Many people walk around armed with high-tech shooting apparatus for capturing the details of intricately ornamented Spanish Mission architecture, or perhaps the many lush fountains and gardens. Mine decided to die on me after draining the fully charged batteries empty in five minutes(!!!). I managed to get one decent shot before that happened though, which I suppose is better than nothing. It’s an old camera (a Minolta dImage 7), so now I’m considering upgrading to another one. A Digital Rebel, perhaps, because I am a bit of a digital rebel myself. Got any recommendations?

August for me was always the time summer vacation ended and school started. No more beach bonfires or sitting on the boardwalk at night, watching the waves come in. I despise the heat in the day but I love staying out on hot summer nights. So, inspired by that, here is the start to a monthly wallpaper feature:

Download Summerfire

Put Summerfire on your desktop. Left-click to view, right-click to save:
1024×768, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1680×1050,
1600×1200, 1920×1200

Credit for the background photo goes to Belfathus. I just re-interpreted it a little bit :) I know this one’s a bit late for August, so look for September’s wallpaper in a week or so.

Feedback is appreciated

It would be most awesome if you could let me know in the comments what screen size you are or would prefer, and I’ll make sure those sizes are available so more people can download it.

From an aesthetic and design perspective, this photoshoot is a great example of simple, uncluttered design. The white-on-white adds a subtle, classical touch and makes for a beautiful contrast against the warm tan of her skin. This brings a design mantra to mind: You know it’s done not when you can’t add anything more, but when you can’t take anything else away.

You can also check out Lauren’s great article about the principles of contrast in applied design on her site.

The words are powerful by themselves, but to have them illustrated typographically in this video adds another level of depth to the raw and visceral energy of the message. I don’t really follow rap music, so sometimes the words run together to my untrained ears, and the artist’s message is diminished. Here, the typography serves as a sort of closed-caption, though much more interpretive.

Apparently, the song’s received some criticism for its content, with some detractors saying Immortal Technique is only doing this for political shock value, and others defending the position that Bush was not responsible for 9/11. Some are even questioning whether this video is considered art.

Is this art?

What do you think? Regardless of your political viewpoints or whether or not you believe 9/11 was an inside job (remember, this is a design blog and not a political one), do you think this video could be argued as a work of art? Do you consider “politically inflammatory” spoken word or rap a form of art?

I attended a meetup for local bloggers last week and it’s always nice to finally connect the faces behind the screens. Some had personal blogs, while others had sites geared towards webdev and technology, travel, business, food, and what have you. The main requirement for starting up any sort of blog is a keen interest in the subject, so we were united not as much by our topic niches but by our commitment and passion for what we wrote about. If you think about it, you might as well like what you’re going to be writing about if you’re going to stay committed and expend all that time and effort on it.

Which brings me to the next point: a lot of people were in agreement on some sort of discipline in blogging. Lauren of Creative Curio maintains a set schedule of new posts on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Others blog once daily, and others blog hourly, it seems like. I don’t have a set posting schedule, but I do post at least twice a week between Monday and Friday so you’ve got something to read when you have 5 minutes or so and you feel like taking a quick but still productive break from that big project you’re working on.

Actually, LP sums it up quite nicely when he says:

Most people start writing a blog, they post every day, then they post every two or three days, then once a fortnight, and then they haven’t posted for so long that they don’t even know what their password is anymore.

Then something incredible happens in their lives (e.g. there’s a funny announcement by the train driver on their way to work, their Mum sends them some pictures of when they were little riding the family dog in the back garden flashing a toothless grin at the camera) and they can’t log in to tell us.

As far as writing frequency actually goes, there are writers who prefer numerous, pithy updates and there are writers (like me) who go for less-frequent but more substantial posts. Now, whether you go for quantity or length, it’s pretty common advice that writing should be conversational. But take that advice a step further and think about how you sound to your readers.

Think about your favorite bloggers: each of them has a unique voice, and even if you’ve never met your favorite blogger, you can almost hear what they would sound like in your head, right? It’s the unique character of their writing style that draws you in and hopefully engages you in a conversation with them.

And lastly, one more tip from my new blogger friends: don’t become too long-winded. You don’t really know how much time someone has to read what you’ve written, so keep that under consideration when writing a new entry up.

Do you blog?

If you have any tips you’d like to share, leave a comment and help other bloggers out! And if you’re in the San Diego area, come hang out with fellow bloggers at the next meetup.

It’s not a mental asylum, it’s art school

Now, with the school season about to start back up, I know some people are preparing to go to art school. Having gone through the wringer myself, I’ve learned a thing or two. Perhaps these little pearls of wisdom will serve some good to you or someone you know.

1. Not everyone you like will be good for you. Not everyone good for you will be someone you like. It’s wise to know the difference.
2. Art school is all about experimentation. Use these experiences to expand your boundaries and help you grow as an artist and as a person. Your work will become better for it.
3. Hero worship is a good thing: it sets the standard of quality for your own work. But respect your hero’s style and develop your own.
4. Be nice and respect the HBIC. You’ll get to call the shots someday.
5. Be humble, especially when you get to call the shots. There is always someone out there better than you.
6. Two words: student discount. Never take for granted the simpler things in life, like free paper samples (or anything free, really) and the discounts you get at places where friends work.
7. Always keep an X-acto knife near you. One never knows when you’ll have a sudden and dire need for it in an emergency.
8. Avoid puns, Papyrus, and Comic Sans. Just think of Amy Winehouse: no, no, no!
9. Bring your sketchbook everywhere and make it an extension of yourself. You’re an artist, so use it for goodness’ sakes.
10. Be a seawater sponge: Absorb everything, but take it with a grain of salt.
11. Creativity is referred to as a muscle for a reason. The more you work it, the better it gets. A muscle rarely used atrophies. And no one likes a flabby creative muscle.
12. Life is a game, so play it like a chess player and always think two steps ahead.
13. Keep a hand on the heartbeat of your industry. Read books, go to shows, visit my website. All frequently.
14. Never settle or give up on yourself. You haven’t reached your peak until you die, and this is why dead artists are worth more.
15. Don’t forget, art school is just the beginning of your life. It only feels like the end of the world sometimes.
16. When faced with challenges, remember what Tim Gunn would say: “Make it work.”

Save the children!

What’s your advice? Do you have anything you’d like to impart to the next generation of artists, designers, and visionaries? Leave a comment below.

The Lessons/Lyrics

1. Your site design is the first thing people see
   it should be reflective of you and the industry
2. Easy to look at with a nice navigation
   when they can’t find what they want it causes frustration
3. A clear call to action to increase the temptation
4. Use appealing graphics - they create motivation
5. If you have animation, please use with moderation
   cause search engines can’t index the information
6. Display the logos of all associations
7. Highlight your contact info — that’s an obligation
8. Create a clean design: you can use some decoration
   but try to prevent any client hesitation
9. Every page that they click should provide an explanation
10. Should be easy to understand like having a conversation
11. Create a site style: you can use your imagination
    but make sure you use correct color combinations
12. Do some investigation, look at other organizations
    but don’t duplicate or you might face a litigation
13. You done? Congratulations! Start construction
    Moving to production, please follow these instructions:
    [Do] your photoshop functions [then] slice that design
14. Do your layout with divs make sure that it’s aligned
15. Please don’t use tables even though they work fine
    when it come to indexing they give searches a hard time
16. Make it easy for the spiders to crawl what you provide
17. Remove font type, font color and font size
18. No background colors, keep your coding real neat
19. Tag your look and feel on a separate style sheet
    better results with XML and CSS
    Now you making progress, a little closer to success
20. Describe your doctype so the browser can relate
    make sure you do it great or it won’t validate
21. Check in all browsers, I do it directly
    gotta make sure that it renders correctly
    Some use IE, some others use Flock
    Some use AOL, I use Firefox
22. Title everything including links and images
23. Don’t use italics, use emphasis
24. Don’t use bold, please use strong
    if you use bold that’s old and wrong
25. When you use CSS, you page will load quicker
    Your client’s satisfied like they eating on a snicker
    They stuck on your page like you made it with a sticker
    And then they convert now that’s the real kicker
    
    Make you a lil richer, your site a lil slicker
    Design and code right man I hope you get the picture
    What I’m telling you is true man it should be a scripture
    If it’s built right you’ll be the pick of the litter
    
    Everyone will want to follow you like twitter
    competition will get bitter and you’ll shine like glitter
    If you trying to grow your company will get bigger
    design and code right man can you get with it

And a little disclaimer

I’m posting this not only because it’s hilariously funny/scary, but also because I have been fortunate enough to have gotten clients who are genuinely nice people and who trust my expertise to do the best job possible. You guys are the complete opposites of the clients in this video. Trust is a two-way key to any good relationship, and I am grateful for the freedom I’m given to do great work for you and me.

Not every designer gets to be so lucky.

In the spirit of transparency, I’ve added a privacy policy to the site. Basically, I swear on my scout’s honor that I won’t do anything shady with your contact information. In an era of identity theft and spam marketing people are understably more wary about putting their names and emails down, myself included. A privacy policy that spells out what a site will and won’t do has always been a way to set my mind at ease, so I figured I’d incorporate one to make my policy official. So, now you have one less reason not to comment or get a free subscribtion to my updates!

Ten social networking sites to follow

Previously, “social networking” was the exclusive territory of sites like Myspace and Facebook. Now, a ton of smaller, more specialized social networking sites have crept up, each serving a particular niche. Here are a few notable ones:

+ Bebo

Bebo is a social media network where friends share their lives and explore great entertainment. This is great if you’re always the first to discover the hottest new videos or music online before everyone else, and want a place to share them and establish yourself as a sort of ‘talent scout’ that keeps an eye on the newest up-and-coming acts.

+ BrightKite

BrightKite is a location-based social networking site. Discover who visits your favorite places or see where your friends are and what they’re up to, in real time. When you post an update (basically, a snapshot of where you are), your location is marked on a Google map along with other users who have been to that location.

+ Facebook

Facebook users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. What’s interesting about Facebook is that it focuses largely on the quality of existing relationships, as opposed to quantity or making new ones.

+ FriendFeed

FriendFeed enables you to keep up-to-date on the web pages, photos, videos and music that your friends and family are sharing. Think of it as an aggregator or listening post for all your friends who are on more than one social networking site.

+ Identi.ca

Identi.ca launched on July 1, 2008 and it’s basically an open-source version of Twitter licensed under the AGPL. As far as I can see, Identi.ca’s main advantage over Twitter is a more stable uptime due to lower subscriber numbers.

+ LinkedIn

LinkedIn is an online network of more than 24 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries. It is founded on the idea that professional relationships are key to your professional success, allowing you to stay informed about your industry and to find the people you need to achieve your goals.

+ Mashable

Mashable is a social networking news site that ranks among one of the largest blogs on the internet. It reports on sites likeMySpace, YouTube, Bebo, Facebook, and Xanga, among a myriad of others, easily making it one of my go-to sites. “Social networking news” sounds incredibly vague, but it covers everything from the newest iPhone apps to how to find coupons online.

+ MySpace

MySpace is arguably the largest and most well-known social networking site, with 100+ million users. One of the arguments in the Facebook vs. MySpace debate sums up their positioning nicely: Facebook is all about the quality of existing relationships you have; MySpace is all for increasing the quantity of relationships you make.

+ Plurk

Plurk displays your updates on a timeline, allowing you to easily follow along. Plurk also has an interesting karma system in place, which lets users give karma to updates they enjoy and take karma away from updates they don’t. A user’s karma also goes down the longer they’ve been away from Plurk, which is an ingenious (and very devious) idea to keep users continually coming back.

+ Twitter

Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates (aka “tweets”) of up to 140 characters in length. It has attracted quite a large following, and is one of the most popular microblogging services to-date. Its explosive growth has strained the site’s resources, resulting in unexpected downtimes. Despite all this, many Twitter users remain loyal due to the strong feeling of community.

Last night I went to an event at the LaFayette Hotel for local Twitter users to meet up and get to know each other. Drinks were had, along with breaded chicken tenders for appetizers (as well as some wierd red quesadillas that went mostly untouched), and many pretty faces. I’ve met some new Twitterfolk — Twits? Twitteers? Twitterers? Twitters? That last one sounds like a breaded appetizer — and it was a great chance to expand my social network.

A lot of the people who attended either work directly or are interested in new and developing technologies (a fancy way of saying “I like/get paid to play on the Internet”), so it was a comfort to find that — should I say it? We were all birds of a feather.

Micro-paparazzi

Now, I must confess, I’ve always been a little weary of diving deep into social media. I’m hardly stalker-worthy, but I’m a private person by nature, and I much prefer to sit back and observe a situation rather than rush into the moment. I’m fine when it’s all business, but I tend to open up personally only after I’ve known and gotten comfortable with people, so intentionally blurring the line between my professional and private life is an interesting exercise.

That said, I’m fascinated by people who live their lives almost as if they had an invisible camera crew and were starring in their own reality show. And I think that’s the big draw of services like Twitter. In a society that’s growing more and more obsessed with celebrity worship (Yahoo!News reported the birth of Angelina Jolie’s twins as World News), the idea of having our day-to-day minutiae posted on the Internet and seen by other people has the glamorous appeal of paparazzi getting the intimate details on our favorite celebrity.

Perhaps this is why I haven’t fully embraced online social media. I like being plugged into the Internet and its various communities, but I value my time unplugged just as much. If I were ever a celebrity, I’d spend my days off sipping Cristal and sniping paparazzi with tranq darts from the third-floor balcony of my $20 million mansion, making headlines with my improving marksmanship.

Untapped potential

Despite my personal hesitation, Twitter (and other social media services like it) present a huge untapped resource for marketers, social scientists, cultural anthropologists, and the like. It’s a direct look at what people are doing. What they’re saying, what they’re thinking, what they care about, where they’re going, and what they’re buying. Companies spend millions to get this information with traditional methods, using it to build demographic profiles and to target their advertising and marketing strategies. But surveys and focus groups can be a pain to implement, not to mention that people act differently when they know what they are expected to say.

The internet has changed the dynamic of how to do business, and forward-thinking companies have redefined the customer relationship by setting up online communities. From a professional standpoint as a brand consultant, I absolutely endorse Twitter and social media in general in order to spark conversations with potential customers, as it allows another facet of interaction (for free, to boot). Marketers talk about brand conversation. The original definition wasn’t always literal, but like so many things that the Internet has revolutionized, you can now take it literally.

Let’s have a conversation

Are you a fan of social media? What do you think about the fading line between public and private? If you’re someone who lives and breathes via an online social connection, do you hold anything back? I’m really curious as to where one would draw the line.

If you’re wondering what I’m up to, follow me on Twitter. I promise I won’t shoot you.