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Boy has it been a while
September 18, 2009No long explanation about why I haven’t posted in a while. If you’re still reading, you want content, not apologies. But a short explanation: I took a new job (full-time, in an office) and moved to Seattle. That means that twelve8 creative is now based in Seattle, not Chicago! The site will reflect that soon.
I’m working for a small (5-person, myself included) webapp startup called Angry Lapdog Productions. I’m the front-end web developer (XHTML, CSS3, and JS for now) for a Rails app. This means I don’t get to design, but I do have input on design. But the dev-heavy focus has been good in a lot of ways: I’m finally coming to understand Rails (and MVC in general), getting my OO JavaScript up to snuff, learning to compromise on my ideal coding standards/practices (and/or find super-clever CSS solutions) in order to serve designs that are not my own (as opposed to abandoning standards altogether in my last software company job). Basically, it’s a great job, though I’m bummed to have so little time for twelve8 creative and personal projects.
What does Angry Lapdog Productions do? I’m going to hold off on telling you until I can show you a production version of our app with my code in place. But it’s cool! (And sure to have me buying my first yacht within a few months.)
Oh, and if you’re in Seattle, give me a call.
Beware Smashing Magazine
June 1, 2009I remember Andy Rutledge linking to an article from Digital Web from the “ephemera” section of his website. After linking, he said something to the effect of too bad it appears in such an “irresponsibly-run rag”. This pretty much sums up my attitude about Smashing Magazine. Sometimes there are very worthwhile articles and some of the best in the industry have written for or appeared in it, but, at the end of the day, Smashing Magazine is an irresonsibly-run rag. But this time they’ve really pissed me off…
Designers who tweet
May 6, 2009In a recent post (Recent thoughts: 4-28-2009), I wrote: “I wish designers on twitter would tweet more about design and less about miles ridden on bikes and burgers eaten, etc. Or keep separate accounts.” Though, I haven’t received any replies specific to this statement, I’d like to expand/clarify.
It is not without some ambivalence that I tell you…
April 8, 2009…that I’ve joined twitter.
And it is not without considerable shame that I tell you… that I did not choose CraveVileTweet8 as my username. Rather, it’s @twelve8creative.
Inside the new site: back-end
March 29, 2009A few words about my CMS: When I built my previous blog site, www.redesignblog.net, I did some research on Content Management Systems, which I had had very little experience with. I looked at tumblr, but decided I wanted more control of things like URL structure. I gave textpattern a spin, but found it pretty darn complicated. I looked into Expression Engine, but was sheepish about paying for a CMS. Finally, I settled on WordPress. WordPress uses a system of predefined tags. This system is pretty powerful, especially with the many available plug-ins, but has a significant learning curve and is a bit limiting. So, with REDESIGNBLOG I deviated from the tags in a few places with some PHP hacking of my own. Now with this site, I abandoned the built-in WordPress tag system altogether.…