<! — This is a repost of my entry on the Camp Firebelly blog yesterday: thought I would share it here, since I had a lot of fun writing it. Tomorrow is the last day of the workshop, so I’ll be sure to post a recap afterwards. — >
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<title>Keith is Awesome</title>
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<h1>Everything I Needed to Know (about coding), I Learned at Camp Firebelly</h1>
<p>When we received our assignments last week, I was really excited to be on the website team. Not only was it great to get to work with the others in my group and Jason Schwartz, among other guests, <! — thanks for the coding help Raphael! — > but I was really looking forward to getting to help code the site. After an intense weekend crash-course-marathon-coding-event, I have come to one conclusion: <strong>Keith is Awesome</strong>. </p>
<p>Now, I don’t want to suggest that any of the other Camp Staff members are any <em>less</em> awesome than Keith… (A special thanks goes out to Dawn for having us, Will for helping/learning along with our team, Antonio for supplying a great stock of movies, and his girlfriend for the most delicious cupcakes in Chicago.) However, over the course of the past weekend, Keith has managed to accomplish what two semesters of web-design classes were never able to do in college: I now feel like I understand what I am doing. How did he accomplish such a miraculous feat? Why, with Four Mind-Blowing Revelations. I now present for your consideration the 4 MBR’s:</p>
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<li><strong>Crash Course/Ordered vs Unordered Lists</strong>
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The first night <! — at 3:30am…insane, right? — >, Keith totally blew my mind by giving us a brief overview of the basics of laying out a website in code to get it ready for styling in css. Prominently featured was an explanation of Ordered vs Unordered Lists. Is the order of the items in your list necessary for understanding the list? For example <! — courtesy of Keith — >, are you outlining the steps of assembling your own golf cart? Then use an Ordered List. Are the items in your list just listed in a certain order, but not necessarily <em>need</em> to be in that order? Use an Unordered List.</li>
<li><strong>The Subtle Art of Hiding Text</strong>
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Have an image with some text on it and think you don’t have to type that text in the html? <rude>Wrong!</rude> Including the copy in the html and then hiding it is <em>essential</em> for SEO and Accessibility. <! — With family members who are visually impaired, I am all about accessibility issues…that, and google-bots are a good idea to please. — > To do this, Keith taught us his not-so-secret ways of subtly making said copy disappear. Magic!</li>
<li><strong>Image vs Image</strong>
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Much like the Ordered vs Unordered List revelation, Keith made the issue of Image versus Background Image easy as pie <! — or cupcakes — >. It seems that if your image relates to the <em>content</em> of the page, then it needs to fit into an <em>image tag</em>. But, but! If your image relates to the <em>style</em> of the page, then it needs to be set as a <em>background</em> image. <! — cue “A-ha” moment — > </li>
<li>…and last, but certainly not least, <strong>A Brief History of html, xml, and xhtml Languages</strong>
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Did you know that xhtml was created because the Powers That Be thought that coders were being too sloppy with their html? Or that xhtml is ultimately falling <em>out</em> of use because the browsers <em>themselves</em> are lazy? <! — …reminds me of a college professor declaring how lazy I was for auditing his class… — > The future of html is looking pretty bright <! — …bright, great… — > and HTML5 promises to be better than ever. How could it not be with a proposed <sarcasm> tag?? Here are a few that I would like to see: <rude><! — I already used this one above — >, <giddy>, and <shockedandawed><! — which would have come in handy when listening to Keith’s explanations… — >
<p>By this time, things were getting a bit loopy due to lack of sleep <! — I believe 9 hours was the 3 day total at this point — >. Strange comments were known to have been overheard. <! — “Zero apples is the same as zero ponies!” and “Small Mayo is the shit!” and even “Let’s stuff some tissue into this website’s bra.” — > I started making really bad analogies such as comparing the relationship between divs, margins, and padding to a padded white room. Finally, the coder hand-signs started getting busted out. And let me tell you, the site is looking pretty darn good: get excited…because we are. <! — and that is NOT a <sarcasm> comment despite looking towards no sleep until the end of camp…I may be biased in favor of it, but you really will like it once it’s done. — > Off to go watch a movie and get my rock band on…even busy campers need a break.</p>
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Tags: Design Life · Web Design
We are half-way through the Camp Firebelly workshops, and this is probably the first chance I have had for some down time since we began working. I am really excited on how our main project is coming along. As I mentioned in my last post, we have been working with Radio Arte (old site), a non-profit Latino radio station that trains youth in journalism and radio-broadcasting. I was lucky enough to get pared with an awesome team to work on the website, which has resulted in several very late nights, some new friendships, and a redesign of the site that I can’t wait to share.
We were also lucky enough to get pared with Jason Schwartz of Bright Bright Great for this project. Aside from just being a generally fun and entertaining guy, Jason has been an awesome mentor: I learned so much about webdesign from our two days working with him. You really need to check out his write up of the experience over on the Bright Bright Great blog. Hilarious. (Check out the rest of Kyle La Mere’s photos from that day.)
Next up: adventures in coding. (at least on this project…)
Tags: Design Life · Web Design
Well, I had a special post planned for this, but then the internet at our apartment went on the blink this past week. (I promise to post it in the near future.) Anyways, in my last post, I mentioned being rather excited for June 22, and now I’ll tell you why: today was the first day of Camp Firebelly. (You may even remember me writing about last year’s Camp.) We are just wrapping up our first day of the workshop, and already I am stoked for the rest of the week. Our mission: to work with a local non-profit public radio station to develop their website, promotional posters, and redesign their broadcasting studio. After meeting with the client today, I have to say that their passion is rather catching. I’ll share more of our experience as I can. In the meantime, you can watch the webcam (a la Real World) over on the Camp Firebelly site. We’ll also be blogging and tweeting live.
Cheers!
Tags: Design Life
Wow: a lot has happened in the past month. After finding out I was accepted to a special opportunity (more on that in a later post), I spent almost all of May preparing for a big move to Chicago. I have now been here for almost a week and can finally consider myself settled in for the summer. So aside from my Social Networking Duties for AIGAKC, I took a break from blogging, etc. When Linden tagged me on her 8 Things Post, I thought it would be a great way to get back into the swing of writing and let you know what’s ahead for the summer. You can expect to see a lot more from me again…both here and on S&D.
Without further ado, my 8 Things:
8 Things I Am Looking Forward To:
- Exploring Chicago. While here, I fully expect to take advantage of being in a big city, and plan on blogging my finds. First stop is Lincoln Square later today.
- German Culture. Chicago has a lot more German restaurants, places to get ethnic foods, and German sections in a lot of the bookstores. I’ve already found myself some German honey and nutella: yum!
- Personal Projects. While here, I’m hoping to have more time to devote to several personal projects, including…
- Site Redesign. It’s long over-due, but I finally have the resources to put it in action.
- AIGAKC Leadership Retreat. I’ll have to attend from afar, but I can’t wait to hear what everybody learned out at Portland’s Leadership Retreat several weeks ago. I’ll be sure to share any thoughts both here and over on AIGAKC’s Discussions.
- June 22. More on this in the next post
- July 15. The next Harry Potter movie comes out…what can I say? I’m a nerd.
- Mid-July. The family is taking a vacation to California: you get to come along with me and my camera. I’m especially looking forward to the redwood trees.
8 Things I Did Yesterday:
- Continued letting friends/colleagues know I was in Chicago. (Are You, dear reader, here? Let me know!)
- Contacted people about freelance opportunities.
- Updated my Creative Hotlist and AIGA profiles to say I was in Chicago.
- Ate a delicious PB&H sandwich with deutsche Honig: yum! (not sure why German honey tastes so much better than our’s…)
- Took a brief look at Lincoln Square: made note to come back.
- Added to and checked things off of my Monstrous-Summer-To-Do List.
- Took the Brown Line downtown.
- Went to Bluesfest with my cousin and friends.
8 Things I’d Like To Do (just a handful from the MSTD List):
- Finish putting together all of my photo albums
- Redesign this website
- Finish sketches/designs for gocco projects
- Finish designs for embroidery ideas
- Take my sketchbook to Millennium Park for a day
- Read Watership Down
- Upload new work to Flickr and blog about it.
- Locate the German sausage shop my friend mentioned and have a cook-out
8 Shows (and Podcasts) I Watch/Listen To:
- Pushing Daisies (so mad they cancelled this show…but at least they are airing the last of the last 3 episodes tonight)
- Samantha Who (again: why did they cancel it??)
- Lost
- Dancing With the Stars
- Gestalten.tv (video podcast with interviews and documentaries with current artists/designers)
- Paul Rand Lecture Series (video podcast hosted by Steven Heller on graphic design art history)
- Design Matters (podcast hosted by Debbie Millman featuring interviews with designers)
- Animation Podcast (podcast featuring interviews with legendary animators)
8 Blogs to Read:
(ok, I switched this from tagging since I just really wanted to make recommendations)
- Linden’s Pensieve (everything from marathon training to German living to techie insight)
- Sarah Jo Austin (techie insight, crafts, and the other half of the brains behind The True Beginner’s Guide to Twitter)
- Carina’s Craftblog (crafts and diy culture)
- Celestina Carmen (crafts, book rec’s, diy culture)
- The Design Cubicle (articles on freelancing/client issues, great inspiration and links)
- Raw Toast Design (blog of fellow Missouri State grad, Jesse Kuhn, featuring his illustrations)
- Design Work Life (new favorite design inspiration blog)
- Anything Goes (great inspiration/new work from art director, Kat Black)
Tags: Design Life · Updates
Yesterday, Lindsay Laricks announced that her Fresher Than Fresh Snowcones is featured in the current issue of Food Network Magazine, and I am pleased to announce that my photograph of Lindsay and her FTF stand is accompanying the article. I was thrilled when Food Network Mag approached me for the use of the photo (see below) back in February, and have been dying to share the news ever since. (You might remember the photo from AIGAKC’s Homegrown with Hammerpress/Design Ranch flickr set.) I haven’t seen the article yet myself, but can’t wait to do so. Congrats to Lindsay on the publicity! You can friend/follow FTF on twitter and Facebook to find out where she’ll be this summer with her all-natural snowcones.
Tags: Design Life · New Work · Photography · Updates
When I was laid off a couple of months ago, there were about 14 people who lost their job during that round of layoffs. After commiserating over coffee for a bit, we immediately started sharing resources. There’s nothing like hard times to bring people together. For my part, I offered to create business cards free of charge for anyone who needed them. So far, two people have taken me up on my offer, with a third in the works. Above are the two cards I created: if you know anyone in need of a PR consultant or Executive Support, I know two highly qualified and amazing ladies to recommend.
Of course, it was also an excellent opportunity to update the existing design to my own card:
Once I run out of my recycled stash, I’ll be passing these babies out. A very special thanks goes out to Jeannette over at Burns Printing who did her part to make these cards possible. Without her help, we’d all be reduced to writing our numbers on napkins. Ha!
Tags: Design · Design Life · New Work
Well, I feel horrible for neglecting my blogs of late: both here and my entries over at Stickers and Donuts. (Sorry, Maria!!) To tell you the truth, between blogging, starting a personal twitter, and keeping up AIGA KC’s twitter, Facebook, and Linked-In pages, I’ve just gotten a bit overwhelmed on the social media front. So this past week I (inadvertently) cut back, but I think I’m getting back into the swing of things.
On the whole, this was for a good cause. I spent the better part of the last month gearing up for the Grand Re-Launch of a new blog series on AIGA KC’s blog. Last week I launched it with a tour of our national offices: AIGA’s National Design Center in New York City. While job-hunting there last month, I was able to set up a tour with George Fernandez who is in charge of Membership. I was also able to meet both Jennifer Bender (who heads up the Social Networking Task-Force that I am a part of) and Lydia Mann for a lunch to discuss social media tactics for AIGA. This week’s post in the Series (I’ve yet to come up with a good name…) is an interview with Michael Bierut of Pentagram. Head over there and check it out. Next week, I’ll be posting Part One of my interview with Brand New’s Armin Vit of UnderConsideration. We had an excellent chat during my trip to NYC: so much so, that I’ll have at least two posts out of our discussion once I’ve finished transcribing it.
Tags: Design Life
Whew! What a marathon 2 weeks again. I have been hard at work on both a freelance project (an annual report) and on getting AIGA KC’s blog ready to launch a new series of interviews and articles. Unfortunately, the combo of the two have zapped all of my time the past couple of weeks: hence, the lack of posts. On a related note, I also didn’t have much time to scour my feed-reader of late. The little bit I did get to look at it, however, led me to the miscellaneous links below:
Rainbow Brite is Redesigned
Ok, this subject is very near and dear to my heart. With the exception of Jem, I doubt there was a doll I carried around by the neck more than my Rainbow Brite doll or her Color Kids, nor was there a show that I watched more. Some guys can name every Nintendo game ever made, and some chicks can tell you the backstory to the entire Rogue-Gambit story arch, but I can rattle off every detail about Rainbow Brite. There. I said it. (What? We all know I am a closet-nerd.)
Anyways. Just recently, Hallmark announced the redesign and rerelease of Rainbow Brite along with the launch of 3 dolls (Rainbow Brite, Tickled Pink, and Moonglow). I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, I have always wanted to own the Moonglow doll. (Quite possibly one of the most rare of the original toy series…and only available in Germany.) But on the other hand, is nothing sacred?? I don’t like how they redesigned her at all! Must they bring back and ruin all of our childhood cartoons? (CareBears? Strawberry Shortcake?? The upcoming Smurfs movie???) And I’m still waiting for them to release the entire original cartoon series on DVD in the US. (Why does Germany get it first??) Ok, enough of my rant. (But on the other hand, if they do continue to bring back all of these cartoons, then maybe there will actually be a good Saturday morning line-up again…)
Wall•E Computer Case
I saw this on Coudal’s feed: how awesome is this desktop computer?? Over on English Russia, they have the entire process photographed.
Gold Leaf Rocks…Literally.
You know, I’ve always wanted to work with gold leaf, but have never really had a good project for it. Then D*S pointed me to this awesome How-To. Wouldn’t they be great on a shelf next to a couple of antique books? Or maybe just next to a vase and some flowers… Definitely on my to-do list!
Mucha Window, St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague
I love Mucha + I love Stained Glass = This Window is Awesome! (Be sure to check out the rest of his Prague photos: beautiful city!) I can’t believe I was right next to St. Vitus when I was in Prague and I didn’t go in! I had no idea this window even existed until I saw it on Coudal’s feed. *Le Sigh* I’ll just have to add it to my list of things to see before I die.
Tags: Animation · Design Life · Illustration
Over on Stickers & Donuts today, I blogged about my “current obsession” with all things Martha Stewart. I’m particularly in love with these:
Aren’t these Pom Poms cute? I’m really tempted to buy the aqua pom pom craft kits to decorate with…but then I saw that she has the instructions right there on her website. It has me wondering what they would look like if I used a bunch of old plastic sacks a la the recycled pom poms found on Creature Comforts that my friend and I used for gift wrapping. I have a feeling that many of the tissue paper and crepe paper crafts featured on her site could be adapted for plastic bags…
In any case, if bags would’t work right, I have plenty of tissue paper left over from holidays, etc.
Tags: Design Life · Think Green
I just saw that my recycled business cards I posted about last week are currently featured on The Design Cubicle! Brian held a call for entries for his post on 50 Creative Business Cards of 50 Graphic Designers, and mine was chosen as one of them! I’m in excellent company too: among them is former classmate, Colin Wright. Check out the article for some great business card inspiration.
Tags: Design · Design Life · Inspiration · New Work · Think Green
