8/16/2014

Where do you keep your Pencil?

A great design starts with a single simple item, A Pencil.  From the artist who takes the time to sketch that perfect image to their eyes, to the person creating a navigational map, to an  architect designing the next great skyscraper there is one thing in common, in their hand is a simple pencil.

That concept holds true for Web Design as well. A Web page, at its base level is really just the digital answer to a pencil applied to the canvas of the imagination.

Images are placed with text wrapping their way around them, creating a welcoming gateway for the use. From that gateway a path is mapped  that takes the the user through rooms of information.

Each page, its own digital room, guides yours guest through a collection of information that You believe showcases the value of what You represent. Along the way your guest is given the options to embrace knowledge, see the benefits of your vision and be embraced into Your vision of a better future.

Yet with all the code written, all the time spent in software like Photoshop, the testing to see how things look on any possible screen one can imagine, a Website is still at it`s core a piece of art.

Art that tells a story, Art that informs and envisions, but at its core, no matter the lines of code and pixels of graphics, still Art.

A passionate Web Designer understand this, they are tasked to take the vision presented to them and create something that speaks to those who see it

Web Designers are, at our hearts, Artists and before We even sit down to write that first <html> protocol in Our software, many of us go back to the most basic of tools.... The Pencil.

So when selecting a Web Designer for your project, maybe the first question one should ask is

"Where do you keep your pencils?"

8/09/2014

oh Here, Let Me Google That For You

"Let Me Google That for you" or lmgtfy.com. to some it may be considered the A-Hole move of the year, pulled by a condescending Technological "fanboy" , and depending on when it is used it very well may be.

But lets look at it another way, shall we. lmgtfy can actually be looked at with the same viewpoint as

";Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime"

Google (or Bing, Yahoo, Duckduckgo and countless others) is the online version of someone fishing for something, that something is information.

Many times I have friends post to their Facebook timelines questions like "Does anyone know anything about [insert the topic here] ?" while being specific to tag Me in their post, hoping I know the answer.  Honestly though, there are many times where I actually do not know the answer and as such go to the process of highlighting their enquiry, right clicking and selecting

"Search Google for `content highlighted here` "

then return the link to the top response to the person as it usually have the information they are looking for (Truth is usually if your answer is not on the first page of results it is not correct anyway)

Now do not get me wrong, I am not saying that there are times when I would flat out refuse to help someone who can not find the answer they need, but with a website like lmgtfy I hopefully can show the user that in the time they took to post up the enquiry, waiting for someone to give them the answer, they actually could have done the following

point your browser to google (Most modern browsers actually let you just search from the address bar anyway)
Enter in the search query you are interested in
research the results

Besides there is always that bit of pride one can have when they can say "Yup, I did all the research Myself and got exactly what I was looking for"

What is your opinion on this topic? Leave your comments below