Page 29 of 33 (323 total articles)
  • June 12, 2007 in Design Inspiration

    Stock Photography is Out

    I know it�s really easy to just go to a stock photography site and pick out a quick stock photo for your project but you may be hurting yourself more than you realize. Yeah, it looks good, but stock photography is easy to spot and gives a disingenuous vibe. People buy from people, not models. I would recommend forming a relationship with a local photographer and including their fee as part of your web projects. Here is a photo taken by my partner in photography (leavethecamera.com). It looks good but it also looks real. It�s the best of both worlds and it only tacked a couple hundred to the cost of the project. Well worth it.

  • June 6, 2007 in Business & Process

    » Protecting your ideas is overrated » Simple and Loveable

    » Protecting your ideas is overrated » Simple and Loveable As usual, Simple and Loveable is right on the money. Generally, aspiring entrepreneurs believe that their unique idea is what will make their business great, when actually it’s process by which the idea is thrust into the marketplace. Case in point, I have a client who is a photographer (leavethecamera.com) with a “unique” approach to selling photographs online. Sure enough, as soon as he launched his business, there was a local copycat. He freaked out at first but after I gave him some encouraging words, he calmed down and the copycat fizzled out in a couple of months. It was his dedication to his clients and his commitment to his idea that made his business rise above… not the idea itself. So share share share!

  • June 5, 2007 in Business & Process

    Get a General Idea and Run With It

    It would probably make me sick if I knew just how much time I have spent in preparation of projects with Liquid Design Media. Detailed proposals and flowcharts can become black holes that just keep getting bigger and I wave bye-bye to them long ago. Don�t get me wrong, it�s important to manage the expectations of your client, but leaving some things up in the air can be a great benefit to you in the long run if you under-promise and over-deliver. If you must prepare a presentation for a client, use other people�s web sites to demonstrate points and build screenshots of the interface if you must. This method is much more tangible to the listener. They won�t understand everything that is going on in your head anyway so give them something that they can see and touch. Follow this advise and you will see what a beautiful job being a web designer can be.

  • June 4, 2007 in Business & Process

    How Ads Really Work: Superfans and Noobs | fortuitous

    How Ads Really Work: Superfans and Noobs | fortuitous This is a great article about internet advertising. A big chunk of it centers around the new Google Analytics hit tracking program. I’ve used it and I can honestly say that I am impressed. They have added some very interesting reports like “Visitor Loyalty” that I have already found very helpful.

  • June 1, 2007 in Design Tips & Tutorials

    RoundedCornr: Rounded Corner and Gradient Generator

    RoundedCornr: Rounded Corner and Gradient Generator Let’s face it. Rounded corners are cool and square ones just ain’t so cool. So, you can use PhotoShop to painstakingly build each rounded corner, or you can just use a little CSS from roundcornr.com. I know that this is a tool that I could use daily at Liquid Design Media.

  • May 31, 2007 in Web Design Culture

    Local Video

    This is a video posted on my local newspaper�s web site. Low budget, low quality, but it�s hilarious. Great job stepping out of the box.

  • May 30, 2007 in Programming & IT

    Embedding a Shopping Cart

    is the true web 2.0 version of a shopping cart. You build a store on Cartfly and then you can embed it into any web site and even share it so that others can embed your store into their web site. Here is one embedded into a MySpace Page My mind is already racing with possibilities. It will be interesting to watch this little company and see how it does.

  • May 28, 2007 in Web Design Culture

    Go Light on the Convergence, Please!

    I have owned a Palm Treo 650 for about two years now and I have to admit that I have been extremely impressed with functionality and features of the phone. It�s easy to set up emails, play games, get GPS info, and even surf the web (a little). In short, it does everything that it promised it would and more. But after I got sick of playing the games, and tired of trying to surf the web on a tiny screen I realized that I really wasn�t using any of the features other than the basic phone. I finally deleted all my email info off the phone because I didn�t like getting interrupted every time someone sent me something. So if you want to hold on to some peace in your life, I would suggest grouping like activities together into blocks and getting rid of your convergent device. It will make you more efficient and less annoying. Sorry iPhone.

  • May 26, 2007 in Design Tips & Tutorials

    Two Quick CSS Tips That Will Keep You From Committing Suicide

    Having fought these battles and come very close to killing myself, I know how important these two tips are. 1. Padding is interpreted differently in IE than it is in Firefox. So in order to make sure your layout won’t break in one or the other, nest a div tag inside another div tag and give the inner div tag a margin. Now you have the same effect as padding. 2. Set “overflow: hidden” on all div tags that need to be a certain height. Otherwise IE will add some extra padding at the bottom of them and drive you out of your mind. If you’ve just decided to make the switch from table-based layouts to all CSS or you’ve being doing CSS layouts for a little while now, these tips will help you keep your sanity.

  • May 24, 2007 in Programming & IT

    You Will Mash It Up Whether You Like It or Not!

    Smart web sites make their content available to the world in RSS feeds and XML. I think we�ve already proven that the more you share the better off you are. But what about web sites with great information that don�t want to share. Dapper.net says, �Too bad! You�ll mash it up whether you like it or not!� Seriously, though, dapper.net has created an incredible free tool for extracting information from web sites and turning it into data that can be republished. When you go to the site, make sure to take a look at some of the daps that have already been created. Here is a screenshot of me �dapping� Bits O� NewMedia. This service brings up some interesting questions about where web content is going. If anybody has and idea for a dap or finds a really cool dap that I should post about, let me know.

[BEGIN] [< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 [Next>>] [END]