. It's a nice, very compliant and accessible design model, and let us place a number of content areas on the page with minimal confusion and stress. I also experimented with some pop-out menus, using CSS, but they don't work in Internet Explorer without a little JavaScript help. I think it works well. Let me know what you think of it, if you have some time.
Labels: ccwf, clients, web design

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