After seeing a tweet from Antonio Lupetti, @Woork, asking everyone what they used to do before the web  was born, it made me think back to the early days of the web and how far it has progressed in very little time. From the sounds and tones of AOL’s dial up connection, awful-table-tacky-depthless website designs, to the time it took you to load up a webpage and make a sandwich and brew a cuppa tea; we have progressed beyond imagination. Amazing to think what another 10 years will bring us, huh?

It also made  me think back to the early days of surfing websites and what site I used to browse the most. Mine was definitely good-tutorials.com. Learned all my Photoshop tricks and secrets from it, back when I started out with Photoshop 7. Look at us now, eight versions later (CS5 was just announced and will be releasing shortly).

I also asked my Twitter friends if they remember some of the websites they used to visit most often when they first discovered the web. Here’s what they had to say:

• @kapriforce – WBS Chat
• @sarahfrance – ‘Manystuff‘ design blog
• @designinformer – LOL! Early 2000’s, it was a social networking site called Asian Avenue.
• @lynseydesign – yahoo.com, it was the home page in our middle school computer lab.
• @idesignstudios – I was always on http://webmonkey.com/ – lots of self-teaching going on in the early days!

Feel free to share some of your finest memories in the comments. Don’t worry, we don’t judge age here!

“If no one’s upset by what you’re saying, you’re probably not pushing hard enough.”

– Rework by Justin Fried of 37signals

FULL QUOTE: Strong opinions aren’t free. You’ll turn some people off. They’ll accuse you of being arrogant and aloof. That’s life. For everyone that loves you, there will be others who hate you. If no one’s upset by what you’re saying, you’re probably not pushing hard enough. (And you’re probably boring, too.)

Ok, so I did it. I jumped the bandwagon, drank the Kool-Aid and bought an iPad. First thoughts you ask? Extraordinary!

First off, I, as well as all of you I’m sure, continue reading mixed reviews about the iPad. One negative review that keeps showing up in particular is the statement that “it cannot replace a laptop.” What bothers me about this statement is that it does not go into how people use their laptops or any computer for that matter. Most of those writing reviews are people who live and breath technology; people (Trust me, I can spot one when I see them; I’m one of them) who work constantly and obsessively on them—at home and at work—for professional reasons. Now let’s consider the opposite.

Out of my group of 10 close friends—all within the age range of 24–30 years old— I’m the only one that works, plays and lives off my computers. Most of my friends come home from work (some use computers at work, others do not) and they use their laptop to check Facebook, send out a few Tweets, download and listen to music, read online magazines and publications, online shop… They strictly use their home computers for leisurely purposes; or as I’ll label them, media consumptionists. In short, the technologically-hungry writers reviewing the iPad are misleading those who only use their computers for consuming information and media, not work related tasks.

The iPad hands down redefines they way I consume media. I can no longer imagine reading my RSS feeds on my 27″ iMac, or 15″ Macbook Pro screen. It feels much more intimate reading while holding a device in my hands. I watched the iPhone 4.0 keynote the other day on my iPad; it was enjoyable laying on the couch after a long day and watching the hour long keynote. Waking up in the morning while eating cereal and scrolling through Tweets from when I was asleep is now an incredible way to jump start my day. For some reason I’ve even been finding that scrolling through inspirational resources (for those un-familar with me I’m a graphic designer) such as Dribbble, ffffound, and FlickrDesign is much more pleasing to interact with on the iPad; sort of like flipping through pages in a book of inspiration.

Surfing the web

Honestly, surfing the web on the iPad feels so natural as if this was the original way was meant to be consumed when the World Wide Web was born. Again, it comes down to making browsing more personal and engaging. You have to use one for a day to understand what I am fully expressing, and I’m certain that those that have know exactly what I’m talking about. Websites (most of them anyway) just fit and look so nicely on the 9.7-inch screen—and damn scrolling and zooming is fast— much more so than scrolling and zooming on the iPhone.

The Apps

The interfaces of many apps that are out right now for the iPad, make you never want to view the standard website. YouTube looks amazing. The Maps app is just wow! Instapaper makes for a great, easy on the eye read of saved web content. The reason that these look so great, opposed to their native web-based forms, is that they were designed to fit specifically on one screen and one device so they are customized to look and work exactly the same, all day, everyday. When viewing the native website, depending on what computer, browser, screen size, etc. everything will look different. On the iPad, not the case. The apps just look beautiful (with exception to a few I’d assume)! The Apps are what makes and will continue to make the iPad a major success.

Even Auntie will love it

Warning: The next few paragraphs are one-hundred percent true. My Aunt never owned a computer is the 60+ years of her life. There were two main reasons for this: Reason one being that they were too difficult to use, and reason two being that for the cost of one she didn’t use/need a computer all that often. However, for the past 2 years has had more of a need for a computer.Although again, the two reasons continued to hold her back from a purchase. I recently showed her and talked to her about the iPad and two days later she called me up to say she just purchased her very first computer.

Let’s face it, the touch screen interface is much easier to use and interact with than a computer. There’s no right click, double click, single click, etc. The touch screen on Apple’s devices is flat-out intuitive. I’ve always considered it to be used the way you use and interact with elements in real life. If you want to see more of a page you just push it on up. If you want to visit a link you just point to it. Also, at the moment, it doesn’t support multi-tasking. For the non-technical savvy, this is perfect. Having been a software trainer at Apple for 3+ years I know first hand that people have enough confusion with one task let alone two or more at a given time. Granted, I am pumped for the multi-tasking that will be available in the 4.0 update due out in the Fall, but again, I am a technological-whore so multi-tasking is for me and my people.

The other reason my Aunt purchased her first computer as an iPad was because of the reachable price point. Wait… before you say or think it: I know she could get a full PC for around the same price and do media consumption as well as work, but who the hell wants a PC? I’ll just leave it at that. For $499, most people can do all their leisurely tasks on it and be completely happy. My mother is now considering an iPad and selling her 9-month old Macbook, as all she does is online shop, read/write emails and check Facebook (I know, I know… everyone is on Facebook these days). Her Macbook acts as a desktop, since she does not enjoy sitting with a heavy(er) laptop on the couch, since it sits on her desk as she “consumes” her media. The iPad would also be perfect for her — just your average computer user.

So can the iPad replace a laptop? You better believe it! It’s all on how you use it and what you do with it. Let’s get passed the reviewers who are married to their workhorses at the job and home and really truly appreciate the beauty and simplicity of this thing. Holding and using one feels like the future.

“To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful.”

— Edward R. Murrow

I found this quote by Edward Murrow while reading my RSS feeds via Swiss Miss‘ blog. Recently I gave a lecture at a local college to a few graduating classes on the topic of running an independent design business. One of the topics I discussed was the importance of being able to sell and talk about your work as a designer. How being good sells yourself to other designers and being persuasive sells your work to clients; I found this quote to be quite fitting and true.

In a recent effort to step outside the online realm of web design inspiration I decide to head over to the local bookstore this past weekend and soak in the beauty of book cover design.

My iPhone came in handy—see images below—to capture many beautiful covers with brilliant typography, color palettes, layout, texture, and style. Often when designing we, including myself, start by looking at a variety of online web galleries, and while there is nothing necessarily wrong with that, it could lead to a stale, similar (in comparison to others) looking portfolio over time. Our brains remember elements and it becomes natural for us to design something “unique” while making it look similar to what you have already seen on the web even if we are not directly inspiring from a particular site.

Sometimes all it takes to get inspired is looking at a beautiful typeface used throughout a book or a unique color palette used on the cover. I included some photographs I took on my journey for inspiration below.

For more inspiration check out the awesome online book cover design archive for more inspiration.

A few months ago I applied for a few upcoming part-time teaching positions (which I’m excited to let you know that I’ll be teaching digital portfolio class at a local college). Prior to applying, I thought my resume might be in need of a few touch-ups and additions before getting in touch with a few schools.

With a large portion of my work coming from clients I never meet face-to-face, supporters and blog readers from all over the online world, and work consisting of mostly online media, I thought it might be fun to incorporate some online interaction into my resume; invite the resume readers into my “online home” if you will.

The words “branding” and “personal branding” have been catching all the buzz in the past year or so because of services like Twitter and Facebook make it easy to monitor your brand through real interactions and word of mouth. Your customers, followers, supporters, etcetera are able to share their thoughts and feelings with you about your brand very easily. On the receiving end you are able to make adjustments if and where needed based on the feedback received.

twitter testimonials

Getting to the point: While I do tend to get both negative and positive feedback, I started favoriting (“starring”) the positive feedback I receive on Twitter and then linked it to my interactive or static PDF resume. I consider them my online testimonials! It’s also important to point out that I also jot down the negative, so I can improve later on.

A few of the resume recipients really enjoyed the idea, as it served as a pleasant creative twist on the standard testimonial and recommendations.

Last week I had emailed a client two final PDF full-color logo mockups that were created in Adobe Illustrator. I received an email yesterday stating that they “didn’t like the color of brown I used.” Slightly confused, since there was only shades of blue and black used in the logo, I investigated further.

Typically when viewing PDFs on my Mac I use Apple Preview (it loads much faster and render much cleaner than Adobe Acrobat). However, my client was using Adobe Acrobat, which was causing weird discoloring of certain elements of the logo—even though some of the same parts were the exact same colors as other parts that were appearing fine even on my Acrobat. My initial thoughts was that it was possibly their settings or something similar in Acrobat).

Still confused, I sent out a tweet asking if anyone had similar experiences. Many of the responses resulted in what I thought and tried, but a tweet by Edward Qwertsih (@ludoedoed) told me to try the following (to which solved the problem):

• File » Save As…
• Type <PDF> — Click Save
• In pop up: Choose Output on the left side
• Set the Profile Inclusion Policy to ‘Include All Profiles’
• Click Save PDF

Problem solved.  To everyone that offered help: Thank you! All of your help and feedback is always greatly appreciated.

The wait is now over…. Google Chrome extensions are now live on the Mac compatible version of Chrome [download link]. I can now make Chrome my official dedicated web surfing browser!

While I’ve been using Chrome for a few months now and blown away by the speed and simplicity the one thing that was holding me back was that I couldn’t install Xmarks to sync my obsessively organized bookmark collection across my other used browsers. I was using Xmarks to sync Firefox and Safari (also sync to my iPhone via MobileMe), but until today couldn’t keep my Chrome up-to-date — and that bothered the hell out of me.

Now that Chrome is extension-ready on the Mac, I’d thought it would be interesting to hear others top 5 Chrome extensions. Feel free to share in the comments below. Anyways, here are my top 5:

1. Xmarks (surprised?) – sync your bookmarks across multiple computers and browsers. And as you read from the above, I couldn’t work/surf without this one.
2. Bit.ly Shorten Url – Shorten any URL also send a Tweet or Facebook status update from it. I like how it adds the icon to the address bar for a quick click to shrink.
3. Add to Amazon wish list – I’m always adding “things I want” to my Amazon wish list, so this makes for easy updating.
4. ChromeMilk – great way to display and update my Remember the Milk tasks. I’m a huge fan of RTM, and if you are unfamiliar read my reasons why I like it.
5. Lorem Ipsum Generator – quick way to access dummy text to use for website filler while designing.

It’s Wednesday night and I’m bored—and what better to do when you’re bored than play a game. Lately, I’ve been seeing many designers playing the ABC URL game on their blogs.

The rules are simple: Launch your favorite, most frequently used browser for surfing the web. Start by typing, one letter at a time, the entire alphabet into the search bar to see what pops up first. Record the results.

I’ve discovered new and interesting links and resources from seeing what other designers results were. Below you will find mine.

• A - Revised Font Stack
• B – Best Web Gallery
• C - CSS-Tricks
• D - Dribbble
• E - Elliot Jay Stocks
• F - Facebook *hanging head in shame*
• G - Google Reader
• H - BrianHoff.net
• I - I Love Typography: Sex, lies, & type
• J - Jason Santa Maria
• K - The Kid Whisperer Blog (blog I designed for a client a few months back)
• L - Ligature, Loop & Stem
• M - MFR Currency Management (client website)
• N - ffffound
• O - Owltastic
• P - Pattern Tap
• Q - Amazon.com
• R – Remember the milk
• S - Smashing Magazine
• T - Twitter.com
• U - Unmatched Style
• V - My Ember (my third result, however I wanted to list a new result)
• W - We Love Typography
• X – My Amazon bookstore (again, this was a third, yet new result)
• Y - Flickr Inspiration Stream
• Z - Zazzle (I don’t even remember visiting this one)

Feel free to submit yours in the comments below or share a link to your URL ABCs from your blog.

I’ve recently come across the Philadelphia Design Directory — a website to list your design firm and independent graphic design business if you work out of the Philadelphia area.

To get listed email listme@phillydesigndirectory.com with your company name, or full name (if you go by your own name for your business), website address, and street or mailing address.

The website is also a great resource for local Philly designers as to find upcoming events, resources and other news and happenings on their blog.

philadelphia twestival

On Thursday, March 25, 2010 — the day after my birthday so come bearing gifts — Philadelphia will once again participate along with hundreds of cities around the world in Twestival Global to benefit the charity Concern Worldwide.

If you are unfamiliar with Twestivals, they are great ways to network with other locals in and outside of your field of focus. It’s more than just networking and meeting up…

Starting at a bar in Olde City, participants will put themselves into teams and get clues for an Olde City scavenger hunt combined with pub crawl. Over the course of the evening, participants will compete against each other to earn points by taking pictures and answering clues via Twitter while traveling to several bars in Olde City. Ticket sales to participate in the event and donations via sale of raffle tickets will go to Concern Worldwide.

For more information visit the official Philadelphia Twestival website (their logo needs some work though).

Come out and join the fun. Hopefully I get to meet and chat with some of you.