cattownsenddesign

It’s difficult to optimize your high resolution images for the web. It’s even more difficult when those images need to be transparent. In this video I show how CSS masks can help make this process easier on you and how to make sure you have the fallbacks in place for non-Webkit browsers.

It’s difficult to optimize your high resolution images for the web. It’s even more difficult when those images need to be transparent. In this video I show how CSS masks can help make this process easier on you and how to make sure you have the fallbacks in place for non-Webkit browsers.

Have you ever had a difficult time finding which layers need to be visible for which layout? How do you know which layers work together? Huzzah! There’s a simple solution! Andy shows how you can use Photoshop’s “Layer Comps” feature to mimic Fireworks’ helpful “States” functionality.

Have you ever had a difficult time finding which layers need to be visible for which layout? How do you know which layers work together? Huzzah! There’s a simple solution! Andy shows how you can use Photoshop’s “Layer Comps” feature to mimic Fireworks’ helpful “States” functionality.

After spending 2-3 hours of labor exporting icons one at a time in illustrator, my neck and back were killing me. So after a good nights rest and some coffee, I set out to find a better way of doing things.

I tried the “save for web” feature in Illustrator, but still too labor intensive. I knew Photoshop actions were an option, but when I’m working with vector images I prefer to stay in Illustrator and Fireworks. So I turned my attention to Fireworks. I felt like a cave explorer with just my torch and some rope. Lucky for me, the options in Fireworks are pretty slim, so it didn’t take long to find what I had been searching for… Batch Processing.

Now, with just a few clicks of the mouse I could take what took me hours previously, and be done in just a few minutes. Can you hear the angels singing? So that’s what I try and demonstrate in this short screencast. How easy it is to take a group of images (in this case, my new steedicons) and scale them down and export them in one fell swoop. I hope you learn something new and even see the potential to do bigger and better things with this.

After spending 2-3 hours of labor exporting icons one at a time in illustrator, my neck and back were killing me. So after a good nights rest and some coffee, I set out to find a better way of doing things.

I tried the “save for web” feature in Illustrator, but still too labor intensive. I knew Photoshop actions were an option, but when I’m working with vector images I prefer to stay in Illustrator and Fireworks. So I turned my attention to Fireworks. I felt like a cave explorer with just my torch and some rope. Lucky for me, the options in Fireworks are pretty slim, so it didn’t take long to find what I had been searching for… Batch Processing.

Now, with just a few clicks of the mouse I could take what took me hours previously, and be done in just a few minutes. Can you hear the angels singing? So that’s what I try and demonstrate in this short screencast. How easy it is to take a group of images (in this case, my new steedicons) and scale them down and export them in one fell swoop. I hope you learn something new and even see the potential to do bigger and better things with this.

I have ideas. They appear at random and I try to write them down before I forget.

I like to think the difference between an idea and a thought is that an idea is often followed by a refreshing sense of relief. It always seems like the most exhilarating ideas are the hardest to pen down. Those I try to draw.

Ideas require action and action for me involves creativity and exploration. My creativity manifests itself in technology and, more specifically, the Web. Is it a coincidence that I’m a website designer and front-end developer? Nature or nurture? I don’t mind whether it was fate, fortune or cause and effect, I like making things on the Web. I am glad, however, that my dreams find fruition elsewhere. I don’t think I’d like to dream in JavaScript.

Some ideas turn into projects (if their written form still makes sense later on). I’ve found absolutely no correlation between the size of the idea and the length of the proceeding project. In fact, nothing about the idea indicates success or failure. How then do you decide when it’s time to put an idea to rest? When is enough, enough?

Those that know me will have seen me close two personal projects this month. Projects that started life as seemingly insignificant ideas. They didn’t stop growing. After several years they even got pretty big. But as quickly as the grew, they started to fizzle out. That first inspirational “light bulb moment” had long ago dimmed and excitement was nowhere to be found. The realisation that these projects had run their course was a dark moment. For a long time I tried to convince myself that they’d be OK, that my time and effort had not been in vain, that both of these ideas had not lead to failure. Yet for all my despair there was no resolution. I wasn’t particularly happy, but I was content with a “lesson learned”. Next time I’d be more cautious. My next project would be measured and regularly assessed to avoid wasted time.

And then I had another idea.

I turned the light back on.

I looked back and followed the ideas backwards from end to beginning. I saw every twist and turn and along the way every branch of new visions and avenues of new exploration.

What I realised is that ideas begin and end as nothing but in the middle there is an explosion of opportunity to enrich your imagination.

That is where new ideas are born.

Saving images out in PNG format is nothing new for web designers, but when working with textured artwork it’s often tempting to simply save everything out as a PNG-24. While the output looks great, file size can be a real issue. I show you how I often make the call between PNG-24 and PNG-8 when working with textured artwork as well as a technique I use to optimize the fidelity of the design and keep file sizes at a minimum.

Saving images out in PNG format is nothing new for web designers, but when working with textured artwork it’s often tempting to simply save everything out as a PNG-24. While the output looks great, file size can be a real issue. I show you how I often make the call between PNG-24 and PNG-8 when working with textured artwork as well as a technique I use to optimize the fidelity of the design and keep file sizes at a minimum.

Let’s start off getting to know you. Who are you, where are you from, and how did you get your start in design?

Well, I'm Andy. I'm from Belfast in Northern Ireland, where I run a bunch of different projects, under the name Fiction. Right now, it's responsible for Build, a week-long festival, and The Manual, a tri-annual journal, both of which have a focus around designing for the web and who we are as designers. After high school, I began studying Music Technology at university. Feeling somewhat underwhelmed with the course, but welcoming the time it afforded me, I spent my evenings building websites and learning HTML & CSS, and after two years, left the course and began freelancing as a front-end designer / developer full-time. After a few years of the standard freelance life — work, conference, repeat — I decided to start my own event. After the first year, planning and organising Build became my full-time gig, and just before the second event, I began work, along with Carolyn Wood and Jez Burrows on The Manual. We announced the first issue at the end of last year's conference, which went on to be successfully funded through Kickstarter, and the rest, as they say, is history.

When did your interest in web design begin?

I guess it goes all the way back to when I a kid, spitting out fan sites for video games from Microsoft Creative Writer 2 and throwing them up on Angelfire. (Fun fact: my first website was called "Dr. Doaks’ Guide to Goldeneye," bonus points if you get the reference). As the years progressed and I grew more and more frustrated with things breaking in various WYSIWYG editors, I taught myself to write HTML and CSS by hand and continued to gain a better understanding of web standards and best practice through books, articles and tutorials in my spare time. Practically speaking, that's how I got my shit together. When I went to university, I chose to study Music Technology because I wanted to produce radio documentaries for the BBC. While I eventually grew frustrated with the course, university and pursuing a career in radio as a medium, I don't think my underlying interest in telling stories ever changed. I’m happy that I found a way to scratch that itch with my work on the web and eventually through Build and The Manual, which are both very much focused around sharing ideas, experiences, lessons, and telling stories.

Has the web as a medium satisfied your desire to tell stories and if so, how?

The web has always been about telling stories. I was only able to successfully teach myself HTML and CSS because of the vast amount of resources shared freely online. Web design is a fast-moving and complex beast, and the reason we've all been able to keep up is because we create, collaborate, and share unlike any other design discipline. As humans, we're hardwired to best share information through storytelling, and we've effectively evolved an entire industry out of telling stories. Personally, I find that utterly fascinating. Right now, I'm sharing stories through spoken word at Build and through printed word with The Manual. As someone who designed for the web for many years, I'm enjoying the more tangible nature of more traditional storytelling. Experiencing a conversation or reading a book is completely different from communicating on the web, and right now they're the right medium for both projects. I'm excited about what's happening with publishing and digital books though; it's certainly something I'd like to experiment with more in the future.

The Manual has had a fantastic start and the physical product is beautiful. Clearly you are just as passionate about the storytelling part as you are the item itself. Tell us a little about the process involved with creating each edition.

I know anytime I've talked about this before, it often surprises people just how much is going on behind the scenes at any one time. For example, right now Issue #2 has just gone on sale, the first draft articles and lessons for Issue #3 have just arrived, and we're beginning to brief our authors for Issue #4 (I'm pretty sure Carolyn Wood, the editor of The Manual, is powered by some kind of Iron Man-style fusion reactor).

Some of the process of how an issue comes together has a clear formula, but a good deal, like choosing our authors, is more organic. Carolyn and I are constantly discussing people we'd like to have involved, so we're usually a few issues ahead of ourselves with ideas for authors. Once we've invited everyone and sent out a schedule, Carolyn will work with each contributor over a number of weeks to get them to a solid first draft. While we're editing, copy-editing and proofing, Jez will begin pairing each article with the right illustrator and getting them involved in the process of producing a companion illustration. Once everything has come together, Jez will design and typeset the issue, then we'll collectively proof it before it goes to the printer, then to our distribution centre, then to your door. It's easy enough to summarize this process in a couple paragraphs, but it can't be emphasized enough just how much time, care and attention both Carolyn and Jez put into getting every element of the editorial and illustrations right. I'm extremely lucky to work with two such talented, hard-working and committed people.

Since everyone involved works remotely, how do you go about managing each piece of this process to ensure communication and production are flowing? Do you use a mixture of tools to help you all stay in sync and on track?

Oh, absolutely. Between authors and illustrators around the globe, Carolyn in Portland, Jez in San Francisco, myself in Belfast, our printer in Reykjavík, and our distribution centre in Northampton, we're not only managing a number of different people doing a number of different things, but also a number of different time-zones to boot. Fortunately, we have email and Skype to keep in touch with one another, our Basecamp account to manage incoming editorial and illustrations, and Google Docs for any real-time collaborative editing, copywriting and proofing. Carolyn will write up a calendar well in advance of each issue, so we individually understand everything we need to do to collectively stay on schedule. With so many elements involved, it sounds like a potential recipe for disaster. Fortunately, now that we're two issues deep and well into working on the third, we pretty much know what works best for everyone involved, and we’re sure to build contingencies and flexibility into the process when we need to.

In addition to The Manual you have Build, which you founded and run. Tell us a little bit about the inspiration for starting that, how you manage it, and how you want to grow it.

Smash cut to 2008, and I was in London with some friends for a web design conference. After the day’s events, a group of us gathered for dinner, and began discussing the day’s events. It was a familiar conversation by this stage — we’d all felt the same for some time — our favorite events had been getting larger, more commercialized, and, we felt, were losing their focus. We spoke of a desire for something more reflective of the community, and over the course of that evening, fueled by burgers and beer, we spoke of what such an event would look like. I left London the next day with the basic structure of Build in my head: it would be small, focused, honest, and with an emphasis on bringing people together, putting a drink in their hand, and restoring that sense of community. A few weeks later, I found myself the owner of a new domain name, with a list of prospective speakers, and a deposit paid on a small venue in Belfast. And so, Build was born.

This year was the third Build, now made up of a full week-long schedule of events — not just the conference, but a full workshop programme, a practical day, an evening of film, a beer festival, a pub quiz, meetups, parties and more. Although new events and ideas have effected and evolved Build over the last few years, those basic principles remain: keep it small, keep it focused, and keep the emphasis on community.

It seems like you spend the majority of your time these days directing designers rather than designing yourself. How has that experience been for you, especially when the projects are so personal?

Sharing something personal and letting someone else make their mark on something you care about can be pretty terrifying. But that trust ultimately begets great work. I've been very lucky in the past few years with the other designers I've had the pleasure to work with. Individuals who I may have approached out of respect or admiration for their ability have gone on to become more than contractors. They've become collaborators, co-conspirators, and good friends. Jez took the message of Build, the idea of what it was and what I wanted it to become, and made it into something visual. He took the ethos and motivation behind The Manual, and made it tangible. Kyle Meyer pieced together the website for Build, and again more recently as we work on The Manual, with a level of care and attention to detail I've rarely seen in another designer. I’m not just crossing my fingers and hoping for the best after briefing them and producing a spec. They're involved because they’re just as interested in making it a success as I am. They put so much of themselves into what they produce, and they take pride in doing it right. I don't feel like I'm directing other designers when I work with these guys. We're designing together. They augment my ability, and in that, we produce great work.

Tell us about your work day. What are the hours & rituals you keep? What does your work environment look like? What kind of music do you listen to while working?

I see this question come up often in interviews, and the answers are almost always written through rose-tinted glasses. We all want to paint this ideal picture of being effective and disciplined, when a lot of the time, we're maybe not. Every day for me is different. Some days I'll start at 5am, some I'll start at midday. Some I'll wrap up by 6pm, some I'll work on ‘til 3am. Working across so many time-zones, on so many different things, and additional wrestling with a body clock that's out to destroy me means that I usually don't keep regular hours. Over any given day I might be working from home, at a friend’s office, a coffee shop, or simply from bed; I don't really have one place I work from either. Certainly, like most, I'm at my most productive parked in front of a sketchbook with a good cup of coffee and my headphones on. But sometimes I'll spend a whole morning answering email or taking calls, or I'll be awake at 4am at my desk eating toast and answering interview questions. I’m sure that one day soon, I'll wake up right as my alarm goes off, knock off at a not-indecent hour, learn to maintain regular sleeping patterns, keep a balanced diet and a healthy social life, but right now, my day is whatever it needs to be. Music is a constant. I spend every waking minute listening to music. Thanks to Rdio there's never a dull moment; whether I'm knee deep in my own collection, listening to friends playlists, or hopping around profiles to find something new. Right now I'm listening to mostly chillwave, shoegaze and surf-rock, but I also go through an unashamed amount of Hall & Oates and Phil Collins. Whatever it takes to get the job done.

Show us an image of the most inspiring thing you’ve seen this week.

Honestly? It was probably this photo of my friends Tim & Gwenny's newborn daughter, Spencer.

I couldn't be happier for them, and seeing these photos appear online also made me think. As designers, we seek most of our fulfillment through the things we make. Ultimately though, our greatest creations — what we'll really remember at the end of it all — will be what we create with others, such as friendships, relationships, families, shared lives and shared experiences. Sometimes it's easy to get tied up in the madness of it all and forget that. (Plus I'm a total sucker for baby photos.)

Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to chat with us Andy!

My absolute pleasure, thank you! Big fan of your work.

Let’s start off getting to know you. Who are you, where are you from, and how did you get your start in design?

Well, I'm Andy. I'm from Belfast in Northern Ireland, where I run a bunch of different projects, under the name Fiction. Right now, it's responsible for Build, a week-long festival, and The Manual, a tri-annual journal, both of which have a focus around designing for the web and who we are as designers. After high school, I began studying Music Technology at university. Feeling somewhat underwhelmed with the course, but welcoming the time it afforded me, I spent my evenings building websites and learning HTML & CSS, and after two years, left the course and began freelancing as a front-end designer / developer full-time. After a few years of the standard freelance life — work, conference, repeat — I decided to start my own event. After the first year, planning and organising Build became my full-time gig, and just before the second event, I began work, along with Carolyn Wood and Jez Burrows on The Manual. We announced the first issue at the end of last year's conference, which went on to be successfully funded through Kickstarter, and the rest, as they say, is history.

When did your interest in web design begin?

I guess it goes all the way back to when I a kid, spitting out fan sites for video games from Microsoft Creative Writer 2 and throwing them up on Angelfire. (Fun fact: my first website was called "Dr. Doaks’ Guide to Goldeneye," bonus points if you get the reference). As the years progressed and I grew more and more frustrated with things breaking in various WYSIWYG editors, I taught myself to write HTML and CSS by hand and continued to gain a better understanding of web standards and best practice through books, articles and tutorials in my spare time. Practically speaking, that's how I got my shit together. When I went to university, I chose to study Music Technology because I wanted to produce radio documentaries for the BBC. While I eventually grew frustrated with the course, university and pursuing a career in radio as a medium, I don't think my underlying interest in telling stories ever changed. I’m happy that I found a way to scratch that itch with my work on the web and eventually through Build and The Manual, which are both very much focused around sharing ideas, experiences, lessons, and telling stories.

Has the web as a medium satisfied your desire to tell stories and if so, how?

The web has always been about telling stories. I was only able to successfully teach myself HTML and CSS because of the vast amount of resources shared freely online. Web design is a fast-moving and complex beast, and the reason we've all been able to keep up is because we create, collaborate, and share unlike any other design discipline. As humans, we're hardwired to best share information through storytelling, and we've effectively evolved an entire industry out of telling stories. Personally, I find that utterly fascinating. Right now, I'm sharing stories through spoken word at Build and through printed word with The Manual. As someone who designed for the web for many years, I'm enjoying the more tangible nature of more traditional storytelling. Experiencing a conversation or reading a book is completely different from communicating on the web, and right now they're the right medium for both projects. I'm excited about what's happening with publishing and digital books though; it's certainly something I'd like to experiment with more in the future.

The Manual has had a fantastic start and the physical product is beautiful. Clearly you are just as passionate about the storytelling part as you are the item itself. Tell us a little about the process involved with creating each edition.

I know anytime I've talked about this before, it often surprises people just how much is going on behind the scenes at any one time. For example, right now Issue #2 has just gone on sale, the first draft articles and lessons for Issue #3 have just arrived, and we're beginning to brief our authors for Issue #4 (I'm pretty sure Carolyn Wood, the editor of The Manual, is powered by some kind of Iron Man-style fusion reactor).

Some of the process of how an issue comes together has a clear formula, but a good deal, like choosing our authors, is more organic. Carolyn and I are constantly discussing people we'd like to have involved, so we're usually a few issues ahead of ourselves with ideas for authors. Once we've invited everyone and sent out a schedule, Carolyn will work with each contributor over a number of weeks to get them to a solid first draft. While we're editing, copy-editing and proofing, Jez will begin pairing each article with the right illustrator and getting them involved in the process of producing a companion illustration. Once everything has come together, Jez will design and typeset the issue, then we'll collectively proof it before it goes to the printer, then to our distribution centre, then to your door. It's easy enough to summarize this process in a couple paragraphs, but it can't be emphasized enough just how much time, care and attention both Carolyn and Jez put into getting every element of the editorial and illustrations right. I'm extremely lucky to work with two such talented, hard-working and committed people.

Since everyone involved works remotely, how do you go about managing each piece of this process to ensure communication and production are flowing? Do you use a mixture of tools to help you all stay in sync and on track?

Oh, absolutely. Between authors and illustrators around the globe, Carolyn in Portland, Jez in San Francisco, myself in Belfast, our printer in Reykjavík, and our distribution centre in Northampton, we're not only managing a number of different people doing a number of different things, but also a number of different time-zones to boot. Fortunately, we have email and Skype to keep in touch with one another, our Basecamp account to manage incoming editorial and illustrations, and Google Docs for any real-time collaborative editing, copywriting and proofing. Carolyn will write up a calendar well in advance of each issue, so we individually understand everything we need to do to collectively stay on schedule. With so many elements involved, it sounds like a potential recipe for disaster. Fortunately, now that we're two issues deep and well into working on the third, we pretty much know what works best for everyone involved, and we’re sure to build contingencies and flexibility into the process when we need to.

In addition to The Manual you have Build, which you founded and run. Tell us a little bit about the inspiration for starting that, how you manage it, and how you want to grow it.

Smash cut to 2008, and I was in London with some friends for a web design conference. After the day’s events, a group of us gathered for dinner, and began discussing the day’s events. It was a familiar conversation by this stage — we’d all felt the same for some time — our favorite events had been getting larger, more commercialized, and, we felt, were losing their focus. We spoke of a desire for something more reflective of the community, and over the course of that evening, fueled by burgers and beer, we spoke of what such an event would look like. I left London the next day with the basic structure of Build in my head: it would be small, focused, honest, and with an emphasis on bringing people together, putting a drink in their hand, and restoring that sense of community. A few weeks later, I found myself the owner of a new domain name, with a list of prospective speakers, and a deposit paid on a small venue in Belfast. And so, Build was born.

This year was the third Build, now made up of a full week-long schedule of events — not just the conference, but a full workshop programme, a practical day, an evening of film, a beer festival, a pub quiz, meetups, parties and more. Although new events and ideas have effected and evolved Build over the last few years, those basic principles remain: keep it small, keep it focused, and keep the emphasis on community.

It seems like you spend the majority of your time these days directing designers rather than designing yourself. How has that experience been for you, especially when the projects are so personal?

Sharing something personal and letting someone else make their mark on something you care about can be pretty terrifying. But that trust ultimately begets great work. I've been very lucky in the past few years with the other designers I've had the pleasure to work with. Individuals who I may have approached out of respect or admiration for their ability have gone on to become more than contractors. They've become collaborators, co-conspirators, and good friends. Jez took the message of Build, the idea of what it was and what I wanted it to become, and made it into something visual. He took the ethos and motivation behind The Manual, and made it tangible. Kyle Meyer pieced together the website for Build, and again more recently as we work on The Manual, with a level of care and attention to detail I've rarely seen in another designer. I’m not just crossing my fingers and hoping for the best after briefing them and producing a spec. They're involved because they’re just as interested in making it a success as I am. They put so much of themselves into what they produce, and they take pride in doing it right. I don't feel like I'm directing other designers when I work with these guys. We're designing together. They augment my ability, and in that, we produce great work.

Tell us about your work day. What are the hours & rituals you keep? What does your work environment look like? What kind of music do you listen to while working?

I see this question come up often in interviews, and the answers are almost always written through rose-tinted glasses. We all want to paint this ideal picture of being effective and disciplined, when a lot of the time, we're maybe not. Every day for me is different. Some days I'll start at 5am, some I'll start at midday. Some I'll wrap up by 6pm, some I'll work on ‘til 3am. Working across so many time-zones, on so many different things, and additional wrestling with a body clock that's out to destroy me means that I usually don't keep regular hours. Over any given day I might be working from home, at a friend’s office, a coffee shop, or simply from bed; I don't really have one place I work from either. Certainly, like most, I'm at my most productive parked in front of a sketchbook with a good cup of coffee and my headphones on. But sometimes I'll spend a whole morning answering email or taking calls, or I'll be awake at 4am at my desk eating toast and answering interview questions. I’m sure that one day soon, I'll wake up right as my alarm goes off, knock off at a not-indecent hour, learn to maintain regular sleeping patterns, keep a balanced diet and a healthy social life, but right now, my day is whatever it needs to be. Music is a constant. I spend every waking minute listening to music. Thanks to Rdio there's never a dull moment; whether I'm knee deep in my own collection, listening to friends playlists, or hopping around profiles to find something new. Right now I'm listening to mostly chillwave, shoegaze and surf-rock, but I also go through an unashamed amount of Hall & Oates and Phil Collins. Whatever it takes to get the job done.

Show us an image of the most inspiring thing you’ve seen this week.

Honestly? It was probably this photo of my friends Tim & Gwenny's newborn daughter, Spencer.

I couldn't be happier for them, and seeing these photos appear online also made me think. As designers, we seek most of our fulfillment through the things we make. Ultimately though, our greatest creations — what we'll really remember at the end of it all — will be what we create with others, such as friendships, relationships, families, shared lives and shared experiences. Sometimes it's easy to get tied up in the madness of it all and forget that. (Plus I'm a total sucker for baby photos.)

Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to chat with us Andy!

My absolute pleasure, thank you! Big fan of your work.

Recently, I’ve been exploring the deeper meanings behind our work and defining who we are as designers. One of the prevalent themes I’ve been researching is how one “designs their mindset.”

Strengthening our conscience with regular and daily exercise can serve us a well-rounded and purposeful life, comparative to running a marathon and the desirable effect it has on our bodies. We have a responsibility as designers to enable ourselves and others to construct worthwhile existences as communicators of the web. As we push our industry forward, we must make our mindsets adaptable and discipline our thoughts and ideas with tenacious ways of thinking.

Read, Write, Listen

These basic senses of the human physique are critical to our understanding of the world around us as creative individuals and can put our brain in a position of constant learning. Increasing our analytical and cogent thinking of the things we consider in our everyday occurrences, will give us the qualities to become better craftsmen of our practice. Looking beyond the obvious and narrowing in on processing deeper meanings will manifest fulfilment and essence within our work as practitioners of the web.

Reading means widening our perception and encouraging new ways of shaping the way we think. By increasing our spectrum of vision, we can create our own justifications. Some creatives believe that “design inspiration” is straight-forward; and while this sometimes is all it takes to get our minds running, inspiration is a parallel that is multi-dimensional and can exist everywhere. Inquiring new material will allow our minds to look beyond the obvious, build and relate connections and meaning in our design and help us on our journey to fruition as a designer.

Writing eloquently distinguishes and solidifies our internal thought process, making it easier to communicate these ideas verbally. Meagan Fisher’s article on the importance of writing and publishing resonates with me on many levels. Ideas can be “heavy, noisy things” and if you don’t learn how to cultivate them properly we can end up with cluttered mindsets, prohibiting us from performing our best. Jeffrey Zeldman also puts it nicely with this quote:

“Writing is fundamental. If you don’t write, you don’t know what you think.”

Writing allows us to discover our ideas in a new light – exposed and vulnerable.

Listening to dialogue is critical for designers, and it is almost inevitable at times because it is easy to get sucked into the realm of social activities in front of our monitors. Intellectual conversation with other human beings is a way to digest information and study angles that would of been originally unconsidered. This sharing of stories and ideas between people mentally illustrates unions and associations within the design world and how it can multiply and blossom into new ideas; with something as simple and routine as conversation.

So what does this all mean and why is it important?

As designers, our job is to build meaningful communication and connections between people. Designers achieve experiences of emotional feeling that have a lasting effect; an experience full of purpose and meaning. Becoming more articulate will not only provide imperative prerequisites to an ever-changing industry, but it will transfer significance to all aspects of your life.

Exercising our minds and moulding the way we think will render substance to our work and explanations to why design is important in our careers, and our lives.

Hello Two Thousand and Twelve!

xheight is back and this year I’ll make sure it will be better than ever! Funny how often we make resolutions. It’s either that, or quip about how arbitrary a “date” really is. A condescending laugh at those who endeavour, or an unwitting admittance of no ambition, I wonder?

For me at least, January does feel special. I don’t care what anyone else thinks! This year will be my best yet. I have no plans, no targets, no deadlines — only the one vague ambition to out perform previous efforts. To be honest I don’t think it’ll be much of a challenge! Every month I feel proud of what I’ve achieved and yet I often look back and say “man, I wish I was as good then as I am now”. Am I too hard on myself?

Sometimes I feel king of the world! Other times I feel wasted. It seems to relate directly to recent events. If I’ve done something productive I want to keep that ball rolling. If I’ve been lazy (even on a well deserved break) I feel like I’ve fallen behind life’s schedule. So it would seem my answer is to never stay still and avoid complacency. Difficult for a guy who enjoys nothing more than being mindlessly sprawled across furniture. But then I’ve never done anything the easy way.

The arrival of a new year is a great time for reflection regardless of whether it’s ever corresponded to events in your life. We generally subscribe to the calendar so that we can pinpoint moments, milestones, times of thought, and the beginnings of resolutions. Why not take on a fresh perspective alongside everyone else? I rarely start the year with a specific plan but I always endeavour to achieve more and that has always worked out just fine. Changes and achievements happen through an ambitious determination even when ideas are not immediately apparent. I just make note of them on memorable occasions like this. I don’t set out for glory and don’t see myself as anything special, I simply expect more from myself every year. Confirming to myself that I will overcome the challenges that arise and excel at whatever takes my interest is enough of a resolution for me.

As a designer I think this mindset is particularly important. Much of my talent and ability comes from experience and experimentation. They deliver serendipity and I can’t go looking for that, but I can progress forward and stumble into it.

I have no idea how xheight came into being but it happened early last year! I’m eternally grateful to all those authors who joined me along the way and I look forward to meeting newcomers too. They make this blog a pleasure to host. Next week we have an article by 2011 .net award winning designer Janna Hagan — make sure to subscribe!

Now, what’s your resolution? And don’t say 1440×900 :)

Learn how to use the text tool in Photoshop to keep lines equally spaced, and easily adjustable. A great productivity tip for when you’re designing navigation dividers, charts, and tables.

Learn how to use the text tool in Photoshop to keep lines equally spaced, and easily adjustable. A great productivity tip for when you’re designing navigation dividers, charts, and tables.

Illustrator’s powerful Perspective Grid tool let’s you draw and manipulate shapes, text, groups, and symbols all in a configurabile true perspective environment. Save time and add dimension to your work.

Illustrator’s powerful Perspective Grid tool let’s you draw and manipulate shapes, text, groups, and symbols all in a configurabile true perspective environment. Save time and add dimension to your work.

If you’re sick of warping and distorting your text in Photoshop, or bringing type in from Illustrator, this might be the ticket.  I’ll show you the way I use paths and vector shapes to take my text in Photoshop to new and terrifying* heights. This is a great companion piece to Adrian Taylor’s video Shaping Textfields in Photoshop.

*Raptor sightings can be scary.

If you’re sick of warping and distorting your text in Photoshop, or bringing type in from Illustrator, this might be the ticket.  I’ll show you the way I use paths and vector shapes to take my text in Photoshop to new and terrifying* heights. This is a great companion piece to Adrian Taylor’s video Shaping Textfields in Photoshop.

*Raptor sightings can be scary.

When you’re starting to set your goals, you want to have it perfect right? So does everybody else.

The first time I decided to resign from the company I’ve work for and go freelance I imagined that the road would be easy and that I could design whatever I wanted. Well, it hasn’t worked out completely as I originally planned. The freelancing path isn’t always smooth. Many times in my first year I had to make myself available and dedicate time 24/7 to projects. This sounds pretty similar to what Caleb Ogden’s describes in his article Learning to freelance.

It is always good to learn from other freelance designers who have had the experiences during their journey from the start to the top. From their experience you will be able to take advantage of what steps to follow as a starter or what to avoid when dealing with annoying clients. However, I often found it impossible to follow their footprints. It’s not because I don’t have what it takes. It’s simply because I want it to be how I want it to be. Isn’t it annoying sometimes, when you really set something on your mind only to find something that interferes with your journey? Just like how clients would want to dominate their visions on your designs, which of course you think is the best solution for them.

Then again, we often do whatever it takes to get to our goal. Just like what I did. For some freelancers, which in this case applies to me too, the first year is a horrible year to set everything in order.

Whether it is to schedule my time better or looking for more clients to support my finance each month, it was all a challenge for me. A few times I got myself in the situation of trading work for “work” which I will never ever do again, and neither should you once you read Trade Work is Fools Gold. Other times I wish I had the power to say no to a client. Don’t get me wrong, I love to have a new client. But when it comes to long term professional relationship, I’d prefer to have a nice client who respect my work and time. When it comes to being a freelancer, it is best to have quality clients than large quantities of client. They don’t have to be a well known companies, I have several start-ups which have been growing with me for over 2 years now and we have a great long term professional relationship.

If I were to put my freelancing experience into a single bitmap picture, I’d be looking back to see every small pixel of my every decisions and steps that helped me to achieve what I have today. From freelancing to a design company, just like how I want it to be.

Everything I’ve experienced during my first year of freelancing is what builds me as a person, a designer, and my design company today. Those pixels are the pieces you will need to build your character as a designer and the impression that clients will see of you; as someone they can trust to provide the needed solutions for their projects.