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Self Defeating Web Design – A How-to Guide

How-to Summary: Put as many stakeholders, departments and decision makers as possible into deciding what the website should be and then have lots of meetings.

As all designers do at one point or another, we question why the powers that be – clients, stakeholders, etc. make (what we think to be) bad choices when it comes to building a website for the company or brand. As well intentioned as the parties involved are, the idea that spreading the power out amongst all of the groups involved tends to muddle and often do more harm then good to the project. Several other designers and I were discussing this a while back and we happened to stumble on this interesting article on Fast Company’s website. The comments, coming from a number of different sources, were equally as interesting.

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/cliff-kuang/design-innovation/how-self-defeating-corporate-design-process-one-designer-finds-ou

The biggest challenge to better design isn’t getting better designers. The problem is organizational, and the hub-and-spoke decision-making process that was originally created to slash bureaucracy–that is, to create more decentralized decisions and less hierarchy. But the overriding weakness, which design thinking makes manifest, is that good design is necessarily the product of a heavily centralized structure. Great design at places such as Apple isn’t about “empowering decision makers” or whatever that lame B-school buzzword is. It’s about awarding massive power and self-determination to those with the most cohesive vision–that is, the designers. Those are the people with the best idea of what customers want. That’s the essence of “design thinking.”

Public Company Website:

Mock Up Redesign:

Successful web application designers – 37signals have published an awesome book on how-NOT-to-make a sucky product. Although their core competency is in web apps this guide stretches across multiple disciplines. Their core philosophy – less people involved, instead of meetings get more actual work done, and focus on that one core thing the customer wants and build, tweak and iterate until it is there.

Getting Real – A Book by 37signals

New Website Up – Kung Fu Hustle The Game

Just in time for E3 – The Kung Fu Hustle The Game teaser site. Kung Fu Hustle The Game is a new online game coming soon from Sony Online Entertainment.

http://www.kungfuhustlethegame.com/

This was a fun, quick and simple site to design without too many design constraints and just one page. I was very happy to have it approved by all of the stakeholders involved relatively quickly. Thanks goes out to our lead web dev, Ben Neil for working his slicing/coding magic and getting it up on live very quickly. He puts my web dev skills to shame. Another talented flash developer on our team, Ryan Ragona, was kind enough to let me dissect his media player code and let me hack it a bit to get what’s there now.

The Art of Dave Quiggle and Black Rose District

Recently a friend of mine, and talented artist in his own right – Kyle Blackman, turned me on to the amazing work of Dave Quiggle and his clothing company Black Rose District. Let me start first by saying Dave is killing it! His art style, use of big bold colors, and line work are friggin [...]

Etch Brushes for Photoshop

When I work in Photoshop I’m always trying to discover new ways to build up texture or discover something new that helps me define a certain look I’d like to achieve. Seeing all of that beautiful line work and the various patterns of flowing, overlapping lines made me think that some of these etchings could [...]

After Effects CS4 – 3D Fall off test

I’ve been working on learning more about After Effects CS4. Here’s a small scene I’ve been working on in my spare time. This scene is based on the 3D fall off tutorial at video copilots.
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Switcheroo

Hehehe, I dug up this old 3d animation I did once for a class. Forgot about this one.
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