As designers and developers, most of us are working on projects for clients on a regular basis. For most readers here, it will probably be the design and development of websites, or possibly even web or mobile applications. For others, it could be different forms of design, such as identity work or packaging. In any case, we invest hours and hours into the planning, execution and even revision of these projects.

Client work is certainly important, since it is often a large part of what helps pay the bills and bring home the proverbial bacon. Unfortunately, when working for someone else, we generally don’t have complete and total control over what we are doing. Yes, we have been hired to do the job, and yes that should mean that we—not the client—are making the design decisions. Still, a big part of the web designer’s job is to deploy his or her skills not only to create a totally awesome website, but also to help realize the client’s vision and develop solutions to their unique problems. This naturally places some constraints on the process.

In some cases, these constraints may involve working within standardized corporate guidelines for branding and identity. In other cases, it can be a matter of consulting on what kinds of layouts and interactions might make for the most effective and usable e-commerce solution.

Yes, occasionally, that odd project will come along where we are given the extensive creative freedom to take the project and/or design in pretty much any direction that we see fit (cherish and enjoy these projects whenever they come along). Even in these situations, though, all the creativity, energy and experience you pour into the work is still all for the primary benefit of the client.

That’s why I think that every single designer and/or developer needs at least one side project—something that is all their own, and which is entirely free of any kind of client direction or expectation. There are a number of great benefits to be derived from these kinds of projects. Let’s look at a few of them.

Passion

As much as you may have a passion for all things related to design and web development, that does not always mean that you will be working on projects that your are also passionate about. In fact, quite often you may find yourself working on designs and sites that are somewhat dull or commonplace. Unless you are in a situation that allows to turn down work that doesn’t interest you, this is likely something that you will find quite common in the world of client services.

A good side project can provide you with an outlet through which to truly channel otherwise frustrated passions. It can be something to embrace with enthusiasm, energy and vigour, and to throw your entire self into. It can also be extremely surprising how energizing a project like this can be.

If it’s something you are truly passionate about, you may find yourself putting long hours into the project, but coming away excited and full of energy because of it. Ideally, you would then be able to channel this back into the work you are doing for your clients.

It’s almost like a mini-design holiday to recharge your batteries!

Experimentation

A side project can also be a great area for experimentation and trying out new techniques, especially in the world of web design, where new technologies seem to be released on an almost monthly basis. Though there are always different perspectives on when these technologies may be ready for implementation on client projects, more often than not we will find designers and developers deploying them in some way on their personal sites.

CSS3 is probably the best example of this. While it is certainly not fully supported (though we are getting closer all the time), a wide range of designers are still using CSS3-based techniques on their own sites. In some cases, it’s used as just a bit of progressive enhancement. In other cases, it manifests itself in much more expressive ways, with all kinds of innovative and sometimes just plain whacky concepts (see this article for some examples).

Sometimes these experiments may not be the most practical or approriate uses of the technology, but they do tend to help keep our web-geek minds entertained.

Experimenting on a side project can also just help you further develop and hone your skills. You can attempt a number of different possible solutions to a particluar problem without having to worry about billing clients for that experimentation. Then, when the need for such a solution comes up in a project, you can impress the client with your skill, efficiency and knowledge in that area.

Remember, we always need to be learning and growing, and using a side project as a playground for various types of experimentation is great way to stimulate this growth.

Recognition

It’s a common enough desire to be recognized (usually in a positive way) by our peers, and side projects can help in this regard too, especially if they are of benefit to the community. There are all kinds of tools out there that people have developed and made available, and which have helped to establish their reputations within the community.

Take Tyler Tate for example. If you haven’t heard of Tyler himself, chances are you have heard of his 1KB CSS Grid, which is one of the more well known of the grid frameworks that have been commonly used over the past several years. More recently, Tyler has created another framework called the Semantic Grid System, which addresses the issue or semantics (or lack thereof) with class-based grids like the 1KB system.

1KB Grid System is the type little side project that can increase recognition for its creator

Seemingly as a direct result of this new system, he also authored a recent article on Smashing Magazine, in which he discusses the concepts behind the new system (which runs of of LESS).

It’s a simple example, and one that was at the forefront of my mind, having recently read Tyler’s article, but it is a clear demonstration of how a meaningful side project can actually help establish yourself in the community. Without his experience creating the CSS grids, maybe Tyler doesn’t get the chance to write for Smashing Magazine (though he probably would—he has also recently written for A List Apart), potentially losing out on an excellent example for exposure.

A Little Extra Coin

Let’s be honest—it never hurts to make a little extra money, especially when dealing with the unpredictable ups and downs of the freelance life. Side projects can sometimes help in this area too. You may create an awesome web service, and sell some advertising space. Or maybe you just sit down and create something which ends up growing far beyond what you expected it to, to the point where you either sell it off or it becomes a viable business onto itself.

One great example is the site DesignNewz. Originally crafted by my good friend Jon Phillips (formerly also of SpyreStudios), this popular design news site was conceived, crafted on WordPress and then launched all in a matter of hours. Over a period of time, Jon watched the site grow and flourish, to the point where he didn’t have the resources to manage it. So, he put it up for sale and made a bit of extra cash off the project.

DesignNewz was originally a side project that has grown into something much larger

Today, DesignNewz continues to deliver content and has even seen a network of related, sites that sprung up around it.

On a larger scale, we can look at something like Dribbble. I am not as familiar with the specifics behind its founding, but from what I’ve read and heard about the site, it certainly seems as though the site was originally launched as a collaborative side project of Dan Cedarholm and Rich Thordnett. Having now processed nearly twenty billion image pixels, it has grown considerably, featuring thousands of members, paid (pro) accounts and income from advertising.

Of course, not all side projects are going to become the next Dribbble, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t make a little extra cash with your project too!

What Should You Do?

By this point, I hope that you can see that there is true value in having and developing some kind of side project. The question that remains, however, is: what kind of side project should you have? Well, that depends most strongly on a single variable; and that variable is you.

What do you want to do?

There is no right or wrong answer here, and it manifests itself differently for everyone. One common choice is the design and development of a personal blog. It could be a design blog, but it doesn’t have to be. Well known design author Andy Rutledge has his Design View blog, where he writes about design-related topics, but he also has blogs about bonsai and cycling, two of the other things that he loves.

You don’t need to create a blog though. You could create a new framework, theme, application, typeface or even a book or printed magazine (Elliott Jay Stock’s lovely 8 Faces comes to mind). Moreover, a side project doesn’t even necessarily be design-related at all. Personally, the project that I am tackling at the moment is a fantasy-based novella, which I hope will be the first in an ongoing series. There are some design related elements (a website, book covers), but they are more or less peripheral. The real focus is creative writing.

I hope to have some preview material available my mid-september so stay tuned!

So, I hope you can see the real benefits of a side project, and in In closing, I will simply ask: what’s your side project?

Exclusive Content

To thank you for subscribing to my feed, I am including exclusive, feed-only content for you at the bottom of each post!

Current Freebie Code - 7ev165dd

This is an article about education. It’s also an article about process, about personal evolution and even about unintentional snobbery. It’s about not just looking at where we are but remembering where we came from.

There is a recurring metaphor (and sometimes not a metaphor) about your client’s nephew—you know, the kid who charges a couple hundred bucks to put together a third rate website in their room, using a PC optimized for gaming and a suite of illegal software that they downloaded from a torrent. If you’re an experienced designer, that kid gets on your nerves doesn’t he (or she)? After all, we all occasionally see a potential project slip away to someone who falls under this metaphor, even if they may not fit all the specific details.

But how fair is this stereotype? Let’s take a closer look at this “nephew”.

Weren’t we in the same boat once? I know I was. Seriously. I think I even had a few applications that probably should not have been on my computer in the strictest legal sense. I bummed around the internet, peeking at source code and thinking to myself: “I think I could do that”. So I started putting together really basic pages. I “designed” (and I use that term very loosely) one of the first instalments of the website for my parents’ company (which I still work on today), created a few bad fan sites at the height of GeoCities-mania and in the eleventh grade even created a website for a local telecommunications company as a project for my Communications Studies class.

About the only difference between where I was and the symbolic nephew is that I never tried to get paid on a freelance basis for the work I was doing. It was all just sort learning and casual dabbling.

Fifteen Years Later, I Still Started Somewhere

As far as I can remember, I was probably about 15 years old when I started dabbling with websites. This summer, I will be turning 30, which means that it’s been almost fifteen years since I started on this journey. Today, with the years of experience that I have accumulated and the knowledge that has come with it, it would be easy for me to stand atop of my assumed ivory tower and look down at the more inexperienced people out there and scoff at their “folly”.

“Don’t they know anything about semantics and HTML?” this despicably-imagined version of myself might say. “Table-based layouts? Ha! Have they even even heard of white space? What kind of client would pay for this sorry excuse for a website!”

If I were to ever meet this version of myself, I would probably punch myself in the face.

All that version of myself would need to do is turn around and look at all the people who are so much more talented than I am to realize that, frankly, the ivory tower is little more than a stump. Or, I could look back a number of years and realize that, when I first started out, my work was horrible with a capital H. Then it would almost be like an evil, arrogant me looking down on a younger, eager but ignorant me.

That’s a lot of imagined selves, but I hope it makes my point. No matter how far we’ve come, we all started somewhere. There is not a single person on the planet who is born with complete knowledge of HTML5, CSS3, semantics, JavaScript, the principles of design, space, colour, typography and so forth pre-installed in their brains. It just doesn’t work that way.

We all need to learn it, and I’ve heard some of the brightest, most well-respected designers is the community talk about moments of significant learning, where an idea or concept just all of a sudden makes sense. I’ve certainly had my fair share of these moments myself, many of which have been key moments in my growth as a designer and developer.

Now, throughout the rest of this article, I would like to address both the experienced designer and the beginner.

To the Experienced Designer

I think that sometimes those of use who are experienced and knowledgeable can sometimes be a bit overly-harsh with the proverbial nephew. What we tend to see is work that doesn’t meet our particular standards (whatever those may be), and simply reject it in some manner. What we tend not to see is the person behind the design, who is likely a lovely, well-meaning human being who simply lacks the knowledge and experience to either be able to create and/or code an effective design or to even recognize the deficiencies in the designs that they are producing.

I mean think about it. Today, web designers are generally expected to be proficient in most if not all of the following:

• HTML
• CSS
• JavaScript (and related frameworks)
• PHP (at the very least for creating themes for popular content management systems)
• Photoshop (and possibly Illustrator)
• Search Engine Optimization
• User Experience
• Usability
• Typography
• Design for mobile devices

And that’s just the stuff that I pulled off the top of my head. I’m certainly not a master in all of these areas, and I’ve been doing this for a long time now. How can anyone who is just getting started be expected to have a firm grasp of even just a few of these concepts? It’s just an unrealistic expectation. Beginners need to start somewhere, whether that be mastering the basics of HTML, then adding in CSS, or perhaps starting with a fundamental understanding of the principles of graphic design and then learning to apply that knowledge to design for the web.

From there, they can move on to other related concepts, which will in turn reflect on what they have previously learned. Slowly, but surely this learning evolves into a single, cohesive body of knowledge. The beginner becomes proficient, and the proficient designer becomes more advanced. In time, maybe they even reach the point of being a master in their own craft, and a name that is recognized throughout the community as being synonymous with excellence.

Basically, that kid sitting in his bedroom hacking around with sloppy code and ineffective design could very well go on to become the next [insert the name of your favourite web designer here]. All they need is the time to learn and grow, and perhaps a little bit of support and encouragement along the way. Isn’t it up to us to be giving that encouragement?

Recently, I had the occasion to communicate with a student who was using a jQuery resource that I had done some work on. The student was having some trouble implementing the resource and asked if I could take a look at the page. I said sure and, after just a quick analysis, realized that what they were trying to do was something that could have been executed much more easily with some basic CSS. They were also using a CSS framework that I was familiar with, and noticed that there was some unnecessary redundancy in their HTML.

So, I tweaked the code a bit and sent through a simple explanation of the changes that I recommended and why they would work better than what they had been trying to do. The student was grateful for the assistance, and hopefully now has a better understanding of HTML, CSS and (indirectly) jQuery.

Are we able to do this for every single inquiry that comes our way? Probably not. You could make a career out of answering questions, especially if you develop a reputation for doing so, but I do still thank that it’s important for experienced designers to be willing to take the nephew under our wing to some degree and help develop them into valuable members of our community!

To the Beginner

If you’re just starting out in this field of web design, understand that growth and education are are processes. If I’m telling people who have been in the field for a long time (relatively speaking) not to expect newcomers to know everything right out of the gate, then those newcomers have to come to grips with the same reality.

You don’t know everything there is to know about the web (very few people do). In fact, you probably don’t know all that much at all, and that’s okay. Start with the basics and move out from there. Get to know HTML and the importance of semantics. Then move on to the CSS to add in elements of design or JavaScript to start down the road of interaction. Just keep moving down the list, adding to your knowledge as you go.

I also firmly believe that you should expose yourself to a little bit of everything—though not all at the same time. That way, you’ll at least have a basic understanding of most of the key elements of web design. You may chose not to pursue that avenue—for instance, some young designers may decide that they don’t want to work with interaction, or perhaps back-end development—but having a basic understanding of key areas of the field is always beneficial.

Secondly, try to be understanding and gracious if more experienced designers are, from time to time, a little bit snarky. In the majority of cases, it’s more a matter of frustration that of being a genuine jerk. Most of these people take a lot of pride in their experience and knowledge, and it can be a real hit to that pride when a client job goes to someone who may be perceived as some sort of young upstart. Don’t sweat it. It’s generally nothing personal, and you can be reasonably confident that the offended designer won’t hunt you down to fulfill their vengeful vendetta.

Thirdly, be mindful of what you are charging clients. While I certainly understand that you cannot really charge high rates without the experience and track record to back it up, there is such thing as under-valuing yourself. Even a beginner brings a certain level of value, especially when you’re constantly striving to learn and improve.

Perhaps more importantly, also be wary of under-valuing the industry as a whole. By and large, I think that the reason that experienced designers are irritated by a lot of “cheap” design is the simple fact that it tends reinforce an already erroneous belief that web design is this simple-to-produce commodity, where the designer is just fitting a bunch of parts together. This preconception tends to lead to unrealistic expectations in terms of cost, which in turn frustrates the experienced designer who sees true value in the excellence of their work.

Charging ridiculously low prices as a beginner only adds to this problematic myth, and can establish precedent and expectations that you will come to regret later in your career. So, when you’re just getting started, take the time to do a bit of research to establish a cost that is both fair to yourself as well as the industry at large.

Most importantly though, never stop learning. Devour books, articles, blogs, videos and podcasts on the subject, though always with discernment and a critical eye—just because someone publishes something doesn’t necessarily make them an authority (and that includes me). When you read or hear something, weight it carefully against what you know, what other people that you trust and respect are saying. If something seems to come out of left field (in other words, doesn’t seem to jive with what you already know), chances are it is. Occasionally, a may be a matter of truly innovative genius, but this tends to be the exception.

No matter what, though, always be open to growing in knowledge and experience. When you commit to that, it won’t take long for your to pass out of that beginner stage and slowly begin earning the respect of your peers.

Conclusion, or When the Shoe Fits

In writing this article, I am simply trying to address what I see to be a somewhat problematic stereotype that tends to prevail within the community, and suggest that we at least need to be wary of making sweeping generalities and labeling some well-meaning beginners as being the proverbial “nephew”. I’ve also tried to offer a bit of friendly advice to beginners about how to try avoid this unfortunate labeling.

That being said, however, I am still a firm believer in the idea that in every stereotype there is a grain of truth. There are people out there who are only interested in making a quick buck by offering a poor, shoddy product to uneducated and unsuspecting clients. Those are the type of people that I have absolutely no use for, and who should be the true target of our scorn (both experienced designers and beginners).

As the saying goes, if the shoe fits wear it.

For everyone else, though, let’s try to avoid the misunderstandings that accompany broad generalities and work towards supporting each other, regardless of experience levels!

Exclusive Content

To thank you for subscribing to my feed, I am including exclusive, feed-only content for you at the bottom of each post!

Current Freebie Code - 7ev165dd

Success—it’s one of those terms that we use all the time, and is something that most people are shooting for. After all, how many people do you know that don’t want to be successful in what they do? Probably very few, if any. But, what exactly is success? That is a more difficult question, and there is probably more than just a single answer! In this post, we’re going to take just a quick look at a few key metrics that could potentially be used to measure success in different ways.

We’ll also save the money question out of the equation until last. While it’s important and relevant, it may be just a bit too easy!

So, then, do you consider yourself successful in your career as a designer or developer? Personally, I could give you a different answer from day to day, and sometimes even from hour to hour! When my title became Senior Web Developer, I thought that marked my clear transition onto the plateau of success. Today, I still tend to think of myself as successful, but now I measure things differently, and it has little, if anything, to do with money.

The amount that I have learned during the past year is my main standard of measurement now. If I can say that I added a skill, or improved greatly in one I already have knowledge of, then I feel I have been successful. In 2009, I taught myself basic jQuery, which helped a great deal in what I was able to accomplish at work, or provide my freelance clients. Last year, it was Sass and Compass, which made me write tighter and better CSS. What I learn or advance in the coming months will determine how I measure my own worth for 2011. What do you use to determine if you are successful? Here are some areas to consider.

Knowledge

Ever have moments where you open a project you worked on a year ago and thought, “I’m such an idiot?!” I certainly have, and I really think that people who don’t have those moments in their day-to-day life make may have chosen to go into the wrong field. I actually start to worry that I’m not learning anything if I don’t have one of those eye rolling days.

This is important because meaningful growth in knowledge is one of them is one of the key ways of measuring your own success!

It doesn’t really matter in what area it is either. It could be realizing you could write some bit of jQuery tighter, or using less lines of CSS, or how to accomplish something in Photoshop better than you did before. Maybe you learned how to cure your case of ‘divititis’ (or at least reduce the symptoms). When you start to add up all the little things you can do more efficiently, you end up with a much bigger chunk than you thought. Measuring success sometimes means realizing you were an idiot before, and have corrected that weakness.

Having those moments of acknowledging the weaknesses of your past work is also an important factor in measuring your success in terms of knowledge, because it means that you have grown and matured. Whether it’s in the details of a design or in the logic of a block of code, the very recognition itself is generally a testament to expanded knowledge and having learned a better way of doing things! So don’t beat yourself up over those feel-like-an-idiot moments. They are markers of success!

Respect From Your Peers

I don’t know about you, but there seems to be a direct correlation between how much I read and how stupid I feel. I know that I will never know as much as I want to, and I imagine that there are plenty of us that probably feel that way. However, there was one simple thing happened not that long ago that changed the way I look at how successful I am in web development and design. I was told by a fellow co-worker that the reason they had learned so much was because of me.

Wow! Besides feeling amazingly awesome, it was a turning point in my own measure of success.

Gaining respect from your peers doesn’t come easy. It is probably one of the hardest things to earn, and when it happens, you will most likely realize you have had it for longer than you thought. Maybe it comes from comments on your blog, or colleagues asking you how to do something or for your opinion, but however you get it, it is the greatest gauge for knowing if you are successful.

And Yes, The Money

Alright, it’s true. Money can also be used as part of how we measure success. I’m not sure what web designers and developers are charging when first starting out these days, because I am at the ripe old age of 36 (older than dirt in this field). It’s still probably extremely low, and you need those projects to build your portfolio and hone your skills. On top of that, no one wants to pay higher prices for someone with little to no experience. It takes a while though to be able to gain the confidence and the skill to be able to demand top dollar.

Unless you need the money, I think it’s fair to say that when you start being able to choose which clients to work with or turn down, you’ve probably reached a certain level of success in this field. It is even easier to judge if you actually have too much work, or are having to turn down projects or direct them to other designers or developers in your network. It means that you’ve built a reputation for excellence at some level, and people really want to work with you!

Of course, if you are working for a company rather than flying freelance, then it’s a little harder to tell. Personally, I have a very tough time using money as a gauge for my own success, as I am salaried and don’t have much of an idea as to what others are making while doing the same thing I do, which is why I go by my knowledge growth and the respect I’ve earned.

Final Thoughts

Just because you think you are successful in the web design or developer field doesn’t mean that you are finished. The great thing about doing what we do is that you are never done. Someone always knows more, designs better, codes better, and that very fact should make you strive to do better yourself. There will never be a point for me where I say I’ve made it, because there is so much more I want to learn.

I think if you love working on the web as much as I do, you’ll feel the same way.

Judging your success by money alone is very hard, sometimes even depressing, and something I struggled with for a long time. Sometimes, it can feel like something as simple as raising rates might just seem like trying to grab more money from clients. However, when we start changing the way we measure success to include things like our level of knowledge and the respect of our peers, I think a funny thing starts to happen. It actually became easier to increase rates, because we’re basing them on the value we see in our own work, rather than on an arbitrary figure that we feel we need to survive.

In a way, then, perhaps the best way to measure success by money is to realize that we reach the more meaningful and profound levels of success when money is no longer the issue. Just something to think about!

There are many ways to judge how well you are in web development and design than I listed here. What gauge do you use to determine if you are successful?

Exclusive Content

To thank you for subscribing to my feed, I am including exclusive, feed-only content for you at the bottom of each post!

Current Freebie Code - 7ev165dd

I am looking to bring some more open discussion to the Echo Enduring Blog, and to this end I’ve decided to try running a few open discussion type posts, where I’ll post a relatively short article (or at least short for me) to help spark some thought and discussion, hopefully get some more people commenting and interacting. I have no idea how this is going to go, but I figure it’s worth a shot right?

So, the first topic for this new, social experiment is going to be: choice.

More specifically, I want to talk about the relationship between choice and the client. I think we’re all probably at least partially familiar with the paradox of choice, a theory that posits that certain forms or levels of anxiety may actually be related to or emerge from being presented with too many choices. When standing in the supermarket, looking at shelves with hundreds of different types of cereal, we can start to feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of choice that looms before us. Instead of feeling liberated by the numerous choices, we feel something very un-liberating, which is the manifestation of another, similar concept—choice paralysis.

The idea here is that, when presented with a wide range of options, an individual actually has a harder time making a choice than when they are faced with just a handful of options. Again, the cereal aisle example is an excellent illustration. I also wonder if the premium WordPress theme market might be heading in that direction too. But that’s a different discussion altogether.

The question at hand is, how do we deal with this issue when it comes to working with clients? How many choices and options do you provide? How do you make that decision?

Logos

For me, it depends on the type of project. When I take on a new logo design, my typical process involves breaking out my sketchbook and drawing dozens and dozens of different ideas. Some of them are very similar, while others may be out there, and seemingly only nominally related to my actual subject, but the point of the exercise is just to get as much onto paper as I possibly can. Then, once I’ve filled several pages and feel that there’s no more juice in the old think tank, I start working through the sketches, analyzing them to pick out which ones I think work the best.

Once I have these, I’ll then turn to Illustrator and actually start rendering them in vector format, usually tweaking and refining as I go. I’ll do this with the best three concepts, and these initial Illustrator renderings are what I will send to the client as the initial concept. Occasionally, I will also provide some variations on a concept, but I generally try to keep the number of options to three.

Websites

With websites, I generally limit the number of choices even further, by reducing it to one. I’ll put together a single concept—either in Photoshop or by creating a basic, working prototype—and present that to the client, making tweaks and changes as required.

I do this mostly as a matter of scope. A website project is generally much larger and more extensive than the average logo design project, and involves many more stages, from wireframing to mockups, to front-end coding and back-end deployment. Given this level of scope, I feel that introducing multiple concepts at the outset will just muddy the waters and ultimately prolong the entire process.

However, I know that some people work differently. Once agency whose work I’ve seen actually provides three complete Photoshop designs with their web projects, and allows the client to chose which one they want to go with. They also charge a great deal more money though.

Your Thoughts?

What about you? How do you approach and/or address the issue of choice when presenting mockups and concepts to clients? Let us know what kind of work you do, how much choice you offer your clients, and why you’ve chosen to work that way. I’m interested to hear your thoughts and getting this discussion started!

Exclusive Content

To thank you for subscribing to my feed, I am including exclusive, feed-only content for you at the bottom of each post!

Current Freebie Code - 7ev165dd

So I think that it’s pretty safe to say that Dan Cederholm and Rich Thornett have created something pretty special with this designer-centric, social-sharing site they created. Inspired by a love of basketball, they like to call the site Dribbble. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?

I was drafted into the game about 8 months ago, and with only 21 shots over that period of time, I am by no means one of the most prolific players on the court. That being said, however, I’m still a frequent visitor to the site and love perusing the work of my peers—and those awesome designers who are so much more talented than I am that the word peer just doesn’t seem appropriate!

Yet, as I was was preparing my recent post about the cycle of emotion in design, one of the topics that was front and foremost in my mind was my portfolio. At the risk of sounding redundant, I will note again that with every project that I take on, I go into it with the intention of making it the best work that I have ever done. I don’t necessarily always realize this ambition with every project, but it is certainly the primary goal, and contributes to my continuing growth as a designer.

Combine this with the fact that my portfolio always seems to be at least a few months out of date, and when I look at said portfolio, there generally seems to be a distinct gap between the work that I am showing most prospective clients and the work that I am currently producing, which I usually deem to be more representative of my skill-set and also of much higher quality. This apparent gap can be extremely frustrating. I want to put my best face forward, but even if I was keeping my portfolio up-to-date (it’s been several months since the last update), my very best work is quite often the work I am doing now.

You know, the type stuff that gets posted to Dribbble.

Can The Pink Ball Bridge the Gap?

This thought occurred to me as I was uploading a recent shot of a site that I’ve been working on. Even though the site is still a work in progress, I was still pretty happy with the design, and felt that it reflected my further development and maturity as a designer. In fact, it was exactly the kind of thing that I would want to be showing prospective clients!

A screenshot of some of the most popular shots on Dribbble

Of course, given that the site wasn’t even near completion, I certainly couldn’t add it to my portfolio yet. But I could direct potential clients out to my Dribbble feed. It was an interesting thought that raised all kinds of different questions, with the most important likely being just an issue of practicality. Could a concept like a “Dribbb-folio?” be possible? How would something like that work? What would it look like?

To get a better idea, let’s look at some of the pros and cons of this idea.

Pro: Current Work

Right off the bat, one of the most obvious advantages of Dribbble is that it generally features a body of work that is far more recent than what is likely on your online portfolio (unless you’re really great at keeping that up-to-date). I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this one, since we’ve already touched on it a bit, but if you feel like your best work is usually what you are working on right now, and if you have an unfortunate tendency to neglect your portfolio, then maybe Dribble really could offer some sort of solution for bridging that gap.

Con: Lack of Context

However, one criticism that has been leveled against Dribbble is the fact that many of the shots—especially those from websites or printed pages—tend to exist without context. We’ll see just a corner of a website, and while it might have lovely colours or remarkable use of textures and patterns, we are unable to see how it works in the context of the entire design. Or, we might see a beautiful set of icons, without any indication as to how they will be used (assuming that they are not being designed as a stock resource).

In an interview with that I recently listened to, Dan Cederholm talked about this issue, even going so far as to use the term “eye-candy”. While I don’t hold the lack of context against Dribbble, I do think that there is an important truth here. Design is about more than just making things look pretty. It’s about crafting a solution to a particular problem, and that solution is generally encompassed by the entire design, not just a corner of it. As such, it is difficult to gauge the full effectiveness of a design when we are seeing just a sliver of it.

That being said, many of the shots really are beautiful, and while they may not reveal the entire context of a design (or even a finished design, since they are usually works in progress), I think that these shots do work to demonstrate a designer’s technical prowess—that is to say, their ability to work pull little details together in a lovely and aesthetically pleasing fashion.

Con: Client Privacy

Another thing that every user of Dribbble should be aware of is the importance of client privacy. Frequently, it’s probably not going to be a big deal, as many clients will probably be amenable to having your work in progress posted to the design community for feedback and criticism. After all, it will likely only help improve the overall quality of the design.

That being said, however, there will also be projects and clients who may not be so amenable. Perhaps you’re working for a large corporation that doesn’t want to tip its hand to the competition, or a new venture that is building its initial marketing on a platform of secrecy. Whatever the reason, I think it’s important to be upfront and open with clients about your prospective Dribbble use. If, for whatever reason, they don’t want you to post the work you’re doing for them, it’s probably a good idea to honour that request.

With this in mind, if you’re doing a lot of this kind of this kind of confidential work, then using Dribbble to bridge the gap between your portfolio and your current work may not be the most viable solution.

Pro: Building Hype

On the other hand, there are other clients who will not only be amenable to your use of Dribbble, but will actually embrace it full-heartedly, and possibly even encourage its use. Recently, I’ve been following Brian Hoff’s work on the redesign of MOJO themes. At the time of writing, there have been six different shots, all of which have had over 1,600 views and been liked at least 60 times. That’s a lot of attention, and based on the quality of the work we’ve seen already, I would guess that there are more than a few people who are excited for when the new site goes live.

Hype and buzz are powerful marketing tools, and if you can leverage your influence on Dribbble, it can certainly be a very effective means of building said hype, and might even be enough to help convince a client to hire you!

Of course, the key thing here is that word “influence”. Part of the reason that someone like Brian is able to command so much attention is the fact that he has built a Dribble following of nearly 2,000. That number certainly ensures that his shots are highly visible within the community, thus increasing attention on what he’s doing. In my case, with just shy of 60 (awesome) followers, I simply do not command the same degree of influence, and it would be significantly more difficult for me to build that kind of hype through my Dribbble account.

This is neither a good or bad thing. It’s just something to be aware of.

Con: Minimal Personal Branding

One of the really nice parts of having your own online portfolio is the ability to apply your own personal branding to it. For example, Soh Tanaka’s website showcases an ultra sleek, typographically-minded design, with just a pinch of urban flair thrown in for good measure.

Soh Tanaka's site has strong elements of personal branding

On the other hand, Ryan Scherf’s site, while equally typographically-minded, has a much grittier, earthy feel, with a pastiche of texture in its primary illustration.

Textured and illustrative, Ryan Scherf's portfolio site has a unique and interesting feel

Both sites are awesomely designed, and each site contributes to the overall branding of the respective designers.

Dribbble, of course, doesn’t have this same effect—at least not on its own. This isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, and definitely isn’t something that I would hold against the site in any way. It was never intended allow for personal branding (beyond an avatar). When weighing Dribble against the traditional portfolio, however, it’s definitely something to consider, especially if you feel that your personal brand is an important context for presenting your work to new or potential clients.

Pro: API

That being said, however, Dribbble does offer a publicly accessible API for the development of third-party applications that make use of the site’s content. This raises some really interesting possibilities for potentially grabbing and posting your more recent shots directly to your site, similar to the way that some people will have their recent Flickr photos or albums from Last.fm.

This would help to alleviate some of the lack of personal branding, by allowing you to present shots within the context of your own website. Surrounded by your own branding, the shots can take on new meaning. Perhaps they reaffirm your personal style, or help show clients that you’re more than just a one trick pony.

Either way, just be mindful of the API restrictions. Dribbble only allows you to make 60 calls per minute. That might seem like a lot, but if you have a high traffic site, or get a sudden spike for some reason, you don’t want to be getting “access denied” errors on your feed. My advice would be to add a simple caching routine to help minimize calls. After all, your feed is probably not being updated more than a few times a day, so grabbing the information even just once an hour would likely be sufficient.

Conclusion

So where does this leave us with this concept of a Dribbb-folio? Well, there are strong benefits in being able to showcase your most recent work easily, and potentially even build a certain degree of hype while doing it if you have developed enough influence. These are both valuable benefits, but with issues of confidentiality, a lack of context and no personal branding, there are definitely some limitations to just how far you can stretch Dribbble.

That being said, however, there are stories out there of designers who have been successful in using Dribbble to land work. Jacob Cass is one example that comes to mind, and he has wrote about his experience of landing a job through posting to Dribble. Stories like this underscore the value of the community as a personal marketing tool (even without personal branding), and cannot be discounted, especially when coupled with the interesting possibilities that are available through the use of the API.

Given all of this, I would come to the conclusion that, yes the concept of a Dribbb-folio is at least partially viable. In no way should it ever replace your own, fully developed portfolio, where you can present your work in much fuller context. As a properly balanced supplement, however, it can allow you to present those small snapshots of what you are currently working on right alongside your body of established work.

For this reason, I really do think that Dribbble can be a valuable tool for showcasing your designs (or illustrations) to clients and helping gaining more work, either for yourself as a freelancer or for the agency your work with!

What do you guys think? Has anyone had success leveraging Dribbble in this way? Or perhaps you’ve had a completely different kind of experience? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Oh, and before you ask, no I do not have any invites to give out. Sorry.

Exclusive Content

To thank you for subscribing to my feed, I am including exclusive, feed-only content for you at the bottom of each post!

Current Freebie Code - 7ev165dd

Although I’ve had my iPhone for almost a year now, it was only recently that I really started to even consider the idea of subscribing to some podcasts. I’m not entirely sure why. It’s just not something that had really been on my mind. Usually, if I am going to be listening to something, it will be music. Recently, though, I stumbled across an episode of The Big Web Show, hosted by Dan Benjamin and Mr. Web himself, Jeffery Zeldman. As it happens, the particular episode I stumbled across had Jason Santa Maria as the guest. Jason, of course, is an awesome designer for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect; I just had to download and listen to it.

So, before falling asleep one evening, I put on some headphones, laid back and had myself a listen.

The conversation covered an entire range of different topics, including many of the numerous projects that Jason is involved with. For me, one of the most interesting and relevant comments came when he talked about a cycle of highs and lows that he experiences while going through the design process. To quote Jason directly:

Inspiration is a crazy roller coaster ride with me. I think I’ve said something before like my creative process is all about getting excited, then being depressed and thinking it sucks then sort of coming back up and being excited again. It’s sort of this ongoing struggle of self-doubt and feeling like what you’re doing isn’t sufficient for what you want to achieve.

I’m not sure about you, but I can definitely relate to this exact type of experience, and it’s somewhat reassuring to know that a designer of Jason’s caliber also goes through the same kind of thing. I suppose that it’s really just a part of the creative process, which is what I would like to consider in this post.

The Most Recent Cycle

I have actually gone through this kind of thing just recently, with a website that I am working on for a client. It’s not a huge project in terms of dollars, but it’s one that I have been hoping to land for several years now, and when I got the deposit, I was pretty excited and wanted to get started right away. So I took some time one evening to do some sketches and opened up Photoshop to start creating some basic comps. By the time I was finished that particular design session, I was entirely dissatisfied with what I had produced. It was dull, uninteresting and did not at all reflect the level of quality that I wanted to provide to the client.

The next day, I opened up the design again and, still feeling more than a little dissatisfied, set to work at improving it. Over the course of a few hours I found that the design started coming together much better. I wasn’t really changing the overall concept at all, but rather just tweaking a few things and working on some of the smaller details. It was these details – typography, rules and a few subtle, decorative embellishments – that really started to bring the design together, adding further evidence to my belief in the importance of the little things.

This time when I closed down for the evening, I was more than satisfied with the design. I was even excited about it.

But the emotional ride wasn’t over. Then the same cycle ultimately repeated itself when I started working on designing the footer and a contact form. As I started out, even with a solid wireframe concept in mind, the first stages of work just didn’t seem to be working. But, I just kept at it and eventually things started coming together and I sent off some very initial concepts to the client, who quickly responded, saying the design looked even better than they’d hoped for.

Talk about an up and down experience.

Considering the Cycle

After hearing Jason speak and relating it to my own experience, I started to think about this cycle of emotion that seems to go hand in hand with the very act of designing, at least for me. Maybe there are some people out there who don’t experience this kind of thing, and who approach design with a certain cold, emotionless practicality.

That’s definitely not me, though.

For me, every design that I do—no matter how big or how small—is in some way a reflection of who I am. I invest myself in achieving the best possible result, and as such I invariably develop a strong emotional connection with my work. I want every project that I work on to be my best work to date, and when a design doesn’t seem to be living up to those expectations, that’s when I start to slip into despair and self-doubt.

After examining my recent experience with the client website, however, I have started to recognize an interesting pattern in this emotional cycle. When I start into a design—at least by the time I get to the Photoshop (or other application) stages—I usually have a pretty firm concept of what I am trying to achieve in my mind. Of course, that vision tends be fairly fleshed out and reflects that I want the finished product to look like.

When I am only an hour or so into the design process, I obviously haven’t pulled everything together yet.  As such, what I am looking at is very much unfinished, and while you can see the basic form starting to shine through, it just doesn’t reflect the vision I have in my mind, which can be creatively frustrating. After a couple of hours of more work, however, I start adding more subtle details, refining the overall design and ultimately bringing it more in line with my overall vision.

As is to be expected, once I reach this point my spirits start to rise again and my confidence in the design continues to grow until I reach the point where I am actually satisfied with what I’ve put together.

The Sum of Its “Parts”

There is one obvious lesson in this. I need to learn to be more patient with myself! But I think that there is also another, more interesting truth at work here too. Part of the frustration that drives this emotional cycle stems from the difference between what I am looking at on my screen and what I am picturing in my mind. My natural tendency seems to be to interpret this difference more as deficiency than simple incompleteness (which is really what it is).

In essence, I value the design based on the sum of its parts. The fewer of the required “parts” it has, the less value I ultimately ascribe to it.

It should be noted, however, that “parts” are not synonymous with elements and that the “sum” is not necessarily a question of quantity. I am not saying that I just keep adding more and more to the design to make it look better. Instead, I’m talking more about things like alignment, typographical choices, contrast, elemental juxtaposition just as much (and probably even more) than using images, blocks of text, textures, gradients and other effects.

For example, on the site design I’ve been working on, I am using a tab-like navigational menu. As I was working through the initial stages, I just felt that something wasn’t quite right with the menu. Instead of adding gradients, texture or rounded corners, I tried adjusting spacing, position and alignment in such a way as to bring the menu into a more harmonious relationship with the design’s underlying structure. This worked quite well, and helped strengthen the design, by improving the overall “sum” of the its “parts”, without having to actually add anything.

Conclusion

All this being said, I think that (at least in my experience) there is a direct connection between the emotional cycle that is so often a part of the design process, and the perceived value of a design, based on the relation of its current state to the desired final state. Generally speaking, the wider this gap is, the less value I ultimately ascribe to my work. If, however, through a process of adjustment, tweaking and adding in those small, finishing details, I can bring the design into closer alignment with the desired final state, I tend to look upon the design with an ever-increasing sense of value.

That this up and down evaluation often seems to parallel the equally up and down sense of emotion alluded to in the Jason Santa Maria quote from the beginning of this article (and which I have experienced so often myself) seems to suggest that there is a direct connection between the two. Perhaps the value that we place on our work has a direct connection to our emotional state in relation to that work.

Really, it makes a lot of sense.

More importantly, though, if we can also learn to see past the incompleteness of a design and rest confident in the fact that it will get better, then perhaps we can also circumvent the cycle—at least partially. As an example, instead of letting myself get discouraged or frustrated by the gap between what’s on the screen and the vision in my mind, I could focus more on how the specific details are working towards bringing that vision to fruition. This would, hopefully, allow me to maintain a more positive overall outlook throughout the design process.

The benefit of this is simple but important. Negative feelings can be draining, at least for me. They drag me down, make me feel tired and ultimately hamper my productivity. Positive feelings are exactly the opposite—energizing and invigorating. When I am excited about the direction of a project, it seems like I can work for hours, and I usually have to force myself to shut it down at the end of the day.

It only stands to reason that, if I could minimize the negative feelings and maximize the positive ones simply by shifting the way I think about a design in progress, then I would ultimately experience an increase in productivity. I think it’s worth a shot anyhow!

What about you? Do you experience a similar cycle of emotion as a designer? How does it effect your work? How do you overcome the low points or capitalize on the highs?

Exclusive Content

To thank you for subscribing to my feed, I am including exclusive, feed-only content for you at the bottom of each post!

Current Freebie Code - 7ev165dd

The design industry is a funny thing. Through the connections that I’ve made in the community, it seems to me that there are almost more people who have somehow stumbled into design after starting out to do something else than those who actually graduated from high school into art school and made their way into the industry through that straight, predictable path.

Personally, I am one of the former. When it comes to the work I do as a designer, I am entirely self taught, having acquired and refined my skills through a process of trial and error, and a constant striving to get better. I’ve been at this, in varying capacities, for well over ten years now, and while I certainly feel that I have vastly improved, both in terms of execution and theory, I also know that there is still a long, winding path in front of me, with plenty to learn along the way. Ten years from now, I am sure that the best designs I do this year will make me shudder when I recall them.

That’s just part of growth.

Yet, as we stand here (still very much in the infancy of 2011), looking forward to the next decade, perhaps it’s also a time to look back the other way and trace the course that has brought us to the very place we find ourselves in now. Why? Simply because looking at where we’ve come from ultimately helps tell us where we’re going.

Choices

The choices and decisions that we’ve made lay littered like signposts along the trail we’ve tread. Some of those choices have been good, perhaps even wonderful. Others have probably been not quite as good. Either way, every choice, reaction and consequence ultimately tells us something about ourselves, both as people and as designers, and as we develop a stronger grip on this understanding it not only presents a clearer picture of where we’re heading, but also of how to get where to where we want to be.

It can also reveal that those two are not always the same!

For me, the path has been an interesting one, and in many ways I’m nowhere near where I expected to be. When finishing high school, my singular vision was to become a writer. In some ways, through this blog and others that I contribute to, I suppose I have realized this, but writing about design was not quite what I had in mind. Dragons, wizards and sword wielding heroes would have aligned more closely to my adolescent vision (that’s speaking rather broadly, but you get the idea). I was going to be a novelist and pursue a lifelong passion for all things fantasy.

So what does a would-be-novelist do when he reaches the end of high school and finds himself looking past the very brink of childhood and into the vast openness of the real world? Simple, he goes back to school. Right out of high school I applied to a few schools for journalism.

And was outright rejected. Turns out that the schools I applied wanted something called a “portfolio” (imagine that), and to be quite honest, I hadn’t done anything remotely resembling journalism and had absolutely nothing to show them, other than some (very non-journalistic) stuff that I’d written – most of which was really just particularly bad fiction. As an aside, let that be a lesson to all the young readers out there. If you do want to study design in college or university, start putting together your portfolio today!

So, with no schools open to me, I pretty much had only one other option, which was to work. So, I took a job with my parents’ company, primarily working on the web. I hesitate to call what I was doing actual design, since the quality was absolutely horrendous, but that was my first real introduction creating material that would actually be available for the entire world to see, trough the vast connectedness of the Internet.

Key Moments

I’ve written much of this story before, so if you want to read the entire thing, check out “A Coder’s Journey” over at SpyreStudios. Suffice it to say that it was this introduction that started me down the path that has brought me to where I am today. There’s certainly no need to cover everything that has occurred along that path, but there are a couple of key moments that I would like to highlight.

First, was the moment when I came to really understand CSS as a concept, which ultimately revolutionized my thinking. Second was my gradual realization that design is not about making something that looks good, but about making intentional and purposeful decisions that fulfill a particular purpose.

So, why should I highlight these? In fact, why I am I talking about this at all?

These are good questions, and the answers to them start with a certain broadness. Over the past decade, I’ve worked on a lot of different things as a designer (and most of it in the past four to five years). I’ve produced websites, logos, posters, letterhead, business cards, illustrations, brochures and even a book. I have a wealth of experience in a wide range of different areas of design, and in a manner of speaking you could probably say that the path I’ve trod has been quite wide.

Yet, as I look back along that path, I find that certain designs and certain types of design stick out more in my mind than others. Stationary, like business cards and letterhead is always good work, and posters can be a ton of fun, but the further I press on in my career, the more I realize that some areas of design captivate me more than others.

One of those just happens to be CSS. While there are times where it can make me want to explode in a fit of baseball-bat-smashing-destruction (usually as a result of my own idiotic mistakes), I still love it. There’s just something about writing code and seeing it coming together step by beautiful step that really appeals to me, and it all started with that moment, long since passed, when I was first (properly) introduced to stylesheets.

The same is also true of design theory. Though far more recent of an interest, it’s still something that I love to think, talk and read about. I still have a ton to learn, of course, but I am enjoying my forays into that area and look forward to learning more throughout the coming year!

Narrowing the Path

Okay, so I like CSS and design theory. That’s nice to know, but what’s the point? The point is that it provides an important framework for moving forward. In the past, I’ve done a lot of different things, and tried my hand at many types of design. I’ve done alright, I think, but by spreading my efforts and energies across such a broad spectrum, I may be in danger of becoming the embodiment of that old, silly saying: “a jack of all trades, and a master of none.”

It’s time to start changing that, by narrowing my path as a designer and focusing on becoming more of an expert in certain areas, rather than a general practitioner in all of them. I started to do this back in the fall when I redesigned my portfolio to focus on three key areas: websites, logos and illustration. I cut out all of the extra stuff like posters, CD covers and t-shirts that had been there previously, because I wanted to focus my attention in these three key areas.

That’s not to say that I won’t still make an occasional foray into other forms of design. I’m actually have a poster project on the go right now, and a bit of variety helps keep things interesting. Sometimes, these kinds of projects can also help pay the bills. However, by keeping the bulk of my attention focused on the areas of design that interest me the most, I can narrow my path and get to where I’m going much more quickly, following fewer fun-but-distracting rabbit trails along the way.

Conclusion

The key, however, is not make an arbitrary decision. It’s not a matter of looking at what I do, scratching off half the list and then moving on from there. It’s a matter of looking back, seeing where I’ve come from and ultimately recognizing those moments that have had the greatest impact on my development as a designer. From there, I can make intelligent choices which will not only help me become a more specialized designer with the knowledge to offer greater value to clients, but which will also lead to more fulfilling work, by focusing on the things that I find the most rewarding.

So let this be the year of CSS and theory for me!

And what about you? When you look back at your own career (however long or brief), what are the key moments that stand out? How have these moments helped to shape your path so far? How are they helping to give you direction for 2011 and beyond? Share you story!

Exclusive Content

To thank you for subscribing to my feed, I am including exclusive, feed-only content for you at the bottom of each post!

Current Freebie Code - 7ev165dd

Recently, I was working on a logo project for a client. Nothing unusual there. The process I followed was pretty typical for the work that I do. I started of with the little spiral-bound notebook that I call the Book of Logos and just sketched out some ideas. Some were interesting, others were horrible and, of course, the one that I liked the best in terms of pure aesthetics was also the on that I felt was probably the least relevant to the actual client.

After selecting three of the most appropriate concepts, I then turned to Illustrator, where I started rendering the logo mark and playing around with typefaces, using some of my installed fonts and even coming up with some custom lettering.

I fired off three concepts to the client. They told me which they liked best, and we went through some revisions, actually combining some elements from another concept into the selected one, while offering a range of colour options. For the typical second round of revision, I also created a smaller “icon” like version of the logo to be used in smaller spaces.

Everything went well. The client was awesome and happy with my work and I felt good about the finished product.

Now, fast forward a few weeks. No this is not one of those Clients from Hell stories of things gone terrible wrong. Everything is still cool with the client, and we’re now talking about actually doing a website. However, I did get an email asking if I could supply the spot (Pantone) colours that I used in the logo design…

That doesn’t seem like all that much of a problem right? Well it wouldn’t have been, except that I did all the design work in CMYK. Yeah, probably not the smartest decision I ever made as a designer, but it’s what I’ve been used to. Almost all of my design is done either for the screen (RGB) or for four colour process (CMYK). I almost never work with spot colours, and it looks as though I’ve picked up a few bad habits that I’m going to need to break.

As for what happened with the client—well I sat down in Illustrator and actually compared Pantone swatches against the three CMYK colours that I had used in the design until I found what I felt were the best matches. Held right up against each other, you could notice a slight difference, but they were close enough that most people wouldn’t be able to make the distinction without a direct comparisson.

A Lesson Learned, A Rule Confirmed

But I’m not telling you this whole story just so that I can make myself look bad. I’m not even telling it to you as a warning about designing logos in CMYK instead of Pantone, though that’s something I am certainly going to be looking at as I move forward. No, what I want to do with this personal anecdote is illustrate something much more generalized.

It’s something I would like to call the Rule of Conversion.

You see, as I was sitting there wading through all kinds of Pantone swatches, I had plenty of time to think. Given my circumstances, a good deal of what I was thinking about had to do with colour and colour conversion. For a long time, I’ve known that, when working in an application like Photoshop or Illustrator, it is always easier to convert from CMYK to RGB than it is to convert from RGB to CMYK. When your monitor displays a CMYK colour, it’s only ever displaying its closest RGB approximation, since your monitor (or other display) is only capable of displaying in RGB.

This, of course, means that you should see virtually no loss or change in colour when converting from CMYK to RGB in the same digital environment. Unfortunately, this is not true of the inverse, and converting from RGB to CMYK can frequently result in noticeable colour loss (especially in blues, in my experience).

As a rule of thumb, then, when I am designing something where there is even the remotest chance that I may need to use it for print in some way, I try to do all of my design work in CMYK. It does tend to result in larger files, but I like the added safety net of knowing that any conversions that I may need to do (into RGB) will be relatively painless.

Unfortunately, as my earlier story clearly illustrated, converting from CMYK to Pantone was not painless. In fact, it was quite an involved process. It would have been much easier to start with Pantone and then convert the colours to CMYK approximates later on. Granted, the colours would probably still not be a perfect match, but the conversion would be a lot simpler.

And that is the basic premise of the Rule of Conversion: design in such a way so as to simplify conversions. In our logo example, the better method would have been to start by selecting Pantone colours and then converting to CMYK and RGB, as required. This would have simplified things later on.

That being said however, the rule does not only need to apply to working with colours. It can apply to any area of design. Here are some other areas where the Rule of Conversion may be useful:

• Create your raster-based designs at a larger DPI. It’s always easier to scale these designs down than it is to scale them up.
• For the same reason (and where appropriate), design shape-based design elements in scalable vector format.
• When working in Photoshop, use non destructive techniques such as layer masks, adjustment layers and layer styles, or adjustable elements such as colour or pattern layers.
• In web design, use stylesheets to apply to control presentational design elements to an entire site. It’s always easier to maintain a single stylesheet than it is to edit inline elements on individual pages.

A Soft Rule

There are probably some others areas that apply which I haven’t considered, but when I use the word “rule” when talking about the Rule of Conversion, I am using it in a somewhat lose or soft context. I am not necessarily referring to a hard and fast, unbreakable rule that needs to be the foundation of all your designs.

Instead, the Rule of Conversion is more of a way of thinking about a design problem. Instead of just diving head first into a project, step back and think about it and ask some important questions:

• What is the scope of the project?
• Is it possible that the design will need to be converted or modified in some way later on?
• Will your design decisions facilitate these changes, or at least make them as quick and simple as possible?
• Will your design decisions make it difficult or even impossible into a particular format?

If I had asked myself all of these questions when I was starting out with my recent logo project, there is a very good chance that I would have foreseen the possible need for Pantone colours in the future, and built that eventuality into my design by selecting specific colours from that library and working from there. Then I probably would have included the Pantone numbers with the final package that I sent to the client, and I never would have received the follow up email in the first place.

A lesson well learned. From now on, I’m going to keep the Rule of Conversion more firmly in mind with every new design project that I start.

What about you? Have you ever run into a situation like the one I described above? How did you handle it? What did you learn from it? How do you start a project and/or handle conversions?

Exclusive Content

To thank you for subscribing to my feed, I am including exclusive, feed-only content for you at the bottom of each post!

Current Freebie Code - 7ev165dd

I’m going to start with a simple statement: design should be messy. When I say this, however, I am referring to the process, not the final result. That should not be messy at all, but rather very carefully and meticulously crafted, with everything in its proper place. But when it comes to all the thought and labour that actually goes into the creation of any design, I sincerely believe it is to our great benefit to simply let a little messiness (or even a lot) into the entire process.

After all, design is a creative act, and when we look at other forms of creation, there seems to be all kinds of messiness, though perhaps to varying degrees. Cooking for instance, is a messy process. There’s all that cutting (leading to excess throwaways), mixing of ingredients, brushing, basting and kneading. Juices and oils run freely and pots, pans, utensils and dishes invariably are dirtied and need to be washed. Granted, some people are messier than others—just ask my wife about the state of our kitchen after I cook a meal—but some degree of messiness is just part of the process.

The same is also true of painting. Paint itself is a wet substance that has an uncanny ability to get everywhere. It covers, stains and whenever you pick up a brush and paints, you can pretty much expect to get a little messy. The same is true pottery. Clay is also an incredibly messy medium.

In the Context of Design

But how does this all relate to design? An argument could probably be made that the older, traditional techniques that were often used in design—such as actual, physical typesetting and paste up—were inherently messy in and of themselves. A certain perspective on the world might even suggest that, through our shift to computers and digital techniques, we have lost some of the natural, hands-on involvement within the design process.

That’s really not what I’m talking about, though. All the messiness of food, paint and clay is merely a physical manifestation of a larger cognitive process.

No matter which way you slice it, design is a process. Like a story, it has a beginning, a middle and an end, with each stage building on those that came before it. It takes time to come to fruition, time which is full of ideas and sketches, concepts and mockups, revisions, counter revisions and still more revisions. It is fluid, evolving and ever transforming, even as it is continuously guided by the brief, the project requirements and the fundamental concepts of design itself.

Through all of that, you can’t help but expect a little messiness to sneak its way in.

The Contagion Example

As a prime example of this, we can turn to my experience playing “Contagion” with Radu Chelariu (aka Sickdesigner) a few months ago. Inspired by Layer Tennis, Radu’s idea was to work together on a single design, flipping source files back and forth across the web (and the Atlantic in our case) and building on each others work to create a fantastic, final design.

Here’s what we started with:

We started with a simple, abstract image

Then after several hours of hard work and 10 rounds of work, here’s the design that we ended up with:

We ended with a rich and interesting design that told a story all of its own

As we moved from that initial abstraction through to the finished design, the process was full of awesome, creative messiness. From stage to stage, different elements were shaped and reshaped, coloured and recoloured, created, destroyed added and removed as we riffed off of each others creations. You can check out the entire process over on Radu’s blog. You can also check out other installments of Contagion that Radu did with Sergiu Mocain, Brian Purkiss and Bill Chambers.

Aside from just being a ton of fun, the thing that I love about these contagion posts is the way they ultimately capture the essence of design. By revealing the design in process, stage by stage, we not only see the various triumphs, but also the failures. On one hand, we see those elements that may have seemed great in our minds, only to fall flat in the execution; on the other, we are also witness to how extra work was undertaken to fix these things, either by tweaking them, transforming them or removing them entirely!

All of this reveals the simple but profound truth that real design is not a collection of snap on parts. A website, for example, is not the Mr. Potato head of the Internet.

Welcome to the Machine

Too often, design can be looked at as this kind of mechanized process—a sentiment which has surely been compounded exponentially in this age of computers and other digital tools. There seems to be this problematic assumption, generally on the part of those standing on the outside and looking in, that we’re little more than machine operators. Somehow it is assumed that, while we keep our computers online and running, it is ultimately the machine itself that does the work.

I doubt that I would have to talk to more than a few designers to find people who would vehemently and passionately argue against this position until they’re red in the face. In fact, all I would have to do is look in a mirror! Anyone who knows anything about design will realize that a computer is just a tool, just like a pencil or a paintbrush. It is powerful and flexible, but still just a tool.

I have to wonder, though, if we might not allow ourselves to be influenced, even unintentionally, by this way of thinking. How often do we strive for efficiency, for productivity, for moving from one stage of the process to another with as few hiccups or interruptions as possible? How much to we contain ourselves to a particular methodology? How often do we work within a defined schedule and curse the client who causes us to miss those looming, all-important deadlines?

Now I have nothing against processes, workflows and schedules. Nor am I rebelling against the forces of efficiency and productivity. I just have to question whether immersing ourselves too deeply in these concepts might not be a form of human mechanization? If it’s all so clean, streamlined and ultimately industrialized, are we leaving any room at all for error, mistakes and failure?

More importantly, if there is no room for error can there really be any room for brilliance?

While I certainly won’t make any claims to brilliance myself, I don’t think that I am alone in having had the kind of experience in which something may go terribly wrong or just doesn’t work for whatever reason, but which somehow plants the seed of a new idea or a different direction. Perhaps it was a line or a shape, the interplay of colour or just an interesting juxtaposition. Whatever the idea, it takes you down that different and vastly more successful road that leads to a killer final design. In the end, it may be totally different from the “mess” you originally made, but the simple fact remains that without that original mess (or mistake/failure), the final idea would never have come to you.

Conclusion

With this in mind, doesn’t it seem that there is a certain, undeniable value in the messiness of design? Often this is exactly where the greatest moments of creativity occur, where genius (if we can use the word here) or genuine inspiration strikes right out of the blue. At its core, I think this is also the value of the Contagion works. With those, the designs were not created through any predictable or traceable process, but rather through the rough and sometimes chaotic interchange of ideas between two creative minds!

So don’t shy away from a bit of messiness in your design process. Accept it. Better yet, embrace it! Eventually, I think you may find that your best work is coming out of those sporadic, unplanned moments where a design seems to implode upon itself, only to have a new and stronger idea emerge like the Phoenix from scattered ashes of your work. When that happens, more often than not the previous failure becomes a success in its own right!

What about you? Do you embrace those moments of messiness and disorder in your design work? Do you find that some of your best work has come out of those very moments? I’d love to read your thoughts on this!

Exclusive Content

To thank you for subscribing to my feed, I am including exclusive, feed-only content for you at the bottom of each post!

Current Freebie Code - 7ev165dd

Alright, I confess, I’ve joined the Angry Birds bandwagon. I purchased the popular iPhone app the other day and have been pretty much addicted to it ever since. I’m currently in the fourth episode, though after I beat that I still have plenty of play time left as I go back and try to score three stars on all the levels.

Unfortunately, the game is ridiculously addictive and I probably find myself playing it more than is really good for me. As I noted on Twitter the other day, I think that there should be a new category on the iTunes App Store called “un-productivity” since, quite often, that seems to be what Angry Birds ultimately leads to!

Still, the game has been a huge success and I think that there is definitely something that we can learn from it!

Touch, Drag, Release

I am absolutely convinced that a huge part of the success that Angry Birds has seen stems from that fact that it is so incredibly easy to play. All you do is touch the screen, drag your finger across the it to pull back the game’s slingshot and then release to send your bird flying on a destructive trajectory towards the increasingly complex structures of the of those vile, green, egg stealing pigs!

That’s really all there is to it. Of course, it’s not quite as easy as it sounds. Angry Birds is a real puzzle game and there is a lot of strategy involved in how you aim your feathered onslaught, but the basic mechanics of the game remain unchanged from the first level to the last.

In fact, the game is so simple that my two and half year old daughter can, with a little assistance, actually play it with me. She doesn’t really understand what she’s doing, but she knows that she had to pull the birds back on the slingshot and try to hit the little green pigs on the other screen. Her dexterity is not quite developed enough to be able to do it all on her own, and I generally have to guide her finger, but its still impressive that she is able to engage with the game at all.

Similarly, my wife and I were over at some friends’ for dinner a few weeks ago and, after the meal when were just sitting in the living room chatting, I ended up having their three year old boy on my lap, spending the better part of an hour playing Angry Birds, with just an occasional bit of help from me.

Rain feathery destruction on the evil, egg-stealing pigs

What’s the point of all this, though? Is this an article about simplicity or minimalism in design? Not exactly. I think that the remarkable simplicity of Angry Birds (and other successful iPhone games) is actually a by-product of the fact that it is designed specifically for the method of control that is ultimately offered by the device on which the game itself is played. My wife probably wishes there was a version of the app available for her BlackBerry, but the game’s design simply does not match the scroll and click functionality of that device!

A Square Design in a Round Device

Yes, it would probably be possible to create some sort of port of Angry Birds for the BlackBerry, where some alternate form of control is created to fake or emulate the dynamic of the iPhone, but I find that this is something like the old adage of trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Or, in this case, trying to fit a square design in a round device. This is, of course, is more a statement of purpose rather than actual geometric shape, but my own, larger gaming experience actually supports the idea.

Several years ago, we in the Ward home decided to buy a Wii, primarily because of its novelty at the time, and also because of the large selection of games that could be played by the entire family (we spend hours Mario-karting). A few weeks later, my lovely wife decided to rent me a game for some reason, and came home with Transformers, which was based on the story of the first movie. It seemed like it would be a really cool experience, especially since I really dug the film.

It was horrible.

The story didn’t really follow the movie all that closely, but I could live with that – it was the sort of thing that happens fairly frequently with video game adaptations of movies. What made the game almost impossible for me to play was the controls. Within just a matter of minutes I could already tell that it was the type of game which is far better suited to a more traditional kind of console, such as an X-Box or a PlayStation, both of which used a standard, hand-held controller (this was before the release of Kinect or PlayStation Move).

Transofmers for Wii has a weak control system which seems more suited to more traditional gaming platforms

The Wii, however, is a very different kind of system with its motion based remote and detachable nunchuck extension. Because the Transformers game seemed to have been originally designed for a different kind of device, something was definitely lost in the translation from one platform to another. The controls were clumsy and non-intuitive, ultimately undermining the overall quality of the game and causing me to set it aside and not play it very much.

In stark contrast, is another Wii game like The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. While, like Transformers, it is a third person adventure game, my initial experience with it could not have been more different. The controls were actually incredibly easy to pick up. They felt natural and easy and made the game fun and easy to play, rather than difficult and frustrating, as I experienced with Transformers.

Twilight princess has a much more enjoyable and natural feeling control system and feels right at home on the Wii

Why? I believe it is because the game was purposefully and intentionally designed with the need for Wii-based gameplay in mind. Yes, I recognize that the game was originally created for the more traditionally controlled GameCube, and was actually ported to the Wii (though released ahead of the GC version), but Nintendo did a great job at designing a play system specifically geared to the its unique device, rather than just approximating and trying to force the Wii to behave as much like an X-Box or PlayStation as possible!

Thinking About Design

Alright, so we’ve talked at length about different types of video games, but what does this all have to do with actual design? Well, as our experiences of the Internet and the web continue to grow and diversify, so to does the entire industry of web design. We are seeing an ever increasing array of different devices that are being used to access information, many of which may have different properties or functionality.

From my experience, the most prevalent of these certainly seems to be the touch-based mobile devices like the iPhone or iPad, which introduce all kinds of new an interesting problems when it comes to screen sizes and interaction. How do we handle controls that may have previously been made visible on hover states? How does text size work in the design, not only in terms of readability, but in terms of interaction (different finger sizes)? How does device movement, such as flip scrolling, affect or inform the design?

These are all important, device-specific questions that need to be considered when designing (sites or apps) for the expanding Web. Just as Angry Birds, finds its success in being perfectly suited for touch-based gaming and Twilight Princess was optimized for motion-based play, I truly believe that the most successful designs that we will see emerge over the coming years will be those which are crafted to function (or better yet, thrive) in a device’s particular behavioral context.

Conclusion

In many ways, this is probably a very simple lesson, but then Angry Birds is a very simple game, isn’t it? Besides, sometimes it’s a important to be reminded of the basic truths that can occasionally be overlooked in the larger context of the design process.

So, next time you break out those brightly coloured, pig crushing birds, take the time to think about how the game that is probably eating up your valuable time is actually a prime example of successful device-specific design.

Main image by Yaniv Golan

Exclusive Content

To thank you for subscribing to my feed, I am including exclusive, feed-only content for you at the bottom of each post!

Current Freebie Code - 7ev165dd