Design Inspiration (Archive)

Page 1 of 3 (21 total articles)
  • December 31, 2008 in Design Inspiration

    The Confession Project

    In an article a few weeks ago I mentioned that it would be interesting to see how creative design could enhance classic Christian confessions and creeds. Around that time I also happened to be doing a lot of running which can be very dangerous for me. Any time I have extended periods of uninterrupted contemplation, I inevitably launch into a series of non-income-producing projects. Case in point: The Confession Project.

  • November 18, 2008 in Design Inspiration

    Bible Design: Illuminated Manuscripts to Postmodern Power Plays

    How does design affect the way we read and interpret God's word? I started considering this question recently after Isral Duke, a designer out of Baton Rouge, contacted me with a thought provoking poster featuring Titus 1:7-8. By nature, design adds an interpretive grid to a body of information. Even the most unintrusive layout communicates subliminally about the designer's view of the contained text. And since God's specific revelation to man (the Bible) has been given to us as written literature, the importance of the design containing its text should be of great concern to us. Until now, I've never seriously considered the implications of Bible design. How has it been approached in the past? What is modern design doing to the Bible today? And most importantly, how will this generation of designers shape Bible design in the future?

  • November 5, 2008 in Design Inspiration

    11 Photoshop Tutorials All Web Designers Should Learn

    If you read any web design blogs (and obviously you do) I'm sure you know there are about a million great photoshop tutorials floating around. So many, in fact, that it can be overwhelming. The point of the Photoshop tutorial is to teach a new technique—something that can be incorporated into your arsenal of web design skill and reused again and again. But after several years of aimless rummaging through the unorganized mass of online Photoshop tutorials I've come to an important conclusion: At their core the vast majority of these tutorials are teaching one of only a handful of techniques; the rest are essentially variations of the same. What this means is that a short list of well-chosen online Photoshop tutorials will pretty much bring you up to speed. I have compiled such a list. I encourage you to go through all of these tutorials. I realize that some of them may seem to overlap at first glance, but I think you will find that they all contribute a unique technique that you can incorporate into your everyday work.

  • October 1, 2008 in Design Inspiration

    Simple and Stunning (Part 3): 10 Website Designs that Inspire

    This is the third installment of Simple and Stunning on Mirificam Press. In case you're new to Mirificam Press, Simple and Stunning is an ongoing list acknowledging excellent website designs that combine the simplicity of a great user interface with stunning layouts and color schemes. I've made a noticeable change in this edition, though: Instead of capturing only the initially visible area of each site, I included the scroll area below. My purpose in the previous method was to present a kind of first glance presentation. But with increasingly sporadic monitor sizes and resolutions, I think my new method will give you a better feel for the whole design.

  • June 23, 2008 in Design Inspiration

    Total Redesign: Mirificam Press Dissected

    Bits O' NewMedia has officially made the transformation into Mirificam Press (as you can see). The task of creating a new design that fit the personality and direction of the blog ended up being more difficult than I had anticipated. At least part of the difficulty was due to the fact that I didn't have any constraints. I've become so accustomed to doing things within the client/designer relationship that I almost forgot how to work for myself. My wife would probably argue that, in reality, I just substituted her for the client and never actually broke out of the client/designer relationship. I'm sure, "What do you think about this?", isn't her favorite question right now. But I digress. Through all this, I was able slow down and make precise and deliberate design decisions that I'm not always at liberty to make in other situations. I'd like to kick off the new site by dissecting the new design and features.

  • May 12, 2008 in Design Inspiration

    Simple and Stunning (Part 2): 10 Website Designs that Inspire

    In February, I posted my first edition of Simple and Stunning with ten inspiring website designs. Since then, I've been slowly compiling a list of the next ten designs to be added to the Simple and Stunning Flickr photo set. I've weeded out all the almosts and these are the designs that made the final cut. Keep an eye out for part three in a few months.

  • March 12, 2008 in Design Inspiration

    Rome, Sweet Rome: Ancient Lessons in Design

    When I arrived late to my first panel on Saturday morning at SXSWi 2008 I thought I had accidentally walked in on a reading for a book-on-tape. Jennifer Fraser (lead user experience director at Corel) was the singular presenter, reading off her notes word for word in a timid voice that had the whole audience leaning forward and tilting an ear. I have to admit that Jennifer's departure from the typical in-your-face SXSWi panelist style felt a little alien at first but as I listened, I began to warm up to it. By the end of the panel, I was captivated. Fraser had very effectively taken the system of architectural design principles developed by Vitruvius in ancient Rome and applied them to modern interactive design.

  • February 20, 2008 in Design Inspiration

    When Less Isn't More: Web Design Simplicity Gone Awry

    Less is more. The popular aphorism adopted by modern designers has been spouted off at some point in just about every client meeting I've been in. It's been used ad nauseam at conferences and in design magazines since its debut in the mid-twentieth century. Yet somehow it seems immune to the buzz-word death label. There's a timeless truth that finds such a suitable home in the saying that anything else feels like an ill-fitting glove. Even web designers who avoid common use of the phrase agree with the principle. But where is the edge of the "less is more" universe? When does less cease to be more? It would sound like a silly question out of context but it's one worth considering. Let's look at some instances where less is just less.

  • February 11, 2008 in Design Inspiration

    Simple and Stunning: 10 Website Designs that Inspire

    Most of the time, the aim of a website design is to present information in a concise format, both simple and pleasing. But a perfect balance of simple and pleasing can sometimes be difficult to achieve. It's not always clear exactly where to start. In moments of waning creativity, I find that a little inspiration can give me the surge I need to get over the initial hump. Over the past few months I've been collecting examples of websites with inspiring simplicity and dead-on application of style to content. I narrowed down the list to ten designs which have been added to a Flickr photo set where they will be joined by subsequent examples in the coming months. In this article, these first ten designs are pictured and discussed.

  • January 30, 2008 in Design Inspiration

    Warning! BloggingZoom May Cause Seizures

    I was bouncing around my favorite social news sites in an early Monday morning stupor, when I discovered that BloggingZoom.com had released a redesign over the weekend. For a few seconds, I squinted my eyes at the at the glaring screen wondering if I had mistyped the url. Now I just wish someone had warned me about the celebration--the new BloggingZoom slapped me in the face and put a sparkler in my hand. Its minimalistic design had been shucked overnight and replaced with something from the high-energy, patriotic, art-deco aisle (if such and aisle exists). Upon closer scrutiny, though, I discovered that not all of the changes were unhelpful or inappropriate--time to get out the scalpel and start dissecting.

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