It’s been a very long time since I’ve posted anything on here. I’ve been pretty busy with all of life’s demands, which isn’t bad, but I haven’t written very much.

Part of the reason for my lack of writing is because ever since I put together my previous design, I haven’t really been pleased with it. I had a variety of goals for it that I felt weren’t really acheived. In the mean time, though, I thing I’ve put together a design that I feel a little bit better about. Here are some things you might notice:

• More thorough typographical consideration. I really love and care about my type. In the previous iteration, though, I didn’t spend as much time as I would have liked working it out. I think this version is much better.
• Use of Clarendon. For better or for worse I’m a huge fan of Clarendon. I discovered Clarendon while in school and really began to love it then. My type professor, however, really hated it. Therefore, my love for it grew. (wink, wink). I have had intentions of using it in public work for a while, but haven’t done so till now. How did I do it? Next point…
• Use of typeface-js. Typeface-js is a javascript solution to embedding typefaces on your website. I won’t go in to detail as to how it works, but I will say I am pretty pleased with how easy it was to install and configure. I have previously used sIFR, but I am glad to leave flash behind for this. (I am aware that Cufón might be a more mature project that works similarly, but I found this one first and like it… I might change later if there is significant reason to do so.)

Some things you probably won’t notice without significant digging, but that I’d like to mention:

• One reason I was able to build this theme quickly (by the way, I was able to build this quickly) was because I found a really helpful, stripped-down WordPress theme that serves as an excellent blank canvass for starting new template developments. It’s called Starkers and it was made by Elliot Jay Stocks.
• I used less javascript. I really like javascript. I really dislike, though, features on sites that don’t significantly contribute to the overall user experience but that still take time to load. Therefore, I cut out some javascript effects I used on the previous iteration of this design. (The only javascript I am using is for the earlier mentioned font embedding.)
• This hardly merits mentioning, but in this iteration I didn’t even bother trying to get things to appear right in IE 6. Very few people view this site and a negligable number use IE. It’s simply not worthy my time or effort.

That’s all. Please let me know what you think of the update. If you notice anything that doesn’t look quite right, let me know–I probably missed some stuff.

Rock on,

Rewdy

(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 Ever 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.

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.