Web designers and non designers alike can relate to this.  I came up with a name I really liked, went to register it, and it was taken.  Tried another one, taken.  Another, taken, and so on. It’s gotten to the point where instead of playing World of Warcraft, (I know. I’m a nerd.) I’d sit here for hours trying to register a good name. I don’t mind if the domain is taken by a legitimate company, but when it’s taken by a “web squatter” it’s a whole different story.  

A web squatter is someone who just buys up any domain they can possibly think of.  Some even have programs which list out every single, say three letter word.  They then either put it on one of those stock photography-strewn god-awful sites, such as this one. I guess they think you won’t notice your typo just landed you in a pit of web scum. Even worse, others simply mark the price up 3000% and resell it to make a profit.

I guess they think you won’t notice your typo just landed you in a pit of web scum.

At any rate, I finally found a domain name that was not taken, and actually fits me quite nicely, and is only seven characters. So, I finally got a domain name, now, on to kuler for color scheme goodness!

I noticed this way back when Digg redesigned their site. The site that took great part in that “Web 2.0” look with it’s shiny buttons, soft gradiants and shadowy badges was now stripped of all that stuff, replaced now with something that I thought at the time to look sort of retro. Now that I see it everywhere, it’s starting to grow on me.

I can totally understand why this is happening. I’m sure a lot of it has to do with the fact it’s “in” right now, but that’s not all. One of the main aspects of web design has always been optimising how quickly your page loads. The simpler your graphics are, the quicker they’ll load. It is kind of ironic, though because while this is happening, bandwidths are increasing to the point where we can watch streaming hi definition movies without any hiccups or loss in quality.

Evidently web designers are starting to move on past their love affair with shadows and gradients.

What’s the point then? Well it seems while on the surface, websites don’t look all that different than the way they looked back in the day, you have to remember that there is much more going on under the hood. Along with very large, complex databases and other systems such as scriptaculous or sproutcore, there are many more people surfing the net which means much more demand on your server.

Really, we’re in the same boat we were in back in the late 90’s, just on a much larger scale. As a web designer the challenge will always be to create a site that is light on size, but rich on style. I don’t see this trend going away any time soon. Have you seen the new Facebook? Their website was lightweight to begin with. Now it’s just anorexic.

Now that I have a bunch of interviews under my belt I’ve noticed something interesting.  There seems to be a spectrum when it comes to design places.  At the begining of this spectrum is the start up company. The people here are usually pretty close knit, and make a point to be edgy and “real”. They always have all these crazy ideas about where technology is going, and are determined to ride that new wave, whatever that may be. One downside to these places is the fact that because they’re so small, there’s really no telling how long they will last before either dying or getting swallowed by a bigger company.  It’s also often hard to see just where this company is going in this experimental phase.

The people here are usually pretty close knit, and make a point to be edgy and “real”. They always have all these crazy ideas about where technology is going, and are determined to ride that new wave, whatever that may be.

Then there’s the established “software” company. This company is way over that optimistic, energetic phase and has settled with a few tried and true methods that seem to work. They use that methodology to get bigger and bigger.  By the end of its lifespan, this company has eaten up countless smaller ones around the globe, slapped its logo on them then outsourced as much as possible to India. While this sort of company might have began years ago as a start up, now its sights have moved from forward thinking design to suits, business models, and cubicles.

If I had to place myself, idealy I guess I fit somewhere between the two ends.  I don’t mind cubicles, but I never want to have to wear khakis and a polo shirt to work, let alone a suit.  I like having a creative freedom when it comes to design, but not so much that I don’t know what to do with myself.  To be honest, though I’d be quite satisfied either way because I really want a job.  I’d love to wake up in the morning knowing that I am officially a “Web Designer”.  Not a freelancer, contracter, or part time artist, but a forty-hour-per-week designer with his own desk, insurance, and company business card. This job search is getting very old.

I’d love to wake up in the morning knowing that I am officially a “Web Designer”. Not a freelancer, contracter, or part time artist, but a forty-hour-per-week designer with his own desk, insurance, and company business card. This job search is getting very old.

Speaking of things getting old, I was up almost all night thinking about this site.  I am very happy with my site as it is, but I have never been the type to leave things alone. In my mind I stripped down my site to the bare bones, and thought about what was working, what wasn’t working, then put it back together again.  By the end, the fundamentals will remain the same (a digital version of myself), but the look and feel will become drastically different and much improved.

I would always picture a laid back agency with bean bag chairs, a wide open studio with Macs and expensive equipment. get to meet with some of the top agencies around the area.

I started my job search with this lovely image still in mind, thinking that all I needed was a good portfolio and a resume and all would be well. I put my site out there, applied to a lot of different places, and sure enough landed a few interviews.

My first interview was about a half hour, then to my surprise had an interview with a second person right afterwards. By the end of the day I had long chats with about seven employees total. I was there for nearly four hours before all was said and done. The last person I spoke with gave me what she called a “design test”. I was given the task to create several online advertising campaigns and one online survey.

After submitting my work, it was critiqued in a conference call. After that, I had another day of interviews with the company owners. As it turned out, after all that I did not get a job offer. This didn’t really get me down though. It was only the first place I applied to.

My most recent interview was even more intense than that first place. Like last time, I had a long interview with many different people. At the end I was given a test again, but here it was a bit different.

The company is planning on designing applications for the iPhone (awesome!), so they were looking for someone who could work in 3d or 2d. I have experience with both and I am learning to develop for the iPhone, so I offered to work on both tests. I spent about thirty or so hours on them total.

Things went extremely well when I presented my work and had it critiqued. I got along very well with these guys. It was like I was made for this place. They liked my 2d design so much they said they wanted to use it for the final product. My recruiter told me the job was “in the bag” on the phone as I was leaving. I was psyched.

Things went extremely well when I presented my work and had it critiqued. I got along very well with these guys. It was like I was made for this place.

A week went by and my recruiter reluctantly told me I was not offered this position. Apparently this was because they thought it would take too long to get me up to speed with what they were doing. I’m still not sure what that meant

At any rate, I’m a pretty optimistic guy. I don’t look at this as anything to dwell on. The more you work for something, the more you’ll appreciate it when you get it.

My advice to anyone going through this, or who will be going through this is simple. First of all I am not exaggerating at all. If you want to work as a designer chances are you will have to do everything I talked about here if not more. I find that the best way to go about doing it is to look at these “tests” as a way to polish up your portfolio and improve your interviewing skills because chances are you will go through dozens of these things before you actually land that job.

All the while I’ve been continuing my contract at Bridgeline Software while going to lots of interviews at a variety of different places around my area. They’re all pretty cool. I’m looking forward to my latest interview at viximo because they mentioned getting into iPhone application development which coincidentally is something I’ve been wanting to get into.

I’m not sure if I’m doing this because I’m still on an Apple-fanboy-high from watching the WWDC Keynote and iPhone 3G announcement, but that night I decided to register as an Apple Developer for the iPhone.  When I went to their Apple Developer Connection site, I was expecting the documentation to be some 100+ PDF giving overly-technical instructions on how to program for the iPhone, but in the usual Apple fashion, in addition to neatly organized technical documents, there are a series of videos which show you step by step how to develop on the iPhone.

I’m not sure if I’m doing this because I’m still on an Apple-fanboy-high from watching the WWDC Keynote and iPhone 3G announcement, but that night I decided to register as an Apple Developer for the iPhone.

The tools and applications are very cool as well.  Aside from the usual suspects (Xcode, etc), there are some iPhone specific applications.  The UI designer is so obvious to use, I really wish I played with it sooner.  There is also an app which simulates the iPhone UI and allows you to work on the iPhone almost in real time.  Did I mention all of this is free?

Never before has coding on a platform been this intuitive and, dare I say fun.  Really, my only issue is the fact that I don’t have the slightest clue what I want to make.  I definitely want to create a game of some sort, but I don’t know what kind at all.  I guess I will start getting ideas once I get my feet wet.

Now that I’m (just about) out of college I think I will finally have the time to realize it to the its full potential. A while ago I decided to use Maya as my platform because until this point I haven’t been able to spend a substantial amount of time on a project. Typically in 3d we’d have assignments that are meant to exercise a specific aspect of the program. The resulting movies end up somewhat bland. This story will allow me to really push the limits of what I can do.

Right now, all I have are a final sketch of “Hubert”, the main character with the front and side view to use as a template in Maya, as well as a few very rough storyboards and a rough title. I guess the first step would be to develop these story lines a lot more and create concept sketches with color to set the overall look and feel.

I would expect the final movie to be about five or six minutes long. The nice thing about doing this 3d project on my own is there are no deadlines so I can really pack in the detail.

Im psyched to finally be working on this, I’ll keep you posted!

Here’s what I did. Create a new file in Photoshop (File/New) with these dimensions and hit enter or click OK:

Next, using the Type Tool, click somewhere in the white space and type anything. The font I’m using is Cooper Std, 72pt, color #1b69eb. Position it somewhere near the center.

To the bottom right, you should see a list of layers. Click on the layer with the type on it, then click the “fx” icon on the very bottom. On the drop-down list, click “Gradient Overlay…”

This brings up the styles palette. By default it will fill your text with a simple black to white gradient. This is actually what we want to work with. Click on the gradient bar to bring up the Gradient editor.

Next, to emulate that shine effect, click and drag the black box or “stop” at the bottom left to the center, or type in 50% click the spot where you dragged the black box to create another stop at 0%. After that just click once around the middle to create another stop. Set it’s location to 55%.

Click on the stop at 55% and change its color to #999999 by clicking the color box. Click on the stop at 0% and change its color to #7f7f7f. Then click on the diamond shape between the two stops and drag it to 75%. For a sharper shine, I changed the location of both middle stops to 50%. Click OK.

This is where the magic happens! Click the Blend Mode drop down menu and change it to “Overlay”. Take a look at the image. While the gradient is grayscale, the text stays blue. You can lower the intensity of this effect by changing the opacity.

As a final touch, click on “Inner Glow” and copy the settings I have here:

Click on “New Style…” and save it as whatever you’d like. Now you can apply the style to just about anything by clicking the icon under the “Styles” tab. I find it useful when I’m laying out sites. It doesn’t really alter the color scheme, and makes it very easy to create consistant on and off states for buttons. One downside, however is that it does not work when you use a really saturated color, especially full red.

You don’t have to stop here. Try playing around with different things such as a subtle bevel and emboss, or outer glow. I’ve even had some good results using a subtle inner stroke. Just make sure to save the style.

Got any suggestions or comments about this tutorial? Leave a comment below or send me a message!

I wasn’t sure what I was in for. I made it there early because I didn’t want to miss anything. I was a bit worried because most everyone there had a portfolio, like the ones they used back in the day before the internet. Being the geek I am this printed portfolio thing never crossed my mind. Instead I borrowed my girlfriends laptop and was planning to simply show this website to the creative directors.

So this past Thursday was Portfolio Night in Boston. It was basically a seminar that takes place simultaneously all over the world where designers get to meet with some of the top agencies around the area.

The event itself was much more laid back than I would have ever expected. No khakis to be seen, and free drinks all around. In the beginning everyone kind of stood around. I met up with my friend and a couple other people from our college. After a few minutes they let everyone know how it was going to go. At the time on the back of our name badges, we’d have fifteen minutes to talk with each of the three creative directors listed below our designated time.

My time was 8:00p.m., and the event was running late. That meant I had about three and a half hours to kill. Then I realized that maybe the place did not have a wifi hotspot set up. I spent the next hour trying to track down the owner of the place to get a straight answer. There was wifi, but I had to stand in one small area to use it. About an hour before my time, I decided to download a local version of my site because I wasn’t trusting the spotty connection. I very carefully held up my girlfriends laptop in that one spot and luckily was able to download my work.

As it turned out, the internet at the side of the place with the creative directors was perfectly fine. My three interviewers were Mullen, One to One Interactive, and I forget what the third one was. Evidently the creative director there didn’t like me or my work too much either, so maybe that’s why I can’t remember where he was from.

My three interviewers were Mullen, One to One Interactive, and I forget what the third one was. Evidently the creative director there didn’t like me or my work too much either, so maybe that’s why I can’t remember where he was from.

Internet issues and waiting aside, I’m glad I went. To me it served as kind of practice for going on design interviews. I also met some very interesting people who were obviously passionate about what they do. Portfolio night reassured me that I’m going into the right field.

I’d always liked wandering around Apple Stores, so I applied to the one in my area. I really didn’t know what I was getting into. I got an interview right away. It seemed to go pretty well at first, but then my interviewer started acting a little odd. In the end she was “on the fence” about hiring me because of my “energy”. Yes, my “energy”. I ended up going on three more interviews. One with the store manager, one with the same lady, who forgot who I was, and one with a floor salesman, who quizzed me on what the MacBook Pro could offer. He seemed to like me, but weeks later, I was sent a generic “we’ll keep you posted” email.

I got an interview right away. It seemed to go pretty well at first, but then my interviewer started acting a little odd.

I spent the next couple months at Circuit City, then decided it had been long enough for me to try again. This time I applied to all the Apple Stores in my area online. Just like last time, I got an interview right away. I mentioned that I would often refer people over to the Apple Store nearby when I was supposed to sell them computers, and surprisingly I was hired soon thereafter.

Working at Apple was pretty cool for a while. I liked how the store was set up. There is an employee or two around every corner, and the manager is not allowed to sell anything. This is so employees can reach him or her at any time. The store was set up in different sections. I worked my way up to the “Red Zone”, where I sold iPods, then eventually computers. Here is where things started to feel familiar. There were several things you pretty much had to sell with any given computer. There was AppleCare, .Mac, One-to-One, Procare, “free” Printer, and of course, Office. If you add all of these up, often times the sum would be staggering. For example, say you’re buying an entry level Macbook for $1099. After everything, if they have their way you’d be spending $1,774 plus tax. Granted, this would be an ever elusive “all attach”.

It was considered part of our jobs to offer everything on the list to every customer. Even after offering everything, a manager or other employee would step in and try to push it on the customer one last time. This would always leave a bad feeling in my gut, like I had failed or something. Often I’d get a customer that I know could barely afford a computer, but I’d go on for about twenty minutes or so about all the “great” benefits anyways because it was my job. As my speech went on, my mind would wander. I’d picture myself in the customers position, listening to all this, thinking about how much of an tool I must sound like.

Despite this, there were many things that kept me at the Apple Store. For one thing, the people I worked with were for the most part really cool. It was the first place I’d ever been in where everyone around me was a mac freak. Also, the discount was nice, 25% off hardware. I also liked the fact that we got new shirts every month or so, and how they actually encouraged “individuality”.

The best thing about working at an Apple was being on “the other side”. Whenever a new Apple product came out, we were the first to play with it. I was part of the “visual team”, where I’d spend entire nights helping reface the store and set up new gadgets. I was also there when the iPhone launched last summer. That was an experience I’m not going to forget any time soon. When we closed down, behind those cardboard sheets we were taking hardware apart and moving things around. It was frantic. I miss that rush, knowing we were probably some of the first people in the area to play with new Apple hardware.

The best thing about working at an Apple was being on “the other side”. Whenever a new Apple product came out, we were the first to play with it.

Things took a turn for the worst when I offered to help out my friend. He was looking for a job, and at the time Apple was recruiting new employees for the Christmas season. I put in a good word for him, and soon after that he was invited to go to a group interview. They offered him a position. Out of excitement, he told me his hourly wage. As it turned out, it was much higher than what I was making at the time. I was a bit hurt to hear this, so I told other employees. To my surprise they too were making much more than I was. I got by alright with what they were paying me, but I wanted to know why everyone else was making more. I worked just as hard as they did, why wasn’t I being compensated the same way?

It was a simple enough issue, I thought it could also have been some kind of mistake, so I tried to get a meeting with the store manager to talk about it. After repeated attempts, emails, and phone calls I finally managed to sit down with the store manager along with the floor manager. They were less than pleased with me. They asked me why I thought I should be making more, and I stated my reasons. It was obvious they were unwilling to change my hourly wage, and wanted me to leave for asking about it. They interpreted one of my emails as me saying I was going to leave and gave me the option to. I was shocked at the way they were acting towards me so, although I didn’t have any intentions of leaving, I did.

In the end, when you take away the cool black shirts, handheld registers, trendy music, and sleek hardware, the Apple Store is no different than any other retail store. It’s all about making a profit on the backs of everyone else. If they can pay you substantially less per hour and get away with it, they absolutely will.

This project began with a name, and this is really what made it take so long to complete. I spent a long time trying to come up with the perfect “Web 2.0” name. I came up with “Wirevein”. It seemed to work. Wire relates to being “wired in”, plugged into technology. When I put it together with “Vein” it seemed to translate to “technology runs through my veins” (for me anyways). I used this name as a starting point for my first template.

I wanted the design to sort of fit in with all the other tech blogs out there. The image at the beginning would change every time you visit the site like Flickr. The graphics themselves were inspired by sites like Digg. Very minimal and organized. I wanted the color scheme to be punched up, so I chose muted beige colors with red and light blue highlights. I was pretty happy with this site template until I took the time to really analyze it.

I want people to feel like they know me beyond my artwork. To do that I felt like I should share what’s going on in my mind.

It was nice and clean, but it really did not represent me. I could see Wirevein as a site similar to Engadget or Gizmodo, but not a new designer. I had to stop and think about exactly what I was trying to do. I decided that the name itself was holding me back. It was back to making huge lists of names. This time I focused on words and phrases that related to me. I came up with “Virtual Deviance”. I felt like this had a lot to do with me. I’m not exactly think like other designers, and the site itself was on a virtual landscape.”

I was about 90% done with this template when I stopped. It’s funny how words can seem to drive the rest of your design sometimes. All of my Virtual Deviance templates were dark and somewhat aggressive. Again, this wasn’t really me. I was closer than I was with “Wirevein”, but was far from where I wanted to be. This is when I realized that if I want people to feel like they are talking to me directly, I couldn’t hide behind some made up name.

So I took the project idea literally and started with a portrait of myself. It’s illustrated because it demonstrates some of my abilities and also seems to blend in with the site nicely. I thought it would be interesting to hide the lower part of my face behind a the main content because the content is my voice. After that, the site seemed to evolve on its own. I focused on what exactly I would look like if I was a website.

The next task was coding. This was a task in and of itself. As I worked on this project, I was also in the process of learning PHP. I was planning on coding everything from scratch, but I quickly discovered there are many smarter options out there than doing everything yourself. I created simple PHP templates, but found there to be lots of opportunity for huge headaches as I progressed through the development, and started looking around for other options.

I ended up going with Wordpress because of the really light, open source architecture. I developed my site on a my local host. I have to say, Wordpress is a joy to work with. Everything is straightforward and infinitely customizable. There were are few hiccups moving my project to a live host, but overall things went without a hitch. I got exactly the results I was looking for.

So, here I am. My site is complete, but it’s pretty much empty. I’m planning on writing a range of articles about things I’m into. I’m an Apple fan boy, so expect lots of articles about upcoming Apple hardware. I’m also a gamer, and gadget lover. Most importantly, I’m a designer. Along with site recommendations, I will post a series of tutorials from all of the different programs I use, from Photoshop to Maya.