Small achievements may be hurting your success

I first heard the phrase while on a job interview. The owner of the company had very non-discreetly parked his fancy Audi R8 by the entrance to the building, and his license plate read, "BHAGS." When inside, the interviewer asked me if I knew what it stood for, and proceeded to explain the meaning: Big Hairy Audacious Goals. Some time later, I was reading Fast Company magazine which mentioned BHAG and referenced it to the original source in Jim Collins' book, "Built to Last." So, I finally knew where it was from, and added it to my reading list. (And you should read it, too!)… Read more »

I've seen some very interesting experimentation with illustrating with CSS3 which reminds me of the good old days of ASCII art. It's fun and interesting and takes an incredible amount of time and attention to detail. It's not practical, but it's fun. I've seen it on some production sites, even. To me, this is as bad as designing with Tables. Don't do it!

Illustrating with CSS3 is certainly creative, and a fun way to push the limits of what CSS3 can accomplish. It starts with creating sometimes dozens and dozens of divs and spans, creating any number of rounded corners, rotating the divs/spans, adding drop shadows, and presto! Scalable image that can't be seen on Internet Explorer. Here are some interesting examples: http://ping.fm/5coll http://ping.fm/ouEPW http://ping.fm/UGMwn… Read more »

Drupal is awesome. I've been a big fan for a couple years, now, and I'm convinced that there's nothing it can't do. It's biggest problem, however, has been the learning curve. With the latest version of Drupal 7 out on the horizon, I think we finally have a WordPress-killer, since getting a website design up and running is now just as easy as the famed blogging platform. Don't get me wrong, WordPress is great, but it has a very narrow use-case. I think with Drupal 7, we'll see many more web designers venturing into what was once Programmerland to create stunning, beautiful and versatile websites.… Read more »

I'm a huge fan of doing pro bono web design jobs. I do tons of work for local Chicago non-profits and charities I believe in as a way to boost their design quality and website functionality where they would otherwise have gone with something inadequate. It's also a great way to flex my brain muscles and sharpen my skillset and do some good. For example, when I decided to learn Drupal, I took on a number of Drupal projects as a way to learn the system. That said, there are a number of challenges faced by designers when attempting to start a pro bono project. Here are some guidelines to make sure you and the client get the most out of the pro bono project:… Read more »

My good friend, Aaron Friedman of Digital Highrise made me aware of Google's search story generator. I decided to see what I could come up with! For some reason, search results I got from Google directly differed from the results presented in the story generator. Regardless, my own website made it to the top of the results.… Read more »

With Drupal being used for social networks more and more, there's a strong need to have Drupal displaying user content in their own profiles. You can use views to display a tab in a user's profile which will show their content. I'm going to show you how to make a tab to a user's images, "My Images" show up in their profile. We're going to take this a step further by using ImageCache to have thumbnails of the user's images created specifically for this View.

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I understand. Really, I do. You're afraid I'll take advantage of you. You're afraid if you tell me your budget for your web venture, I will give you a quote which is really worth less than the number you gave me. You're afraid I'll cheat you. Or, you want to compare my quote with other designers' and want to see who will give the best price. I understand your reluctance to tell me sensitive business information. But, please; tell me your budget! I need to know! Let me tell you why.… Read more »

Wow! Can't believe that was only a year ago! Is it just me, or has 2009 been a really long, slow year? So much has happened in 1 year, for myself (new kid) and globally. Talk about action-packed!

It's always great to have goals for the new year, but if I write them down, I'm always more motivated to accomplish them. My design goals are meant to push me and not get complacent during the coming year. Looking back at last year's list, I accomplished more than 3 out of the 5 goals, which is not bad, I think, considering how hectic work and personal life has been.

Here's a recap of last year, and my accomplishments:… Read more »

You say, "Tomato," I say, "Solanum Lycopersicum." I say that, of course, because I am an expert agriculturalist. (I'm definitely not. I killed the two plants I tried to grow. So I had kids, instead.) If you're an expert in something, you will be plagued by the curse of knowledge when trying to communicate with someone who isn't well-versed in the subject. In the field of web design, this is a double-edged sword. As a designer, I need to relate to my clients effectively. And when building a website, my client and I need to relate to our site visitors.

Let's look at designing your site's information architecture, which affects both designers and business owners.… Read more »

If you're a small business owner, you scrutinize every dollar that leaves your bank account and make sure that you will have a strong return on that investment. With credit still in the dumps and margins low, you can't afford to throw away money - as if you could have just two years ago. Now that you need a website, you cringe every time you get a quote or proposal. And you do not want to risk quality or wasting money (no matter how little) by working with an overseas design chop-shop. So, what can you do to save money on your website design costs?… Read more »