The essential energy of a design is created through the spacing. Spacing is not only important for defining elements and setting them apart, but also for creating the overall tone and energy of a piece; unequal spacing catches the eye, and adds the general flare to a design. With this in mind, it is essential that even the most novice designer learn the importance behind placement in a design, and through practice, develop an understanding that placement cannot just simply happen, just like good design doesn’t simply happen. Through nature and experimentation, the novice can best learn to use the placement and division of a piece in order to convey a proper message, and understand how it is used in the media around them. Read more »

How the hell did I get here, and where am I going?

Sometimes I sit back and wonder about the journey I took to become a web designer. I started out as that kid you pay $20 to for something quick because they know a little bit about computers. I loved graphics, and making images. I would take poetry and images, and combine them through blends, with textures and other things I experimented with. A friend of mine from childhood knew a little bit about how to get started with a website; she had me going with Geocities in very little time. I was able to post my writing, my graphics, and explore a world I was only just beginning to learn about. Read more »

Gradients is perhaps part of what defines “web 2.0″, or rather, the current trends in web design as per the last few years. The problem that I’ve seen thus far is the abuse of gradients – while it’s fine to use them (I, after all, use gradients on my own site design), it’s not so fine to over use them, or to use them improperly.

Gradients can create a very visually appealing site which pulls the audience in – or they can be overly distracting and cliche’d. So let’s take a look at a few sites which use such gradients. Read more »

Today, I am trying something a bit different. I’ve put up a premade site under my portfolio; depending upon how much popularity this theme and the others I plan on posting receives, I will be considering creating a page dedicated to premade web templates.

Normally I charge $20/hour for a project; for a full project, this amounts to around $400+, though I’d say my average is around $500 depending on the amount of programming and changes requested. I allow clients to have an unlimited amount of requested changes, but at the same time, I do not work for free.

This theme in question is very flexible; its navigation can be requested to be placed anywhere (though I would suggest horizontally), and it can have contact information placed opposite of the logo. The image can be edited or left as-is, and because it is content rich, not only will it have a greater amount of SEO, it will also show flexibility for what one might wish to put in there; RSS feeds, social networking links, or even just more content about your company in general. Read more »

Well, I’ve finally done it. I doodled a panda, and I placed it on my site. It was bound to happen; I already have panda avatars on most sites, pandas on my printer, a panda on my keyring, I even turned my calendar to the one month that has a panda. And don’t even get me started on the pandas that populate the desktops of my iMac and my Macbook. If anything, however, at least I was able to just sit and have some fun with gradients and the other goodies in Illustrator.

And now I have this. A small experiment I did while procrastinating further updates to my site’s scheme and layout, and while searching for ideas for what to do with the site footer, which I wanted to redo. On an unrelated note, however, I do have something I’ve been pondering. Read more »