Hey check out this rad e-commerce site we finished up. We worked really hard on this website for Lou C’s Designs, a shop out of Tyler, Tx that makes custom necklaces and pendants. Sweet hand-drawn illustrations that match her style of hand stamped jewelry. Large product photos. Simple, easy navigation and a seamless check-out process. Take a look at the site here: lou-c-designs.com
We’d love to know what you think. (Click the photos below to see all the neat details.)
Martin and I just returned from our adventures in Austin, TX for the Interactive portion of South by South West. It. Was. Epic.
Here are a few tasty nuggets of advice/info/random thoughts, etc from some of the presentations that we attended.
M Jackson Wilkinson (User Experience Lead at Posterous) gave a presentation on “Designing for Silence: Using Email for Good”. His overall presentation was okay, however, it was one of the first things he said that was most valuable for me.
In regards to his daily routine, he said, it starts with getting up and going strait to his chair. Then he starts out by learning one new thing. Something simple and not too time consuming. Whether that means going to wikipedia and doing a random article search or reading up on a new tech, learning a new word, whatever doesn’t matter, just start your day off with learning. Seems like a pretty valid strategy. Instead of starting your day with email, twitter or facebook, (read: distractions) start your day with something valuable to your brain. Your brain is a muscle. It noms on tasty bits of info. Feed your brain.
The second thing he did was to reflect on the previous day. Think about the accomplishments for that day. The work that was done or wasn’t done. The day’s conversations, arguments, thoughts, goals, decisions, etc.
And finally the last thing he did to start his day was to think about how he could improve upon the day before.
I’m going to see if I can’t try this for a bit. I’m pretty good about starting cool new “daily inspirational” things, but they last for about a week max. This one is pretty simple though and I think the reflective nature of it will be a little easier to be consistent. The last one I tried was a freezing cold shower every morning. That lasted about three days. Let us know if you have some kind of daily ritual that works for you.
Shane Pearlman moderated a panel on WordPress, called Making Money with WordPress. So here’s a few tidbits of wordpress related tips. Some are no-brainers, but were still new to us, so we figured we should share.
1. WordPress updates every 3-6 months. Sometimes these updates may cause issues with your clients’ sites if they update on their own. You need some kind of statement in your contract that says, “If you update your wordpress to the newest version and it causes your site to bug out, we’re not liable.” We actually had this happen to us, luckily it was a simple fix but it’s definitely something to add into your contract just to be on the safe side.
2. WordPress runs 12% of the interent. (This was something Shane Pearlman said, however I wasn’t able to find anything online to verify that percentage.)
Mike Kruzeniski gave a really good talk about how print design is the future of interaction design. Basically he linked the principals and theories of print design to how we should be approaching design for all these new technologies. One thing I wanted to leave with you is something he said in regards to communicating, which I think applies to more than just web UI.
“An arrow is only an arrow if people understand it to be an arrow.” – Mike Kruzeniski
More notes to come from the lecture with Khoi Vinh and my favorite presentation given by Paul Boag
A few months ago we were asked to help out with a logo for the Texas Film Festival. Awesome! Here’s a look at our ideas and final logos. Let us know whatcha think!
The first thought for anything Texas related is going to be the silhouette of Texas, just because it is such a recognizable shape. So that was the first thing we threw out. Then we started researching, texas, film, film history, texas film, film texas, texas in film, film in texas, yadda yadda.
In school I took a lot of classes on animation, specifically one on the history of animation. So one of my first ideas came from a name I remembered, Eadweard Muybridge. Boom! Everything just came together from there. Muybridge is one of the first dudes to put images together to create “moving pictures”. He developed devices to create motion from his photography. He also settled a bet about whether or not all four hooves of a horse are off the ground when it gallops. He did this by a series of photographs taken quickly enough to show the entire run cycle of a horse, proving that all four hooves do come off the ground. See photo!
That’s when I realized we needed to combine something Texas related with his series of images of the horse. The nine-banded armadillo is very Texas. Everyone that has ever lived somewhat in the country in Texas has driven over at least one in their lifetime. It’s a horrible sound. Imagine taking a big bite of really fresh Doritos chips.
As most know, film festivals are usually put on independently and it’s usually a lot of hands-on work by those putting it together. I wanted the typography to have that hand-made feel to reflect the hands-on approach of a film festival. Yeah, it’s cliche, but I think it works here.
So the audience of these film festivals are typically pretty rad people. A little dorky, but smart, young, edgy movie-goers. That means the logo doesn’t need to jump out and slap them in the face. It can be subtle. It can have a little more of a story. It looks cool if you don’t know anything. Everyone knows the armadillo has to do with Texas, but then you hear from a buddy the back story on the logo and suddenly it becomes so much more cool. Well that’s our hope. What do you guys think?
Inspiration:
My mom asked me to design a card she could send out for the holidays. I asked her what she wanted the card to say and she just said, “…something traditional.” Ugh…boring.
Here’s what I did. She hates it. I love it.
Christmas Card
Needless to say I had to redo it.
This kinda got me thinking. Obviously, I knew my mom’s 50 year old Hungarian relatives wouldn’t find the card all that funny. Not exactly the right audience. I did it anyways…because it was fun. Do fun things! It will help with the not-so-exciting projects. Not that we could ever have a client bring us a project that we weren’t 100% stoked on, but just in case! 
Merry Christmas. Happy [insert whatever you are celebrating here]!
