What do you listen to?

I am a huge fan of music. I listen to music every single day and I like to specifically listen to it when I am doing certain tasks. For instance, when I am cleaning up the house I like to crank up some Phil Collins or some type of 80’s mixture because for some reason gives me energy to knock out the stuff that I keep putting off. When I am driving, long or short distances, I usually listen to BPM on Sirius which is like a mixture of Dance / Techno Music and that keeps me from falling asleep. And when I design I usually go for some Hip Hop or Techno, it is just really inspiring to me. So here is my question.

Does music directly impact the design you are working on at the moment?
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First Wordpress Theme Completed – Cloud Nineteen

Man, I am happy to announce that I have finished my first custom WordPress theme – Cloud Nineteen. It was a task but I used the Rockstar WordPress book and followed their instructions. It seemed to go smooth but I ran into a couple of problems. Overall, I am happy with the outcome and I hope it helps Braille and S1 reach their goals. Read more

Which do you prefer?

As a designer / moderate programmer I am constantly looking at how others tend to write their CSS code as well as their HTML. It is always intriguing to see how they use different techniques to accomplish the same thing others are doing. One tool that I use every single day is the FireFox Web Developer plug-in. It allows the anyone to view the current CSS files used on a page and modify them to see how the changes affect the design. There are usually two different formats of CSS that I see for the most part. Read more

5 of my most used websites for Web Design

I have been doing web design for a little over 5 years now outside of school and I have come across a lot of very useful websites in those years. I figured I could list the top 5 that I use almost all the time. Maybe not on a daily bases but I would say every other day for sure.

1. Lorem Ipsum

I think this is a site that most designers are familiar with. It allows dummy content to take place of actual content before it can be provided. I would say at least 95% of my clients come to me without any type of content but they want to get started right away. Well that’s when I roll on over to the Lorem Ipsum site and snatch a couple paragraphs, lists, etc and drop it in to the design. Its also beneficial because the client doesn’t get to focus on the content. They can solely focus on the the design. Read more

Smooth eCommerce

Lately I have been trying to find some really inspiring commerce sites. Sites that are really unique in displaying products but keep it simple enough so that the user knows what is going on. I stumbled upon The Affair while browsing through The FWA site and figured I would share it with you all.

Its a really simple layout, mainly black with the focus on the t-shirts. The shirts are displayed on an actual person so you can see how the shirt actually fits. I think that is one major issue with buying shirts online is knowing exactly how they are going to fit your body. If you are fimilar with the brand then its a no brainer but for someone new I think this small detail could close a couple deals. Once you click on one of the characters you are prompted with a much larger display of the shirt with some descriptive details as well as some other views of the shirt. Read more