Should I Learn To Code?

Everywhere you look, someone is proclaiming the universal benefit of learning to code. Between initiatives like Hour of Code, dozens of coding bootcamps, free and paid online resources, and everyone from celebrities to political figures getting in on the action, the message is the same: Anyone Can Code, and you should too! And it’s true that… Read More

Don’t Say Pull When You Mean Push

Image on Flickr by slimmer_jimmer The world around us is filled with user experience cues that we take for granted. So much so, in fact, that we don’t even notice they exist until something comes along to violate those norms to a degree that they disrupt what we are trying to do, causing a lot… Read More

Rule Breaking With Purpose

Design is a collection of rules. A system of grids, of hierarchy, of patterns. It’s a methodology that has been refined over the years by masters and studied intently by students. It’s the laws and guidelines that govern how we see and interpret the world around us. Design is persistent, it’s proven, it’s fact. It’s a… Read More

8 Reasons to Stop Using Photoshop For Web Design

Judging by the amount of love it gets in all the design media, it seems like Photoshop is the perfect design tool. Designers and Photoshop go together like Peanut Butter and Jelly, it’s the holy grail of design productivity, you can use it to build anything your heart desires, and it will slice, dice, and… Read More

Designers: You’re not an artist, you’re a translator

When you imagine a designer, I’m sure you have a very specific picture in your mind. Maybe it’s someone hunched over their beloved Mac laptop, hard at work creating layouts. Or maybe they are surrounded by swatches or type specimens, agonizing over small details that most people hardly notice. Perhaps they are drawing, erasing, and… Read More

Your Website Is Smarter Than Your Presentation

A couple weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending a masterclass by Edward Tufte, a person I have long respected for his absolute mastery of the display of information and data. Being able to spend an entire day listening to someone whose books I have read is always an extremely enlightening experience, and this… Read More

Content Before Process

How many times have you begun to brainstorm a new creative project (or started writing a creative brief for a project) by starting with the question, “How can we use X to convey Y?” It could be something like, “How can we use video to introduce our company?” or “How can we use a graphic… Read More

Bridging the gap between designers and developers

Despite what we may have been taught in design school, the purpose of a successful website is not to win design awards, push design boundaries, or impress our design colleagues. Great websites always do one thing first and foremost: solve a problem and produce results for the person, business, or organization for which it was built. Designers and developers are both expert problem solvers, so why is it that there is so much animosity between to two groups, if we both seem to have a common goal?