April 5, 2008
Deadlines and dead lines | 1:24 am
And now I'm blogging a few hours later than I normally would. I've got a caffeine buzz going tonight and am staying up late to work on my novel. I'm also periodically checking the File-Transfer connection to a client's Web host. I had a request waiting in my email this morning for an addition to an update I made at the beginning of the week on one of their Web pages. I replied back that I'd have it done before tomorrow.
If an update will take less than an hour, I try to get it out of the way that day or the next. It took only about fifteen minutes to decide how I wanted to present the raw data the client had given me (event name and dates), both for marketing language and code. So after formatting and playing with ideas for a catchy tagline for the event, I tried to connect to the Web server that hosts the site.
And then I tried again. And again. After testing my FTP software on other Web hosts successfully, it was obvious. Still, every so often, I'd get in for a few moments. Like Tantalus, it would disconnect right before I could get the updated Web page uploaded. And then, the host and the client's site went out altogether.
The event is more than a week into May, and I know this client in particular isn't going to be frustrated about a small delay. But I sent a status report back anyway, to let them know exactly what was going on. As a Web designer, a great deal of my communication will be remote through phone conversations and email. Staying in touch is a good habit to develop. It can actually set me apart from many Web designers!
April 3, 2008
Finding time | 4:17 pm
I'm blogging a few hours earlier than I normally would. There are lots of things to do, and today, most of it is unrelated to Web design. But, some of those things can be done later without the Internet if a developing thunder-storm zaps my neighborhood's power out.
Whenever a day's schedule is fully in my hands, knowing exactly what I want to accomplish is important. There are all sorts of projects, responsibilities and obligations that will demand my attention this month, and hefty chunks of my time.
When I decided to pick Web design back up, it wasn't because I had so much free time floating around. I had known for a while that I should have stuck with it, even when the industry was saturated with undervalued designers. I began to acknowledge that there would never be a good time to start over; meaning, there would never be a bunch of days in a row with tons of free time to redevelop my skills. Instead, I would need to manage my time, so that I could find places to squeeze in some Web design.
There shouldn't be a single day when I decide, consciously or by default, that I can't spend at least an hour advancing my knowledge of Web design. Blogging doesn't count, but a few minutes to track my progress, or just my thoughts, results in something I can look back on and review later.
April 2, 2008
Web Design: Not a toy | 9:25 pm
Web design is fun, but like a car, it's not a toy. It can look and feel great, but maintenance can be tedious. Without proper maintenance, bugs remain hidden in code, content grows stale and links decay.
Web design is multidisciplinary. We call it Web design because we're designing Web pages. But we're also designing images, such as logos, and layouts with photos or graphic art, and producing articles for marketing and public relations. Many Web designers are also Web developers, programming dynamic interfaces that connect to databases to process credit cards, or show video games and movies right in the browser.
Web design is not like riding a bicycle. Like I wrote yesterday, if you're a Web designer with years of experience, I would probably learn more by reading your blog instead of writing mine. But there's one thing I can teach you. You can't just pick it up again easy. You should think twice before you let anything spontaneous pull you in another direction. No matter how much money is involved at the time, jobs come and go. You can only truly advance -- both personally and professionally -- in a career.
Web designers are information architects, but it's not really the Web that people use to experience digital information. If it can be seen, heard, touched, smelled or tasted, Web designers are able to design for some of our senses now, and will design using media for all of them in the future, probably within my lifetime. As technologies diversify and advance, it becomes almost harder to disbelieve this than to believe it.
The Web is quickly becoming ubiquitous. People will want access to the Web in their homes, cars, pockets, clothes, and even bodies. It's not the most horrible, boring job I could think of.
April 1, 2008
11:14 pm
I'm going to spend a month detailing bits and pieces of my rise to Web design infamy.
It's not going to be deep and dramatic like my rise to noveling fame. It won't be scrutinous like my adventure finding another way to pay the bills (a select audience was privy to that pickle). Just think of this as an April Fool's Day joke that lasts all month long. Except, maybe not funny; And maybe not as interesting (if you're already in Web design, I would probably learn more by reading your blog instead of writing mine; please tell me where it is).
So where do I start? I've got a good, self-deprecating opening above. Crucial for newbies. You have to be able to laugh at yourself, and do it quickly before anyone else can. It somehow transfers their cool points to you. Odd, yes, but I don't make the rules.
Actually I do make the rules. Which is bothering me right now, because if you look at the P tag for the time underneath the date, I'd like it to rest right beneath the date, which uses the H2 tag. I tried using the line-height property inline on the P tag, but the time barely budged. No laughing matter! I could cheat and use a different tag for the date. But it's probably bad luck to let a Web design blog degenerate into a discussion of HTML hacks on the first entry.
March, 2008
This has been a good month. Visit my blog next week for an update on the noveling front.
Last month, after catching up on foundational HTML with Webmonkey: The Web Developer's Resource, I dug through a closet for the classic reference, Designing CSS Web Pages.
Designing with CSS is better than using HTML alone, because forward compatibility means designs won't break when web browsers and mobile devices change and become more advanced. In most cases -- since you can't tell customers what browser or platform to use when visiting your site -- your site should be designed to cooperate with old, current, and future technology. This is an area where the future arrives early.
You want a Web site, right?
If you or your company needs a website designed, revised or maintained, Send me mail at jacob@lettucethink.com.
February, 2008
Web design involves more than HTML markup, SEO, and CSS layouts (You can mouse over those underlined acronyms if you don't know what they mean). So, I'm going to want to get familiar with some parts of graphic design again.
Since my website looks so cruddy right now, I'll show off a few pictures I made for practice recently. This first picture is my hand, scanned, and then edited with Photoshop 7, the most recent version I own (worksjustfine).
Web design also involves photography, typography, and audience types.
Typography, like color, can be considered contextual because different fonts convey different attitudes, sometimes even genders and classes. GQ isn't cursively flourished Monotype Corsiva for the same reason The New Yorker isn't Comic Sans.
This next picture is a dramatic, close-up shot of my small white-marble elephant. Broken trunk, blurred in Photoimpression 4 and saturated with color. Labeled with Visitor, one of my favorite fonts, by Brian Kent of ÆNIGMA Fonts.
For reference, a close-up shot of my elephant (and hand), not so dramatic.
This is a book cover I made for people who wanted to read "Myopia in a Popular Culture of Ascension", my first novel's first draft, written for National Novel Writing Month 2007.
I crumpled up a sticker sheet and used Photoshop to replace one of the smiley faces with planet Mars.
A two-chapter excerpt from the rough draft is available for reading. One day I might revise Myopia for submission to publishers.
This is a cube. The point of ugly graphic doodles like this has gradually become self-evident. Behind most good designs are several dozen ugly designs. Practice leads to perfect design, or at least to exuberant imperfection.
I find it helpful sometimes to practice making doodles in a program with almost fewer features than a sheet of paper, Microsoft Paint.
January, 2008
Call me Jacob. I'm a recovering has-been; but this year, I'm going back to school, and web design. The reason my homepage isn't fancy is because it's been so long since I've designed web pages, I couldn't remember how all the code worked in my previous uber-design-theme.
The good news is, after a week or so of research, I was able to clean the rust off some of the important know-how. The bad news is (for my homepage, not my rent), it looks like I already have some designing to do for other people's websites this month!
I'd like to take a moment to thank Webmonkey: The Web Developer's Resource 
for the best publicly available design resource on the web for designers who need to start catching up.