Alex Jones: Web Technologist, Barbecue Acolyte, Information Junkie, Austinite

Top Ten Things They Never Taught Me in Design School

Well, as someone who hasn’t been to design school, I can’t say whether or not I would have learned the lessons Michael McDonough provides in his article entitled Top Ten Things They Never Taught Me in Design School, but he provides valuable insight into the real-world aspects of corporate design and production. Some are pretty obvious to anyone who has spent time in a Marketing department, but I think the importance of the article is taking all of the points together and viewing them in relation to the daily tasks and practices encountered by every designer.

Here are the Ten things he lists, but I highly encourage you to read the article for the explanation of each point.

1. Talent is one-third of the success equation.
2. 95 percent of any creative profession is shit work.
3. If everything is equally important, then nothing is very important.
4. Don’t over-think a problem.
5. Start with what you know; then remove the unknowns.
6. Don’t forget your goal.
7. When you throw your weight around, you usually fall off balance.
8. The road to hell is paved with good intentions; or, no good deed goes unpunished.
9. It all comes down to output.
10. The rest of the world counts.

From The Architect’s Newspaper, via Design Observer.

Posted in Design & UI

It takes so little time

How quickly the emptiness returns when she leaves.

But I will visit her in two weeks, and move back home in seven.

Posted in General

I have never met a man so ignorant…

“I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.”
Galileo Galilei

Posted in Quotes & Toasts

A Geek’s Proposal

Wired has a great story about one geek’s marriage proposal entitled With This Rig, I Do Thee Wed. I think it provides a really good perspective to those people who may not realize that geeks are not only creative, but do indeed have a romantic side. Check out the photos in the sidebar to see how much effort was put into the setup.

Congrats Mike and Rachel!

Posted in General

One of those days

Like yesterday, today has turned out to be one of those days where nothing goes right.

Man, I really want to just break something.

Posted in General

Damn Few

Here’s to us, what’s like us?
Damn few, and they’re all dead!
Unknown
Told to me by Steve Hill a damn fine friend, and a damn fine Scot!

Posted in Quotes & Toasts

Carnivores Rejoice

Sometimes the brilliance of science surpasses the imagination. I mean, who would have thought of making a tortilla out of meat?

Utter brilliance!!

While I don’t subscribe to the various low carb diets, I must give my thanks for inspiring the folks at the University of Florida to create the Flaquita.

While there are a wealth of choices in flour tortilla flavors including guacamole, wheat and my personal favorite, cayenne, chicken tortillas could give birth to a beautiful variety of new flavors and dishes.

Soon we can have fajita tacos wrapped in chicken tortillas. Mmmm…

Posted in Food & Drink

IE7

For those of us in the Web design/development profession, one of the biggest problems we have faced in the last couple of years has been Internet Explorer’s spotty support of CSS. At the moment, the latest releases of Mozilla, Opera and Safari have good support for these advanced features, but IE 6 (the dominating browser on the planet) doesn’t support everything it should. This isn’t much of a surprise when you factor in the fact that IE hasn’t seen a major release in two or three years now. As Microsoft has stated that there will not be a revision of the browser until their next operating system is released (2005 at the soonest), we have had to stick to the safe methods, working around the non-standards compliant rendering of IE 6.

But some dream to rise above these shackles. Dean Edwards, is one of them. He has been working on a solution to the problem, and appears to be making a lot of progress with his new project: IE7. The stated aim is “to make Microsoft Internet Explorer more compliant when it comes to web standards”, which will developers and designers the ability to used CSS Levels 2 and 3 selectors and attributes.

Anyway, if you are a Web geek, give IE7 a look. I will be investigating it once I am done with my current project at work.

Posted in CSS, Web Development

Hey! Wipe the drool off that hood!

Mmmmm… Chevy SSR

Picture taken from Chevy’s site

Posted in General

Disruptive Incrementalism

Michael Schrage has posted a great article titled Disruptive Incrementalism on MIT Technology Review. Providing a few key examples, Schrage demonstrates the impact that a purely cosmetic change can have on the sales and general popularity of a product. It’s a quick read, and well worth your time if you are interested in design and or marketing.

Posted in Design & UI