This subject is pretty important. With the advent of mobile web devises it’s never been more critical that designers pay attention to how their website looks in different medias. A website might look amazing in firefox on a laptop monitor but it might fall apart in Internet Explorer on somebodies old xp desktop computer. A designer needs to pay careful attention to how his website will react in almost every environment.

Responsive web design can anticipate these size discrepancies, and depending on the size of the media, restructure the appearance of the website with special css commands that adjusts it’s layout to better suite your device. Sometimes a restaurant will want to emphasize a special deal they are having. Or maybe they’ll want relevant information like a phone number to appear in a big bold font when searching on a mobile device. This can have an astronomical effect on the usefulness of the website and can pay for itself by bringing more business to a business.

To compete in today’s economy it’s absolutely essential that a website cater to as many of those mobile customers as possible. The future of the web is in the palm of your hand, literally. Mobile devices in conjunction with tablet devices are redefining the way we see the web.

If you aren’t aware of it yet, I’ve got a new website up promoting my graphic design business at www.dimlightgraphics.com. I spent a few hours researching which color scheme I wanted to use. I didn’t consciously think about the meaning of those colors, I simply chose the colors that resonated the most with me. But let’s talk about those choices for just a moment.
www.precisionintermedia.com talks a little bit about the colors I’ve chosen:

“Psychology of Color: Gray

Gray is most associated with the practical, timeless, middle-of-the-road, solid things in life. Too much gray leads to feeling mostly nothing; but a bit of gray will add that rock solid feeling to your product. Some shades of gray are associated with old age, death, taxes, depression or a lost sense of direction. Silver is an off-shoot of gray and often associated with giving a helping hand, strong character (sterling in-fact!). ”

and…

“Psychology of Color: Orange

The most flamboyant color on the planet! It’s the color tied most this fun times, happy and energetic days, warmth and organic products. It is also associated with ambition. There is nothing even remotely calm associated with this color. Orange is associated with a new dawn in attitude.”

It’s true that I do have “ambition” and that I’m trying convey “practical and timeless” with my design. So in a way my choices were right on the money considering my intentions. I knew I didn’t want to use red because I’m not a pushy person and green, a color that symbolizes greed, wasn’t my first choice either. Blue is a nice color but I wanted something that was strong and blue didn’t seem to convey that to me. Again the timeless aspect of gray was a quality that I was looking for, so I was happy with that choice.

I did have a friend look at my website and his first impression was, “It’s too dark. The website you built for me is brighter and feels good.” I could understand his perspective. I felt if I made the website look like his then it wouldn’t create the right tone for what I wanted to convey. His website was designed to be inviting, open and friendly. The color scheme is blue and white (it can viewed at www.lobaczchiropractic.com). With my website I wanted to convey a serious “you can trust me” tone. “Practical and timeless” seems to fit that pretty well.

Color is not an exact science. My friend’s perspective of “Dim light Graphics” being too dark is a gut reaction and maybe his opinion is absolutely right. But again he could be completely wrong. That’s the thing about color, it’s subjective. Black in our country can represent morning while the very opposite color can convey the same thing in other parts of the world.

Color has a lot of power and can be used very effectively. It is wise to at least spend some time considering color before committing to any permanent color scheme.

Yes… yes.. Two blogs in one day. This can only mean one thing! It’s an assignment!

In this blog I’m going to write about the Goals I’d like to accomplish in this class. After taking web design last semester I feel pretty good about my basic HTML/CSS knowledge. So in this class I hope to really start to cement everything I do know and fill in any missing gaps. I’m still having trouble debugging Internet Explorer websites and customizing content management websites without the aid of a “What You See is What You get” program has been difficult. I’d also like to integrate more javascript/flash into my designs to really give my websites a nice final touch. www.dimlightgraphics.com uses Javascript to display a looping array of images. However when I view the same website on internet explorer the design seems to crumble.

Speaking of Content Management Websites, I’d like to become more fluent in drupal -adding new plug ins and getting familiar with those. I’ve tried using things like “Joomla” but haven’t quite got the hand of it. I’m having difficulty with the concept of “views” and how to customize those. I’m working with a client right now and he’d like a specific way to display some images. I haven’t quite figured that out yet. Looking forward to shoring up my abilities this year.

We make assumptions in life that if you do x you will get y. It’s something ingrained in us from an early age. It may have to do with our grandparents work ethic carrying over from our parents till our present day. In a world of fast moving technology you may feel like you’re always chasing the “dream job” rabbit.

I know when I was getting close to graduating high school in 1999 that I had no idea what I’d do to earn a living. My dad started his own business that was moderately successful, but my impression of that was I needed to think outside of the working man mentality to find employment that embraced the future. By that I mean, I know that artists in the traditional sense do not make a lot of money. I felt that my artistic tendencies was the reasonable skill that I had. So I took it upon myself to pursue a education in the liberal arts. It was a few years into receiving my education that I finally stumbled across a skill set that seemed to fit my personality. I had determined that I would be a Graphic Designer. Graphic Designers were the working man’s artist. A Graphic Designer could bring home a decent wage.

For the first time I felt as if my own feelings about myself had been validated. I felt as if the calling I knew to be true was in fact proven. The years were slipping by faster than I could keep up but I made an especially valiant effort to complete my degree.

Finally degreed and married, life was where I wanted to be. The only exception was that I didn’t have the Job yet. I knew that this sort of thing didn’t happen over night, so I waited patiently. I thought I got a break early on working for a cattle magazine. A job that required driving an hour a half for barely minimum wage. It was prestigious and it was a great experience, but the pay just didn’t cut it. I quickly seized a local job that paid 50 cents more an hour and was virtually across the street from my home. I stayed with that company for a few years until the work completely dried up.

So here I am plenty experienced and highly motivated to succeed, especially with a new baby. With the old job quickly drying up and another mouth the feed quickly on the horizon I did what any sensible father would do. I got a job at an office box store. After two weeks of enduring one of the worst working experience I’ve ever had I decided to quit. Within a month I had lost three jobs.

My thought was, “I’m better than this” I should be able to make more money than what I am. I should enjoy my work. I should not be viewed as the incompetent new guy. I have three years experience in the print industry, I have a four year degree, I have legitimate artistic talent, why can’t I get paid for it?

So with a heavy heart I decided that the best option for my family was to become an independent contractor and a self-employed graphic designer/illustrator. I felt that I might have better luck if I put my fate into my own hands. After all, who will believe in me better than me? I know what I’m capable of! I may not word it just right on a resume but I know what I can do!

At first it felt like a great decision. I was watching the baby, saving money on sitters, and I was working on the side. I was also going to school to learn how to do web design. It seemed as if people were constantly asking if I could do that kind of work. In fact it appeared as if I was getting more jobs with frequency. But as time lingered on we discovered that the work was not coming in regularly. Even though our daughter is pretty good at staying quiet, I felt it was unprofessional to take her to network meetings. I neeeded to act like a professional in order to get professional clients. So that has limited my ability to network, which was one of the components to our success.

My wife is now wanting me to be able to bring home most of the household income. I don’t blame her either. I want to be able to feel like the degrees and education that I’ve pursued has been worth it. As I look at the employment opportunities in Evansville it appears as if none of them are suited towards our needs. I will be freelancing this summer and hoping that the business picks up steam. If not, it appears as if we no choice but to start looking outside of Evansville for work. It pains me to say that because in the last few years Evansville has become my home. It has always been my intention to stay here as long as possible.

We will see where things go from here. I will post updates on how things are going from time to time.

–David

In thinking about today’s blog I needed to consider several different point of views to arrive at a summary of ideas. Deciding on a purpose is always important before beginning a journey. If you were to drive around aimlessly and decided to randomly stop at the grocery store and then get your hair cut, you might end up with spoiled groceries.

As a person who is used to designing for print media it’s hard to change one’s point of view about the nature of design. If you first consider your purpose you will always end up with better results. Thinking about the purpose of web design will give me (the designer) a path that leads to better communication.

Here are a few quotes about web design:

“Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity.” http://www.alistapart.com/articles/understandingwebdesign

and two more from another site…

“…if you care about your craft and your ideas, you’ll take the extra time, perhaps working late into the night, as we all have, and add the touches that you know will make your work really shine.”

“Let the complexity be in the simplicity—a design is not useful when it’s perceived to be complex. A design should be useful, simple, and straightforward—let the complexity shine through via simplicity.”

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/designisinthedetails

This shows the necessity of clear navigation…

You must always be able to answer the following questions:

1. Where am I? (Present)
2. Where can I go? (Future)
3. Where have I been? (Past)

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/whereami/

Where are we going?

Design must be flexible as technology changes.

“HTML is already becoming a no-man’s land: presentation is shifting into stylesheets, and structure is moving into XML.”

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/infoexperience/

The two videos below actually demonstrate the need for considering other points of view when designing. Handicapped users are just as important to consider when developing a website.

These were my first reactions to the video:

I can see that it can be very frustrating to come across a website and not getting any relevant information from it. But just like in the open market place you will always gravitate towards better customer service. I don’t think that Target is participating in open discrimination. I think they’re not used to competing at a level that Wal-Mart is. In the end Wal-Mart knows that every one of it’s dollars are valuable and they do everything they can to keep customers. Should Target be sued for being bad at business? I don’t think so. If Target was the ONLY place to get a life sustaining item, then yes I could see a case for discrimination.

This video documents new technologies that are emerging that allow for greater web accessibility. I think it’s great that customer demand is pushing for newer approaches to using the web. The video argues that eventually, hands free typing, may be a reality. The keyboard, a device that the majority of users access the web with,  will soon be seen as a handicap accessible device for the vocally impaired. Technology becomes the great equalizer.

To summarize, the designer must effectively balance purposed design with navigation that considers all of it’s audience members.  The effective communicator will guide his audience to the information he needs to present in a pleasant and direct way.