Do you ever stop and wonder if what you do really matters? What if the things you do day in and day out had no impact on people? What if it turned out that all this time you’ve been missing the goal by a mile?
Why There Is No Such Thing As A User Experience Designer
User Experience is a term you hear thrown around a whole lot lately. For some people it means the way a site looks and feels, for other it’s all about a site’s architecture, but for most of them it’s just an empty buzzword that doesn’t mean anything at all.
Finding a Designer: a Practical Guide
I recently had to cancel my engagement with a startup when I realized that the quantity of work involved was too big, and I would not be able to fit it in my schedule. Rather than leave them hanging, I decided to help them recruit another designer.
Introducing Patternify, a CSS Pattern Generator
I just released a little side project I’ve been working on, Patternify. It’s an app that lets you create simple pixel patterns and export them either as PNG or as base64 code. The awesome part is that you can embed the base64 code straight in your CSS code! You don’t even need to use an image file anymore!
Redesigning vs Realigning: A Case Study
Cameron Moll famously stated that “good designers redesign, great designers realign“. But what does that mean exactly? To get a better understanding of the term, here’s a real-life example.
Spec Work: Are We Missing the Point?
I recently read a good article about crowdsourcing and spec work, and while I found myself agreeing with the author I couldn’t help but think at the same time that he was missing the point.
Coders Who Can’t Design And Designers Who Can’t Code
You’ve probably encountered these two endangered species in the wild before. The developer who “has no eye for color”, “does not understand typography”, and “absolutely cannot design”. Or the designer who “sucked at math even in primary school”, is a “left-brained person”, or “doesn’t want to mess up the code”…
The Best To-do App is… Gmail?!
I’ve tried out tons of project management and to-do list apps over the years, and I could never stick to one of them for long. They all share the same problem: too much friction.
The Do’s and Don’ts of Contacting Designers
I receive quite a few messages from potential clients interested in working with me. And most of them do a horrible job of making me want to work on their project. I realize it can be hard to know what to say in that first message, so here’s a quick guide to help you approach a designer.
Improving a design step by step, Part 2
NOTE: Now that I’m part of the Smashing Network, I thought I’d feature some of this blog’s older content for the new readers.
Here is part 2 of my step by step tutorial on design basics. In the first part, we looked at the grid and basic typography. In this section, we’ll tackle one of a designer’s main tasks: giving a layout meaning and hierarchy. Read more →
