Refresh the Triangle

Come One, Come All Here’s a heads-up that me and the gang will be in full-force tomorrow night for this month’s Refresh the Triangle: “Dr jQuery (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the DOM)” I expect to start with a (really) short introduction to jQuery, then move on to a bunch of hands-on examples using it to manipulate DOM elements on a web page. No programming experience required! You can run jQuery commands from the command line in Firefox using the Firebug extension, Read More >>

The Importance of a Cover Letter

So in our quest to find “The Best Web Designer in Town” we’ve come across many a cover letter, some awesome, others…not so awesome. Below are some snippets of my favorites. If you’re one of them, don’t worry, the names are hidden to protect the innocent and the guilty. Now my purpose for this post is to enlighten possible employee prospects, for us or elsewhere, as to what a great cover letter consists of (in my mind). We did mention that we wanted folks to send us the “world’s Read More >>

Web Designer Wanted

We’re Looking for the Best Web Designer in Town Are you passionate about pushing pixels? Are you a typographic genius? Do you always design on a grid? Can you produce gallery-worthy designs in a variety of styles? If so, please keep reading. OnWired, a full-service web design/development firm and all-around cool place to work, is on the hunt for a web designer. We’re looking for someone with a creative mind, a keen understanding of user experience, exceptional communication skills, attention Read More >>

Why ExpressionEngine?

This is the first of two articles explaining why we’ve standardized on EllisLab technologies. Since standardizing on ExpressionEngine last year we’ve fielded questions from both clients and developers wanting to know, “why ExpressionEngine?” Well, I’m going to lay it all out there for you, so strap yourself in. EspressoWhosit? ExpressionEngine (EE) is the flagship product of EllisLab, the cool cats also responsible for the CodeIgniter PHP framework (CI) and EngineHosting. It’s Read More >>

Top 10 Leopard Tips, Tricks & Fixes

If you’re like me, you’re very particular about your desktop: whether that means swapping icons, toggling options or disabling features, if you spend all day in front of your computer (sigh…) you want to be happy and feel settled in. And while it can take some time to get it just right (some OS’s take longer than others), in the end you’ll be glad you did. So without further ado I present my top 10 Leopard tips: 10. Opacity is the New Transparency Mercifully, Apple listened to its users Read More >>

Web Development Workflow That Works

Small design firms like ours have a lot to juggle: we manage clients, sales, proposals, phone calls, billing, marketing, writing, and — when we have a free moment — the actual pixel-pushing that gets us paid! And when it comes to one’s development workflow, it pays to standardize on a handful of devices and technologies rather than try to be all things to all people. For example, in our office we’re an all-Apple shop, which means that we seldom have any hardware or uthftware compatibility Read More >>

Better Drop Shadows

We’ve gotten more than one question from curious creative types out there on the Web about how we achieved certain effects on our website. Lots of people want to know about the shadows, and I know why: far too many designers just use the craptastic default drop shadow settings in Photoshop. Why do you stick with something that looks so artificial when it’s not very hard to do something a little more photorealistic? In an effort to make the Web a better place, I’m going to share my top secret Read More >>

Blogging Tip to Live By

There are millions of blogs in the world and if you have one, you are simply adding to the growing pile of the public’s online writing.  But with so many different blogs out there, how are you ever going to promote yours to the point where you will have regular readers? This tip is probably the easiest one of all, and it will have you saying “Tony, you idiot, I already knew that.”  That’s fine (although I would prefer to keep the name calling to a minimum), but remembering this tip will Read More >>

Dealing With Design Theft

It happens. Today, when pretty much everything is digital and even your six-year-old cousin has easy access to the necessary tools, intellectual property infringement is a fairly common occurrence. We’ve all heard countless tales of RIAA lawsuits, stolen logos, and family photos being used on national television and in advertising campaigns without permission. Since we launched our site redesign in late November, we’ve gotten a ginormous amount of traffic. People seemed to like our site Read More >>

That Didn’t Take Long

We launched our new design 20 November 2007, and since then we’ve been fortunate enough to receive quite a bit of positive feedback: kind words sent through our contact form, some great publicity in a few design galleries, and even praiseworthy mention in an article about top 2007 design trends. But you know you’ve really got some fans when you encounter something like this: I’ve posted a screenshot so you can marvel at his mad design skillz!!1!. You can also find it on Flickr Read More >>