thoughts on pixels

I try to focus on things relevant to web professionals, designers and other creative thinkers. Not always a successful endeavor, but variation keeps things interesting at least.

on web designers needing to know HTML/CSS

Submitted by jpamental on Thu, 02/18/2010 - 10:10

There have been some great posts on Twitter and around the web on whether or not web designers should know HTML/CSS and be able to produce their own designs. Elliot Jay Stocks and Mike Kus had some great tweets and blog posts about it and spoke very eloquently about it. I've always agreed with that perspective.

between pixels and plumbing: why paul boag is right to call it web strategy

Submitted by jpamental on Sun, 02/07/2010 - 12:21
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I know, I know. If you listen to the Boagworld podcast or follow his incessant tweeting and audioboo-ing you'll doubtless be saying something like 'good heavens, don't give him any more reasons to inflate his overblown sense of self-worth' - but I think that he's struck upon a really important topic, and one that has an enormous impact on the future of our industry.

who are your most frequent commenters?

Submitted by jpamental on Wed, 01/20/2010 - 09:08

I've never tried to focus on writing what will get comments - I really want to write about what moves me. Which is why there honestly aren't all that many visitors to my site. (although it is growing, slowly) What I do find amusing is that while I've finally started getting some pariticipation on the site, my most frequent commenters are my son Trevor's friends from school. I'm flattered that Nick and others are reading the posts, but I do hope I can convince others to weigh in on some of the topics I've written about as well!

Gott Advertising - saving the world one click at a time

Submitted by jpamental on Wed, 01/20/2010 - 08:58
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For three years, Gott Advertising (full disclosure: Kevin Gottesman is my cousin, and also happens to be one of the nicest people I know, and a constant inspiration to me) has been building, managing and optimizing online advertising campaigns for the world’s leading non-profits, charities, and progressive organizations.

the nature of inspiration

Submitted by jpamental on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 12:43
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As a designer, I'm always thinking about inspiration. Where to find it, what to do with it, how to let it bring a solution out from the pile of ideas and pixels with which I work. I look at a lot of other designers' work - primarily in other arenas, but also on the web. But the strongest, most compelling source I've encountered is pervasive, and limitlessly renewable. I just have to remember to open my eyes and step through the door. It's something I cherish about how my brain seems to work, as it is with many creative people I imagine.

thanksgiving

Submitted by jpamental on Thu, 11/26/2009 - 15:18

I have to admit it. I have a lot to be thankful for, as I'm really a pretty lucky guy. I have a wonderful, amazing, beautiful wife (our 2nd date was 6 years ago yesterday!) and two fantastic (step) children. The kids' father lives close by and we all get along really well - making the whole family dynamic SO much better for them and for all of us. We have a fluffy, adorable and thoroughly enjoyable collie named Tristan (my constant companion on our morning excursions to the reservoir).

Day 1 at FOWD: Real-World Accessibility and the Secrets of Great User Experience

Submitted by jpamental on Tue, 11/17/2009 - 00:44
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Two workshops today at the Future of Web Design conference: Real-World Accessibility for Web Designers with Derek Featherstone and Design Secrets of Digg with Daniel Burkha. It was tough to narrow down to these two - all of the sessions looked great - but I chose these for important reasons. [I'll be adding more about Daniel's talk in the next day or two - it's too much to cover now!]

24hr sprint: Upgrade from Drupal 5 to 6, clean up and relaunch

Submitted by jpamental on Tue, 10/27/2009 - 11:55
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Well - had to be done. I needed to get my site updated from Drupal 5 to 6 in order to implement some better features and in general keep up with what I do for clients. It was also useful to go through the upgrade process on an existing site to get used to the pitfalls.

Overall it wasn't all that bad, but I did have to reimagine how I wanted to deal with some views, and recreate some of them from scratch. I haven't had time to really dig into the design, but this had to come first and setting a deadline helped move things forward faster.

short note, big change

Submitted by jpamental on Sat, 09/26/2009 - 08:50
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While I've been 'away' from posting here, a big change has come about for me professionally: I've decided to leave (add)ventures and start my own web strategy and design consultancy. There's been a huge amount of interest in my work, and it seemed like the right time to move. My role previously was far too focused on just implementation, and this way I'll more often get to bring my full experience to projects rather than only a small slice.

So there it is: the shingle has been hung: web strategist, designer, technologist - now for hire.

a web professional's bookshelf (a top-10-plus list)

Submitted by jpamental on Mon, 05/11/2009 - 08:42
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I've traded a few tweets over the past day or two on the subject of good books for web professionals. I use that term to avoid 'designer' - as that seemed limiting or possibly a bit arbitrary. I think that information architecture, understanding business requirements and translating them into web site features and functionality, usability/user exerience, interaction design and visual design are all distinct enough that they can be a specialization unto themselves.