05/2008 Article Archive

  • May 30, 2008 in Friday Blog Clips

    5 for Friday | The Week's Best Blogs (5/30/08 Edition)

    With Memorial Day on Monday and family traveling today, I almost feel like this wasn't a work week at all. It did give me a chance to relax, and spend time with family, though. We had my daughter's first birthday party over the weekend so all the grandparents were in town. I know it's a cliche, but I really can't believe we've already had her for a year. After all the festivities died down I was able to get some reading done. I've got a list of classics in theology and web design that I'm trying to knock out. Knowing God by J.I. Packer is my current read and I'll be moving on to Designing with Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman. I'm embarrassed to admit that I haven't read either of these before. I guess everyone has to read a book for the first time as some point. Here are my five favorite web design articles from this week:

    • 4 Comments
    • 1160 Views
  • May 28, 2008 in Business & Process

    Managing a Web Project from Start to Finish

    Every web designer has a process--a sequential order of tasks that is used to guide the development of a website from start to finish. Some of us are deliberate about our process, and some of us follow ingrained habits; but we all have a way we like to do things. I think this subject of web project management is one worth discussing and revisiting frequently as the web design industry grows and matures. Of course, every project is unique and requires some deviation from preconceived road maps and ideal flow. But it helps to consider what steps work best in what order to avoid common pitfalls. Over the last eight years designing websites as a freelancer, I've developed a fairly solid process for building a website. I'll be walking through that process in this article. I welcome comments from other designers who work on teams, under employers, and in other situations.

  • May 26, 2008 in Design Tips & Tutorials

    HTML Transitional What? | The Ins and Outs of HTML Document Type

    There's a divisive little tag at the top of every web page called DOCTYPE. It's not divisive because web designers disagree about what should go in that tag or which doctype should be specified (although they argue about that too). It's divisive because half of the web designers barely give a thought to it and the other half would die a bloody death for what's in that tag. Whatever category you happen to fall in, I think you'll appreciate this concise guide to HTML DTDs. Every designer should know the basics and make an informed decision about doctype.

  • May 23, 2008 in Friday Blog Clips

    5 for Friday | The Week's Best Blogs (5/23/08 Edition)

    The final article in my web design worldview series was posted this week. Even though I barely scratched the surface of the topic, I think a good foundation was set. I've enjoyed all the well-thought-out comments and conversation that has grown from the series. There are several follow-up articles I'll be posting in the next few months to expand and clarify specific concepts related to Christianity and web design. Now, here are my five links for this Friday.

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  • May 21, 2008 in Web Design Worldview

    Web Design Worldview (Part 6): A Christian Web Design Manifesto

    Just exactly how does a Christian worldview shape a web designer? Should it change the way he or she approaches ethics, style, or even layout? We've journeyed through a maze of worldviews in the last five articles rounding out our discussion with a look at the Christian worldview. But now we've come to the point. In this final article, the focus will be narrowed to the vocation of web design. In part five, I listed and explained basic Christian design principles derived from classic Christian thinking. In this article I'll build a practical model of a Christian web designer with those principles as the foundation. To start out, though, we need to define and discuss web design itself. That is where I'll begin.

    • 30 Comments
    • 6291 Views
  • May 19, 2008 in Product Reviews

    Review: 5 Free HTML Editors that Get the Job Done

    A couple months ago a subscriber commented on one of my articles asking me for a resource list of Free HTML editors. I had made mention of Adobe Dreamweaver in the article and he politely reminded me that not everyone has the money to drop on Adobe's products. I decided he had a good point and determined to find the best free HTML editors out there. The task turned out to be quite a wild ride but one well worth it. Here are five solid HTML editors that get the job done.

  • May 16, 2008 in Friday Blog Clips

    5 for Friday | The Week's Best Blogs (5/16/08 Edition)

    Something very interesting happened this week in the web world: According to comScore, Yahoo! Buzz overtook Digg in the month of April. This feat is impressive on its own, but add to that the fact that the new Yahoo! Buzz social news site achieved the bulk of its traffic growth in just ten months, and you've got a serious phenomenon. I'm not going to get too deep into the why or how without doing more research; but I can say from experience using Digg over the last year that this has been a long time coming. Check out the Read/Write Web article below for more details. Here are the five best web design blog articles this week.

    • 5 Comments
    • 1966 Views
  • May 14, 2008 in Web Design Worldview

    Web Design Worldview (Part 5): Introduction to the Christian Worldview

    In Christianity we find a unique and inspiring worldview grid through which we may create and understand design. In the Bible and throughout history, design and the arts have been a central medium through which God has communicated to man and man has communicated with each other. Other worldviews have assimilated pieces of truth from the Christian worldview; but none can account for reality so satisfactorily or liberate our creativty so completely. In this article, I will be giving a brief overview of the Christian worldview and its primary tenets which affect our view of web design. In the last article in this series (part six), I will develop a practical model of a Christian web designer.

    • 14 Comments
    • 5195 Views
  • 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.

    • 9 Comments
    • 3224 Views
  • May 9, 2008 in Friday Blog Clips

    5 for Friday | The Week's Best Blogs (5/9/08 Edition)

    The big news this week is the change to the Bits O' NewMedia RSS feed. While doing some random testing on various feed readers, I noticed that sometimes the articles would show up more than once or the order of the articles would get jumbled. Fortunately, Steven Snell posted an article last week on Traffikd called 150+ RSS Resources that gave me a good starting point. After poking around a little, I discovered that the issue was a bad date format in my tag. If you're subscribing to the feed, you probably noticed when I fixed it because your reader suddenly showed thirty plus unread articles. I'm in the process of refining Bits O' NewMedia and preparing for a possible redesign in the next couple of months. I'll be sure to give everyone a heads-up on any upcoming changes. Now, here are the week's five best web design blog articles.

    • 2 Comments
    • 1495 Views
  • May 7, 2008 in Web Design Worldview

    Web Design Worldview (Part 4): Making Nonsense Out of the Hybrid Worldview

    The hybrid worldview is the mutant offspring of modernism and post-modernism. It's by far the dominant philosophy amongst designers right now. Its pick-and-choose methodology can make it extremely elusive and disorienting. But it's not impossible to nail down; you just have to have the right tools. In this article, I will be giving a brief summary of the hybrid worldview, how it affects design, and where it's headed. You should be able to read this article alone without trouble, but I would recommend going back to part one, two, and three for better context.

    • 8 Comments
    • 4870 Views
  • May 5, 2008 in Business & Process

    Web Designer Reputation: Convincing the World You Know What You're Doing

    The legitimacy of web design as a profession is firmly established at this point. But in many ways it's still a vocation in limbo. We're caught somewhere between computer science and art--two fields that have previously been viewed as polar opposites. And specializing in either of them doesn't necessarily qualify you to be a web designer. Some of us work alone managing all the aspects of web design from start to finish. Some of us work on teams where all the little parts of web design process are broken out and divvied up. But in the end we all end up with a similar product--a website. So how do you build up a reputation in an industry that has no real standard--where similar products are being produced by such a diverse group of people with diverse skill sets? In this article, I'm going to list and discuss five areas that require serious consideration if you want a good reputation as a web designer.