Glen Elkins’ Blog
Notes on being a professional
I recently discovered The Design Pro Show, a design-centered advice video blog from Andy Rutledge of unit interactive. Although I’m not a freelance designer, and I don’t work for a design firm, I found a lot of useful advice from his videos. My work publishes web content and develops software, and I’ve found treating product managers like freelance clients solves a lot of potential problems.
With that perspective, I started to jot down the important things I heard Rutledge discuss in a google doc for my own use.
Today I’ll share my notes. I figure since these ideas and guidelines have been invaluable to me, other designers who don’t want to watch hours of video may benefit from it as well. Continue reading “Notes on being a professional” »
“Scandalous” website (Showtime) blurs the line between fact and fiction
It’s not a new idea in marketing: Establish credibility, deliver marketing. An obvious example is every third radio commercial which starts with a quick blast of three chords, like any other pop song, before the announcer or singer-wannabe chime sin with the “pitch.”
How could this be translated to the web? Social media is the traditional approach… Anyone remember the hubub when Facebook blended fact and fiction by using photos of your friends in the ads they showed you? The backlash forced a retraction, but it’s just a sign of things to come.
Showtime’s “Scandalous” took a different approach. At first glance it appears to be a legit, credible political news site (and in many ways it is), but upon closer inspection, you’ll notice the show’s fictional Mayor of Chicago “Tom Kane” mixed into the news stories.
Although the “news” on the site is little more than categorized twitter feeds, it begs a bigger question, is this the future of marketing? Just because the site has an agenda, does that make it’s content invalid?
By providing some content in the same vien as the show, will it lend the credibility they hope? In any event, it’s a very unique approach to web marketing, and one that I think we’ll see more of in the near future.
Check the site out here: http://scandalousdirt.com/#/
Web design is package design
The main thing non-web people (IE clients) don’t understand about the internet is that web design is package design. It’s a wrapper around what really important, the content.
This is how clients think of the web
Let’s imagine a scenario where you’re a widget maker. Your widgets are friggin’ awesome. Since you started widget-making, these things have been flying off the shelf of your corner widget store. You can’t wait to get your widgets out to a broader customer-base. You say, “Man, I need to expand my widget sales by shipping them to customers that can’t come to my widget store. I need to put these things in a box of some sort so I can deliver them to people.”
We are the box makers
That’s where web designers come in. We are the box-makers. If you think of web design in this way, a lot of basic design concepts come naturally. What kind of box is best for the widget? How should it close? How should it open? Is the box hard to open? Is it clearly labeled? Continue reading “Web design is package design” »
The missing iPhone feature: “Dismiss All”
I love the new(ish) iOS update. Gone are the days where I’d need to frantically check my “Mail” App, wondering if some important work email came through the pipeline and was waiting in my inbox for me. Now I get a nice little summary of each new email I receive, lovingly pushed right to my screen.
This is great! Except when I get multiple emails at a time, as is the case during peak hours at my day job, or when my personal gmail decides to sync up. Then these nice notifications become a huge annoyance. A digital wall of “Read” & “dismiss” button that come between me and whatever I might be doing on my phone. Ever been unable to end a call because of the barrage of emails swarming your screen? I have.
I don’t want to bash Apple too much. I’m a huge fanboy. I love their design, usability, blah blah… You get to picture. That said, a simple gesture the “Dismiss All” could solve this quite easily.
Happy today!
I recently bought a book for my girlfriend for fun and wrapped it up in this. I thought I’d share it because the sentiment applies to all my readers. Happy today everyone!
Why SOPA doesn’t deserve any sympathy
Who’s really the victim?
While streaming the Congressional hearing n SOPA yesterday it seemed to me like the same insane, infantile, and ridiculous argument kept being made. Congressperson after Congressperson would claim “If I Google for ‘Free How The Grinch Stole Christmas’ I can’t tell what’s an illegal site and what’s legal.” By playing the victim, they are essentially claiming they’d like to watch free content, but are unable to determine a legal means to procure the content because of the illegal sources.
Really?
That’s like claiming “I’d like to take some Morphine, but when I rove the streets of the inner city, I simple cannot tell who’s a certified pharmacist and who’s a drug dealer.” They’re ALL drug dealers, just as all search results for “free” content online are pirates. Why in the world would you search for “free” content and expect to get legal means to watch said content? Of course you can’t, and that’s not what this bill will provide. There’s no good reason why anyone could expect to freely view a studio film online legally.
As one Congresswoman brought up, if you simply search for “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” piracy doesn’t clutter results. Only by searching for illegal versions do you get illegal results.
That’s not the real reason they’re pushing the bill through, yet it’s their talking point. The real problem is that the people who pirate already know the sources to get the illegal content. The pirates don’t need Google results to find the latest bit torrent or Megavideo site.
Elegance is overrated: The importance of just getting it done
I start very project with an ideal picture I the most elegant solution: not a single extra bit used, perfectly formatted code, efficient use of styles, minified static files, etc… Inevitably, by the end of the project I’ve abandoned the bulk of that ideal solution so I can just “get it done.” Continue reading “Elegance is overrated: The importance of just getting it done” »
My newest project: Lionhead
Over the past few weeks I’ve been working on a website for an the independent film LIONHEAD. Although the trailer is still on its way, I implore you to check out the site because the movie looks incredible. I was extremely excited about the opportunity to get involved in such an interesting project, and now that it’s live, I wanted to show it off! Continue reading “My newest project: Lionhead” »
What I learned from getting republished on lifehacker
I recently wrote a short article here discussing the benefits of a low tech break routine versus normal web surfing. After posting on Hacker News, it stuck in the top spot all day for soem reason. I was delighted! It seemed like my subject was open ended and common enough to interest a large part of the community.
The following Monday, I received a tweet from the “editor-in-cheif” at Lifehacker, asking if I minded if the republished my article. I wasn’t an avid reader of the site, but I said yes without hesitation anyways. Being “republished” sounded cool, and I had heard of Lifehacker, so why not? I could try to play it cool here, but the truth is I was pretty pumped to be part of Lifehacker and curious to see what affect this might have on my site. Continue reading “What I learned from getting republished on lifehacker” »
The over committer’s dilemma
After reading Matt Swanson’s article on the difficulties of being an over committer I was overcome with empathy. I’m a constant over committer, and struggle to say “no” to just about every opportunity. That probably even gives me too much credit, I enthusiastically commit I every possible opportunity.
I commit to small one-off projects for friends, longer-term work with acquaintances, and whip up my own projects all the time. Sometimes the projects are freelance, and sometimes they are simply “free.” All this serves to satiate the needling feeling in the back of my brain that I might just be missing out on something. Continue reading “The over committer’s dilemma” »
About Me
I'm a web designer & front end developer for the ecommerce and web publishing company Juggle.com and writer for the music blog PlaybackSTL.com.
When I'm not scribbling wireframes, tweaking CSS, or trying to find yet-another way to describe sounds with words, I doodle, play guitar, try to write and kill zombies.