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It’s that time of the year again when people are, quite suddenly, nice to each other for a while (ah, shame it isn’t like this the year round, eh?) and we at TFTS – that is Alex, Chris, Kevin, Mike, Nick and myself – would like to extend our warmest wishes to you and your families and, above all else, wish you a very, very merry and peaceful Christmas.

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This is the sixth (and second to last) in the “7 Questions, 7 Designers” series, in which I throw out a different question each day and compile the answers from seven different designers. There are participants from all over the world, each offering a different and unique perspective on the realm of design.

Today’s discussion is about something that is very important to me – the concepts of charity and social justice as they relate to design. I was really interested to read our designers opinions. I hope you will be too!

We’re rapidly approaching the holiday season, when people seem to think more about the needs of others and the less fortunate – Peace on Earth, Goodwill Towards Men. With that in mind, what do you think is the role of the design community when it comes to issues of charity and/or social justice? Do you think that we can play any unique or special role? Are there any causes or organizations that you support?

Grace Smith
Follow Grace on Twitter

The design community can be incredibly generous and supportive when the issues of charity and social justice arise. I’ve seen designers raise five and six figure sums through Twitter alone for causes ranging from Cancer to equipment for their local school.

The web community is an incredibly generous one at it’s heart. People enjoy giving back to a worthy cause. I think design and designers can play an incredible role when it comes to Charity, from the more obvious like designing a charities site and branding to physically volunteering and helping to raise awareness. Organisations such as as the Taproot Foundation enable professionals to work alongside organisations in need of their expertise in a logical, well organised manner that is truly beneficial to all those involved.

Committed artists and designers who want to offer their services on a pro-bono basis or volunteer ‘for the greater good’ do have a unique role to play when it comes to social justice. Design is ultimately a tool and it has the power to generate emotion and become part of a universal ’shared experience’, especially when that is used for the benefit of others and to raise awareness for specific issues.

I support several charities that I have had personal experience with, including; Epilepsy Action, the Chest, Heart & Stroke Foundation and the Meningitis Trust. I also contribute to worthy campaigns online, most recent was Movember.

Nick La
Follow Nick on Twitter

I think the design community can help bringing awareness of these issues by blogging. Some of the organizations that I support are FreeRice.com and BlogActionDay.org.

Chris Spooner
Follow Chris on Twitter

It’s always great to see causes springing up every now again. Blog Action Day has been a success over the past years, and another that springs to mind is the ‘grow a mo to help a bro’ cause for Movember which seemed popular this year. With resources like Twitter it helps the word spread quickly, and soon captures the interest of the online communities.

Sneh Roy
Follow Sneh on Twitter

Christmas is a time of giving and sharing but I think a lot of the people in the developed world don’t really wait until the holiday season to give. People are becoming more aware and educated about the sufferings of the less fortunate, in third world countries and in their own backyards. As designers, we can make a small difference in a variety of little ways. I have offered my website designing skills to the local community school in the past. I know of other designer friends who have developed logos for non-profitable, charity organizations for free. Throughout the year, every month I support Save The Children. It is a fantastic organization that works very hard to build schools, rehabilitate children after natural disasters and man made calamities like war, houses them, clothes them and educates them. They work hard at eradicating child labor by educating people in the civilized world and by active development in the affected areas of the world. Besides that every alternate month I support The Royal Institute for the Deaf and Blind Children and our local Rural Firefighter’s Association [I live in the bush!]. Especially at Christmas time, we make our boys fill up a box of old toys that they have out-grown to give to less fortunate children. The sense of pride at giving and the kindness they have dealt to a total stranger is amazing to watch on a little child’s face.

Mike Smith
Follow Mike on Twitter

The holiday season is always a time that people put the “charity” hat on. In my opinion, I can’t stand when people do that. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that they’re doing something – but what about the rest of the year? If you’re only doing charity around the holidays, what are you doing it for? To genuinely help or to get the credit from your peers?

I support a few different charities and organizations that help the homeless, the Veterans of our armed forces and children with illnesses. I’ve done things for the past few years for each of them and donated as much as I possibly could. This year I am going to be doing things a bit more publicly through the launch of GIANT Themes with a couple contests in the upcoming months.

Jeff Finley
Follow Jeff on Twitter

I think that’s all fine and but it’s a tough sell. In America, most people are looking out for themselves. It’s not likely you’ll find a designer more interested in helping charity than padding his or her portfolio. BUT, having said that, designers are in a superior position of influence. We have the ability to create any message we want and get it out there.

However, when you’re stuck at your desk day in and day out – completely enveloped in your niche – you might not realize some of the issues going on outside or even down the street. Sometimes I get tunnel vision and only see my peers and competitors in the design community and sometimes forget about politics or other issues that people struggle with every day.

I think as designers mature and grow these social issues will become more prevalent. Young designers out of college, their focus should be on improving skills and establishing themselves in the field. I think once you’re established and your skills become second nature, you’ll grow more interested in using those skills for the greater good.

Brad Colbow
Follow Brad on Twitter

I’m a fan of individual charity over community charity. Maybe I’m jaded, but doing things like turning your avatar green for a cause or putting a badge on a blog just seems like a hollow show of support. I don’t think it makes much of a difference.

This year for Christmas my family is buying toys for a local kid who otherwise wouldn’t have anything. It’s something our church organizes every year. Those are the kinds of efforts I feel good about getting behind because I know it makes a difference in someone’s life.

Awesome! It’s great to see all these different perspectives on these issues, and to read about some of the different causes that our designers support. What about you? What are your views on the relationship between design and charity/social justice? What causes do you support? Be sure to check back tomorrow for the last post in this series!

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I can’t believe we are already on the fifth day of our “7 Questions, 7 Designers” series, in which I throw out a different question each day and compile the answers from seven different designers. There are participants from all over the world, each offering a different and unique perspective on the realm of design.

Today, we’re going to be tackling questions about blogging (specifically design blogging), both in its present state and its envisioned future. Our designers have some really interesting ideas.

You guys all run or are directly involved with at least one blog. Can you speak to your experiences in this area? How important is blogging to your work in general? Where do you find inspiration for your posts and/or articles?

Also, what do you foresee as being the evolution of blogging? It’s already changed so much over the past few years, and I would be really interested to hear your thoughts on where you think things might be going!

Brad Colbow
Follow Brad on Twitter

My blog posts a weekly comic strip and inspiration for it is everywhere. For me the comic and the site it’s on are my playground where I can try things that I can’t do for clients. It’s a great creative outlet and I think every designer should have a way to explore things there interested but can’t do during their day jobs.

The Future…

Design blogging has really changed over the last 2 years or so. Before services like Buysellads.com were around it was very hard to make money on a blog. Since there is money in it now we see a lot more blogs pushing out similar content. That’s part of the reason I gave up trying to run a conventional blog and turned to creating content that would be different than everyone else’s (the comic strip). A few months ago I started playing with the idea of taking normal blog content and putting it in comic strip form and that’s been really successful for me.

Right now I’m really really in to the idea of art direction in blogs, like what Jason Santa Maria is up to. Designing a blog post to visually reflect the content of the post instead of just sticking it into a WordPress template like I have on my current site. The next iteration of my site will incorporate a lot of those ideas.

Grace Smith
Follow Grace on Twitter

My blog is a way for me to talk about the things that I am truly interested in, namely; design, productivity, UX and freelancing. It also acts as a means of keeping in touch with other creatives and bloggers and as a way to improve my writing and teaching skills.

Writing and blogging is important and has become an integral part of my personal branding and also acts as a way for me to continually learn and explore new ideas, techniques and technologies.

Inspiration for posts usually comes when I’m not in front of my mac! It could happen at the cinema, reading a book, listening to music, having a conversation with a client or friend or even when I’m working on a project. It means the ideas flow naturally as staring at a blank screen forcing yourself to write and brainstorm does not work for me!

The Future…

Blogs are essentially just a tool for communication, to share thoughts and ideas and connect with others. It think it will continue to evolve with the very concept of ‘blog’ becoming fuzzy as more and more tools and ideas are embodied within it. I think this will lead to the line dividing micro-bloggers and bloggers writing in-depth niche specific content, becoming blurred.

Blogging will become a greater mash-up of a persons existence online, to become a web of interconnected social elements that becomes highly reputation based.

Even though we are now undoubtedly in the era of micro-blogging, thought leaders such as Seth Godin will continue to be a powerful influence. I feel the shift to real time is just the beginning of the next evolution of communication online.

Nick La
Follow Nick on Twitter

Blogging at Web Designer Wall and N.Design Studio helps me keep up with the design trends advance my technical skills. For example, as I’m writing tutorials I also learn new techniques at the same time. I get self satisfaction by reading the feedbacks from the blogs. I get inspiration for my articles from reading other designers’ blogs, surfing the net, reading tweets on Twitter, and the things that I see in everyday life. Going through the submissions from Best Web Gallery helps me keep up with the trends and technology.

The Future…

I think blogging is getting more popular than ever. Thanks to the ease of WordPress and cheap hosting, almost every designer has a blog now. I think WordPress will grow even stronger in the future. Most sites I see now are powered by WordPress – whether it is a blog, general website, or large complex editorial site.

Chris Spooner
Follow Chris on Twitter

Blogging has given me a huge boost in my career, by developing quite a large profile online, bringing in awesome client work and generating a passive revenue that enabled me to go forth into self-employment. Therefore blogging is the most important thing in my work life. I can trace back all the great opportunities I’ve seen over the past 2.5 years back to my blogging activities.

Having written blog topics for a while it’s like second nature to develop new post ideas, this is also combined with everyday inspirations. With my blog being a place where I experiment, any urges I have to play around in new areas I’ll simply create a new tutorial or article.

The Future…

There’s definitely been an increase in design blogs, and there seems to have been a few blogs gaining huge success with the magazine style model, where a large number of authors are paid to write. I’ve seen some revolts from certain people in the industry about the style of content from design blogs, with a lot of people condemning list style posts. Whether this will have an affect I don’t know. While there’s this collection of people with a hatred for certain types of blog content, there’s also an audience ten times larger that enjoy such topics!

Sneh Roy
Follow Sneh on Twitter

I have two blogs. LBOI is a design and development blog which initially started as an outlet for all my creative energy. It was and still is a place where I seek solace in the form of my creative ramblings, connect with other like-minded individuals who get excited about sometimes rather nerdy things like Optimus Prime or that awesome casette tape retro USB hub. It is a place where I share what moves and affects me as a designer, what I learn on a daily basis and a medium to showcase my work. Gel’s Kitchen is my food blog which is a dinosaur at the ripe old age of 6 as compared to LBOI, which is not even a year old. Gel’s Kitchen is fueled by my passion of good food and photography. Blogging on LBOI has recently fetched me a lot of projects which I am thankful for. I think potential clients look at your blog and your very public persona and realize that you will stick around and won’t run away with their money. They also get an outsider’s perspective to your work as a designer and how you deal with other designers and non-designers on social networks.

Blogging is not easy, if someone tells you otherwise, they are not doing it right. Every time I write on my blog [other than list.inspiration posts], I feel like I put a bit of my heart and soul into what I write and put it up there for people to love or hate. When you blog, you have to open yourself up to the lovers and haters and be responsible with what you write and project. It gets a tad frustrating sometimes, but on the whole it is a very rewarding, self-development process. I feel blogging has taught me things in 9 months that 4 years of my degree education didn’t teach me.

The Future…

Blogging and micro-blogging comparisons aside, I think blogging is becoming more and more personal with time. Not only are people weaving a very unique, personal web of words on their respective blogs but the infusion of unique themes and layouts for each post makes it a very tangible prospect towards stamping your own personality on those posts. The time is not far when we see little video blurbs/modules instead of comment boxes where each commenter will be live and actually involved in a lively discussion with others, a la Brady Brunch style window boxes.

Mike Smith
Follow Mike on Twitter

I’ve run a few blogs in my day and am in the process of revamping/relaunching a couple new ones actually. I think it’s good to build dicipline in your work day and also a great way to share your knowledge with other people in your niche. If your blog is directly related to your business, it’s a great way to let clients know you’re smart enough to work on their projects.

I find inspiration for my articles by subscribing to 100+ feeds from all different niches. I generally get ideas from sites that aren’t even closely related to the one I am writing for.

The Future…

I think that the flood of copycat blogs will continue to grow, while the blogs that are unique will start to thrive. I’ve also noticed that a lot of the big blogs over the past couple years are slowly dying out (in certain niches) and posting a lot less which is going to allow for a new breed of “top dogs” to arise. Maybe I’ll be one of them? Who knows. I just love being a part of the process.

Jeff Finley
Follow Jeff on Twitter

We run the www.GoMediaZine.com and I also run my personal site www.jefffinley.org – Adam Wagner runs www.soundsjustlike.com which requires more time and energy to maintain.

Blogging is actually kind of a necessity these days. I don’t know anyone in the design community who doesn’t have some sort of blog online. It can be personal, corporate, or educational. But the concept of writing about your expertise is only a good thing.

My personal experience says blogs are easy to start but hard to maintain. You have to really believe in your blog and once you start to get readers, you need to interact and be friends with them. Readers are more than just casual “fans” – they want to interact, get involved, talk to you on Facebook, etc. If you’re going to blog, do it for the community and the social relationships otherwise it feels like work. Which I admit, it often does. But that’s only because I get loaded up with projects or other tasks and “socializing” or writing worthwhile articles gets put on the backburner. It takes time to craft good articles.

I find inspiration from reading other blogs. When I see an article that inspires me, I figure out why. Why do I enjoy that article? How did they write it? And then the next step is to take that inspiration and turn it into a productive session of writing and hopefully it becomes something of value. I should take my own advice more!

The Future…

I touched on this on question 2. But I foresee blogging taking a positive step BACK. Back to the days when blogs were personal and transparent. However, everything we’ve learned through the whole “list post” era will enhance what we do. I envision blogging becoming more interactive with readers and definitely more social.

I envision more opinion related posts that are for conversation rather than a tutorial or freebie. I envision the reader base maturing and craving more substance and meat from their post. More controversial topics, more people challenging what others are doing. I picture readers getting overwhelmed in their RSS Readers and removing everything and starting over.

There are some really interesting thoughts and ideas on blogging. Again, we’re seeing more discussion about the whole issue of list posts, which is something that I will be writing about soon. Also, I really agree with Brad about being captivated by the idea of having unique design elements on a post by post basis! Be sure to check back over the next couple of days for more awesome insights from these seven great minds!

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This series is supported by Times Reader 2.0. Learn more about The New York Times’ latest innovation in newspaper delivery here.

We’re big fans of eBooks. You can read them on multiple computers or devices, add annotations, and search for specific words and phrases. Plus, an eBook doesn’t take up tons of room like physical books, which is great for the road warrior.

In the last few years, publishers have finally started to embrace digital publishing and now lots of books on lots of different topics are available for various eBook platforms. If you’re into social media (and who isn’t?) check out these ten can’t-miss eBooks!

1. Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich

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Most people are familiar with the sanitized history of Facebook: Harvard kid starts a web site in his dorm room, ends up changing the world. Although that’s part of the truth, and is certainly compelling in its own right, Mezrich’s take on Facebook’s founding and its behind-the-scenes legal battles is like something out of Hollywood. In fact, Accidental Billionaires is the basis for the film, The Social Network, which is due to arrive in theaters in October 2010. If you use Facebook and are curious about its history‚ or if you just love a good, gripping soap opera ‚ don’t miss this book!

Format: Kindle, Nook, others

2. The Art of Community by Jono Bacon

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Bacon is the Community Manager for Ubuntu, one of the largest open source software projects on the planet. In this book he talks about the ins and outs of building, cultivating and managing a community from the ground up. This is a must-read for anyone interested in community development. In a truly community-friendly effort, you can download the entire book for free and share and modify it under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike Non-Commercial license.

Format: Free PDF, Kindle, Nook, others

3. The World According to Twitter by David Pogue

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New York Times columnist David Pogue got into Twitter in late 2008 and decided to use the service as the basis for this book. Every day, Pogue asked his followers questions and compiled the best, most interesting and funniest responses. This is a great example of just how much can be shared in 140 characters.

Format: Kindle, others

4. Content by Cory Doctorow

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Cory Doctorow, one of the voices behind the uber-blog Boing-Boing, is well-known for his opinions on technology, DRM and the future of content. Content is a collection of some of his best work and is an insightful read. Truly a man that practices what he preaches, the book is available for free in multiple formats.

Format: Free download

5. Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk

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Gary Vaynerchuk is one of those people that absolutely bursts with energy. Whether he’s talking about wine, talking about marketing or just talking about people, Gary is passionate. Gary has built his business on the back of that passion and is a shining example of what can be accomplished when you push yourself and dedicate your life to what you love.

Format: Kindle, others

6. Free by Chris Anderson

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The author of The Long Tail released his follow-up earlier this year, called Free. In it, Anderson argues that the best price is often no price, instead offering freemium models or incentives and services to make money, rather than charging for the “product” itself. It’s an interesting idea, and even if you don’t buy all of Anderson’s assertions, it is still worth a read. Ironically, Free is no longer available for free.

Format: Kindle, others

7. The New Community Rules by Tamar Weinberg

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Mashable’s own Tamar Weinberg wrote this fantastic book about how to use, understand and leverage social media to market your product, your service or yourself. By focusing on the importance of community and joining the conversation, Tamar does a great job getting to the heart of why social media is so interesting and game-changing.

Format: Kindle, others

8. Reality Check by Guy Kawasaki

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Guy Kawasaki is a legend. At Apple, he helped spread the word about the Macintosh and keep the community engaged (even when the community and the company were fading), almost single-handedly creating the job category of “brand evangelist” and as an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, he’s seen what works and what doesn’t. In his latest book, Guy does what Guy does best: he lays out the facts and ideas that seem like common sense (until you realize how often they are ignored) about building community and the power of networking.

Format: Kindle, others

9. Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith

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Chris Brogan is one of those guys who really walks the walk. He doesn’t just talk about how to build influence and the power of the conversation, he’s always part of the conversation. No matter how successful he gets, Chris is still Chris, and he’s still there to talk and listen. His book on building reputation and earning trust on the web is genuine, just like he is.

Format: Kindle, others

10. What Matters Now by Seth Godin and others

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Seth Godin’s latest book, which features essays by himself and a host of other brilliant minds is available for free. In What Matters Now, each essayist focuses on something that matters to them. Think of this as your New Year’s Resolution in an eBook.

Format: Free download

This series is supported by Times Reader 2.0. Learn more about The New York Times’ latest innovation in newspaper delivery here.

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Tags: books, ebooks, Kindle, List, Lists, nook, social media, times reader series

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This is now the fourth day “7 Questions, 7 Designers” series, in which I throw out a different question each day and compile the answers from seven different designers. There are participants from all over the world, each offering a different and unique perspective on the realm of design. We’re over halfway through now.

In yesterday’s session, we talked about how our designers typically spend their days and what their workflows actually look like. Today, we’re actually going to take a look at some of the tools that they use on a daily basis!

Let’s talk about the tools of the trade. We all do our thing a little differently. Can you just let us what tools you use in each of the following areas?

Jeff Finley
Follow Jeff on Twitter

1. Computer: PC
2. Browser: Firefox
3. Email: Outlook (Exchange rocks)
4. RSS Reader: Google Reader
5. Imaging Software: Photoshop
6. Code Editor: Notepad2, Dreamweaver
7. Twitter: Destroy Twitter
8. Blogging: WordPress
9. Task Management: Pen and paper + Action Method by Behance, Prooflab (Go Media’s private (soon to be public) project management app)
10. Extras: FolderMenu, YouSendit, Dropbox, Wacom Intuos 3, Moleskine, Col Erase pencils, iPod, and Coffee.

Brad Colbow
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1. Computer: Mac
2. Browser: Firefox, but I’m trying out Chrome right now.
3. Email: I use Yahoo’s web client
4. RSS Reader: Google reader
5. Imaging Software: Photoshop and Illustrator
6. Code Editor: Dreamweaver and TextEdit
7. Twitter: Twitterific
8. Blogging: WordPress, but exploring other options at the moment like Expression Engine.
9. Task Management: Basecamp
10. Extras: I have a Wacom Cintiq tablet. I don’t use it everyday but it’s been indispensable for illustration.

Grace Smith
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1. Computer: Mac
2. Browser: Safari
3. Email: Google Apps
4. RSS Reader: Google Reader
5. Imaging Software: Adobe Photoshop
6. Code Editor: Coda
7. Twitter: Tweetie
8. Blogging: WordPress
9. Task Management: TaskPaper
10. Extras: I use my Macbook (13″) as a second screen just for emails as i’ve found it helps me to be more productive. I also have two external hard drives, the first is a 500GB MiniMax which stores my iTunes library and photos (as I am a keen amateur photographer). The other is a 1TB MiniMax which acts as backup for my iMac using TimeMachine, this works in combo with Mozy as my online backup.

    I have to mention my mouse, the LogiTech MX Revolution. I used the Apple Mighty Mouse for about 2 years until the RSI got so bad I had to make the switch to something much more ergonomic. The MX is simply amazing to use and I wouldn’t be without it now!

Nick La
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1. Computer: Mac
2. Browser: Recently switched to Google Chrome (Mac) because Firefox is running too slow on Mac.
3. Email: Mac Mail and Thunderbird
4. RSS Reader: Google Reader
5. Imaging Software: Photoshop
6. Code Editor: Dreamweaver
7. Twitter: TweetDeck and Tweetie
8. Blogging: WordPress
9. Task Management: iCal, papers and notes
10. Extras: Mouse and Tablet


Chris Spooner
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1. Computer: Mac!
2. Browser: Firefox
3. Email: Google Mail (via Google Apps)
4. RSS Reader: Google Reader
5. Imaging Software: Adobe Photoshop
6. Code Editor: Coda
7. Twitter: TweetDeck
8. Blogging: WordPress
9. Task Management: Things for Mac, and a good old fashioned notepad
10. Extras: My iPhone tends to come in handy when capturing inspiration while out and about, either by taking photos or jotting down notes. Otherwise, items that also populate my desk are calculator and external HD.


Sneh Roy
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1. Computer: Both. I use Mac for all my designing, browsing and photography. I use PC to code and maintain my sanity on social networks.
2. Browser: Firefox
3. Email: Erm .. Microsoft Outlook. It works and till I get on Mozilla’s Thunderbird, that will have to do.
4. RSS Reader: Google Reader
5. Imaging Software: Photoshop
6. Code Editor: Coldfusion Studio 5
7. Twitter: Tweetdeck on PC, Tweetic on Mac
8. Blogging: I used MT for a few years before happily moving onto WordPress.
9. Task Management: A plethora of paper-lists written the old-fashioned way. I am using Things for Mac and quite loving it, but I keep coming back to my trusty note paper and pen. Somehow writing down my chores makes them more approachable for me.
10. Extras: A Canon Printer, A Wacom Tablet, A 4GB USB stick to shuffle stuff between the PC and Mac [because sometimes my Mac acts up and won't connect to the network and it is so annoying!], a 1TB external hard drive for backups.


Mike Smith
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1. Computer: PC (for the time being). I want a Mac in a bad, bad way lol
2. Browser: Usually is Chrome but I’ve been having virus issues so I’m back on Firefox for now (Chrome isn’t working).
3. Email: Gmail – I also use it for my business emails.
4. RSS Reader: Google Reader
5. Imaging Software: Photoshop
6. Code Editor: Notepad++
7. Twitter: Usually tweetdeck, but I’ve been leaving twitter alone lately. Need to jump back in head first.
8. Blogging: WORDPRESS!
9. Task Management: A moleskine notebook. Yes, I keep it old school
10. Extras: I use the bare essentials right now. After the first of the year, I’ll be bulking up with backup harddrives, ect.

There are some interesting trends here. There are quite a range of tools, but it seems like all of our designers choose Photoshop for their imaging and WordPress for their blogging. What about you? Are there any other tools that you use? Be sure to check back over the next three days for more awesome insights from these seven great minds!

Related Posts:

• 7 Questions, 7 Designers – Day 2
• 7 Questions, 7 Designers – Day 3
• 7 Questions, 7 Designers – Day 1
• Giveaway: Win Vectors, Icons and Brushes from ArtBox7
• Giveaway: Custom Vector Pack from Echo Enduring Media

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Here we are on day three of the “7 Questions, 7 Designers” series, in which I throw out a different question each day and compile the answers from seven different designers. There are participants from all over the world, each offering a different and unique perspective on the realm of design.

Every designer approaches their work somewhat differently. So, today, we’re going to take a look at how our different designers spend/organize their days and workflows.

I’m always interested in peeking into other designers’ workflows. Can you give us a general synopsis of a normal day at the “office” (and I use the term lightly, since I know some of you work from home!)? What does your work space look like? Are you neat and organized, or more like me – frequently working amid various piles of paper?


Mike Smith
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I generally have been getting up around 8am lately (I’d sleep in more but my girlfriend is my alarm clock) and get moving around. Around 9am I check emails and go over twitter and other various websites I read (music related, design related, political related, ect). Around noon I take a break for lunch (sometimes) and then start back up around 1pm. From that point on, it’s either writing articles, designing layouts or coding until the sun goes down. I take a break around 8-10pm in order to watch a couple tv shows with my girlfriend (depending on what day of the week it is) and then get back to work around midnight and stay there until 3-4 am. I have insomnia so I couldn’t sleep earlier than that even if I tried to.

My office is clean most of the time. It’s actually where my dining room would be – I removed the table since it’s just my girlfriend and I living here, there’s no need for it. It’s basically just a shelf and a small desk for the time being. Once spring hits though, I will be putting it into our spare bedroom upstairs and painting/decorating. By that time, I also hope to have a MAC!


Jeff Finley
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Go Media’s got a large open warehouse-style office space. However, just over a year ago, we were working out of our President’s 2 bedroom townhouse. We had desks crammed into the kitchen and shoulders where nearly rubbing together it got so tight. We had to make a move and get our own office space.

As far as a typical day, we work 10-6 and it usually starts with email and writing down a list of my important to-dos for the day. I have a lot going on, both design, email, arsenal, and gomediazine. So I’ve got to be on top of my priorities and make sure things get done.

My typical project usually requires illustration or drawing in some way, but here’s a short list of typical things I do during a week. Emails with potential clients, current clients, press, bloggers, fellow designers and “fans” who ask questions about how to do this or that… Design for bands or clothing labels… Arsenal product design like Vector Packs, textures, etc. GoMediaZine admin and management, the occasional blog post, or site maintenance. Arsenal management and marketing the occasional tech fix or site tweak. Planning and brainstorming marketing, new site builds, new products, new clients, and general “what else can we do that’s cool..”


Brad Colbow
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Have you ever seen those posts where designers show off how cool their offices are? Well lets just say my office will never be in one of those. I keep things pretty organized but I do have cords running everywhere and it’s a little cramped so things get cluttered fast.

My workflow changes from time to time. How I approach a site depends on a lot of things like the timeline, budget and what I think is going to get me and the client the best end product. If the project has a lot of interaction and the client doesn’t have a clear vision of how it will all fit together I’ll spend a lot of time working on wireframes first. If it’s a large site and an untested idea I might team up with someone and do some user research first. Recently on a site I skipped wireframing and tried putting together mood boards since the site was just a standard ecommerce layout. The content and flow of the site was straight forward but the look and feel was up in the air. The workflow and the tools you use come down to what your goals are and the best way to achieve them.


Grace Smith
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I usually plan my tasks each evening (using TaskPaper) for the next day, this enables me to evaluate exactly what i need to accomplish and means i have a clear picture of how my day will look. I find it helps keep me focused and efficient.

A typical day means having breakfast and a read through my RSS Feeds (in Google Reader) and morning news at 8am. I also use this time to go through my emails so I’m ready to start work around 9. I work through my prioritised tasks until around 10.30 when i have a morning break (at least one cup of tea is involved in this!) I also use this time to return phone calls or contact clients. I work through to 1pm when i stop for lunch and then finish at 4.30pm. I usually leave the office for lunch and meet with friends/family as i feel it helps re-fuel my creative energy for the afternoon.

I finish earlier than most because i like to take 20/30 minutes to plan my next day, prepare invoices and generally tie up any loose ends from the day’s work. My work throughout the day is usually a combination of design and development work (in Photoshop/Coda/Mamp etc) mixed with communications, for example in Skype and Basecamp. This is a typical day but of course every day is different, as i do consulting work i may be out of the office for most of the day or there may be client meetings scheduled throughout the day but it serves as general overview of my day to day routine.

In the evening i would spend time on my own blog, writing posts and brainstorming for future posts/series. Of course, I would also be on Twitter as it’s an amazing resource for creatives and I have some great tweeps who I chat with. I try to keep both the evenings and weekends free of any work related activities and use my time on personal projects instead as I find it’s important to set work boundaries and keep a good work/life balance.

I like to have an organised, neat workspace although at times near the end of the week it may not always look like that!


Nick La
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To be honest, I don’t have an office nor even a desk at home. I don’t like to work at home or the office. I particularly like to work outside such as tea/coffee shops (eg. Starbucks). I get inspiration and ideas by working in different environment and seeing fresh people. Read this article to find out why I like to work outside of my home. At home, I’m using my dinning table as my desk. I do everything with my 17″ MacBook, so I can live without a desk.

Am I a neat person? It depends. When I’m focusing on a project, my desk is usually very messy and piled with papers and notes. I clean them up when I’m done or necessary.


Chris Spooner
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As someone who works from home I have a small office setup in a designated room of the house. My work space comprises of a glass corner desk, on which sits my MacBook and Cinema Display. I also use a Wacom Bamboo tablet, which was great to test the waters, but I’m now considering moving up to the Intuos3 model.

Check out my workspace

A typical day involves a short commute upstairs after breakfast. Then I’ll work on a mix of client and personal blog related projects. Right now I’m clearing my schedule for some upcoming changes to my personal sites. I’ll check emails just once or twice a day, which really helps boost productivity. I’ll also spend quick moments throughout the day to check TweetDeck for new and interesting design links and topics.


Sneh Roy
Follow Sneh on Twitter


I’m always interested in peeking into other designers’ workflows. Can you give us a general synopsis of a normal day at the ‚office‚ (and I use the term lightly, since I know some of you work from home!)? What does your work space look like? Are you neat and organized, or more like me ‚ frequently working amid various piles of paper?

1. Finally wake up at 6:45am after having woken up 2-3 times in the course of the night by the boys. Freshen up and head straight to the computer for email, twitter and website up-time.
2. Fuel up on coffee and switch to mom mode. Pack lunch, check twitter, reply to emails, send kids to school.
3. Cram 6 hours of work in 2 hours while the still-at-home-little-one naps.
4. Spend the day working in the yard, checking twitter, cooking, replying to emails, prepping and photographing dishes for the food blog, feeding hungry boys, chatting online with client about project, taking the bus to school and back, retweeting interesting stuff on twitter, building lego trucks, thinking about the new logo concept, sketching that noodle and carrot cartoons I have been developing for a children’s book series, building a train track, sending more emails, tweeting, mentally formulating my next blog post.
5. Once it is 6:00pm my official work day begins when Nick takes the boys off my hands. Till 11:00pm I work on client projects, my blogs and websites.

I have a big desk that houses my two computers, my sketch books, a lamp that I never switch on, an army of notes and post-its, my tiny 2002 6×4inch Wacom tablet, some strange lego contraption my son gifts me on most mornings, food and design magazines, my color index book, my iPhone and ipod, lots of pencils and erasers. It is not a disaster zone as I seem to have plenty of space to throw open a few books and start sketching or writing and I organize everything neatly every few days. But it stays neat and organized for all of 15 minutes. I do like the the comfort zone of a tiny bit of clutter and asymmetry.

There are definitely some interesting ideas here. I’m really interested in Nick’s idea of working outside of the house! What about the rest of you? Do you have similar days to any of our designers? Or similar work flows? Drop a comment to let us know. Also, be sure to check back over the next four days for more awesome insights from these seven great minds!

Related Posts:

• 7 Questions, 7 Designers – Day 2
• 7 Questions, 7 Designers – Day 1
• Featured Designer: Jon Phillips of SpyreStudios
• Featured Designer: Steven Snell of Vandelay Design and DesignM.ag
• The 100-100-100 Mark

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]]> http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-design/7-questions-7-designers-%e2%80%93-day-3/feed/ 5 http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-design/7-questions-7-designers-%e2%80%93-day-1/ http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-design/7-questions-7-designers-%e2%80%93-day-1/#comments Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:07:16 +0000 Facebook-Web-Design http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-design/7-questions-7-designers-%e2%80%93-day-1/

Hey guys! This is the beginning of a seven day series that I am doing called “7 Questions, 7 Designers,” in which I throw out a different question each day and compile the answers from seven different designers. There are participants from all over the world, each offering a different and unique perspective on the realm of design.

I am so excited to have had the chance to connect with and learn a bit more about some of the leaders in the design community, and some people that I really admire and respect! I hope you’ll enjoy it too!

Alright guys, without any further ado, let’s kicking things off with the basics. Why don’t you all tell us something about yourselves – where are you located, what areas of design do you focus on or specialize in.


Chris Spooner
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I’m Chris Spooner, I’m based in Sheffield, UK. I have a strong interest in quite a few areas of design, from print to web to various areas of illustration. Whenever I see something I’m inspired by I’ll often experiment and create some artwork in a similar vein, for instance I’ve recently been watching a couple of episodes of Miami Ink on TV, which has given me the incentive to brush up on my illustration skills and aim at creating a tattoo inspired design.


Sneh Roy
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I am Sneh Roy. I am a web-designer, content manager and brand creator from Sydney, Australia. I am 32 years old, have been married to my college sweetheart, business partner and best friend of 14 years. I am also a mum to two little boys aged 6 and 2 who are absolute rascals and keep things interesting. I am a visually creative person. Designing logos, designing and developing websites and databases, creating and illustrating characters, weaving beautiful stories and developing original content is what I do best. Although I dabble in a lot of things like illustrations and photography, my forte lies in logo and web design and blogging.


Mike Smith
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My name is Mike Smith and I am a full time freelance designer from Knoxville Tennessee. I am a country boy at heart and love watching (and soon, competing) Mixed Martial Arts fights. I also have a huge obsession with my blackberry and it never leaves my side.

For the past 3 years I have been focused on building wordpress blogs for clients. I have been told that I have a “scrapbook” style to my designs, which can be true in most cases. I also love the clean and sleek look of apple products and the accompaning websites. I have recently dove into learning jQuery and some php in order to give my custom themes a bit more ‘pop’.


Jeff Finley
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My name is Jeff Finley, I’m 27, and I’m part owner of Go Media, a creative agency headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio. I’m an entrepreneur that specialize in illustration, graphic design, and 3D. I also enjoy networking, marketing, and social media, and running a business in general.


Brad Colbow
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I live in the beautiful city of Cleveland Ohio (no really, it’s a great place to live). I call myself a freelance web designer but I’m probably better know for my illustrations and weekly comic strip The Brads (bradcolbow.com).


Grace Smith
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Sure, I am a 26 year old web designer and owner of a small but perfectly formed studio called Postscript5 based in Northern Ireland. I work with individuals and companies based mainly in the UK and USA on a diverse range of projects from branding and blog design to application UI’s.

I tend to specialise in two fields, Application UI design and WordPress Blog Design, these make up the majority of my projects.


Nick La
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My name is Nick La, a freelance illustrator and web designer from Toronto, Canada. I’m the creator of N.Design Studio, Web Designer Wall, Design Jobs on the Wall, Best Web Gallery, and IconDock. I focus on designing artistic CSS websites, vector illustrations, and stock icons.

Digging a little deeper, what does design mean to you? Professionally? Personally? How did you get into the game?


Chris Spooner
Follow Chris on Twitter


I’ve always been an artsy type person right from a young age. So I naturally pursued the creative topics in School, College and University. I ended up landing my first full time job as a designer at a local studio, then headed out on my own as a self-employed designer. Design is pretty much my life! I’m forever checking out and analysing billboards, TV ads, leaflets – Everything!


Sneh Roy
Follow Sneh on Twitter


For me, design is a way of life. It impacts every aspect of my being. The sketching of a logo or the wireframing of a website extends into the real world where besides the work I do in the digital medium, I am landscaping yards, sketching out diagrams for the carpenter to build into furniture, designing a themed cupcake display for a wedding and individually decorating 40 odd cupcakes, each one unique. Design is very personal for me. I cannot imagine a day without being design, a moment that is not creatively inclined in my day. I just take all that personal passion and make a profession out of it. Which means I absolutely love what I do, because for me it is not work, it is play!

Oddly enough, I have absolutely no training in design. I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Engineering and Robotics was the only subject in my final year that was remotely associated with design. Even then it was all theory and we barely got to build a robotic arm for our grades. I got introduced to HTML back in 1996 I think. I was dazzled by the scrolling text effect, Comic Sans and the blinking of photographs and graphics that was loosely labeled as animated gifs back in the day. Ah the power that was at my fingertips! Nick [hubby] and I had just met at college and we were both huge soccer fans and with the world cup fever on, we built a soccer website [no, I am not showing that hideous creation even if you beg me to]. We actually landed our first project for Bayer [the pharmaceutical giant] based on that soccer website and we totally winged it. I had so much fun building their website. We then went ahead and built Starswelove.com [which is relaunching early next year on its 10th anniversary]. That site has been a constant learning curve for us. 2 years later I graduated, but I was already freelancing full time, developing websites for small businesses. And that is how it all began for me.


Mike Smith
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Professionally, it means supporting myself and my girlfriend (10+ years together). Without freelance design, I don’t know where I’d be right now. I have my struggles and problems, but designing for a living gives me a way to live without additional stresses. Personally, I have been drawing since I was really, really young so I guess it’s always been a part of my life. To this very day I still sketch a lot because it helps relax me and drown out the stress around me.


Jeff Finley
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To me, design means making a difference. Making something that is remembered and stands for something. I’ve been an artist my whole life, and it wasn’t until after college I actually started getting into “design.” The artist in me strives to create art whatever medium I can muster, whether it’s illustration, film, or music. It’s a form of self expression and an emotional release. My goal is to create something that someone else might relate to and enjoy. The designer in me loves to craft a user experience with a predetermined end goal and then tinkering it to get desired results.

I went to college to become an animator and make video games and movies. By the time I graduated in 2004 I wasn’t thrilled with my career options and started freelancing. I made t-shirts and websites for bands, record labels, and clothing companies. I’ve kind of always had this desire to do something different, more profound. I ran into Bill and Chris, the two gentleman who founded Go Media and we had a lot in common in that regard. We decided to join forces and start a movement together.


Brad Colbow
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I kinda fell backwards into design. In school I majored in advertising but took a couple design classes. I studied advertising in school and I landed a marketing internship at a roofing company. I started by writing copy and sticking it into Quark Express templates. Since I knew a little Photoshop I was making the documents look better in the process. By the end of the summer I was designing more and writing less. I never looked back and have been a designer ever since.

I wish I had some deep philosophical definition of what design means to me, but I don’t. It’s just a heck of a lot more fun and interesting than anything else I could do for a living. I really enjoy the problem solving part of design and web design in particular.


Grace Smith
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A passion for design and art is a huge part of who I am. I was an avid artist throughout my childhood and right through school. Being a designer is just very natural and suits my sensibilities and passions. I can’t really think of being anything else!

Personally I feel design can best be described as ‘art within constraints’, it is focused on purpose, solving problems and functionality. Great design grows out of a real understanding of the problem and informed thinking of this accomplishes the goal(s) set out at the beginning of the project. Over the years I’ve formed the opinion that the foundation of design is communication, not the desire to make pretty things!


Nick La
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Professionally: design is about putting things together to make something beautiful and functional. Personally, it is my life (I can’t live without it). I got into design because of my high school art teacher. He introduced Photoshop to me and fell in love with it ever since.

Thanks guys! That’s it for Day 1, everyone. What are your reactions to our designers’ comments? Learn anything that you may not have known before? Be sure to check back over the next six days for more awesome insights from these seven great minds!

Related Posts:

• Freebie: Tweevil – The Dark Twitter Bird
• Echoes – Week 11 (Nov 1, 2009)
• The 100-100-100 Mark
• Giveaway: Win Vectors, Icons and Brushes from ArtBox7
• Giveaway: Custom Vector Pack from Echo Enduring Media

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]]> http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-design/7-questions-7-designers-%e2%80%93-day-1/feed/ 2 http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/top-web-design-bookmarks-of-2009/ http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/top-web-design-bookmarks-of-2009/#comments Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:41:29 +0000 Facebook-Web-Design http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/top-web-design-bookmarks-of-2009/

I read a lot of design-related articles & blogs online – I mean, really, what else can you do when you live in Edmonton, which was the coldest place in North America on Dec 13 at -58C with windchill? Anyway, I’m constantly bookmarking items I think might be useful for me as a designer in the future – some I never end up using, but some I definitely do! This year, I found some great articles on web usability (always good to be able to effectively communicate why you made a particular design choice to a client), WordPress and jQuery, as well as a few others. Here are my Top Web Design Bookmarks of 2009, with thanks to everyone in the design community who keeps openly sharing their knowledge.

Perfect Full-Page Background Image



CSS Tricks is a great website – a web designer’s goldmine, if you will – and this is but one of a ton of great articles on Chris’ site. I  have yet to implement it myself, but I hope to soon!

10 Usability Findings & Guidelines



Smashing Magazine is well-known in the design community, and the main reason is its well-researched and written articles pertaining to web design. Check this one out for usability tips, like where viewers look most on a website (above image – I felt it needed an explanation or else it just looks like someone’s website caught Athlete’s Foot).

Hit the jump for more!

ViewLikeUs



In a year that saw a lot of simple, single-function websites, ViewLikeUs jumped on the pile with a beautifully simple tool for web designers: viewing their creations in all the major resolutions with the click of a button.

BrowserShots



Another site similar to ViewLikeUs, BrowserShots takes screenshots of a website in all the major browsers – a quick way to check and make sure everything looks the way it should. Another alternative is Adobe’s BrowserLab.

Website Design & Development Project Checklist



This post is a great resource for designers and the ever-present challenge of communicating properly with your (sometimes not-web-savvy) clients. This is a must read if you want to avoid headaches.

20 Top Design Blogs Looking for Writers



Being a freelancer means that occasionally you’re going to hit a slow period. Why not supplement your income by writing a few one-off articles for these well-known design blogs?

Flickrshow



Most clients want to update their websites themselves. That’s totally understandable, and easy-to-use CMS’ like CushyCMS or LightCMS make text editing easy. Photos can be a little more tricky – but Flickrshow pulls content directly from a Flickr account, so your client doesn’t even need to jump into any CMS to update the photos on their site. Especially great if you’re developing websites for photographers.

jQuery Slider



There was an explosion in the popularity of jQuery this year, and it’s easy to see why. This free content slider plug-in is easy to use & looks great. We’re thinking about using it in our next redesign of the Paper Leaf site.

10 Short ‘n’ Sweet Tips on Web Design



This article is focused on usability and what to consider when you’re designing for the web. A quick and useful read!

@font-face & 15 Free Fonts You Can Use Today



I have yet to implement the @font-face CSS rule, but we’ll be doing it in our upcoming Paper Leaf website redesign (probably using Quicksand OTF). If you’re unfamiliar, the @font-face rule allows you to embed OTF fonts in your web designs so you can get away from the standard “web safe fonts” (Verdana, Trebuchet, Georgia etc) and still have your website look the way you want to all users.

The Best jQuery Plugins of 2009



Yes, I’m calling on another “best of” list in MY “best of” list. Wanna make something of it? For real though, this is a great list full of useful plugins to add some spice to your web designs.

WordPress for Designers



To round out the list, here is a great series of video screencasts from the gents at ThemeForest on using WordPress if you’re a designer. WordPress is way more than a blogging platform – in fact, it can be used as a sort of content management (CMS) system for a lot of clients. It’s open source, relatively easy to learn, and will give your clients the control over their websites that they want.

I hope you found this list useful. Thanks for reading and have a great year in 2010!

*note: some of these articles may have come out prior to 2009; I just found them and bookmarked them in 2009. Yay for loopholes!



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]]> http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/top-web-design-bookmarks-of-2009/feed/ 2 http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/twitter-has-been-hacked-update-dns-records-compromised/ http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/twitter-has-been-hacked-update-dns-records-compromised/#comments Fri, 18 Dec 2009 09:51:46 +0000 Facebook-Web-Design http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/twitter-has-been-hacked-update-dns-records-compromised/

Update: Twitter says that its DNS records were compromised. Please read our latest update.

-

Not long ago, we received reports that Twitter was hacked. If the screenshots are indication, someone got past Twitter’s defenses. The apparent organization responsible is the “Iranian Cyber Army.”

Here’s what we know: Less than an hour ago, Twitter was changed to the screenshot you see below (thanks Chris and others for the images). Not long after this, Twitter and the status blog were taken down.

For one of the world’s most popular websites to be compromised and taken down, even for a few minutes, is a big problem. This type of thing should never happen, regardless of who is to blame.



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Reviews: Twitter

Tags: trending, twitter







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]]> http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/twitter-has-been-hacked-update-dns-records-compromised/feed/ 1 http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/twitter-has-been-hacked/ http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/twitter-has-been-hacked/#comments Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:35:36 +0000 Facebook-Web-Design http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/twitter-has-been-hacked/

Not long ago, we received reports that Twitter was hacked. If the screenshots are indication, someone got past Twitter’s defenses. The apparent organization responsible is the “Iranian Cyber Army.”

Here’s what we know: Less than an hour ago, Twitter was changed to the screenshot you see below (thanks Chris and others for the images). Not long after this, Twitter and the status blog were taken down.

For one of the world’s most popular websites to be hacked and taken down, even for a few minutes, is a huge embarrassment. This type of thing should never happen. We are awaiting an explanation.

Twitter is still down, likely due to this hacker.

More as it develops.



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Reviews: Twitter

Tags: twitter







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]]> http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/twitter-has-been-hacked/feed/ 1 http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/ten-usability-crimes-you-really-shouldnt-commit/ http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/ten-usability-crimes-you-really-shouldnt-commit/#comments Wed, 16 Dec 2009 08:54:16 +0000 Facebook-Web-Design http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/ten-usability-crimes-you-really-shouldnt-commit/ If you didn’t already catch it, make sure to check out the article by Chris Spooner (@chrisspooner) on Line25:

Ten usability crimes you really shouldn’t commit

To be clear, it’s about Web usability crimes. Great tips, and it’s nice to see an article about usability that, thanks to good design and creative use of graphics, is also engaging to read. Jakob Nielsen might consider hiring Chris to work on his… <yawn>… on his web… zzzzZZZZzzzZZ… sorry, on his website.




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]]> http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/ten-usability-crimes-you-really-shouldnt-commit/feed/ 1 http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/free-stop-motion-animation-tool/ http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/free-stop-motion-animation-tool/#comments Sat, 12 Dec 2009 19:50:25 +0000 Facebook-Web-Design http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/free-stop-motion-animation-tool/ As a follow-up to this post about how Chris Neale uses stop motion techniques to animate paper prototypes, Chris has just announced the release of:

“THE ANIMATIONIZER – A FREE STOP-FRAME ANIMATION TOOL”

Check it out…




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]]> http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/free-stop-motion-animation-tool/feed/ 1 http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/15-free-holiday-winter-vectors-winterize/ http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/15-free-holiday-winter-vectors-winterize/#comments Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:21:27 +0000 Facebook-Web-Design http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/15-free-holiday-winter-vectors-winterize/

With the holidays upon us, and with winter in full mode (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) – we present to you a vector pack that reflects this joyous time of the year.

Winterize – an exclusive Six Revisions vector pack brought to you by Freelance Review, a design blog that covers the business of freelance design – is a vector pack containing 17 vectors, available in EPS and AI (Adobe Illustrator) format. You can use them royalty-free, even for commercial purposes. The only thing you may not do, however, is to redistribute the vectors without permission from Six Revisions.

Preview



Download

• winterize (ZIP, 1.3MB)

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• Five Free Vector Icons: Plastic Iconset
• Free Social Media Icons: Old Bottle Crowns Icon Set
• Free Set of Social Media Icons – Large Icons Social

About the Author

Chris McConnell is the editor and co-founder of Freelance Review, a design blog that covers the business of freelance design. Chris also co-founded C McConnell Design, Web, print, brand design studio based in Nebraska. Follow him on Twitter: @mcconnelldesign.




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]]> http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/15-free-holiday-winter-vectors-winterize/feed/ 1 http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/animating-paper-prototypes-using-stop-motion/ http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/animating-paper-prototypes-using-stop-motion/#comments Fri, 11 Dec 2009 03:11:05 +0000 Facebook-Web-Design http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/animating-paper-prototypes-using-stop-motion/ Here’s a really novel approach to paper prototyping by Chris Neale:

Love the combination of low-fi media with hi-fi communication efficacy. Check out Chris’ site for an extended discussion of animating paper prototypes. It’s particularly impressive that this type of animation apparently only takes 15 minutes to produce. I’ve used Flash and OmniGraffle Professional to do the same thing and it took a heck of a lot longer than 15 minutes.




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]]> http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/animating-paper-prototypes-using-stop-motion/feed/ 0 http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/how-to-effectively-w00t/ http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/how-to-effectively-w00t/#comments Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:17:39 +0000 Facebook-Web-Design http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/how-to-effectively-w00t/ If you are on Twitter, are a geek, a gamer, or following any of us Rebels, you have heard and probably even used the word “w00t!” Its a term that is Twittered from the Philippines to Hollywood.

So, what the heck is a w00t?

“Woot” is a term used by many online junkies as a quick way to express “like” or “awesomeness” in a statement or phrase.  (my own definition)

Where did “woot” originate? How did such a silly term get so popular?

OK, all of you nerdy readers put your hands down. You would not have clicked on this article if you had any doubt in your mind what “woot” meant or how to use it. Let me give you its definition and origin from an undisputed quality online resource…

According to Urban Dictionary:

Woot originated as a hacker term for root (or administrative) access to a computer. However, with the term as coincides with the gamer term, “w00t”.

“w00t” was originally an truncated expression common among players of Dungeons and Dragons tabletop role-playing game for “Wow, loot!” Thus the term passed into the net-culture where it thrived in video game communities and lost its original meaning and is used simply as a term of excitement.

Other suggested origins: We Owned the Other Team, Wonderful Loot, Waste of Our Time or Way Out of Topic.

We’ll let the techies and gamers fight over the creation of the term. What is more important is how “woot” is used amongst us social butterflies (or uber-geeks if you prefer).

How can “w00t” be used effectively to communicate in our new abbreviated social world?

Lets start with a person (ok, a star) who not only teaches us how to effectively embrace social media, but a gal with the ability to generate 5000 “w00ts” in a matter of seconds.



Hey Alyssa… w00t w00t!!!

My Turn…





Thanks Andrea! Yes, Sun and Coffee are deserving of a Woot!



A woot is a woot. Good point Sally. Woot.com is a cool place to buy stuff online. I wonder which woot came first? Here is one way to use @woot…



Woot! A farting Pen!!!!



Passé? Touché Holly. I thought so too until I did a search for “w00t” on twitter! Holy woots Batman!



You bring up a good point Chris… Many people woot just to woot…



Huh? You got a “Twitter”, or a “woot” for your Twitter? I’m confused…



TMI woot.



That woot should have been in CAPS.



That’s what Al Gore said.



Woot to your Mother! (Play on words… my old school homies are down with that)



Try writing an article about the word woot…



Nice! This guy just used “woot” to express his happiness for finding some loot. Two-for. Well done.

There is nothing like a good W00t.

W00t is a four letter word that calls silent-celebration to anything we feel needs a little noise. In these days of so much to say in so little characters, “woot” is the ever-excepted term I think we can all agree on. So the next time you have some awesomeness to share on twitter why not give it a little w00t -power?

Can I get a woot woot?



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]]> http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/how-to-effectively-w00t/feed/ 1 http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/%e2%80%9cdigging-into-wordpress%e2%80%9d-book-by-chris-coyier-and-jeff-starr/ http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/%e2%80%9cdigging-into-wordpress%e2%80%9d-book-by-chris-coyier-and-jeff-starr/#comments Wed, 09 Dec 2009 13:06:17 +0000 Facebook-Web-Design http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/%e2%80%9cdigging-into-wordpress%e2%80%9d-book-by-chris-coyier-and-jeff-starr/ Chris and Jeff have proven till now that they are truly WordPress masters and Digging into WordPress Book is meant to be the best WordPress Book ever.
Even if you are an advanced WordPresser,there`s something to be learned.
Digging into WordPress Book is only $27 and with such a priceless content very well written in 400 pages,the purchase is a no-brainer!

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]]> http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/%e2%80%9cdigging-into-wordpress%e2%80%9d-book-by-chris-coyier-and-jeff-starr/feed/ 0 http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/digging-into-wordpress-review-and-free-copies-winners-announced/ http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/digging-into-wordpress-review-and-free-copies-winners-announced/#comments Sat, 05 Dec 2009 23:45:22 +0000 Facebook-Web-Design http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/digging-into-wordpress-review-and-free-copies-winners-announced/ A couple weeks ago, I received an email from Chris Coyier, of CSS-Tricks, containing a review copy of his recently released “Digging into WordPress” e-book. Expecting it to be more of a mini-book, I nonchalantly told him that I’d post a review that Friday; little did I know that this was a full-fledged book, packed full of knowledge.

Update: Winners Announced

Congratulations to the following three readers who were randomly selected!

• Kaj Rietberg
• Rodrigo Flores
• Mark Christianson

If your name is listed above, please contact nettuts@tutsplus.com to claim your prize!

“Written by WordPress veterans Chris Coyier and Jeff Starr, Digging into WordPress is 400+ jam-packed pages of everything you need to get the most out of WordPress. WordPress is great right out of the box, but unless you want an ordinary vanilla blog, it is essential to understand the full potential of WordPress and have the right tools to get the job done.”





Those of you who read CSS-Tricks will be well aware that Chris writes in a very easy-to-understand fashion. Rather than flooding each article with high-level jargon that only the most knowledgeable of us can understand, he instead dumbs each article down to the fundamentals – even to the point of being honest enough to convey when he doesn’t quite understand the reasoning behind some line of code.

As a result, he’s built a wonderful community and reputation for himself in the last few years. This book, co-written with Jeff Starr, is no different: straight-forward, easy-to-understand, and simple.

Simple Learning

Thanks to the use of fun, and helpful illustrations, even those who are brand new to WordPress will be able to dig their heals in — with minimal confusion.

The 400 page ebook covers everything from navigating the admin panel, to creating a comments form, to even more advanced topics like plugin development. And though it’s generally good practice to point out a few negatives in one’s review, it’s difficult to do so when a book is such a pleasure to read.

Heart of a Teacher

Chris and Jeff, in this book, have proven that they have the hearts of teachers. Even for intermediate to advanced WordPressers, there’s something to be learned — and at $27, the purchase is a no-brainer!

“Digging into WordPress is perfect for WordPress users in the beginner to intermediate range, but contains plenty of great information for the advanced user as well. If you have any level of experience working with web design or WordPress, this book is written to help you take WordPress to the next level.”

400 Pages of Practical Information

“There is much to learn about the World’s most popular publishing platform.
From your first steps of learning about WordPress all the way through
maintaining a site throughout the years, this book is packed with truly
practical information.”

Lots of Code Samples

“We go into depth about the anatomy of a WordPress theme. How they work, and how
to write the code you need to do the things you want. This means real code that
you can sink your teeth into, as well as copy and paste. Beyond theme
building, we introduce many tricks your functions.php file can pull off and show
you ways to increase performance and security through HTAccess.”

What About the Free Copies!?



Chris has generously offered to give away a few copies to our community. To enter, simply leave a comment, and be sure to check back on Friday to see if you were randomly chosen!

• Follow us on Twitter, or subscribe to the Nettuts+ RSS Feed for the best web development tutorials on the web.







Go to Source

]]> http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/digging-into-wordpress-review-and-free-copies-winners-announced/feed/ 1 http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/30-top-blogs-for-social-media-updates/ http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/30-top-blogs-for-social-media-updates/#comments Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:14:41 +0000 Facebook-Web-Design http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/30-top-blogs-for-social-media-updates/

Social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media uses Internet and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers.

In nutshell, Social media describes websites that allow users to share content, media, etc. Common examples are the popular social networking sites like Friendster, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. Here we listing and describing Top Blogs For Social Media Updates that you should read.


Social Media Networking really important for people who share interests and activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. Most social network services are web based and provide a variety of ways for users to interact, such as e-mail, blogging, instant messaging, photo sharing and gaming services.

Social networking has created new paths to communicate and share information. Social networking websites are being used regularly by millions of people, and it now seems that social networking will be an enduring part of everyday life. This is one of the beat ways we as a society show our growth and our progressiveness.

Components Of Social Media

Social media can be said to have three components.

• Concept (art, information, or meme)
• Media (physical, electronic, or verbal)
• Social interface (intimate direct, community engagement, social viral, electronic broadcast or syndication, or other physical media such as print)

Common Forms Of Social Media

There are many forms in which we can describe social media but the main and common forms of social media are.

• Concepts, slogans, and statements with a high memory retention quotient, that excite others to repeat.
• Grass-Roots direct action information dissemination such as public speaking, installations, performance, and demonstrations.
• Electronic media with ’sharing’, syndication, or search algorithm technologies (includes internet and mobile devices).
• Print media, designed to be re-distributed.

Social media can take many different forms, including Internet forums, weblogs, social blogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures, video, rating and bookmarking. Technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings etc.

Examples of Social Media Tools

Some Examples of social media software applications include :

Publication Tools :

• Blogs : WordPress, Typepad, Blogger etc.
• Wikis : Wikipedia, Wikia, Wetpaint etc.
• Citizen Journalism Portals : Digg, Newsvine, Livejournal etc.

Sharing Tools :

• Videos Sharing : YouTube, Metacafe, Blip.tv etc.
• Picture Sharing : FlickR, Zooomr, Smugmug etc.
• Links Sharing : Digg, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon etc.
• Music Sharing : Last.fm, Pandora, Odeo etc.

Social Networking :

• Social Network : Facebook, MySpace, Hi5 etc.
• Niche Social Network : LinkedIn, Boompa, Ning etc.
• Micro Publication : Twitter, Seesmic, Plurk etc.

To see the complete list please visit our previous post: List Of Top Social Media Network Sites.

You may be interested in the following related articles as well.

• 16 Intelligent Sites For Application Review
• 15 Real Time Web Startups Around
• 10 Qualitative Tools to Improve Your Website
• 55 Best Ways To Track Your Website Daily Traffic
• List Of Top Social Media Network Sites

Please feel free to join us and you are always welcome to share your thoughts even if you have more reference links that our readers may like.

Don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS-feed and follow us on Twitter — for recent updates.

Top Blogs For Social Media Updates

When we think of creative web designs, we often think of attractive layouts and catchy headings. However, today the Internet has turned into a more interactive medium with websites going beyond mere layouts and design.

“Social interaction” has been always considered as human to human interaction. On internet, social interaction indicates a phenomenon through which you can collaborate, learn and share your ideas and opinions with others on web. People are increasingly demanding the convenience of interacting with others in a self-paced environment where they can contribute effectively.

Now the big question which comes in the mind is where to find latest and quality social media and technology updates over web. We came up with the answer in form of this list of 30 Top Blogs For Social Media Updates of every field that may help you find right place for respective updates. Just keep in mind that this list isn’t a ranking list of social media blogs. So, Let’s start with this compilation that every web developer, designer and freelancer should consider.

01. Mashable!



Founded in July 2005, Mashable is the world’s largest blog focused exclusively on Web 2.0 and Social Media news. With more than 12.5 million monthly pageviews, Mashable is the most prolific blog reviewing new Web sites and services, publishing breaking news on what’s new on the web and offering social media resources and guides. It also got place in Top 25 blog of 2009 by Time.com and rated inside top 5 blog on Twitter and Technorati.

Blog Link

02. Chris Brogan



Chris Brogan explores the use of social media and social networking tools, as well as helping individuals work smarter. He uses social media and technology to help build digital relationships for businesses, organizations, and individuals. Chris speaks, blogs, writes articles, and makes media of all kinds on his blog. His blog is in the top 10 of the Advertising Age Power150, and in the top 100 on Technorati.

Blog Link

03. Social Media Explorer



Social Media Explorer is the online home and blog of Social Media Explorer LLC, which is my consulting company. I’ve been called all sorts of things by folks around the social media, public relations, marketing and communications industries.

Blog Link

04. Dosh Dosh



Dosh Dosh is a blog offering internet marketing and blogging tips, alongside social media strategies. Best consumed by bloggers, entrepreneurs, web publishers, marketers, freelancers and small business owners. Dosh Dosh aims to be the largest online repository of legitimate profit initiatives.

Blog Link

05. RotorBlog



RotorBlog.com was founded in May 2006 by Maris Dagis in order to provide latest Web 2.0 news and startup reviews, later focusing on social networks and online communications. Reaching 160k readers monthly it has became one of the most popular sources of information for people using Internet to communicate.

Blog Link

06. Social Media Today



Social Media Today LLC helps global organizations create purpose-built B2B social communities designed to achieve specific, measurable corporate goals by engaging exactly the customers and prospects you most want to reach.

Blog Link

07. PR 2.0



Brian Solis is Principal of FutureWorks, an award-winning PR and New Media agency in Silicon Valley. Solis is globally recognized for his views and insights on the convergence of PR, Traditional Media and Social Media. Considered one of the original thought leaders who paved the way for Social Media and PR 2.0, Solis is co-founder of the Social Media Club.

Blog Link

08. The Social Networking Weblog



For all you social networking addicts out there and for those of you who just like to dabble, The Social Networking Weblog is the place to learn about meeting people online, staying safe while you do it and just plain having fun.

Blog Link

09. 10e20



10e20 is a New York-based Internet marketing company specializing in Social Media Marketing and Search Engine Optimization. Founded in 2002 in Brooklyn, NY by Chris Winfield and Danielle Lanzillo.

Blog Link

10. Instigator Blog



The Instigator Blog is all about instigating discussion, ideas and better business. Focused on social media, entrepreneurship, small business, marketing and technology, with a heavy dose of humor, Instigator offers startup insight to entrepreneurs.

Blog Link

11. Conversation Agent



Valeria Maltoni is a professional marketer with 20 years of real-world corporate experience, 10 of which online, across a broad array of mid-to-large sized companies. Hands-on work at a Fortune 500 technology company, a technology start-up, in health care, chemical manufacturing, risk management consulting, and the non-profit sector have provided her with a wealth of experience and insights.

Blog Link

12. Social Media



J.D. Lasica presents this news site and podcast about social media, Web 2.0, democratic media and the revolution in user-created content. It help busi­nesses and orga­ni­za­tions achieve max­i­mum impact with their social media strat­egy or campaigns. Also high­light news, trends, tools and resources around social media, social net­works and Web 2.0.

Blog Link

13. Scott Monty



Scott is a marketing and communications professional focused on the digital industry — specifically on social media. His career spans a number of industries such as healthcare, pharma, biotech, travel, automotive, tech, and communications, and includes a wide range of clients, from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies.

Blog Link

14. Collective Thoughts



They like to call it ‘new wisdom of crowds’. Each member of Collective Thoughts is here because not only are they a known or rising star in their own field, but they also have a passion and unique understanding on social media. Together, we make up Collective Thoughts.

Blog Link

15. Altitude Branding



Amber Naslund blogs at Altitude Branding, focusing on elevating brands through social media and communication. Amber is a social media and marketing crackerjack and the Director of Community for Radian6, where she’s responsible for client engagement, community building, and helping companies tap the potential of online reputation management, customer engagement, and social media monitoring.

Blog Link

16. Chris G



Chrisg.com is where Chris posts daily (or thereabouts) thoughts and advice on the business of new media, blogging and online marketing. The aim is to teach you ways you can create compelling resources, provide your audience more value, build trust and loyalty, and generate more rewards for yourself.

Blog Link

17. Twitip



TwiTip is a blog mainly about Twitter. TwiTip is about capturing some of the lessons that Darren Rowse and others have been learning about Twitter and how to use it more effectively. It will cover Twitter Tips of all varieties including Writing for Twitter, Branding, Growing a Following, Corporate Tweeting and a lot more.

Blog Link

18. ViperChill



ViperChill is a blog started by Glen Allsopp in 2006 at the age of only 16. Up until recently, the blog was simply a resource that built the awareness of the ViperChill brand. Now, after working as a Social Media Manager for some of the biggest companies in the world, Allsopp uses his blog to share his personal experiences that have helped build some of the most competitive search rankings in the world and make his clients millions from their online campaigns.

Blog Link

19. Social Media Club



Social Media Club is being organized for the purpose of sharing best practices, establishing ethics and standards, and promoting media literacy around the emerging area of Social Media. This is the beginning of a global conversation about building an organization and a community. It was founded by Chris Heuer and It is the beginning of a global conversation about building an organization and a community where the many diverse groups of people who care about social media can come together to discover, connect, share, and learn.

Blog Link

20. Pronet Advertising



Neil Patel’s blog boasts informative, fun-to-read posts about the various marketing strategies that can be implemented through social media, blogging, and search engine optimization. You can also find many contribution of other experts like Cameron Olthuis and Muhammad Saleem.

Blog Link

21. Techipedia



Tamar Weinberg is a freelance writer and author of The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web (O’Reilly, July 2009) who specializes in social media consulting and strategy, blogger outreach, reputation management, and search engine marketing (SEO, link building, and Pay Per Click Marketing).

Blog Link

22. Dan Zarrella



Dan Zarrella is an award-winning social, search, and viral mar­ket­ing sci­en­tist and author of the upcom­ing O’Reilly media book “The Social Media Mar­ket­ing Book”. He has a back­ground in web devel­op­ment and com­bines his pro­gram­ming capa­bil­i­ties with a pas­sion for social mar­ket­ing to cre­ate appli­ca­tions.

Blog Link

23. Six Pixels of Separation



When Google wanted to explain online marketing to the top retailers in the United States, they brought Mitch Joel to the Googleplex in Mountain View, California. Marketing Magazine dubbed him the, “Rock Star of Digital Marketing” and in 2006 he was named one of the most influential authorities on Blog Marketing in the world. Joel’s blog doles out marketing, advertising and communications insights with a focus on digital marketing, brand democratization, social media and everything next.

Blog Link

24. Web-Strategist



As a Web Strategist I strive to define and deliver user and community needs, business goals, and web technology to craft and deliver long term successful web programs for companies.

Blog Link

25. Very Official Blog



Shannon Paul works as the communications manager for PEAK6 Online, parent company of OptionsHouse.com, OptionsNewsNetwork (ONN.tv), and WeSeed.com. Here she oversees the integration of social media communication into PR and marketing strategies for the company’s three brands, including an online retail stock and options broker, a web-based options news and education site, and an online community that allows people to learn about the stock market through investing in virtual stock portfolios.

Blog Link

26. Groundswell



In Groundswell, two of Forrester Research’s top analysts show you how to turn the force of customers connecting online to your own advantage. Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff show how leading companies are gaining insights, generating revenues, saving money, and energizing their own customers. Hoping to learn how to take advantage of communities, blogs, wikis, Facebook, or YouTube? They’ve got lots of examples with proof they work.

Blog Link

27. Online Marketing Blog



Online Marketing Blog provides daily insights, resources and commentary on a range of internet marketing strategies and tactics including: Search engine optimization, Marketing and branding with social media, Blog marketing, Online public relations.

Blog Link

28. Social Times



Social Times is founded by Nick O’ Neill. He is an industry expert on the social networking industry, providing no holds bar commentary and insightful analysis on social networking and social media. He speaks at conferences nationwide and has been written about in multiple national publications.

Blog Link

29. Influential Marketing Blog



Not purely Social Media Optimization (SMO), but Rohit is the person who first invented the concept of Social Media Optimization on his blog, and is widely recognized across the marketing industry (and on Wikipedia) for this. This blog serves as Rohit’s reflections on creating compelling marketing, advertising and public relations online.

Blog Link

30. Danny Brown



Danny Brown has been providing business branding and emerging media consultancy services to the consumer and commercial markets for more than 15 years, from small start-ups to Fortune 500 businesses. Danny is the founder of the 12for12k Challenge.

Blog Link

Find Something Missing?

While compiling this list, it’s always a possibility that we missed some other great blog resources. Feel free to share it with us.


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]]> http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/30-top-blogs-for-social-media-updates/feed/ 1 http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/digging-into-wordpress-review-and-free-copies/ http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/digging-into-wordpress-review-and-free-copies/#comments Tue, 01 Dec 2009 07:20:20 +0000 Facebook-Web-Design http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/digging-into-wordpress-review-and-free-copies/ A couple weeks ago, I received an email from Chris Coyier, of CSS-Tricks, containing a review copy of his recently released “Digging into WordPress” e-book. Expecting it to be more of a mini-book, I nonchalantly told him that I’d post a review that Friday; little did I know that this was a full-fledged book, packed full of knowledge.

“Written by WordPress veterans Chris Coyier and Jeff Starr, Digging into WordPress is 400+ jam-packed pages of everything you need to get the most out of WordPress. WordPress is great right out of the box, but unless you want an ordinary vanilla blog, it is essential to understand the full potential of WordPress and have the right tools to get the job done.”





Those of you who read CSS-Tricks will be well aware that Chris writes in a very easy-to-understand fashion. Rather than flooding each article with high-level jargon that only the most knowledgeable of us can understand, he instead dumbs each article down to the fundamentals – even to the point of being honest enough to convey when he doesn’t quite understand the reasoning behind some line of code.

As a result, he’s built a wonderful community, and has built a great reputation for himself in the last few years. This book, co-written with Jeff Star, is no different: straight-forward, easy-to-understand, and simple.

Simple Learning

Thanks to the use of fun, and helpful illustrations, even those who are brand new to WordPress will be able to dig their heals in — with minimal confusion.

The 400 page ebook covers everything from navigating the admin panel, to creating a comments form, to even more advanced topics like plugin development. And though it’s generally good practice to point out a few negatives in one’s review, it’s difficult to do so when a book is such a pleasure to read.

Heart of a Teacher

Chris and Jeff, in this book, have proven that they have the hearts of teachers. Even for intermediate to advanced WordPressers, there’s something to be learned — and at $27, the purchase is a no-brainer!

“Digging into WordPress is perfect for WordPress users in the beginner to intermediate range, but contains plenty of great information for the advanced user as well. If you have any level of experience working with web design or WordPress, this book is written to help you take WordPress to the next level.”

400 Pages of Practical Information

“There is much to learn about the World’s most popular publishing platform.
From your first steps of learning about WordPress all the way through
maintaining a site throughout the years, this book is packed with truly
practical information.”

Lots of Code Samples

“We go into depth about the anatomy of a WordPress theme. How they work, and how
to write the code you need to do the things you want. This means real code that
you can sink your teeth into, as well as copy and paste. Beyond theme
building, we introduce many tricks your functions.php file can pull off and show
you ways to increase performance and security through HTAccess.”

What About the Free Copies!?



Chris has generously offered to give away a few copies to our community. To enter, simply leave a comment, and be sure to check back on Friday to see if you were randomly chosen!

• Follow us on Twitter, or subscribe to the Nettuts+ RSS Feed for the best web development tutorials on the web.







Go to Source

]]> http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/digging-into-wordpress-review-and-free-copies/feed/ 2 http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/25-beautiful-teal-colored-web-designs-for-your-inspiration/ http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/25-beautiful-teal-colored-web-designs-for-your-inspiration/#comments Sat, 28 Nov 2009 22:35:40 +0000 Facebook-Web-Design http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/25-beautiful-teal-colored-web-designs-for-your-inspiration/ Choosing the right colors for your design is a task not to be taken lightly as it will have a direct effect on the mood of your page viewers. Bold and bright colors may stand out and say "Hey! Look over here," which is great when you have a very limited area to work with, but what happens when you’re not trying to tell a story at the top of your lungs?

One color that has been trending lately is teal. Teal has a very disarming quality that seems to welcome you in and invites you for tea. In this collection, we share 25 websites displaying great use of the color teal.

1. Owltastic



2. Brooklyn Fare



3. The Alamo Basement



4. E-Systems Organizers



5. That Game Company



6. Bidsketch



7. Feed Stitch



8. Orman Clark



9. Blueray



10. Adlucent



11. Plinky



12. Straw Poll



13. Skype



14. From The Couch



15. Jan-Eike Koormann



16. Epic Event



17. Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee



18. Squared Eye



19. Gist



20. Francesco Mugnai



21. Kyan



22. Vimeo



23. Babel Junior



24. Volll



25. Blue Bonnet Cafe



Related Content

• Beautiful and Creative Examples of Vibrant Web Designs
• How to Use Retro Colors in Your Designs
• Color: The Next Limited Resource?
• Related categories: Design Showcase / Inspiration and Web Design

About the Author

Chris Spada is a designer living in Danbury, Connecticut. By day, he works for Plaid, a design and branding agency. He is passionate about studying new techniques and styles emerging in web design. Check out Chris’ latest work at www.chrisspada.com. Connect with him on Twitter: @spadachris.




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]]> http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/25-beautiful-teal-colored-web-designs-for-your-inspiration/feed/ 1 http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/gadgets/family-guy-windows-7-ads-surface-pulled-windows-7-family-guy-ads-that-were-%e2%80%98not-a-fit-with-the-windows-brand%e2%80%99-hit-youtube/ http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/gadgets/family-guy-windows-7-ads-surface-pulled-windows-7-family-guy-ads-that-were-%e2%80%98not-a-fit-with-the-windows-brand%e2%80%99-hit-youtube/#comments Sat, 28 Nov 2009 05:31:31 +0000 Facebook-Web-Design http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/gadgets/family-guy-windows-7-ads-surface-pulled-windows-7-family-guy-ads-that-were-%e2%80%98not-a-fit-with-the-windows-brand%e2%80%99-hit-youtube/

If you’re a regular reader then you’ll doubtless remember Chris informing you that Family Guy was to be used to publicise Windows 7 but, thanks MS deciding that the resulting content was ‘not a fit for the Windows brand’, Chris subsequently advised us that they had got pulled. But now the Family Guy Windows 7 material is up on YouTube – and provided below – for your delectation (or not).
(…)
Read the rest of Family Guy Windows 7 Ads Surface [Pulled Windows 7 Family Guy Ads That Were ‘Not a Fit with the Windows Brand’ Hit YouTube]

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]]> http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/gadgets/family-guy-windows-7-ads-surface-pulled-windows-7-family-guy-ads-that-were-%e2%80%98not-a-fit-with-the-windows-brand%e2%80%99-hit-youtube/feed/ 0 http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/jalen-rose%e2%80%99s-fab-5-social-media-athletes-i%e2%80%99m-thankful-for/ http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/jalen-rose%e2%80%99s-fab-5-social-media-athletes-i%e2%80%99m-thankful-for/#comments Thu, 26 Nov 2009 19:42:33 +0000 Facebook-Web-Design http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/jalen-rose%e2%80%99s-fab-5-social-media-athletes-i%e2%80%99m-thankful-for/

This post is part of Mashable’s Fab Five series with Jalen Rose, which highlights trends in the social media space. Jalen Rose is a former 13-year NBA star and current ESPN basketball analyst but may be best known for being a member of the famous University of Michigan Fab Five.

In a world consumed by technology, it’s hard not to get caught up in the hype. I am a huge fan of social media and I am active on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Ustream. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’ve come up with a short list of athletes that I’m thankful to be following and watching on social media. I don’t think any of these super athletes should plan on quitting their day job, but social media has become a productive hobby for each of them.

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1. Shaq on Twitter

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No matter the media platform, The Big Aristotle is funny and crazy, while still being himself. Shaq may not be having a career season for the Cleveland Cavaliers but he’s killing the social media game on Twitter. He has been on Twitter since 2008 and has continued to find new ways to interact with fans. He’s given tickets away to followers, he’s asked his followers to decide his new nickname, and he’s not afraid to throw a “yo mama” joke your way. Shaq has the most followers of any athlete on Twitter and he lets his entertaining personality shine through. The people have definitely responded.

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2. Chris Cooley on Yardbarker

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NFL tight end Chris Cooley has been active on social media for a while, mainly through blogging. A lot of people consider him to be one of the best athletes active on the Internet, and I would have to agree. It’s great that Chris still has a good sense of humor even though the Redskins are struggling this season, and he broke his ankle a month ago. Yardbarker is home to many athletes’ blogs, and some are more involved than others. Chris blogs consistently to give his fans an insight into his world — I just hope he has his clothes on while be blogs and studies his playbook.

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3. Chad Ochocinco on Ustream.tv

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Ocho has been talking his mouth off for years on and off the field, and just when we needed more the NFL wide receiver created a Ustream channel that we all love! Not only are the Bengals having a tremendous season so far, but his live videos are tremendous as well. Regardless of his last name, we know there’s only one Chad with great catch phrases and the personality perfect for live video.

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4. Nick Swisher on Twitter

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There aren’t a lot of MLB players on Twitter yet, but New York Yankees right fielder Nick Swisher is already in the game and doing a great job. He may not be the superstar amongst the World Series champion Yankees, but he is an all-star on social media. Swisher is a guy who isn’t afraid to show his excitement and his character. In fact, he tweeted from the locker room after the final World Series game a couple weeks ago, to let everybody know how he was feeling. What a cool insight into a moment only one team in each league gets to experience each year!

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5. Misty May-Treanor on Facebook

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Misty is probably best known for her beach volleyball gold medals with teammate Kerri Walsh in the 2004 and 2008 Summer Olympics. However, she may soon be known for her social media prowess. Treanor has over 500,000 fans on Facebook, but more importantly, she consistently interacts with her fans by uploading photos and quick messages. This summer, Treanor and Walsh took on Shaq in his ABC show, “Shaq Vs,” and she posted photos to her wall. And the king of Twitter is a good guy to have on your side, if you’re trying to make it with social media!

What athletes on social media are you thankful to be able to follow? Let us know in the comments.

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Reviews: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, ustream

Tags: fab five, jalen rose, List, Lists, social media, sports







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]]> http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/jalen-rose%e2%80%99s-fab-5-social-media-athletes-i%e2%80%99m-thankful-for/feed/ 0 http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/the-muppets-are-back/ http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/the-muppets-are-back/#comments Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:25:06 +0000 Facebook-Web-Design http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/the-muppets-are-back/ I have to give up some props to Chris Hardwick who is apparently big on the internets. I still don’t know who he is but he does have a really nice website and a top notch logo to represent his @Nerdist brand. You’ve probably seen every website out there jack the video and only the video without giving propers where propers are due.

Any who, Chris has some friends in high places or friends that are high in places, not sure yet. The reason I say this is that one of his good mates, Jason Bierfield of SoapBox Films worked on a project involving over 70 Muppets reworking Queen’s classic, Bohemian Rhapsody.

Before you watch this (or watch it repeadetly) I must inform you that it’s not just a comeback, they’ve always been here and are here to stay. The Muppet Studio is in full effect! The have a YouTube Channel where they have all of their shenanigans available for viewing.

My favorites are Statler and Waldarf and their Compiled Criticisms, their two cents on their experiences on being brought up to speed on the fast paced real-time events of the internets. Fantastical!



Check out the Muppets Lab over at YouTube!

So without further adieu, here is the Bohemian Rhapsody in all it’s glory:

And for an extra bonus, have a look see at The Muppets main website where you just *can’t* skip the intro. As you can tell, I’m not just link jacking and dropping a sentence or two like most everyone else out there does just for some ratings and click throughs… I truly love the Muppets.



http://muppets.com

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]]> http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/the-muppets-are-back/feed/ 0 http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/better-pull-quotes-withmootools/ http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/better-pull-quotes-withmootools/#comments Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:50:05 +0000 Facebook-Web-Design http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/better-pull-quotes-withmootools/

Chris Coyier authored a post titled Better Pull Quotes: Don’t Repeat Markup a while back. In his post he created great-looking pull quotes without repeating any content — instead he uses jQuery to dynamically create the pull quotes. The following is the MooTools method for doing so.

View Demo

The HTML

<p><span class="pull-me">As a MooTools "insider", however, I'm excited for what the MooTools team will bring to the table during 2010.</span> We'll be launching the Forge (our public plugin repository), releasing MooTools 2, continuing to grow MooTools More, featuring more community work, and much more. MooTools FTW!</p>

The HTML above features a paragraph of content with a SPAN tag wrapping what I’d like to be the pull quote.

The CSS

.quote { padding:20px; margin:0 0 20px 20px; font-size:20px; font-style:italic; background:#eee; color:#999; display:block; width:200px; float:right; }

You may style the quote any way you’d like. These elements are traditionally large in text with italicized text and a different background color.

The MooTools Javascript

window.addEvent('domready',function() {
	//grab all quotes
	$$('span.pull-me').each(function(span) {
		//inject styled quote into page
		new Element('span',{
			'class': 'quote',
			text: span.get('text')
		}).inject(span.getParent(),'top');
	});
});

We find each element with a “pull-me” CSS class and generate a new element with our “quote” class. We then inject the new element into the original element’s parent. That’s all!

View Demo

Chris did a great job with the execution of his idea. This is a technique that will likely be used well into the future.


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Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter and be sure to visit Script & Style for the best Javascript and CSS articles around!

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Better Pull Quotes with MooTools

Related posts:

1. Highlight Table Rows, Columns, and Cells Using MooTools 1.2.3
2. Bold Web Predictions for 2010
3. MooTools HTML Police: dwMarkupMarine
4. Method Chaining in MooTools and PHP
5. dwImageProtector Plugin for jQuery


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]]> http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/better-pull-quotes-withmootools/feed/ 0 http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/full-frontal-%e2%80%9809-chris-heilmann-on-javascript-security/ http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/full-frontal-%e2%80%9809-chris-heilmann-on-javascript-security/#comments Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:20:06 +0000 Facebook-Web-Design http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/full-frontal-%e2%80%9809-chris-heilmann-on-javascript-security/ It’s another Javascript conference! Full Frontal has kicked off in Brighton this morning (fullfrontal09 on twitter). First up is Ajaxian and Yahoo Chris Heilmann on Javascript security. The main theme is let’s use Javascript sensibly and don’t just blame the language when other things are creating the risks too.

Chris walks us through the history of javascript. The days of building complex systems with document.write() are over thankfully, though some people still think that’s what it’s all about. Having annoyed people with all the js bling, Ajax came around and suddenly javascript is seen as a tool for useful stuff. But…a little too much Ajax perhaps? People using it where it didn’t need to be and how it shouldn’t be used, hence the security fears.

According to a pie chart Chris presents, browser problems are responsible for only 8% of vilnerabilties; the biggest problems are SQL injection and XSS, where the server should be locking down.

Don’t judge the language by its implementation. it does have intrinsic issues like global variables, but the right implementation can keep things secure. As well as poor practice, the browsers bear responsibility. And the cool kids – safari and firefox – are the most vulnerable according to this survey. And it gets a lot worse when you start playing with browser extensions.

So do we turn javascript off? No, the experience of google maps etc is just too good. We don’t have to learn just by “View Source” anymore. There are plenty of resources out there to learn how to do it and how to do it properly (not just with a magic code-gen tool). Use javascript for the right things, not all things. e.g. Slicker UI, data validation warnings, UI controls not native to HTML, visual effects not native to CSS.

What if you’re sharing content from third parties, as the yahoo homepage now allows? Caja is presently the only way to do sandboxing in the browser. It doesn’t output pretty code right now, but it does cut out many risks. Caja prohibits eval(), iframes, * and _ hacks, an many other dangerous features. The latest YUI is caja-compliant code, and Chris reports John Resig is open to the same thing for jQuery, if it turns out there is demand out there.

Chris presents various examples of Javascript outside the browser – Air, web widgets, server side, even TV sets. It’s a very useful tool here, and shows it doesn’t have to be limited to the browser and the security risks that come with browsers.



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]]> http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/facebook-web-design/web-resources/full-frontal-%e2%80%9809-chris-heilmann-on-javascript-security/feed/ 0 http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/web-resources/7-great-rip-offs%e2%80%94and-how-to-avoid-them/ http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/web-resources/7-great-rip-offs%e2%80%94and-how-to-avoid-them/#comments Mon, 16 Nov 2009 07:09:05 +0000 BlogPoster http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/web-resources/7-great-rip-offs%e2%80%94and-how-to-avoid-them/ Making sure you’re properly paid for your work is one of the biggest challenges for a web freelancer or small business owner. In this article, Chris describes seven danger zones where you could potentially lose money, and explains how to avoid doing so.



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]]> http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/web-resources/7-great-rip-offs%e2%80%94and-how-to-avoid-them/feed/ 2 http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/web-resources/30-covers-in-30-days-part-2/ http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/web-resources/30-covers-in-30-days-part-2/#comments Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:09:32 +0000 BlogPoster http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/web-resources/30-covers-in-30-days-part-2/



We return you now to a NaNoWriMo challenge already in progress. Chris of Fwis is still working hard to design 30 Cover in 30 Days. Below, his first 5 covers and Part Two of our ongoing interview.

Enjoy!

Could you give us a sentence or two about each cover you produced this week? What methods did you use? Are there any new styles or techniques that you experimented with? What ideas did you want to convey?

1: The Business by Tricialee Friedman (view full)

The first one is always the toughest, and I was a little fussy on this one. I still don’t like the type treatment. The image is from the Library of Congress. I wanted to convey something along the lines of a shattering injury.

2: Traffic Lights by Cynthia Dawn (view full)

Pen & ink. I need to do more like this, just simple, broad strokes. I wanted to convey precociousness but also something dramatic and a little insidious.

3: The Beauty of a Grid by Alexander Deluca (view full)

This is one of those covers that just sorta happened on the first pass – its my favorite one so far, though it might need a little more contrast.

4: Meet John Foe by Marcia Lee Metzger (view full)

More LoC images here – basically just an Action Comics cover.

5: King of the Food Court by Stacey Shackford (view full)

I had a really short description for this one, but I really like the idea of some mall-bound sage or poet. The type is sort of an embarrassing one amongst designers so I had to use it.

Chris Baty (founder of NaNoWriMo) has defined Week One as being full of energy and anticipation. Would you say that accurately describes your experience this week?

No, I am struggling trying to write, run a business, and finish these covers. My social life is in the pits!

Have you met your goals for this week?

No!!

How much time have you spent on covers? Your novel?

I’d say about an hour apiece on the covers. I am something like 10,000 words behind on my novel, but I’m taking a week off for Thanksgiving and expect to make it up then.

You’ve said you’re not using stock images for this project. Where are you getting images from, and how has this affected the final products?

As I mentioned, the Library of Congress Image Search is great; I’ll probably end up using some of my own photos, staying purely typographic, or illustrating by hand. I’m not exactly sure to what extent I’m willing to go fair-use on copyrighted images, but its an option.

On the third, you went outside the parameters and designed a cover of your choosing. The Nominations thread is now some 200 posts long. Are you browsing for more ideas that spark your interest, or leaving it up to the NaNoWriMo selection team?

Probably not; I need to get the covers done for the people the NaNoWriMo editors have chosen – they made some excellent choices and I need to nail those to the wall before I start tossing wrenches into their careful curation. Sorry Chris & TK!

You can always find Chris’ latest cover in this forum thread: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3438529

Have a question for Chris? Leave it in the comments!



Related posts:

1. 30 Covers in 30 Days
2. Five CSS-Coding Steps from a Professional
3. Next Thursday Interview with Chris Coyier: The guy who showed us how Beautiful HTML Codes Looks like



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]]> http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/web-resources/30-covers-in-30-days-part-2/feed/ 1 http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/web-resources/when-webmastersattack/ http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/web-resources/when-webmastersattack/#comments Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:09:04 +0000 BlogPoster http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/web-resources/when-webmastersattack/ CSS-Tricks scribe Chris Coyier wrote a great post titled What Beautiful HTML Code Looks Like where he outlined (with a great image, no less) how a great HTML/PHP file looks when proper programming practices are used. The post was so popular that the featured image was promoted to the Digg homepage. Then the webmasters logged out of their guild chat long enough to bless the Digg comments with their wisdom. I present to you…

When Webmasters Attack!

Also, what kind of web designer doesn’t already know this? It’s called being organized. However, all that white-space is going to add-up and waste bandwidth, which makes this “beautiful code” (a self-serving, inaccurate, subjective description) not-so-perfect.

What kind of web designer doesn’t know how easy it is to GZIP content which compresses/eliminates all of the extra whitespace that makes code more maintainable?

I don’t think <?php .. is valid HTML 5 either.

This isn’t a “Hello Kitty” picture, Webmaster, so please don’t comment. This will get parsed by PHP and output as HTML.

I link to one stylesheet. It works on firefox, safari and ie8.


If you can’t be bothered to upgrade your browser, I can’t be bothered with you.


None of this If IE>blabla shit.


Oh, and spare me the “but i need IE6 to use some of the software at my office”. I DONT CARE! Use a more recent browser to surf the internet, and stop spreading viruses because you’re too lazy.

I was going to ask you, Webmaster, about your clients’ web visitors and the money they’d be losing by turning away persons with IE6 and IE7 browsers but then I realized I took them all from you. Apparently the order of importance goes: you, client, visitors. That’s completely backward.

…The irony of this article is that it’s one giant PNG image. Further proof that the most beautiful HTML is the nonexistent kind.

Apparently Chris should have used a JPEG?

Why I am not surprised to see a MacOS window?

Because you’re a psychic? WTF is that supposed to mean?

PHP in a .HTML file?


change the title to “What Beautiful HTML Code Looks Like [infoFAIL]“

As long as you’re going to ignore the main point of the post and be a smart ass about the PHP/HTML, I’ll point out that Chris added a .htaccess directive to parse .html files as PHP. Ouch, sick burn!

No title attributes in the anchor tags. Since when does that make for beautiful HTML?

The article isn’t called “What Beautiful SEO Looks Like”.

This page has a story, a sidebar, and a footer. ‘Real’ websites are far more dynamic than this, and by ‘real’ I mean ones that people will go to. Complex websites have complex markup. You shouldn’t be bragging just because you’ve passed your w3schools tests.

You’re right. What he should really brag about are the dozens of thousands of RSS followers and his status within the community.

I get it but to some point it gets stupid. Stop accommodating specific browsers. If the web page loads properly then good but if it doesnt and looks broken then that tells he consumer to upgrade their fucking browser! It should be that simple.

Another lazy, ignorant idiot that doesn’t understand that he isn’t important — his clients and their visitors are. This person clearly doesn’t get it.

In the end…

Thank you again, Webmaster, for reminding me why I should be so proud of the work I do. Without you I couldn’t pay for house, cars, and fine wine. Keep up the good work so I can keep up my fine life!


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Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter and be sure to visit Script & Style for the best Javascript and CSS articles around!

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When Webmasters Attack!

Related posts:

1. Create Digg URLs Using PHP
2. Advanced .htaccess Security – Block Unwanted Referrers
3. 6 Reason Why Digg Is Losing Me
4. MSN Live Search Result Grabber
5. Google Grabber — Using PHP to Find Out How Many Pages Your Domain Has Listed in Google


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]]> http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/web-resources/when-webmastersattack/feed/ 0 http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/web-resources/fronteers-2009-phew/ http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/web-resources/fronteers-2009-phew/#comments Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:36:20 +0000 BlogPoster http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/web-resources/fronteers-2009-phew/ Well, Fronteers 2009 was an astounding success if the Twitterfeed is to be believed. That’s good because it cost us an astounding time to arrange it all.

I did a session on the mobile web. I haven’t uploaded the slides yet because I’m going to give this presentation again at Full Frontal on 20 November. When that one’s done I’ll release the slides.

Some impressions:

• Boy, the venue was hot. Especially on the first day. On the second day I managed to arrange for some oxygen flow, but it was tricky.
• Next time I’ll hire a dedicated conference doctor. Molly, Jonathan, Ben, Chris, and Nicole were all in various states of unwell-being. Obviously they all showed up for their presentations, but still it might have been good to give them a nice shot of some medicine or other.
• These speakers have insane schedules. Worse, sometimes they don’t send me the right flight information, so that my taxi service won’t work perfectly.
• The speakers were happy, and favourably commented on the organisation. Cool. I aim to please.
• Chris Heilmann will make a naughty joke about that last sentence, but so be it. Bring him on. I can handle him.
• Thanks to the volunteers who took on various small or not-so-small chores and made my job considerably easier.
  Vasilis van Gemert,
  Kilian Valkhof,
  Wilfred Nas,

  Justin Halsall,

  Jelmer van der Linde,
  Herko Coomans,
  Jan Paul Posma,
  Jan van Hellemond,
  Hidde de Vries,
  Leendert Ullersma, and
  Thijs Reijgersberg.

• Extra special thanks to Krijn Hoetmer, who is best known for keeping the IRC logs of various important web standards groups, but who also takes on many Fronteers 2009 tasks such as attendee administration, finance, webmastering, and keeping the official conference feed going. Without him Fronteers 2009 would have been absolutely impossible.
• About 300 attendees, about 200 of them Dutch and 100 of them from about ten other countries. Fronteers 2009 is definitely an international conference.
• The small size of the group made for an intimate atmosphere you don’t find often at larger conferences.
• Obviously, the conference parties had no music. Nobody minded.

Thanks, speakers, attendees, and volunteers. It was a lovely conference.

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]]> http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/web-resources/fronteers-2009-phew/feed/ 0 http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/photoshop/interview-with-chris-spooner/ http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/photoshop/interview-with-chris-spooner/#comments Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:36:25 +0000 BlogPoster http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/photoshop/interview-with-chris-spooner/ 1. Thanks for agreeing to do this interview Chris. If you remember we actually published an interview with you roughly a year ago. It’s great to see that you’re still very much active in the design community! Today I would like to ask some different questions, and focus on what you’ve been
up to over the course of the last year.

Some designers and bloggers seem to have a habit of fading out of the public eye, and enjoying a very short-lived popularity. You’ve been regarded as an important figure in the design community for some time now. Could you share some insight into how you maintain your activity and ‘personal brand’ if you will, within the design community?

Thanks for having me back, Tom!

Whenever I offer advice on blogging I always recommend doing it out of passion, rather than purely for fame or fortune, as it’s the early days that are the hardest. There will be months of churning out topics and it seeming like no-one’s reading, there’s no revenue and it takes stacks of time! I think this is a big reason as to why some blogs fade away, as the owners might lose faith or interest. I’ve basically maintained my activity because I have the same interest in all things design as I did on day one of setting up my blog. I’m still reading the same old feeds (with a good selection of new ones!) and still being inspired by the work of others. I think personal branding just tags along for the ride; if you’re posting out design topics or design tweets, it’s only natural that you’ll be associated with the subject.

Since the last interview I’ve had the pleasure of seeing my site more than double in RSS subscribers to over 27,000, so this is a great incentive to keep it up. I also moved more into blogging as it started bringing in a revenue alongside client work, which is when I started Line25 (which we talk about later!).



2. Could you give us a sneak peek into an average day for you?

An average day usually starts with me struggling to wake up and get out of bed. I love getting up early, but it never works out! Lately I’ve been getting into my home office for 9:30 after the short commute upstairs. I’ll then check out a bunch of my sites and online profiles for new comments and updates, these include Blog.SpoonGraphics, Line25, ChrisSpooner.com, Twitter, YouTube, and DailyBooth. Depending on my work load I’ll either continue on with some client work, or start work on an upcoming blog post. Either way I’ll usually have a hand-written to-do list controlling my daily activities. After my first job I’ll usually brave my email inbox and clear out a few messages, although sometimes this is a scary scene and I’ll immediately close it to deal with later! The workflow tip from Tim Ferries (I think?) of only checking email once a day has been an awesome productivity boost for the year or so I’ve been employing it.

I’ll work through jobs on my to-do list throughout the day, combined with random tweets and getting sidetracked by following interesting links or intriguing YouTube videos. I’ll usually work into the evening before leaving for food, after which Laira and I either watch some TV, head out to the Cinema or do a session at the Gym.

That pretty much sums up an average day, although with myself and Laura having the freedom of being self-employed we often make last minute decisions and take the day off to go to the theme park.



3. Your blog, attached to your portfolio Spoon Graphics continues to publish quality, unique content month after month. Could you give some advice for people wanting to maintain high standards in blogging and design?

Thanks for the kind comments! It’s always hard creating new content, especially with tutorials. I think I’ve almost given away everything I know! Not sure how many ideas I’ve got left! It has become easier over time in a way, as it’s just part of my weekly routine to create a few blogs posts, so I’ll be constantly thinking of new topics. If I spot something on or offline that could be worked into a tutorial or article, I’ll note it down.

I suppose the best advice to maintaining high standards in blogging is to always try to post something that people are going to find useful or interesting. That way you’re more likely to get a better return on the time you’ve invested because people enjoy sharing what they find online. A consistent schedule of interesting posts is more enticing to subscribers. The higher traffic levels you’re getting, and the higher revenue, the more time you can and want to put into it. This also tends to help me out with my design skillset, as I’ll use blogging to experiment in new areas or put ideas into practice that would otherwise go unused.



4. Not too long ago you redesigned your portfolio Spoon Graphics. Firstly let me congratulate you on an excellent job, I certainly know how much work can be involved in a major redesign! You mention in your blog that you wanted to give the site a more ‘personal’ feel. How did you work to achieve this, and what other goals did you have for the redesign?

With my blog continually growing, it’s become a far more superior source of clients and work than my portfolio. Plenty of past clients never knew about the spoongraphics.co.uk site! On the flip side the leads I was getting from my portfolio were of lower quality, usually people stumbling onto my site from a Google search for freelance designer. These were the typical clients with huge demands and low budgets!

The aim of the new spoongraphics site was to give more of a personal touch that gave more info on my background and my interest in blogging, rather than promote myself as a freelance designer. To do this I typed out the whole content as if I was saying it aloud, which loses the whole ‘professional’ image, but has helped tailor the types of clients I enjoy working with. Now I receive emails like: “Hey Chris, love your work, how do you fancy designing our site” rather than: “For the attention of Mr. Spooner. Proceed to sign the enclosed NDA. Upon completion you shall provide design concepts for our website”.

It was also about time I gave the design and code a refresh, after time we all learn new things we’re looking to put into practice, and discover more streamlined ways of working.



5. I couldn’t publish this interview without of course mentioning your newest blog ‘Line25′. Despite only being a few months old I’ve seen plenty of great content published there. Could you tell us a little bit about the blog, and your experiences running it so far?

Line25 has been awesome to grow over the past few months, it has been great going back to square one and establishing a new blog, although I did have a head start with the already established userbase on Blog.SpoonGraphics. Still, there were slow times in the beginning, but it seems to have picked up nicely and recently surpassed 13,000 subscribers in the 7 months it has been live. It has also been nice to have a standalone site, unlike Blog.SpoonGraphics which is attached to my portfolio. This has given me a little more freedom creating some types of posts that just didn’t feel right on my portfolio-blog. Although saying that I’m now ditching the whole ‘Oh, I can’t post that on my ‘business’ site mentality’ and looking at posting whatever I fancy on there.

I’m looking forward to developing the content on Line25 and kick up the traffic stats to the next level. I’m also considering opening up the site to more guest posts, both to ease off my workload and to offer another platform for people wanting to get their name out there alongside their content.



6. Do you have any more projects lined up for the near future?

I’m currently working off a few client projects with an aim to take a little break and concentrate on refreshing my blog designs. They’re both due a few little tweaks here and there. I’m also considering taking a direction with Blog.SpoonGraphics that’s similar to a couple of other big design blogs and offering a membership scheme. Here source files would be supplied, exclusive content would be posted and a range of discounts from some top companies would be offered. I don’t have any plans set in stone as yet, but it would
be cool to gather some initial opinions – What do the PSDFAN readers think?!

Otherwise, I’ve been enjoying experimenting on the video blogging side of life over at ChrisSpooner.com. This has been a great way of developing myself personally by building confidence in uncomfortable situations. Anyone who’s tried to talk to themselves while holding a camera to their face will know the feeling! Now video content feels natural, I’m considering creating a video version of my Blog.SpoonGraphics weekly favs. Video content seems to be the hottest thing on the web, so I’m up for jumping onto the bandwagon!

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Every year, thousands of people voluntarily put themselves to the ultimate literary challenge: to write a novel. Last year, 21,683 did.

It’s called NaNoWriMo, which stands for National Novel Writing Month. Now an international phenomenon, over 100,000 writers, professional and amateur, have signed up at NaNoWriMo.org and pledged to do the seemingly impossible. If you can write 50,000 words in the 30 days of November, you win.

The challenge has already inspired spin-offs, from the sanctioned Script Frenzy (100 page screen- or stage-play in April), to NaNoEdMo (edit your novel) and 24-Hour Comic Day (write and draw 24 pages in 24 hours). Now designer Chris Papasadero, co-founder of design firm Fwis, has taken on his own challenge.

Papasadero is going to design 30 book covers in 30 days. Novelists who post a title and synopsis of their story are in the running for selection by the NaNoWriMo team. The plan is for one lucky novel to be transformed every day this month. As every past participant knows, November isn’t always kind to those who take on big projects.

Snap2Objects will conduct weekly interviews with Papasadero during November, to follow his progress and see how this ambitious venture fares. Read More for this week’s interview, and come back next week for part two!

First, could you recap what the 30 Covers, 30 Days project is and why you decided to take it on?

I’ve been a fan of NaNoWriMo for some time, and I often find myself appreciating volume over quality in some things, so this is a good chance to embarrass myself productively. I will be designing a cover for a NaNoWriMo writer for each day of the project.

A lot of NaNoWriMo participants have wondered, how will you select novels to be turned into cover art? Are you browsing at random, or making an effort to take a wide sampling of genres, locations, etc.?

The covers are being chosen by the NaNoWriMo head honchos; I have no idea how they’re going about it, but I have to assume they’re going for a broad variety of topics, demographics, segments, etc. to properly represent the broad range of writers participating in the project!

How did you first find out about NaNoWriMo?

I believe I heard about it four or five years ago, back when I lived in the lovely city of Portland, OR.

What is Fwis, and how long have you been involved with them?

Fwis is my design firm and we’ve been around for about seven years.

What is your background as a designer?

I’ve been working on Fwis for a long time now and have been involved primarily in the day-to-day operations of the firm and don’t do as much design as I’d like to, so this project will help me blow the dust off the ol’ visual part of my mind and maybe even sharpen it up a bit.

What sort of projects do you typically take on?

It really runs the gamut, from advertising and marketing campaigns for companies like Corbis, to package and environmental design for companies like Johnson & Johnson.

How would you characterize your work?

Conceptually relevant to the clients’ needs… humorous, ‘wonky’, colorful and optimistic. I think at the baseline the ideas are always good, truly unique and perhaps even a bit iconoclastic.

What tools do you use frequently? Do you prefer digital media, or traditional?

I definitely prefer getting away from the computer when I can, but it really speeds things up, which is appropriate for this project! I use a spiral-bound sketchpad, a Pilot Precise V5, and scotch on a daily basis.

You maintain a blog at http://covers.fwis.com/ dedicated to book cover art. What interests you about book covers?

The book cover is a perfect fusion of two creative minds; the wordsmith and the visual thinker.

I see you have a word count going at NaNoWriMo.org. Are you attempting to write a novel as well as design 30C30D? Do you think you have a better chance of finishing one or the other?

I was hoping you weren’t going to ask this question as I wanted it to be a surprise! But yes, I am also writing a novel this month as well. I clearly have no social life.

How do you plan to stretch yourself artistically with this project?

Speed, volume, experimentation. I’d like for all the covers to somehow feel a little serialized, but I’m not sure if that’s going to work out!

How does it feel to be on Day One (November 1)? Do you have any worries, or aspects you’re looking forward to?

I’m fiddling too much and need to use broader strokes, speed, and smart concept. I am so amazed at how nice the NaNoWriMo people are, they are optimistic and cheery and I hope that they all become famous, wealthy authors some day!

Follow the Project on the NaNoWriMo forums

Interview with the NaNoWriMo blog team

Do you have questions for Chris? Want to know more about NaNoWriMo? Tell us in the comments!



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]]> http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/web-resources/30-covers-in-30-days/feed/ 1 http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/web-resources/a-month-in-the-creative-community-an-october-round-up/ http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/web-resources/a-month-in-the-creative-community-an-october-round-up/#comments Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:36:47 +0000 BlogPoster http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/web-resources/a-month-in-the-creative-community-an-october-round-up/ Falling into the winter’s grip, we leave another month behind shuffling towards the year’s end. October has drawn to a close and that means it is time for the FYC monthly round-up. So we scoured the feeds and stopped by our favorite cyberspace hangouts to grab the best content that the creative community had to offer in October. Whether you caught them the first time around or you are seeing them for the first time, the showcase below is what we believed should not be left behind with the days we dropped along the way. So we hope you enjoy these fantastic features!

Inspiration

45+ Inspiring Examples of Vintage in Web Design

Who said old style was never been cool in web design? In fact, using Vintage photo, paper and fashion became trendier now a day. If you’re looking for Vintage Web Design inspiration, then this is what your looking for. Today we will showcase some of the best sites applying vintage concept on their layout.

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30 amazing packaging designs for your inspiration

Packaging is one of the aspects of design that we see the most, we get packaged products at home, work or wherever we go. The following are great example of well done packaging that add value to the product.

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30 Beautiful Examples of Illustrated Twitter Backgrounds

Twitter can be a powerful tool to communicate and connect with people through words, but it can also be a great way to promote your brand through visual design. Twitter does limit you when it comes to customizing your page, but you do have full control over the background image.

Read More

35 Smart Logos With Second Thought To Make You look Twice

One more logo showcase, but in this one you really will need to look twice! Every logo is carefully picked with second thought and I think such logos are really hard to create. Get inspired, hopefully this article will help you to look different at logo creation – it’s not always just about typography, good looking font and nice animation.

Read More

50 Mind-Blowing Examples of Macro Photography

I love the amazing details you can find in these shots. When we want to we can find a whole other world, the world of the small. Its a very alien looking world to say the least but a beautiful one at that. I hope you enjoy these shots as much as I have.

Read More

Awesome Brochure and Print Design Inspiration

Print design is becoming quite influential in web design, we have seen more and more websites using big headers, lots of white space and nice font size contrasts. As I am looking for print design references for a brochure I am working on, I decided to select some nice brochures and print design examples to share with you.

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Interviews

Interview With Jacob Gube, The Man Behind Six Revisions

I have had the pleasure of connecting with Jacob, the man behind the very popular design blog Six Revisions, on multiple occasions through various social sites and I recently interviewed him for SpyreStudios. I hope you’ll enjoy this interview with Jacob! Make sure you stop by in the comment section and feel free to ask Jacob questions!

Read More

Chris Spooner on Inspiration

Chris Spooner, the guy behind Blog.SpoonGraphics and Line25 was kind enough to take the time to answer some questions for us this past weekend on the topic of Creativity and Inspiration. Chris is a self employed designer, who earns a fulltime living with a mix of blogging and the odd design project.

Read More

Designer’s Studio: 7 Amazing Premium WordPress Theme Designers Explain

The WordPress following could be compared to the one of any given religious group. By the core of this community stand the ones who have dedicated their whole portfolios and businesses to develop some of the most sold, used and appraised WordPress themes – The Premium WordPress Theme Designers.

Read More

Interview With Steven Snell From Vandelay Design & DesignM.ag

I first connected with Steven back when I used to run Freelance Folder almost 2 years ago (Steven wrote some great articles there) and we’ve been in contact ever since. Here’s the interview I did with Steven recently, I hope you like it!

Read More

A Chat With Ace Graphic Designer Francesco Mugnai

Six months ago I returned to designing and blogging after a sabbatical of almost 5 years. As I slowly started sifting through the plethora of websites and blogs that were out there, I came across a page so blue, it brightened my whole demeanor.

Read More

Creative Interview with Richard Darell aka @Minervity

This week I had the opportunity to chat with one of my very good designer friends, founder of the well known Minervity.com, Richard Darell (@Minervity). If you are active at all on twitter you will no doubt recognize him as an extremely active member of the community as well as an excellent source of Information for Design, Tech, and Inspiration.

Read More

Design

3 Powerful Ways To Make Typography Talk On Your Website

Typography is a very powerful tool in a web designer’s arsenal. We have seen simple websites glorified in an instant with the use of proper typography. We have seen brilliant websites pale because the “type” tone they used was all wrong.

Read More

5 Helpful Tips for Design Students

Myself being a graphic design student and freelancer, I am constantly being pushed to my limits, balancing school work and client work that actually puts money in my pocket. It’s a tough challenge, but something that many of us tackle each and every day. But, what if you are a student and don’t seem to be gaining that many clients for freelance projects, leaving your portfolio full of projects that 50 other students have in theirs?

Read More

How a design blog is attractive to clients

I often find myself getting asked the question, “Does your blog bring you business, and how so if it’s mostly targeted at inspiring and helping other designers?”

Read More

Development

WordPress Theme Cheat Sheet for Beginners

There are many codes to memorize just to modify a WordPress theme, so it helps to have a mini cheat sheet if you are looking to make minor changes or even developing your own theme. This is why we have decided to list a few codes that you can probably use for reference when editing themes.

Read More

5 Rules To Write More Readable CSS Files

Complex CSS files can often be difficult to manage especially if you don’t use a structured way to write and organize their code.

Read More

jQuery for Absolute Beginners: The Complete Series

over the course of about a month, I posted fifteen video tutorials that teach you EXACTLY how to use the jQuery library. We start by downloading the library and eventually work our way up to creating an AJAX style-switcher. I’m very proud of this series; possibly more than any other that I’ve done for Envato.

Read More

Freebies

Free Peeling Paint Textures

I have collect 5 Awesome, high resolution and high quality Peeling Paint Textures. In this showcase you will find 5 awesome Peeling Paint Textures that you can use for any purpose, whether it’s commercial or personal. They’re extremely large-scale in dimension.

Read More

Abstract Grunge Photoshop Brushes & Texture Pack

Today’s first web treat is a combo pack of 5 high resolution abstract grunge painted textures and corresponding high resolution photoshop brushes.

Read More

Parting Ways: Free November 2009 Calendar Wallpaper

This post is part of the free calendar wallpaper series. Each month I create a new wallpaper featuring the current calendar. Looking at the same image over and over again is not very stimulating. Hence having a new desktop background each month should help getting your creative juices flowing.

Read More

Tutorials

Create a Twitter Icon in Six Easy Steps Using Photoshop

You do not need to be a Photoshop pro or Iconist to create a simple icon. Just have an idea of what you want to create and start from there. In this post we are showing you how to create a simple twitter icon for your blog or website in six easy steps.

Read More

How to effectively clean up a logo in illustrator with the pathfinder tool

Over the years I have been passed many a logo to “clean”. I also learned while I was in college that I was of the few that actually knew how to make a logo one shape so it would appear correctly on any background color.

Read More

Freelancing

How To Maximize Your Freelance Income

Freelancing income often seems as though it is a limited commodity. It seems limited by time, limited by ability, and limited by the number of opportunities available.

Read More

Freelancers: Do You Need a Business Plan?

If you tell someone that you’re going into business for yourself, he may ask to see your business plan — unless you tell him that you’re planning to freelance. There’s a certain assumption that freelancing is so plain and simple that anyone can do it, with no business plan needed.

Read More

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A Month In The Creative Community: An October Round-Up




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The Australian digital illustrator Chirstopher Haines strikes again with a new piece called Zen. Somewhere between photo illustration and 3d with an amazing final look. Check out how it was done step by step on this case study full of images to inspire your next creation.

<!–break–>
For more from Chris visit his behance and his website.

Case Study























Final



Details







About the author



Hi! I’m Paulo Canabarro and I’m here to post some really cool stuff for you, if you have any ideas or any requests please get @ me – paul0v2@abduzeedo.com you can also Follow me on twitter!

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]]> http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/web-resources/digital-illustration-case-study-by-chis-haines/feed/ 0 http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/web-resources/friday-fuel-fix-100909/ http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/web-resources/friday-fuel-fix-100909/#comments Sat, 10 Oct 2009 00:00:46 +0000 BlogPoster http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/web-resources/friday-fuel-fix-100909/ Well Friday has come again, and once more on FYC we wanted to do another check in with this great Network that we are a part of to and send our readers into the weekend with an extra little something something. That’s right, folks, we are talking about the Friday FUEL Fix. With so many great followers on Twitter, so many Flickr members contributing to the FYC Flickr group, and some awesome additions to the FUEL Brand Network we decided we would feature a little bit from all three areas in one post to show our appreciation for and of the people, designs, and posts we have chosen to feature.

FYC Twitter Follow Friday

We have thousands of great followers on Twitter and we really wish we could feature them all, because they really do so much for improving our online experience. But we will take some time when doing these posts to pass on a few recommended Tweeps that you should also be checking out. Thanks to all of you who take the time to help share our works and interact with us on Twitter, and here is the first of our Follow Friday post inclusions.

@Creative_Guru is a fantastic tweep to follow. George’s stream is always teeming with quality content that should not be overlooked.


@LBOI is a pure pleasure to interact with, both on Twitter and elsewhere in the blogosphere. Sneh is always friendly and helpful.


@modbird is always a must follow when you are talking about content and personality. Chris has both in abundance and they shine with every tweet.


@thore_siefke is one of those tweeps that you see around everywhere! Always lending a hand and passing along the content that you just can’t miss.


@r27 is another follower that makes Twitter a pleasure to use. Rajesh is always helpful and is just an overall valuable member of the community.


The FUEL Fix

Like we said before, we have so many amazing sister sites in the FUEL Network that we want to shine our spotlight over on the content that their awesome editors and writers are putting together. Each of these fantastic FUEL sites is loaded with inspiring and insightful posts and discussions so take a look down through the showcase and see if you have missed any of these must-reads.

Fuel Your Motionography

Fuel Your Motionography is the newest addition to the FUEL family but don’t think that they are easing their way into things, no way! The dynamic duo heading up the site, Christy Lai and Michael A. John, have already assembled a team of fantastic contributors and content!

Check out this fine post from Fuel Your Motionography
Principles of Animation for Motionographers – Part 1 of 3

Follow on Twitter – @fuelyourmotion | @christy_lai | @michael_a_john
Subscribe to Fuel Your Motionography


Fuel Your Blogging

Fuel Your Blogging continues to blossom as editor Tim Smith blazes the bloggers trail taking the FYBlogging readers along with him and his awesome team of authors!

Check out this fine post from Fuel Your Blogging
Things Review and Giveaway

Follow on Twitter – @fuelblogging | @timothybsmith
Subscribe to Fuel Your Blogging


Fuel Your Branding

The Branding team, Beth LaPierre and Lisa Kribs, continue to shine over at Fuel Your Branding, driving this incredible resource for all things related to the building and maintaining your personal or professional brand.

Check out this fine post from Fuel Your Branding
The New Age of Brand Loyalty

Follow on Twitter – @fuelbranding | @bethlapierre | @lisakribs
Subscribe to Fuel Your Blogging


Fuel Your Photography

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then Fuel Your Photography is the dictionary with which to interpret those words and with which to hone your knowledge and skills behind the lens. Great for industry pros, fans, and amateur shutterbugs alike!

Check out this fine post from Fuel Your Photography
Wedding Photographers: What NOT to Do

Follow on Twitter – @fuelphotography | @stacychristian | @thayneshumway
Subscribe to Fuel Your Photography


Fuel Your Apps

When you just love Apps, and you’ve got no shame, who you gonna call? Fuel Your Apps! Okay, so, yeah, that was kind of lame, but you who’s not? Fuel Your…yeah you get the point. Chad Engle, editor extraordinaire holds down the App side of things for the FUEL Network.

Check out this fine post from Fuel Your Apps
Discussion: Does Brand Consistency Matter When Launching Your App?

Follow on Twitter – @fuelyourapps | @chadengle
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Fuel Your Illustration

Ready to flip your lip over to the illustration side of things, then let Alex Eben Meyer and Fuel Your Illustration take you there! Complimentary lid flippage offered to anyone not able to get it themselves, just visit the site and see what we mean.

Check out this fine post from Fuel Your Illustration
1950’s Illustration: When Mass Media Met Pop Culture

Follow on Twitter – @fuelillustrate | @ebencom
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Fuel Your Interface

Fuel Your Interface keeps on delivering paramount post after post! Jonathan Cutrell is manning the helm and guiding the interface team to fantastic heights with helpful, timely content that always shines!

Check out this fine post from Fuel Your Interface
4 Tools You Might Not Know You Need for Interface Design

Follow on Twitter – @fuelinterface | @JCutrell
Subscribe to Fuel Your Interface


Fuel Your Writing

The writing world didn’t know what hit it when Fuel Your Writing launched, but after just a few months Michelle Krasniak Oxman and her unstoppable team took hold as one of the top ten writing blogs on the web!

Check out this fine post from Fuel Your Writing
Here’s the Dirt on “Don’t Be a Dummy” Month!

Follow on Twitter – @fuelyourwriting | @michelleoxman
Subscribe to Fuel Your Writing


Fuel Your Coding

If it is coding that you crave then Douglas Neiner and his kings of code over at Fuel Your Coding have got just what you are looking for. From beginner to guru, there is always something for you on this brilliant blog.

Check out this fine post from Fuel Your Coding
PHP Frameworks? Just roll your own! – PART 1

Follow on Twitter – @fuelyourcoding | @dougneiner
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Fuel Brand Network

The Fuel Brand Network now has a blog dedicated to keeping you up on the latest developments with the brand that has built such a great community around it. Peter Liao, copy editor, and Megan Wantz, indispensable intern, have joined the team to help out us as well.

We also wanted to take a moment to tip our hats to the fabulous folks that are behind the scenes spearheading the Network and who are responsible for bringing us all together! Joshua Smibert, Dan Denney, and of course, the one who first started the fires burning, Adelle Charles!

Follow on Twitter – @fuelnetwork | @HeyPeterman | @Ehmdoubleyou
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Fuel Your Creativity Español

Do not be mistaken, just because FYC Español is another Creativity incarnation in the Network that they have all the same posts and content as the English counterpart…far from it! Javier and his team have assembled some hard hitting and awesomely inspired material for the Network so make sure that you get your bilingual butt in gear and get subscribed to FYC Español!

Fuel Your Creativity Japanese

Once more, this incarnation of the Creativity site, FYC Japanese, is jam packed with fresh content and inspired articles. Aki has crafted an astounding arsenal of posts that are sure to get your creative fires burning without end. If you have not been checking out the feed from FYC Japanese, then you are definitely missing out on some stellar design related inspiration. So get on over and check them out!

FYC Flickr Group Showcase


bartondamer : THE MORNING LIGHT CD packaging


hulk4598 : Genetics


Aaron Given Nauss : Self Portrait


neslirawles : lost


KILDAHL : Pyramid

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Friday FUEL Fix (10/09/09)




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