Thanks!

Also worth reading

• Design Inspirations for September 19th
• Design Inspirations for September 15th
• Design Inspirations for September 15th

• CSS Leak looks to be adding a trend-based gallery to their site - good luck! I think it’s the best way to organize a design gallery. How many times have you hear “I want something… shiny! with kittens!” ?
• ALA always intimidates me, but I’m forever in their debt for teaching me to use lists properly. But still I’m not sure adding jquery to my menus is going to help with any user experience, or my time in completing a project. Another, “hey, it’s cool, we’ll use that when we have time” article.
• Webmaster-source has an interesting article about “background advertising”. I happen to be a big fan - it allows a site (frequently a gaming site) to become part of the game, like those commemorative covers of TV Guide when Star Wars I came out.
• Google came out with Chrome, their entry into the browser market, while I wasn’t looking. OK, I was looking and if it would just stop installing on the wrong drive, I’d be using it now. For the short time I did use it, I loved it. Wow, dragging a tab to make a new page - I’ve been wanting that since I discovered tabbed browsing. (Wait, did Slimbrowser do that? I don’t remember).
• Weblogtools Collection previewed WP 2.7 and I have to admit - another admin change? Really? Why? Those of us that use this for customer’s web site will have to retrain the uninitiated (guess what, they outnumber the rest of us) and answer calls like “where did my menu go”. Really, they will ask that. I love you WP for making, developing and improving what I consider the best CMS/Blog out there, but golly - couldn’t it wait until 3.0?
• Noupe - just go read everything there. I’m not sure why other sites exist when there’s Noupe.

Well, I’ll leave it there for now. I’m still at around 790+ articles to get through. Joy!

Also worth reading

• Design Inspirations for September 19th
• Design Inspirations for September 15th
• Design Inspirations for September 15th

When it comes to writing code, I can learn anything, given enough time and resources, but with web design, the “knack” isn’t there. Unless I’m totally inspired, I’ve got nothing. I’m more mimic than originator. I’ve got the software skills to recreate anything, but the original idea? Well, that takes real vision.

I’m not “design-deaf”. I can recognize the good and bad, I’ve got a “good eye”, as it were. But starting from nothing and coming up with something totally original and new? Well, that’s special.

But then I started looking around, checking out galleries and other designers, looking at the artwork on stock image sites and reading articles about design and you know what I learned?

There’s about forty to fifty completely original designers in the world. They are the trend setters, the mac.com designers, the first to use chunky, pastel text all over their site, the first to put a shiny badge in their header and scream “Web 2.0″ , the first with that scrolling status bar text (you remember them) and the creator of the very first animated “under construction” sign. They were the innovators, the rest of us are all mimics.

But let’s not lose hope! Let’s come together in our noninnovativeness-ness and mimic the hell out of really GOOD design, and leave the bad design to Staples-software buyers.

Confession: The first web site I ever built had a pastel paisly background, used Brush Script font, had animated gifs (books turning pages) as the menu, which was located in a bottom frame, that scrolled. That was 1996.

At least I’ve given up Brush Script.

What The Hell Am I Turning This Site Into?
I really want to thank everyone that’s commented so far. I’ve included your links not as a way to fill this blog, but because I’ve found them all to be valuable resources or interesting articles. But I’m going overboard on the linking and not spending enough time on the writing.

What could I write about? I’m a full-time web developer, but most of the work I do is seat-of-the-pants type stuff. I can’t talk to you about processes or schematics or development time - those things only exist for me in a fantasy world. My typical web contract contains verbiage that’s six years out of date, deadlines that conflict with other deadlines, a client that’s been promised too much by salespeople that don’t understand what they’re selling and an open-ended agreement on “web updates.” I normally have one or two sales people in between me and the client - and only when I get direct contact with the client do I have a semi-clear direction on where we’re going with the site.

Did I mention that somehow our clients take direction on design? That’s always fun.

But working with my clients is really the best part of the job, I like trying to interpret what they’re thinking and showing them examples of sites I’ve done. I love saying “yep, we can do that for you” and even saying “that’s actually not going to be worthwhile for your vision”. With clients, being able to say no correctly is key. Saying yes is easy. If I can be part of the process “pre-contract” perhaps I can help guide the client along to a site that’s functional, visually appealing, easy to update, and a dream to work on. And make the client believe it was all his idea from the start.

So, there’s one thing - I can write about client-developer relationships. I have quite a few, all at different stages. The clients that have a good experience their first go-round, usually give me much more breathing room the second-go-round (most of my clients are people dealing with annual events) and a better site evolves.

Also, I’ve decided to chronicle my progress as I design or redesign various personal projects. I may refer to professional projects, but only in a vague and optimistic way. The first project I’ll be working on is my personal blog, but we’ll get to that later. And while I love this and all of the themes over at BlogOh!Blog, at somepoint, you’ll get to read about my struggles as I give this place an original once-over.

That should be fun.

And I can keep handing out links to places that I think are really special and worth your time. While I don’t like link sites standing in the way of content, I do like making sure I peruse what’s out there every day. And, hopefully, at the end of every month, I’ll be placing all my daily inspirations into my permanent Bookmarks page. The daily posts will still be available, but they’ll have left the front page yonks ago.

Well, there’s my road, paved with good intentions. Here’s hoping we don’t descend into Hell.

Also worth reading

• Design Inspirations for September 19th
• Design Inspirations for September 15th
• Design Inspirations for September 15th

• Google Analytics Help: Questions, Answers, Tips, Ideas, Suggestions | Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik - Great article if you’re still hesitant about Analytics. Why are you so hesitant anyway?
• Learning from Other Designers | Vandelay Website Design - Another great article from Vandelay. Good to know I’m currently doing almost everything that’s recommended - perhaps I’ll finally learn something
• Firefox 3’s Internal Rendering CSS - Ah, the lovely Firefox html.css. Find yours now!
• Work Pattern: Designing Web Sites - Great article about keeping a standard starting point for all your development.
• Opera Developer Community - Everyone’s talking about Opera’s free Web Standard’s Curriculum.
• Fatal Exception | Neil McAllister | InfoWorld | The Web development skills crisis | July 10, 2008 03:00 AM | Neil McAllister - Facinating article on the plethora of tools and libraries out there - where do you even start?
• Skout: resources + for designers + by designers - Just found out about Skout - I know, I’m late to the party again. But WOW what a party! Lots to choose!
• Don’t waste time writing HTML and CSS - Friendly Bit - The headline made me think “Huh” what do you want me to work in? Then I realized it’s about streamlining your development process. Interesting,

Also, extra links since yesterday I decided to start playing Twilight Princess again and didn’t get a chance to post. My apologies, it will not happen again. Post first, Wii second. Enjoy:

• Horizontal layout trends | StylizedWeb.com - Interesting article about horiz. layouts. With the popularity of widescreen monitors among consumers, I think this may be a growing “sleeper” trend. Heck, I may try one.
• Slashdot | W3C’s Role In the Growth of a Proprietary Web - Very good discussion over at Slashdot…wait, did I just say that?
• Choosing a web development framework - Luckily, I can usually choose the framework I use for clients. Usually.
• The Funkiest Ampersands You Have Ever Seen | Blog.SpoonGraphics - Because my boss needed a “different” ampersand, I went looking and found this article.
• Print-Friendly Images and Logos with CSS - Interesting article on print-ready images for your print stylesheet. Though, as the author states, it’s a bandwidth issue, so I’d only use it for pages you’re certain your users will print.
• Cheat Sheets for Front-end Web Developers | Six Revisions - Nothing like a cheat sheet for those last minute brain lapses.
• Random CSS Thought: Margin-collape CSS property | KilianValkhof.com - I’ve known about border collapse, but not margin collapse. Here’s a nice article on the subject.