(These may sound abundantly obvious, but my experience is that to some people they’re not.)

Tip 1: Stop, think, then say what you mean and mean what you say.

This is paramount!

When I was in college, I tutored writing in the Writing Workshop at my university. A common problem a lot of students had was they would write to make the words sound good, but they paid little attention to what they were actually communicating their words. The effect this sort of writing has on a reader is confusion—it doesn’t make sense because nothing is actually being said.

This effect comes up, too, in interviewing. Some people I’ve spoken with will spend five minutes rambling, trying to use all the buzzwords and catchphrases they can think of, but in doing so, they completely sidestep the question I’ve asked. As an interviewer, this is very annoying.

For web designers, we’re used to the idea that content is what counts. No pretty design can cover up weak content. The same is true in our words, especially, in the context of an interview. We would be better to pause, think through the question, and answer it directly and clearly. Leave the buzzwords and catchphrases alone, they don’t impress people who actually understand a given job or field.

Tip 2: Don’t Feel Obligated to Talk the Whole Time.

Some people I have interviewed ramble on with empty words and phrases. Some people, on the other end, just ramble on. They know what they’re talking about, maybe, but they’re saying far more than what I am interested in hearing.

Again, my general advice is: pause, think, and respond. Most of the people who struggle with this are the ones who immediately start answering a question, and half way through their response realize they’re not answering the right question. They would usually be fine if they stopped and asked a few questions, but instead, they often just start over without thinking further making the same mistake again.

Of course, you want to answer questions thoroughly and completely, but saying too much can make your good answers get lost in a lot of verbal mud.

Side note: if you don’t know what to say or how to answer a question, ask the interviewer what they mean. Some questions can be worded funny or come out wrong. Most people will not mind clarifying their question. In addition to helping you understand the question better, this can give you time to formulate your response.

Tip 3: Don’t Bring Up Things That Are Unrelated to Your Interview.

This seems somewhat simple to me, but I am amazed at how many people want to talk about everything but what I’m asking them. Some go so far as to share stories that make them look ignorant or hard to work with. Try to answer questions directly and be careful to avoid getting too far off track. This shows good communication skills, too, which is important for interviewers to see.

A personal thing from me: Don’t answer every question with a story. If you’re asked to “Tell of a time when…”, then tell a story. But if you’re asked a factual question, answer it with a fact.

Tip 4: (You better know this already) Don’t Every Insult The Person Who is Interviewing You.

Just don’t do it. It happened to me once. They did not get the job. They didn’t even get considered.

Sometimes the people interviewing are stupid. Don’t tell them till after they’ve hired you.

If I were to interview you and you did these things, even if you didn’t get the job, I’d really like you for it.

One of them is that when there are pretty colors and images, a lot of clients have a really tough time seeing the structure of their content. Something I have begun trying to do more is using simple, un-”designed” prototypes to help clients think about the content on their site before it gets dressed in prettiness.

In my efforts to do this, I have struggled a fair deal in determining what the most fitting medium for creating these prototypes is. My favorite media are pencil and paper (remember those?). For me, the more technology involved in getting out what’s in my head, usually, the more interference there is as well. It may not be this way for everyone, but for me, I need an immediate and simple process or my thoughts will get lost along the way. I haven’t used pencil and paper, despite this, because usually the final product isn’t nice looking enough to present to a client.

I have tried using Adobe Fireworks and/or Adobe Illustrator to do the prototyping. I’m very familiar with both programs, therefore, using either is pretty simple for me. Fundamentally, though, to me something about using them doesn’t seem right. By nature with either of those programs, there is total freedom. I can place any shape in any size anywhere. This is really handy when you’re illustrating or making complex imagery, but for websites–which are rendered from HTML–they’re actually sort of unfitting tools. HTML has no where near the freedom and flexibility that vector graphics do.

With this divergence in mind, I began considering how I could actually use HTML to create prototypes of pages that would end up in HTML. This is technically VERY simple to do. The only drawback is the amount of time it would take to code the correct CSS and HTML for a given prototyping style.

The obvious solution to speeding up the creation of HTML prototypes is some sort of framework or template that would allow one to quickly create basic pages without having to code everything from scratch.

A while back I played around with Blueprint CSS. I really liked it, but found that it using it limited very much the work I was able to create. I would spend as much time tweaking Blueprint as I would have spend just starting from scratch. So, Blueprint got chucked for me in most of the work I do. For prototyping, though, I think it is potentially a really good solution.

For Blueprint, given a general knowledge of CSS/HTML, there’s about a 5 minute learning curve. After that, it’s pretty dang simple. Writing out the HTML for a header/3-column/footer website would take, probably about 30 seconds.

The results maybe aren’t beautiful, but I think they’re clean and de-cluttered enough to achieve the goal. Further styling could be added if desired, of course.

As with every process like this, others may have their own preferences and ways of working, but I’m finding this works reasonably well for me.

Happy prototyping!

This tip can be reduced to a simple rule of thumb: explaining a joke will only make it better.

(This was originally posted at http://www.studentofcomedy.com on February 10, 2006)

A little note on my selection: these are all things that I regularly use. There are tons of awesome resources that I think are cool, but for whatever reason, I don’t actually use them. I’m choosing to share here just the stuff that I have found myself using the most.

Tools/Resources

jQuery. I first discovered javascript frameworks about 2 years ago. I found mooTools and was completely taken by the accordion. I used that for a while, before realizing that there were a wide range of javascript frameworks to choose from. I tried, from there various others, but when I discovered jQuery I put my use of all the other ones to rest. Without going into any detail at this point, all i can say is that with jQuery I can write far less code and do far more than with any other framework. I use it in almost every project now. It’s amazing.

Fireworks. Adobe Fireworks is an amazing program that I, for one, don’t think gets enough recognition. I use it nearly everyday and I love it. I supports both vector and bitmap graphics; it handles and makes use of alpha-channels in ways Photoshop and Illustrator still don’t; and it’s basic user interface is more intuitive when doing work for the web (you’ll have to try it to confirm that last point). A little note: a lot of people use Photoshop to do preliminary design work for websites. That’s fine, if you that’s what you want to do, but I have found that Fireworks—which was specifically designed for web-destined graphics—works much better than PHOTOshop which was designed for use with (surprise!) photos. If you don’t believe me, download the free trial from the Adobe website and use it for 30 days. You won’t be disappointed (unless you’re stupid.. jk).

Color Picker. When I’m designing, it’s always nice to have access to a little color picker. I use a Mac at home and a PC at work so I have two solutions here:

• For Windows. there is a great little application that I have come to love called ColorCop. It’s really simple. There’s an eyedropper that you can drag over anything on your screen, then it will tell you the hex code for the color and automatically copy it to your clipboard. Simple and lovely.
• For Mac OS. Here’s an awesome little tutorial about how you can use a little AppleScript to write your own. I did it myself. It was one line of code or something. Try it.

Briar Press. I really, really don’t want to share this. It’s kind of been my little secret for a while. BUT, because I love you guys, I will share it. Briar Press is a letter press community that has, among other things, a collection of clip imagery called, “Cuts & Caps”. To get the clips, they take letter press ornaments and initials from old specimen books, scan them, vectorize them, then offer them on their website. Some are free, other are for sale. But, all of them are really cool.

Lipsum. This is very simple website that generates Lorem ipsum text. I use it frequently when making mock ups. For those of you who use Dreamweaver, “Lorem and more” is a free dreamweaver extention which does the same thing. You can download it here.

Character Codes via Digital Media Minute. Periodically I’ll need an (X)HTML character code for an infrequently used symbol. Here’s a nice list of them all, sortable by a variety of characteristics.

For fun, I’m going to start re-posting some of the content from that site to give you guys a little laugh. For a little background, all these posts are written as “comedy tips”. You’ll see what I mean as you read them.

Enjoy! ..and, I love you.

Comedy Tip #1

“If a joke is funny once, you can rest assured it will be funny one more time!

Next time you tell a good joke and get a good laugh. Go ahead, tell it again. It will only get better!”

Originally posted at http://www.studentofcomedy.com on February 10, 2006

Cool Business Cards from Inspiredology.

Logopond Awards some of these are better than others.

Here’s a portfolio from a design group in Ukraine. There are a bunch of hand lettered pieces drawn on napkins that really get me going. Gorgeous. (via ilovetypography.com)

Finally, The Journal of Urban Typography is a tumble log with a bunch of urban type examples. Many are quirky, some are lovely, all are enjoyable.

That’s all for now.

(A little side note: when I made this theme I did it very quickly and forgot to include the RSS feed. It should show up automatically in your browser now, so feel free to subscribe if you’re interested. It’s here, by the way.)

These sources change pretty frequently, but here are my most current sources of inspiration. You’ll notice a common theme, possibly. I’m pretty into type and specifically, I’m pretty into hand-drawn type. I really love all hand-created artwork, the immediacy of the process makes the work feel more human to me. I may write on this later.

Anyway, here are some really cool sources for inspiration. Feel free to add your own in the comments, if you like.

Daily Type

Daily Type is a weblog (kind of) of a bunch of Russian type designers. They post images of type every day (thus, the name). A lot of it is hand-drawn, which, as mentioned above, I like a lot. The other thing that is cool about this site is that most of the type is in Cyrillic. Cyrillic is the alphabet that Russian is written in. Jonathan Hoefler wrote an article where he mentioned Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets. Since reading his article, I’ve been pretty into looking at Cyrillic type. It gives me a lot of cool ideas of what can be done with type that I might not always see right away looking at our good old Roman alphabet.

This is definitely a site to add to the feed reader and keep track of. Pretty cool stuff. (H&FJ’s blog is awesome, too, by the way. Maybe my favorite…)

Fiodor Sumkin’s Opera78.com

In all honesty, I know very little about Fiodor Sumkin. I am not quite sure, even, how I found his website. What I do know, though, is that he has some pretty awesome work. Mostly all of his stuff is hand-drawn. My favorite section is his typograhy. His work is kind of edgy, maybe offensive at times, but very impressive.

He also seems to do quite a lot of work in Russian (or another language using the Cyrillic alphabet). Which, as I’ve covered, I’m fascinated by. This is one of those sites I could easily spend a good hour at and not realize the time was passing. Check it out.

Foxie’s Graphic Design

Foxie’s Graphic Design is a Russian graphic design firm. I stumbled across this site yesterday when I was looking for something and accidentally spent a good chunk of time browsing their portfolio. The thing I was impressed with and the reason I’m including the site here is this: In their work, they seem to have a way of creating work that is fresh and unique, without challenging conventions too much. Good work.

Mike Perry’s Midwestisbest.com

Mike Perry is a designer in Brooklyn, NY who (I think) is known mainly for his fun, colorful hand-drawn work. A lot of his stuff utilizes a collage feel and maintains a youthful, fun aesthetic. He has a huge portfolio on his site that will give you quite a lot to look at for a while.

Also to note, Mike Perry is the author of a book called “Handjob”, which is a catalog of hand-drawn type. I haven’t been able to look through the book yet, but a friend of mine recently suggested it to me quite highly. Judging from Perry’s work on his website, I’m going to say it’s probably pretty good.

Flickr

This might be a completely unhelpful thing to list, because I’m pretty sure everyone uses flickr, but here it is. Flickr’s great for finding inspiration. Search for about anything and you’ll get results. My latest queries have been (you guessed it), “hand drawn type”, “type sketches”, … you get the idea.

I’ve found some pretty cool stuff on there. Check it out for yourself.

That’s pretty much all for today. What sources do you use for inspiration? Where do you go when you’re looking for an idea? Let me know…

This December I graduated from college. After graduation, I started working a basically normal work week—40 hours. That is 40 hours of web design per week. While I love it, I have found that much focused time on doing one sort of creative task can be quite taxing on me mentally and creatively. After a month or two of working, I just found myself repulsed by web design. And by repulsed, I mean it made my head hurt to look at websites (and I’m not kidding).

When I was in school, there were semesters when I was taking 3+ studio classes which means I was in the studio working 20 or more hours a week. That was on top of other homework, 15 hours of work, tutoring in a writing workshop, directing design for an online publication, and other extra-curriculars. I was much busier then, but I didn’t feel burnt out, in fact, that was one of the more productive times in my life. So, I wondered, what’s different now?

Well, this realization wasn’t as concise and clean as I’m putting it here, but I came to believe the difference is that in school I was involved in a lot of things, but there was a lot of variation. Now, there is little variation so it’s easy to really get sick of what I’m doing.

So, a month or so ago, realizing this, I started being intentional about keeping my creative output varied. I have tried a few things I’ll show you, but I think part of the success is changing it up it all the time. So, I started with sketching more and I’m moving into some other areas now.

Hand Lettering

My first attempt at this was to start doing some hand lettering. I’m pretty horrible at it, but this has helped a LOT in facilitating creativity. I find just doing something that requires me to think in a way very different from how I think about web design has really kind of freed my mind. Here’s some of what I’ve come up with:

Type Play

The other thing I’ve been doing is taking two things I love—type and patterns—and playing with them in fun ways. My first attempt, I just took a lower case ‘r’ and started playing with it. I began with altering the letter-form slightly. Then, from there, i just started repeating and overlapping it and making some cool images. Here’s what I came up with:

This discipline of creativity, a few weeks after starting it, I have found has been very productive. I have much better ideas now than I’ve had for a while and I enjoy my work instead of it giving me a headache. I suggest it. If you have other ideas as to how to help overcome burnout, let me know. I’m interested in what others are doing.

It would be cool if I worked for a little design shop where every project was an opportunity to revolutionize the web, but I don’t–and get this: I’m fine with it for now.

Now, don’t get me wrong. While what I’ve just written may sound like a rant, it’s not. I find all that stuff very cool, I respect those designers/writers greatly, and I’d love to be where a lot of those guys are, but it’s just not a reality for me right now.

To me, in the place where I’m at, the biggest concerns for me are how not to be burnt out by demoralizing demands, how to be creative when I’m given very little creative license, and how to design efficiently within larger process that isn’t always that efficient.

So, thus, I will be writing for the little guy like me. I will attempt to address the above issues and more as time goes on. If you have ideas or comments about this, please share.

My first post will be on how to avoid creative desserts in the midst of a fast-pased, low-variety workload. You can look for that later this week.

I really hope you enjoy.

I have a new vision accompanied by some new passion. Hopefully I will be able to start writing some interesting things on here in the near future. Keep your eyes pealed.