A pet peeve of mine is seeing blog comments or tweets neigh-saying innovative strides in web development. I see the issue of cross-browser compatibility to be completely separate from forward thinking experimentation. This is about progress, which is essential to our industry. It’s like saying, “Those compact discs sound amazing, but they won’t fit in my tape deck.” As a cathartic design exercise, I made a cute little graphic illustrating my feelings on the subject. This may actually spark an entire series wherein I address common web gripes with movie quotes. In this case, I’ve used the words of The Dude from The Big Lebowski to sum up the whole durned thing.
Please don’t take it too seriously, and please do pardon the foul language. Remember, this isn’t about people who use Internet Explorer 6. It is about those who hinder progress by focusing on current or past conventions.
Feel free to download the desktop wallpaper if you happen to enjoy it.
Recently, via Dribbble, I’ve had the privilege of seeing some of the progress Shaun Inman has made on his latest project, Mimeoverse: Mimeo and the Kleptopus King. It’s an iPad, iPhone & iPod Touch game where you collect power-ups that upscale the character as well as the bit resolution of the game world itself. From story writing and musical composition to pixel art, I’m amazed at the wide range of skills required to pull off something like this.
Shaun is now tumbling the innovation at blog.mimeoverse.com. Check it out and save your pennies for what I think will be an epic multi-touch game.
Chris Meeks, e-friend, designer and all around good guy, has launched a new project called Daily Layout. He will be creating unique page layouts every weekday in a variety of capacities, spanning from illustrations and posters to screen prototypes. He’s already well into posting; be sure to check out his fancy pants archives page. A few of my favorites thus far are his fixed gear, infographic #1 and muse.
Austin Town Hall has compiled their annual SXSW Guide once again, so we took to the web to build a site with an iPhone version to support the effort. Recommended Free & RSVP shows are broken down by day and a food guide is broken down by location. Be sure to add the site to your iPhone home screen so you can keep up with all your options during the week.
Austin Town Hall has announced their free download ATH March Music Sampler. It consists of 16 tracks from bands either specifically playing in the Austin Town Hall Showcase or playing at SXSW at some point during the week. Go get your free music on!
If you flip through issue 198 of .Net magazine, you’ll find a feature of ye olde blog on page 60. I’m humbled to see my Photoshop & CSS follies in print and am really thankful to my Paravel comrades, Dave Rupert and Reagan Ray, for contributing their time, talent and advice. Needless to say, this issue will be hung upon the refrigerator door for a good long while. Buy a copy for your fridge here.
I’m repeatedly wowed by the design work Mike Kus is doing for Carsonified. With every new event or project they launch, comes a really well designed and unique web presence. While checking his personal site I came across a great video that documents the photoshopping of the slides for his Graphic Design: The Forgotten Web Standard presentation. There’s a ton packed into the 3 minute runtime. You should watch it.
I just spent a few minutes signing up for bitly.pro. It’s an easy way to create short urls specific to your domain of choice. After way too much consideration & deliberation I registered twa.lt and tied it to my pro account. If you’re having trouble deciding what to register, be sure to check out this list of possible domain extensions. From there, you’ll have some minor DNS changes to make via bit.ly’s setting panel before you’re off to the races. Happy linking!
While Reagan was designing some new business cards for the Paravel team, he came across a local Austin letterpress & design shop called Vertallee. We stopped by yesterday to pick up our new cards & take a quick tour of the shop. It was a privilege to look around & check out their original mid-century Heidelberg letterpress.
As for the cards, they’re top-notch. It’s obvious Brad & Kat are all about quality & their craft. If these cards were food, they’d be a farm fresh egg, fried & dropped over some free range chicken enchiladas with a homemade verde sauce… Mmmm, tasty.
The Paravel team will be attending SXSW Interactive 2010 this year from March 12-16th. Dave, Reagan and I are looking forward to sharing ideas and maybe even learning some new tricks. Clients, we’ll be available in a limited capacity / on call to help with any urgent tasks. Web design & development cohorts, we’re looking forward to seeing / meeting y’all. Let’s be friends!
