Stephanie Williams

"I don't care, it makes me happy:" #1

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:26:08 -0400

This used to come on public TV in the wee hours of the morning. (The alternatives: ‘Saved by the Bell’ reruns or QVC.) It teaches science, folks. Remember “Square One?”

To wit: wingless, bean-shaped ducks in sailor hats.

Institutional Design Done Well

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:53:00 -0400

Institutional Design Done Well:

I work for a large academic institution. I’m regularly constrained by common headers, archaic (yet inclusive) compatibility requirements… you get the picture. I know the people that designed these see the same kind of thing—but look what they’ve done anyway!

What I'm Reading (Offline), vol. 2

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:10:00 -0400

Just read:

Mary Stewart, “This Rough Magic”
Lynn Kurland, “A Garden in the Rain”
Amy Bryant, “Polly”
Daphne duMaurier, “Rebecca” (reread)
Diana Gabaldon, “An Echo in the Bone”
Rick Riordan, “The Lightning Thief”
Rick Riordan, “The Sea of Monsters”

Reading now:

Rick Riordan, “The Titan’s Curse”
Anna McPartlin, “Apart from the Crowd”
Herman Wouk, “Marjorie Morningstar” (reread)
George Eliot, “Middlemarch”

About to read:

Orson Scott Card, “Speaker for the Dead”
Lynn Kurland, “A Dance Through Time”
John Claude Bemis, “The Nine-Pound Hammer”

Comparing Bid City Logos Now we know Rio’s got 2016, but...

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:13:46 -0400

Comparing Bid City Logos

Now we know Rio’s got 2016, but if we had to judge based on logos alone…? I think it’s interesting how similar they all look, in general. All use sans-serif type, and three of the four use flat color shapes. Rio blissfully ignores the “colors of the rings” constraint, and I’m interested in whatever the butterfly-thing signifies. Perhaps the interwebs can tell me…

Rant: Tables for Table Things

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 11:34:07 -0400

Tables have a bad rep. Do I use them to place logos and menus on my pages? No. Do I use them to arrange tabular data in a matrix? YES. YES, YES, YES. It’s what they’re FOR.

I’m done.

Cage Match: Arial vs. Helvetica

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 11:22:18 -0400

Cage Match: Arial vs. Helvetica:

Okay, fine, the snobs in us would say Helvetica wins—but I missed a few of these. Oh, the shame.

The Readability Experiment

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:03:21 -0400

The Readability Experiment:

As a web designer, this should horrify me. This bookmarklet service lets you choose styles for comfortable online reading, then enable them as you view content from other sites with a click of your bookmark bar. I find it kind of cool; you can print it that way, email it that way… it separates the content from the blinking encroachment of ads or “Look Here!—No, Here!” links that clutter most newsmagazine pages. Interesting.

Cheese or Font?

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:06:43 -0400

Harder than it sounds.

Play “Cheese or Font?”

Vectorizing photos online = Awesome. Aviary’s new release...

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:44:17 -0400

Vectorizing photos online = Awesome.

Aviary’s new release of “Raven,” their online vector editing tool, features tracing of bitmap images in up to 128 color layers. I threw the burger image from this post at it, and it came out pretty cool.

"If it keeps up, man will atrophy all his limbs but the push-button finger."

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 17:03:39 -0400

“If it keeps up, man will atrophy all his limbs but the push-button finger.”

- Frank Lloyd Wright, on technology source

Tales from the Redesign.

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:49:37 -0400

I’m redesigning, revamping, reconstructing, re-whatevering my website. Actually, I’m not sure it ever really existed in the first place. I’ve had a string of accounts on social media sites, the odd joke page here and there, a school page—but never actually a website based on who I am and what I do.

Which might seem odd, given.. what I do.

I’m calling it a ‘redesign’ because I’ve designed my own website, over the years, too many times to count. Ah, the millionth time’s the charm, right?

Anyhow, I’m about 70% done. I have a lot of portfolio-imagery grunt work to do. Right now, it’s all an experiment in centering content and backgrounds vertically. I thought it was cool, but I guess we’ll see how it holds up.

Color Photography from 1900-1915 Sergei Mikhailovich...

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:11:00 -0400

Color Photography from 1900-1915

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii took color pictures in the first part of the 20th century by taking three photos of each subject—one each in red, green, and blue filters—and combining them for a color composite. According to the intro of this Newsweek gallery, his prints were lost but his plates recovered and digitally combined by the Library of Congress. For all images, see the Library of Congress’ collection.

It’s astonishing how often I had to suppress the feeling that I was looking at modern-day people dressed up in costumes. To think of these people and places in colors other than “sepia” is amazing.

Great Blogs File: "Brand New"

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:18:58 -0400

Among the horde of web and graphic design blogs out there that seem to always throw lists at me (in the form of—to reference a great article from ‘Web Pages that Suck‘—”[number] [hyperbole-based modifier] [name of software or web-related noun] for your [some type of mental state]”), Under Consideration’s “Brand New” is refreshing.

Brand New

Lots of great opinions there, but my favorite thing to see is the ‘before and after’ redesigns. It’s interesting to see what a company decides will freshen its image—even more interesting when I disagree.

The walls of my office are dry-erase boards that until today...

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 14:44:36 -0400

The walls of my office are dry-erase boards that until today were rather intensely scribbled-upon. It was sad to see it all go, but now it’s like having a brand-new notepad.

"Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration."

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:13:08 -0400

“Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.”

- Jeffrey Zeldman source

What I'm Reading (Offline)

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 14:44:04 -0400

Just read:

Mary Stewart, “The Ivy Tree”
Mary Stewart, “Wildfire at Midnight”
A. S. Byatt, “Posession”
Rosina Lippi, “The Pajama Girls of Lambert Square”
Carrie Ryan, “The Forest of Hands and Teeth”
Orson Scott Card, “Ender’s Game”
Peter Mayle, “A Year in Provence”

Reading now:

Kate Chopin, “The Awakening”
Bill Bryson, “A Short History of Nearly Everything”
Mary Stewart, “This Rough Magic”
Barbara Kingsolver, “Animal Vegetable Miracle”
Herman Wouk, “Marjorie Morningstar” (reread)
Adam Rex, “The True Meaning of Smekday”

About to read:

Lynn Kurland, “A Garden in the Rain”
Orson Scott Card, “Speaker for the Dead”
Daphne duMaurier, “Rebecca” (reread)

The Wisconsin Cheese and Burger Society So, yeah, this is a...

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:00:19 -0400

The Wisconsin Cheese and Burger Society

So, yeah, this is a great-looking site. But the reason it’s here should be obvious. This has maybe changed my life.

Adobe Kuler

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:35:09 -0400

Adobe Kuler:

iurikato:

here’s adobe kuler, a great web app for finding and creating color themes

http://hello.hotgloo.com/

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:39:55 -0400

http://hello.hotgloo.com/:

Played around with this today… it’s a brand-new in-browser wireframing tool. I was able to build a nice little index page in about five minutes, and only felt like I scratched the surface. I’m extremely excited.

Excellent CodeIgniter Framework Tutorial

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 07:46:32 -0400

Excellent CodeIgniter Framework Tutorial:

I’m diving into using frameworks and have been really pleased with this roundup of tutorials from NetTuts+.