There’s much noise lately over traffic, and whether we should all care about it or not. I think there’s a distinction to be made between being highly findable, and one of its inevitable benefits… traffic. In a recent Washington Post article, Frank Ahrens posits over another popular meme, that blogs have peaked, and invites bloggers to tell him why they blog. I saw a connection between the two, and felt compelled to respond:

(An open letter)
Mr. Ahrens,
Good article. I’m certain you’re getting it with both barrels right now, so I’ll keep this brief. I found your article through Steve Newson’s blog.

And that’s exactly why I blog.

I’m exponentially more findable when I regularly publish content relevant to my market. People who track blogs and keywords such as design, blogging, brand, creative, etc… find anything I publish containing those keywords, almost instantly. This connects me to, and generates dialogue with, new clients,… ...(more)

Thank you to everyone who’s given feedback, and endured my excitement over this project. And a special thanks to the guy who discretely accused me via email (and not in my comments) of being a ‘big fat name dropper’. 1,000% guilty!

Now, an update. After a few more rounds with ‘he who shall not be named’, we arrived at the following design. There were 2 or 3 color iterations before these, but What’s-his-face and I agree, Airbag really comes through here. Working with the worn look in Illustrator is wicked fun, and quite different than with Photoshop. Still a little left to do, but wanted to share these in progress.

Make sure you harass Old so-and-so at SXSW for a new business card. They feature these designs and are quite nifty!

And if you haven’t checked out Nick “I’ve never called Mark Bixby on the telephone” Bantock’s work yet, I highly recommend a book called… ...(more)

You heard it here first! If you are a developer, or designer who enjoys free coffee and talking about what you do for a living, contact me before March 9th and let’s plan to get together for a cup during the conference (my treat). If you’ve been blogging longer than I have (4 weeks), or know a lot about web standards and accessibility, then I want to buy you some Joe!

Free coffee and the opportunity to influence an impressionable mind? What a deal! Make no bones, I don’t want to be your friend or hang out with you at the after party. I just want to get you all hopped up on caffeine, and pick your brain! So call or email me now and let’s make plans.

See you there! I’ll be the really jittery one.

I’m working with Greg Storey on a new zeppelin design for Airbag Industries LLC. This is significant because four months ago I was sitting in a cubicle managing the marketing department for an Embedded Systems company. Four weeks ago I was publishing my first post on my own “homemade” blog. Today I’m self-employed, drawing dirigibles.

How this happened is a true testament to the power of blogging as a business tool, and it all started with some Kool-aid® I drank at last year’s Blog Business Summit in San Francisco, CA. Having been moderately burned out on web marketing for several years, the conference was exactly what I needed to get excited about interactive design all over again. With technologies like weblogs and RSS, the Internet is finally starting to resemble the communications tool we’d all been promised.

Completely sold on the connecting power of these technologies, and with a little weekly inspiration from the guys over at The Cubicle Escape Pod,… ...(more)

I’m having a really hard time hating Microsoft today. And I don’t mean their Windows® Operating System, for which I hold as much contempt as ever, but rather the Microsoft Corporation itself.

They did this thing where they allow you to hear their developers talking about projects in their own words; through blogs and video diaries such as Channel9. By doing this, they further distance themselves from the practices of companies like Apple who operate under a shroud of secrecy, developing for months at a time, then dramatically unveiling a tremendous update of some sort - who’s net effect is usually that I have buy all of my software over again to take advantage of some incremental speed increase.

What Microsoft is doing is the single most progressive and effective marketing strategy happening today. I just got to sit in (and you can too), on an hour long meeting among the top developers of Microsoft’s new ...(more)

A gaggle of ethnically diverse “twenty-somethings” with perfect skin and flawless fashion sensibility? Is that who’s really administrating the Linux server your website lives on? I know it’s not. You know it’s not. And the companies who put these people on their home pages know it’s not. So who do they think they’re fooling? And why try to fool your customer ever? Even the web host I trust to keep my site running is guilty of this chicanery (check out the guy who only has his ear in the frame). Bluehost is a great host. Their customer service is always available directly by phone, and completely capable of handling any request. Why not show these people? Their offices? Their flaws? Their commitment to doing their jobs well?

I’m reading Robert Scoble’s new book, Naked Conversations and it has started me thinking about small companies who fabricate their identity out of thin air. It’s a common mistake, but how can these companies hope to differentiate themselves or establish trust,… ...(more)

It’s official. I’m a designer who blogs. No, really. Check it out here.

Cat Morley (founder of Katz-i International Web & Graphic Design) maintains the most comprehensive list of people who share my particular disorder. Cat’s site is a clearing house for fabulous content about design, creativity, life as a freelancer, CSS, web standards, accessibility and new media.

I’ve already ordered my copy of CSS Mastery, and am gearing up to climb Mt. XML. If you’re interested in learning how to make the internet better, you should be reading these blogs:

Cameron Moll | Authentic Boredom
Author, new media specialist and CSS mogul.

Jason Santa Maria
Designer, writer, photographer, soldier of fortune and CSS guru.

Jeffery Zeldman
Design, usability and standards samurai.

...(more)

Boris Artzybasheff’s Jan 10, 1964 Time magazine cover featuring a geodesic Buckminster Fuller.

Among the South by Southwest 2006 Web Award Finalists is a web site featuring Time magazine cover art (portraits specifically) of many of the last century’s most influential people in sports, media, civil rights, politics, entertainment and technology. The navigation gets a little annoying, but the artwork is well worth the effort. The exhibit is only part of the permanent collection at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.

From the NPG website:
“The portraits displayed in this site represent the compelling variety of personalities and art that have distinguished Time covers for more than three-quarters of a century. Heroes and rogues, queens and presidents, popes and pop stars, singers and athletes - all have been ensconced, in one form or fashion, within Time’s trademark red border.”

Mac fans should be sure to check out the… ...(more)

The best web design tip I’ve read all week: “In design, if you don’t know why you’re putting something somewhere you’re likely making a mistake.”

Andy Rutledge does a terrific job examining Google’s interface from a design and architectural perspective. His solution, in my opinion, makes Google’s home page cleaner, more usable and less visually anemic. Using Google’s home page to make a point - a page that consists of so few elements to begin with - makes the design principles he cites easy to follow.

“If an element of the layout serves no specific purpose or if the visual or spacial properties of any element are chosen for no particular reason the result will be bad design. Don’t do that.” Words to live by!

Doing things right 80% of the time simply hands your competition a 20% window of opportunity. Thinking about design and usability on this finite level is what separates good home pages from great ones - good designers from great ones.… ...(more)

Letterhead Font’s collection of retro designer fonts are addictive. Purchasing is fast and easy, and they provide a gallery of real world samples, tips and tricks, and even a “type tester” for previewing your headline or logo. My personal favorite is Royal Script (Revised) as seen in “creative juice” and on Bixby’s Original Peanut Brittle. Just had to pass along these great fonts.

Conversely, check out the valiant effort to permanently extinguish the use of Comic Sans over at BanComicSans.com

Favorite excerpt from the site:
“...You might be interested to know that I am a college instructor in history. As I was grading essays today on the rather somber subject of slavery and the mental anguish it can cause, I came across an essay written entirely in Comic Sans! Ridiculously inappropriate to say the least. I instantly wanted to toss the essay in my paper shredder, but couldn’t get… ...(more)