Category: Design

I’ve now officially entered into the pattern-creation craze. Tasteful pixel patterns are making a comback as web site backgrounds (Todd Dominey’s What Do I Know? is one good example), and I’m almost finished with a new project that uses a nice pattern for the background, so I figured it was time I created some of my own.

Enter K10k: Patterns.

My first two submissions are Complex Gray and Diamond Blue (you can get to them directly by using the “View by name…” pop-up menu), and I’m pretty happy with the way they’ve turned out.

Those of you who visit this site daily will have noticed a few sporadic changes over the last week. This site (if you didn’t realize it already) is being redesigned in public (polite nod to Zeldman), and as such you may need to reload the page to see everything correctly. You might even need to reload the stylesheet(s) to see the changes:

• basic.css
• default_color.css
• alt_color2.css
• alt_color3.css
• alt_dark.css
• alt_daringfireball.css

The style switcher in the sidebar has been converted to images (rather than the original text format), so it takes up less vertical space and thus can be left visible at all times. An additional alternate color scheme has been added as an homage to DaringFireball, Jon Grubers terrific blog. I hope he doesn’t sue me or anything…

Also added is a rotating image on the home page and a few sub-pages. The script used to select and display the random images is by Charles Dietlein, and it kicks butt.

Please comment on these changes/additions, and let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to see me try :-)

Every designer has at least one design they would never admit ownership of, even under oath; some of us have a slightly higher number, and I’ve just been reminded of most of my own.

I’ve been reviewing my collection of work recently, for various reasons ranging from self promotion to just digging up old ZIP disks used for project archives, and after spending a good deal of time reviewing over 7 years of my personal efforts (in graphic design and web design), I have reached some conclusions which I thought I would share with you in the form of my new Personal Rules of Design.

(more…)

It’s out. Finally. No more waiting.

By “it” I am of course referring to Zeldman’s new book, Designing With Web Standards (hereafter known as DWWS). I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of my own copy, and after perusing the sample chapters it promises to be a very interesting read.

In honor of Zeldman’s latest accomplishment, I’ve added a new graphic to the randomly rotating images you see atop most pages within this site, as well as a banner to the sidebar (which will eventually link to the book via my Amazon affiliate account; if I can only find that email confirmation…) so you will never be more than a click away from this great new resource.

Congrats JZ: nice job, as usual.

After much delay, I’m finally ready to start forcing my redesign of this site on you, the reader.

As Zeldman is doing with his site, as of today (in case you didn’t notice) I am redesigning in public. It shouldn’t last too long, since I’ve made sure most of the CSS already works, but please be aware that you may need to reload the page if something looks screwy. If reloading doesn’t help, just post a comment letting me know, and I’ll get to fixing it.

Post your comments/thoughts on the new look — I want to know what you think!

[Update] You will note that the subpages of the site still sport the old design. This is intentional, as I’d rather smooth out the rough edges on the index page only before converting all the archives, subpages, etc.

Also, let me know if you see any difference in page load times — I have a feeling that all the extra alternate stylesheets will increase that time for some people. Let me know either way, thanks!