Radiant Orchid- Pantone's Color of the Year 2014

http://pantone.com/pages/index.aspx?pg=21131

Hmm, now its just trying to get a client to go along with it!

The New 2015 Ford Mustang

the New Ford Mustang, what do you think all? Keeps classic Stang design cues while pushing forward and looking pretty sexy.

More at Autoblog
http://www.autoblog.com/2013/12/05/2015-ford-mustang-official-photos-reveal-info/

Disconnect for Creativity

http://www.fastcompany.com/3022448/how-to-be-a-success-at-everything/how-creativity-works-and-how-to-harness-its-power

I enjoyed reading this Fast Company article about creativity. Especially the part about tuning out and dropping out.

"1. Create time for solitude. 
In interviewing others, I found that solitude is the No. 1 creative habit of highly creative people. If you’re immersed in online distractions and other busy-ness, you’ll never have the space to consider the ideas you’ve gleaned from elsewhere, or think about how to remix them. So while connection is important (see other steps below), time for solitude is just as critical and often forgotten."
As an electronic musician, I always found melodies and song ideas come to me doing mundane things..walking the dog, taking a shower, washing the dishes.

Since I am redoing my online portfolio, can this work for me visually/graphic design wise also?

Unless I'm doing some intensive reading, I almost have music on ALL THE TIME. So the silence is a bit jarring. I even fall asleep to a light "relaxation" playlist of mostly soundtrack, ambient and classical music.

--
I took up long distance running in the Spring of 2013, so after reading the Fast Company article, I decided to do something i NEVER do. I ran without music. I was mostly playing with music ideas in my head though! Can I get visual thoughts too?

I'll try it again this morning!

I Really Need To Learn jQuery

I have to stop procrastinating and fighting the forces of life. Every employer out there is looking for it. I guess I'm afraid of it. But not knowing it is killing my career chances.

But can I call myself a "front end developer" without knowing it. Just knowing HTML and CSS isn't enough.

I think it boils down to fear. I'm very right brained and visual. I've always coded because I HAD to, not because I wanted to.

My brief experiences with PHP and JavaScript just left me scratching my head. But I guess it's time to go down to the public library today and face my fears head on.

I do have a book on it, but I'm thinking of starting with code academy to soft launch me into it.

What are other people's experiences with jQuery

Things to stay away from with my portfolio redesign

1. Parallax/One page Design

Yeah its cool, but I find it overwhelming sometimes. I like controlled dosages of information

2. Flat Design
Ok I'm not total anti flat design, quite a bit of I enjoy and since my Adobe Illustrator skills are not stellar thats all I can make, but I want it my new portfolio to have some personality.

3. The huge ass "HELLO MY NAME IS XXXX AND IM A WEB DESIGNER" at the top of the page. Seems like everyone is doing it.

4. "Creative" navigation.. yes it shows off your design and coding chops, but I don't want people needing instructions on how to navigate my website.

5. Picture of myself. I still have bauhaus/international style manifestos in my head of Graphic Design as "anonymous" art for the people by the people. You don't sign your work (unless you're a poster maker)

And to be honest, don't want people getting hung up on my race and physical features when my real focus should be my work, not what I look like.

6. Listing all the big brands you've worked for-- well as an agency or freelancer this is important, but for me, not so much. And its all presented in the same way on most websites

A Design Unicorn Job Ad

Last month I wrote about the "design unicorn" debate that is going on in web design/development circles. Well here's an ad I just got from a recruiter. How many candidates do they think they can find having an ad like this:

Title: Web Designer
Location: River woods, IL
Duration: 6+ Months

Web Designer/Developer
We are looking for a digital designer/web developer with excellent design sensibilities, great portfolio of interactive campaigns and a thorough understanding HTML5/CSS3/Responsive design.
The candidate must be a fast learner with intellectual creativity, who can thrive in a high energy, fast-paced environment. The candidate will have the opportunity to have an immediate impact and use their energetic, easy-going personality to work within a team environment. This role will require and utilize knowledge over a broad skill set to meet and exceed the daily challenges.
The ideal candidate will have at 1-2 years of experience in HTML5/CSS3 Design, a proven, thorough understanding and track record of producing responsive websites, emails, and other web-related content. Must be able to program websites using html5, CSS3, JavaScript/JQuery. Must have additional programming knowledge and understanding of PHP and .Net (yes both). Will be responsible for designing and developing moderately complex multimedia communications such as websites/microsites, banner ads, e-newsletters, email templates, etc.
Required Design/Programming Skills:
• Exceptional Eye for Great Interactive Design
• HTML/HTML5
 • CSS/CSS3
 • JavaScript/JQuery
 • .Net
• Adobe CS5+
• Responsive Design
 • Wordpress

Other required skills:
• Self-directed and capable of working in a fast-paced team environment
• Very strong writing, grammar and verbal communication skills
• Ability to develop new and update existing code
• Strong understanding of web standards and usability
The following skills are considered a PLUS:
 • PHP
 • MySQL

The Swiss Army Knife/Design Unicorn

A few months ago when I was unemployed and searching for a job, I wanted to write a post which I had titled “The Swiss Army Knife Designer” Though I was afraid potential employers would see it and I would get black listed. 

I was seeing ridiculous job postings wanting you to know a laundry list of requirements that seemed almost impossible, wanting you to know everything from The Adobe Creative Suite, to html and css, to php, jsp, ruby on rails, and you must also bake cakes and walk the company dog.

Some of the companies I wanted to apply for but just didn’t because the list of skills seemed too intimidating.

Some people say, they just shove all that stuff into a job description, and they really don’t expect you to know ALL of it.

Little did I know that there was a term and some sort of debate going on in the web design/development land going on about what I was thinking about the “Swiss Army Knife” designer, with a much funnier and catchy name…”The Design Unicorn”!

From Usability Counts and Author Patrick Neeman

http://www.usabilitycounts.com/2013/07/24/the-unicorn-designer-dilemma-and-how-to-avoid-it/

“We need a unicorn.”

“What’s that?”

“You know, someone who can code, design graphics, design user experience, write copy, and do all the HTML and CSS for us. They’re cheap and easy to find. They should be able to take out the trash. Oh, and wash our cars wearing a bikini.”

And unicorns can fly.

The unicorn designer is the most in demand and rarest of product team members — someone with excellent interaction design skills, visual design skills, and coding ability. Unobtanium.”

—

I agree that there are design unicorns out there.. Luke Wroblewski (who I actually had 3D design class with at the University of Illinois, and he was even good at that!) , my friend Mark Raguž at Nivas in 

Croatia http://nivas.hr/en/about-us

But to be fair and balanced there is also the counter argument that we do need design generalists

http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml where David Cole says “You don’t have to be good at everything to do great work” And that design within itself has multiple tasks..which he’s right..image making, composing, typography, information hierarchy, gestalt, balance, color theory, so I can see what he’s saying.

My education in Graphic Design at University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign in the mid to late 90s was heavily print focused, leaning towards the Bauhaus/Swiss-International style of design. Two web classes were offered at the time, and I did take both.

But I have often worked in the world where I would design a web interface, do the basic HTML for it, then hand it off to a backend designer to do the heavy lifting/programming/database work. So even since the start of my career I have been more of a design specialist.

Also being right brained and just having overall math deficiency syndrome, coding doesn’t appeal to me at all. I do HTML and CSS because I have to, its part of the job description, not because I want to.

But now it may be an “adapt or die” situation where UI/UX is becoming the dominant trend in web design/development.

Where do you weigh in on the design specialist/design generalist debate?