Must have been the invention of the television that turned me off against talk radio b/c I've never been a huge fan of podcasts... until maybe 6 mos. ago when I discovered how niche-y they can be. So I'm kinda excited at my latest discovery - there are actually Web Design podcasts out there! Not bad for when you need some background noise at work :)

Below is the first of several exercises (courtesy of How Magazine 2006) that I would like you guys and gal(s) to try out. I would recommend not spending over 20 minutes for this exercise.

PANTS: SHIRT FOR YOUR LEGS
Advertising is all about memorable brand communication. And there's usually little time or space to convey primary selling proposition for a particular product. Headlines are a perfect example of this. What can be said in a short amount of time that's both memorable and in line with the brand message? That is your task. You must create three headlines each for a series of products that are used everyday, by nearly every person on the planet: air, water and pants.

I went to the Denver Art Museum to see the Impressionism show this week. They had all the right names: Cezanne, Renoir, Monet, Cassatt, but none of their more important works. Since all these works were on loan, we couldn't take any pictures and had to get out into the established collection to get some images and even a lot of those we couldn't take pictures of. They also frown on the use of flash photography, so some of these images are a bit dark - sorry.
The new wing of the museum was pretty cool and had lots of interesting angles which also made for lots of wasted space.








Inside










We weren't supposed to photograph the Bouguereau work because it was on loan. But they seemed satisfied when I offered to erase it. There was a nice cubist work by Juan Gris (the true cubist painter)














There was a pretty good Northern Pacific exhibit as well as a pretty big section of Asian work (although real heavy on the Eastern Indian side)











Oldenburg and Lichtenstein















...and there was a very unsettling sculpture of some guy. The face was made out of some high grade rubber so it had an eerie fleshy look to it











The museum also has a lot of western/cowboy art in it so be prepared for that if you ever stop in Yippie yi Yaaay!

I ran a car site (www.slickcardeals.com - no longer in existent, /tear) a few years back that was built off a free CMS called Joomla. During that time, I thought that Joomla was a great tool in quickly developing a website where I could post updated entries along with integrating a free 3rd party forum component. The forum component required some manual adjustments, but after the build, everything seemed okay. I never really delved into any other CMS' because I was (as some of you may know) stubborn and stuck to this one CMS for a few years until...

I tried out Drupal.

Drupal out of the box was as easy to set up as Joomla (install and stuff takes less than 15 minutes... as long as ya don't run into any problems). Here are the major differences between the two: 1) Drupal has a built-in forum 2) Drupal doesn't spit out loads of code containing tables and 3) almost everything (that's right) is CSS-able!

Time to start up those side businesses that you've long dreamt about!... umm, I mean, time to learn how to design for Drupal templates because we'll be Drupalizing our sites in the near future!

I'm not going to give a lecture about how to use Drupal, but I will provide you guys with some details on what you need to get started in using this kickass CMS.

QUICK THEMING GUIDE FOR DRUPAL 5
Note: Although Drupal 6 is out, a lot of the modules that are available have not been made Drupal-6 compatible yet. Thanks P!

INSTALLING DRUPAL ON YOUR MAC
1) Download/Install the latest stable version of MAMP
2) Download the latest version of Drupal
3) Move your Drupal folder into MAMP/HTDOCS folder.
4) Access your Drupal setup site at: http://localhost/theNameOfYourDrupalFolder
5) Follow installation instructions and...
6) VOILA! You're done! Unless you have a problem... then come back here and post questions.

THINGS YOU NEED TO INSTALL DRUPAL ON WINDOWS
1) Download/Install the latest stable version of WAMP
2) Download the latest version of Drupal

BEST DRUPAL BOOK OUT THERE
Pro Drupal Development by John K. VanDyk and Matt Westgate : $44.99 $29.69 w/ FREE S&H

Robert Rauschenberg, 82, one of the towering figures of 20th century art, died at his home in Florida overnight, a spokeswoman for the Pace Wildenstein gallery in New York told AFP Tuesday.
Rauschenberg, perhaps most famous for his "Combines" of the 1950s, was one of the celebrated figures of the Pop-Art scene, often using "found" material in his iconic works.

More

Redesign message on this splash page made me laugh. That is all.

Date: Thu, May 22, 2008
Time: 1:00 PM EDT
Duration: 1 hour
Host(s): Aquent

This free Aquent webcast will explain how to:
> Design effectively for different types of Web pages
> Increase Web sales/leads
> Increase overall site effectiveness
> Change your company's perceptions of Web design

I think all you have to do is register.

Hey Everyone. Been combing thru this Web Design for ROI book and wanted to just briefly highlight some of the noteworthy items in the section about designing Detail Pages (aka the Product page). Some of the tips listed below are pretty obvious, but it's always nice to revisit them.

Details are important

a. They add credibility to the product


b. Use a high res image of the actual product


c. Display the price of the product

Make the sale!

a. Make sure that there are no other items competing for attention with the "Add to Cart" button.


b. Avoid visual distractions by using space or design elements to clearly separate the detail display area from other site elements. The book uses Bose.com as an example of separating the detail area from the site's navigation using the blue bar as shown.

Other notes: the core of the detail page (product page) is to sell the product.

Another interesting diversion from the website you should be designing. Photos with a figure in front of some interesting backgrounds.

Oh, it'll only take a minute.

Hey Everyone,

Below is a mockup for blogs with only one writer. Feel free to reference the current blog for the difference in the structuring of the header area (area where the author's headshot is shown).

Cement Americas: Ah, the last of the WIPs...I'm so honored to be a part of history. Here is a home-page mock-up for your consideration. Let me know if you have any feedback. Thanks!

Been working on a new template for a new video player page.

Here's what it looks like now (it's a popup) on Telephony.

Here's a new mockup. It's a flat page and it's surrounded by content. We're also hoping to add a transcript to the video to make it more seo friendly.

Thoughts?

Just got back from 2 weeks of awesomeness in Japan. I have a ton of pics posted at www.genelu.com and just wanted to share with people that are looking for a temporary escape to another country. I'm still updating the site with more images so stay tuned. And umm, don't expect my pictures to be as high caliber as Terry's!