Fun Design Blog

Here's a great site when your looking for some inspirations: "Design.org" It has all sorts of design, from graphic design, to web design, to interior design. You can view blog posts about various design projects, or you can go to the inspiration tab and see lots of works in different catagories: typography, architecture, etc.  It has some really innovative and interesting pieces. Here are a few that caught my eye:

Stories from Bad Clients

A friend showed me this great site, "Clients from Hell." It shares experiences designers have had with bad clients. They're hilarious! For all you fellow designers out there, you can probably relate. Here are a few of my favorite stories from the site:


"Client: I want this to have minimal quality.
Me: Do you mean minimalist?
Client: I’ll tell you what I mean."

Client: My logo looks a bit green on my home computer…
Me: Can you please send me a screenshot?
Client: Here you go.
Me: It looks fine here. Are you using a laptop?
Client: I do.
Me: Can you try adjusting the angle between the monitor and your eyes?
Client: Yep, that fixed it. However, you should make it the right colour from any angle.

I had just finished programming a website and started to insert the final, corrected content I received from the client when I noticed two e-mails inside the text that were from their competitor.

Me: Is this content really the final version? It seems like it was a copy/paste from the competitor's  website, judging by the e-mails on it.

Client: Good eye! It actually is copied from our competitor. Just change the e-mails to ours.

"We’d like the banner to be less wide in terms of height, but keep the same length."

And the classic:

"I don’t know what I want, but I’ll know it when I see it."

Web Layout Ideas

I found a great article for Web Layout ideas: "10 Rock Solid Website Layout Examples" by Joshua Johnson. It shares examples of simple yet effective website layouts:

Headline & Gallery: a grid of images with title.	Three Boxes: 1 large graphic and two smaller ones.
3D ScreenShots: headline with stylizes previews.	Full Screen Photo: Full image background with opague bar for content.
PowerGrid: Complex grid, boxes within boxes.	Featured Graphic: simple layout with large graphic.
Five Boxes: 1 large image, 4 small images.	Fixed Sidebar: vertical navigation on side of page.

Website Wireframing

With our final project coming up, I'd thought I'd look up an article on wire-framing. It's called "A Beginner's Guide to Wireframing," by Winnie Lim. It offers these tips:

Get Inspiration: Find inspiration from other wireframe or sites. I  Heart Wireframes is a great source.
Design Your Process: Find the process that works for you. A few examples are: Sketch then Wireframe then Visual then Code; Sketch then Code; or Wireframe then Interactive Prototype then Visual then Code.
Pick Your Tools: Choose the program to create your wireframe. This could be the Adobe programs like Illustrator or Photoshop, or there are available wireframing tools such as Balsamiq, Omnigraffle, or Axure.

Setting a Grid: Define a grid to help you layout and structure you elements.

Determine Layout with Boxes: Begin drawing your wireframe by drawing boxes to represent different types of information. Think about how you want it places and what information is most important.
Define Information Hierarchy With Typography: Next, add the type. Make your information clear and define clear hierarchy.
Fine-tuning With Grayscale: Then add shades of grey to better understand the way the website is going to look.
High-definition Wireframe: This is optional, but if you want you can add even more details like body copy or images.
Translating a Wireframe into a Visual:
Send your wireframe to a program like Photoshop, where you can complete the entire visual.

Grid Design For Web

In my graphic design classes, we learn that grid-based design is essential  to creating good page layouts. Grid-based design also applies to websites. Columns, gutters, alignments, balance and composition are just as important on the web as they are on the page. I found a great article about grid-based design for websites called "Grid-Based Design: Six Creative Column Techniques," by Sean Hodge. He shares some good advice:

Embrace Disharmony
Don't keep to your grid all of the time. Let some elements break it. Allow for some randomness here and there.

Joining For Variety
Incorporate more rows into designs. So many websites have vetical feels with plenty of columns, that a more horizontal website feels more refreshing. Try joining columns together or varying the number of columns in the layout.

Utilizing Angles
Using slanted and angled elements can add interest and excitement to your page. While some grid have the whole thing angled, its more practical to have some elements angled for emphasis.  Using images or Flash are great ways to accomplish getting your elements slanted.

 Escaping Boundaries
Break out of your grid boundaries. Int erupt the visual flow by cross the grid lines you have established. Pull quotes are an excellent example of this. It create a nice break in the flow and brings emphasis.

Illustrating Areas
Allow your illustrations and images to break the flow of the grid. They can add a lot of interest and variety from the grid.

Energizing Spaces
Energize the white space in your web layouts by balancing all out your elements in an asymmetrical fashion.

Genius Web Marketing

 I recently found Pixar's website for their new movie, "Monsters University". Check it out here. For a movie website, its one of a kind! It resembles an actual college website, and is fully functional! You can learn about admissions, academics, and campus life, just like a real college website. It is so hilarious! I thought I was at a real college site until I saw the monster photos. What really makes this so impressive is all the detail that has been put into the site. You can access a map of the campus, read faculty profiles, look at the academic calendar, and see student policies. It's filled with typical college information, except with an added monster twist. Take the class titles: SCAR 101: Intro to Scaring, SCAR 206: Disappearing & Hiding, and SCAR 431: Advanced Scream Types. Or look at the sororities and fraternities: Gamma Roar Roar, Omega Howl, Jaw Theta Chi, and Slugma Kappa Theta. There's even a store where you can buy real Monsters University merchandise that resembles actual college merchandise. This is such a clever marketing technique! It's far more interesting than the usual movie website, and really helps boost excitement for the movie. It goes to show how smart web design can really help market your product.