Web & Graphic Design by Mark McCorkell, Derry, Northern Ireland

Web Designers who can’t code anything? Hmmm.

markmccorkell — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:28:00 +0000

Over the past few weeks there have been riots in blogland, which all kicked off from this tweet by Elliot Jay Stocks.

Elliot said:

Honestly, I’m shocked that in 2010 I’m still coming across ‘web designers’ who can’t code their own designs. No excuse.

To further clarify and explain what he had meant by the tweet, Elliot published a blog article to fully explain his views. Blog riots followed, and countless designers and developers published their own blog articles both attacking, and supporting what Elliot said.

One of the reasons I like having a blog is because it lets me share my opinion on topics that affect me. That’s why I’m writing this.

Elliot did retract what he said (to an extent), and said something like “okay, designers do not have to be able to code, but they need to be aware of it”. I think he may have got lynched if he didn’t come out with some sort of statement like that, in all honesty. There are some hardcore Designers out there, you know.

Mark Boulton said in his response article he that generally he felt Designers didn’t need to know how to code, but needed to at least be aware of what it does. Fair point.

But, there is one major issue that stood out for me that was not really touched on. How employable are Web Designers that cannot build a basic website?

I am a Designer that designs for Web and Print (Web & Graphic Designer), and have learned to code XHTML & CSS quite well. Being able to code the interface you design is empowering, and will give you a great deal of satisfaction from your work.

There are brilliant User Interface Designers out there that probably cannot code a single line of CSS, and still deliver awesome work, which then is built by a Developer. And I understand that, and salute them for being brilliant at what they do.

However, my point is this - if you are a young Web Designer starting out, and you cannot code any of your own designs into a basic working website, then you will really limit your options for employment.

It is easy for Designers at the top end of the industry to say that Web Designers don’t need to know how to code, when they do know how to code. I wouldn’t say that to any young Web Designer that’s just starting out. With a bit of time, and effort, it is possible to learn XHTML and CSS to at least a basic/intermediate level, and doing that will make life easier when going to job interviews.

In harsh economic times employers are wanting more bang for their buck, and are expecting candidates to be able to do more stuff. I’m not saying it’s fair, because it isn’t, but that is the how it is – especially in Northern Ireland where I’m from.

I’m saying that every Web Designer should learn how to code their designs, then at least have the option to choose not to on down the line, and take a step back, and let the Developers do their thing. Having a more in depth understanding of how a website is built will make the designer much better at what they do, and open up more doors for employment.

Do you agree with me?

Evernote: Design Inspiration Scrapbook… accessible anywhere

markmccorkell — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:11:42 +0000

At long last, I have finally started making good use of my Evernote account. For those of you unaware of it, Evernote is a service that helps you remember everything. Users can upload audio clips, text notes, photos and other graphic files for storage and easy safe keeping. Initially, I started to engage with Evernote using it as a tool to help me remember stuff, but once I started to use Things app, there was no longer a need for Evernote because Things is the best for that.

However, lately I have started to really engage with Evernote as a Design Inspiration scrapbook. Many other designers also use Evernote this way, because it is actually the best way to use it. If I were a design student again, I would most definitely use Evernote as a project scrapbook to catalog my research. Some designers currently use Evernote to show clients ideas they are brainstorming, and collective research for an ongoing project.

One of the things I really like about Evernote is that you can download any of the images from your scrapbook in the original quality you uploaded them, so it’s like having a virtual folder of beautiful graphics you like. And if you set your scrapbook to be public then you can share it with anyone on the web, which is exactly what I do because I like people being able to see where some of my inspirations come from.

I remember when I was at University I would buy black Daler Rowney scrapbooks and have to sit and cut out my research clippings and glue them into the big black scrapbook, and it really became such a chore after a while (I didn’t revel in it anyway, but some did). Evernote is the easy new digital solution for keeping a scrapbook of things you like, and I use it for things that inspire my designs.

It couldn’t be easier to add to Evernote

Adding new visual goodies to Evernote is easy. There is a web clipper plugin available for both Firefox and Safari, which enables easy clipping of graphics straight into evernote. All you have to do is right click, or CTRL + click (mac) and Add to Evernote, and that’s it. Name it, Tag it, and send it over.

Evernote’s handy desktop app for mac

Once you get the hang of using Evernote you will start to add, tag, and upload more and more graphics, so the desktop app is the best way to manage your media. You can create multiple scrapbooks, and easily move graphics about from one scrapbook to the next by just dragging and dropping.

And in the palm of your hand, Evernote for iPhone

Evernote for iPhone is a very handy little app for viewing your scrapbooks in the palm of your hand. The app does enable users to record audio messages, and take photos to upload straight to Evernote, but I don’t use it for that. I only really use the iPhone app for easy access to all those beautiful pieces of artwork I have stored online. If I want to show something to someone I’m with, then I just open my Evernote app, view my notes, tap on the note, and there you go… full access to a design scrapbook on the go, anywhere.

Designer Vs Client Typographic Poster Designs

markmccorkell — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:48:02 +0000

Following on from my previous article, these typographic posters were inspired by the Designer-Client relationship. These posters are motivational based (well, except the first one), as opposed to my previous designs that had undertones of sarcasm.

I think that every Designer has some responsibility to educate clients. If you have spent years learning a profession, then be assertive, and if you are asked to do something that you know is wrong… then take the time to teach the client about the right way. If they don’t go for it (which often happens)… then at least you still done your job right.

Enjoy the posters, and as always… feedback welcome!

Web Inspired Typographic Poster Designs

markmccorkell — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:45:49 +0000

When an artist has something to say… they paint, and similarly, when a writer has something to say… they write. So I figured I’d design some funky typographic posters based around current inspirations and hot topics on the web that are relevant to me and what I’m doing at the moment. These designs were inspired Sam Brown’s blog articles.

I am a Designer… Not a Construction Worker

markmccorkell — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 19:33:20 +0000

This week I read an excellent blog article by Sam Brown, and it really hit the nail on the head of exactly how I approach website projects. It was so good I had to blog about this. In a nutshell, the article is about how it is important to educate clients, and not simply be let yourself become their construction worker.

“Clients hire you to design the site, they have hired you hopefully based on a combination of talent and experience. You are the designer, you are not a simple construction worker piecing something together from the clients Ikea-like instruction manual – some clients need to be told this up front and be constantly reminded of it. Potential clients that already know exactly what they want and simply need a lackey to build it for them are always going to be hard work and ones I tend to avoid at all costs.” Sam Brown

My views are a lot like Sam’s, I believe any good designer will not take the easy route with any project, and will always take on the challenge of educating clients about what can be achieved with their site, and not just doing what they first ask.

“Teaching clients that the site will not look the same in every browser should be a day one task. We aren’t working in the print industry where the final product can not be altered and it’s not a DVD or Blu-Ray disc that has just gone to press – it’s a living breathing website that will continue to progress, be altered and evolve.” Sam Brown

» Read More on Sam’s Blog

New Year… New Logo

markmccorkell — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:51:58 +0000

With the arrival of the new year, I thought it was time to give my blog a fresh look, and more importantly… a fresh logo. My new logo was the final result of about a week of work. I know… I probably should have spent the remainder of my Christmas holidays eating left over Turkey, and chocolate, but I wanted to do something productive with my time.

I was never totally happy with my last logo, because “Mark McCorkell Design” was in many ways a bit ambiguous! What type of design did I do? It was probably clear enough that I was a designer, but the logo didn’t say much about what type of designer I was. This new logo – I can say with absolute certainty that I am happy with it, and it does say on a few different levels, exactly what I want it to say, visually and typographically.

Once the new logo was established, I decided to re-work my blog header and take things back a lot more minimal, which is what I had initially intended for this blog. The phrase “less is more” was always something on the tip of my tongue, so I thought I’d drop that in there to bring some character to the negative white space on the top right.

I used 3 beautiful fonts for my logo. The “mark” bit uses BaronLightDB, the “mccorkell” part of my name uses Aeroportal, and the title line below uses Quicksand. When I was working on the logotype I discovered elements of each of the fonts that I liked, so the best solution was to combine them together, which turned out to be exactly what I wanted. Never be scared to mix it up – if you like different elements of different fonts then try them out together… experimentation is key to lot of great designs.

I welcome all feedback on the logo, so don’t be shy… if you read this drop me a comment below!

Illustration by Kotryna Zukauskaite

markmccorkell — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:15:23 +0000

Last week I was fortunate enough to stumble upon Kotryna Zukauskaite, a Lithuanian born student of Illustration and Animation at Kingston University, London. Kotryna emailed me directly expressing a sincere appreciation of my blog, and asked if I would be interested in sharing some of her work on my blog.

After taking a look at Kotryna’s portfolio, I was both flattered, and delighted to inform her that I would have no hesitation whatsoever in sharing some of her wonderful work on my site. I think there is a real creative originality with Kotryna’s work and pretty different to a lot of work I have seen from other current Illustrators, which I think has a lot to do with Kotryna being from a more Eastern European influenced background.

“I would describe my style or at least direction to the side of non-character based illustration based on basic shapes, bright colours, abstraction, a little bit of 3d stuff in some cases.” Kotryna Zukauskaite

Kotryna’s influences include, Johnny Kelly, Sean Pecknold and Russian Futurists. I have previously posted about Johnny Kelly’s work, and there are clear parallels between Kotryna’s work and Johnny Kelly’s work, but I can safely say I prefer Kotryna’s – her work has a much more off the wall vibe to it.

“I am particularly interested in fashion illustration, statistics/data illustration and any genre that could be designed using basic-shapes based collage/montage style. But having said that, I am trying to go forward and not to stick to that kind of direction only.” Kotryna Zukauskaite

With so many pieces of beautiful artwork to choose from in Kotryna’s online portfolio, I just picked out some of my favourites to share with you all – check them out below, and if you would like to see more of Kotryna’s work, visit her website here.

And a few more

The Wonderful Apps On My iPhone 3GS

markmccorkell — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:08:08 +0000

Approximately two weeks ago I was graced with a brand spanking new iPhone 3GS, and since I first turned it on I have been enjoying playing with my new toy like a kid on Christmas morning. When you long for something and you finally get it, the chances are it will never be as good as you expected it to be. This time was different.

For the first time ever, I have got something that exceeded my expectations in every way. The iPhone 3GS is a quality bit of gadgetry and it would be almost rude not to pay some form of tribute to it on my blog.

On the header graphic above those are my actual screens on my iPhone 3GS, and all of the apps I currently have on it. As you can see, I’ve been busy and bought quite a few already! But like everything, I do have my favorites, and below I have listed my top 5 apps, and why I like them most (in no particular order).

Things
If you have ever been in my house in the room where I work, you’ll see an abundance of post-it notes on my desk to the left of my iMac. Things is sort of like a digital version of a to do list, but a lot better. It is a well known app within the iPhone app world and highly regarded as an excellent productivity app. I use Things on my iMac here too, so when I add something to do here, it automatically syncs with my iPhone, keeping my to do list up to date. Part of the joy of it is it’s simplicity and quality of design.

Facebook
I’ll admit it… I am a Facebook addict, which is okay because I am at least aware of it. I love going on Facebook and seeing what everyone is doing at the weekend, you know the score. The Facebook app is excellent, and comes in very handy for Facebook on the go. Simple as that.

TweetDeck
When I’m not on Facebook, I’m usually tweeting via TweetDeck. TweetDeck is a platform for updating Twitter, and enables easy updating of multiple Twitter accounts all at once, and now even Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. Having TweetDeck on my iPhone is really handy for keeping up to date with what’s going, similarly to Facebook, and another way for me to share on Twitter from anywhere.

Evernote
In some ways this is similar to Things app, but in many ways very different too. Similarly to Things, you can make a note of something to remember, but it is not exclusively what Evernote is for. Using Evernote, I can leave myself a note to remember something via voice memo, taking a photograph, or text message. However, a lot of people are starting to use Evernote as more of a digital scrapbook of things they like. I have started to use it this way too and any time I see something I like I take a photo of it and upload to my Evernote scrapbook.

Google
Sounds exciting… doesn’t it? Well, pardon my sarcasm, but this one is actually very cool. Using the GPS technology in the iPhone 3GS this Google app can return search results that are relative to your location at the time of the search. And another really handy feature is the voice activated search! So, lets say I wanted “Pizza”, and I called out Pizza, then the app will go and find me pizza places near by where I can order some pizza. There’s nothing more frustrating than searching and getting irrelevant results back, so this app has came in very handy so far.

Evernote: Design Inspiration Scrapbook… accessible anywhere

Good Tweets from Good Tweeps

markmccorkell — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:48:39 +0000

As a self-confessed web-geek and twit-a-holic I thought I’d do a type of homage to twitter type blog, kind of like a #FollowFriday, but a more expanded version.

Different people interact with Twitter differently. Personally, I use TweetDeck and have it open running in the background so I get a constant feed of fresh tweets throughout the day. This can be a huge distraction though, so I am a lot more selective in who I follow compared to some people that have a more ‘trigger-happy’ approach and are constantly clicking to ‘follow’ new people.

Out of the people I follow on Twitter I thought I’d select 5 of my favourites and explain why I follow them.

Lee Munroe @leemunroe
Like most the people I follow I have never met Lee, but Lee’s Web Design portfolio is exceptionally good, and Lee usually tweets some good, useful web stuff worth checking out. As a Web Designer, Lee has evidently got a beautiful balance between creativity and technical proficiency, which makes an exciting designer, and one to keep an eye on!

Leeanne Lowe @leelowe
Leeanne Lowe is another Web Designer I follow, and Leeanne seems to have an interest in some of the same things as me, being another self-confessed TV junkie! It’s good to follow people that are into things you like because you can share and exchange tweets that interest each other, and not just the usual pretentious fodder some people churn out.

David Airey @davidairey
David Airey is a recent addition to my follow list. David is Graphic Designer and has a stunning portfolio of work under his belt, and a really nice website with lots of good content. I’ve found that David tweets some good quality material, and I’ve enjoyed quite a few of his tweets so far. I love the type of work he produces, and from what I’ve seen he is another minimal design lover, like me!

Jon Hicks @hicksdesign
Jon Hicks is a name most designers are familiar with, and is most well known for designing the infamous Firefox logo. Jon is currently working exclusively for Opera as a UI Designer. Jon is always on the pulse of what’s happening in the web community, which makes good reading, and I have discovered quite a few handy little Mac apps from following Jon’s tweets.

Chuck Anderson @nopattern
Chuck Anderson/NoPattern is probably the individual I have blogged about most! Chuck has produced some awesome work for massive clients, most recent of which is Microsoft, and Chuck designed the new artwork for Windows 7. Chuck is a cool guy, and an exciting person to follow and through Chuck I’ve discovered some superb artists like Shadow Chen.

Beautiful Art & Illustration by Shadow Chen

markmccorkell — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:08:18 +0000

Being a following of artist Chuck Anderson on Twitter @nopattern has a few benefits, one of which is the chance to discover new artists and illustrators that Chuck often tweets about. Recently Chuck tweeted about Shadow Chen, a very talented Chinese-born artist and illustrator that he may be collaborating with soon.

Upon arrival on Shadow Chen’s website you’ll find yourself engaging with a beautiful animated website, and when you experiment and explore further you’ll discover the residing stunning artwork by Shadow Chen. Impressed and inspired I then took a digital dander over to check out more of Shadow Chen’s work on Flickr, which didn’t disappoint. Below are some of my favourites – and if you like any of this work then check out Shadow Chen’s website, and additional artwork on Flickr.