Darebin libraries website

Jun 13, 03:35 PM | Comment

Having experienced many online offerings from local governments and local councils in the past, as well as having worked for a few, I had pretty much resigned myself to accepting that most are going to be rubbish in terms of antiquated code using tables for layout and inline styles, bad interface design, little or no regard for usability or accessibility and, more often than not containing outdated content.

Whatever the reasons for this, be it that the website is perhaps considered a low priority, that there’s no dedicated resource allocated to the website or that it’s simply too hard to get people to agree to a redesign, the sites’ users seem destined to lose-out.

This has always amazed and concerned me considering the broad, diverse user base that these organisations must have, and the importance of the content to a lot of people.

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Judging the International Web Awards

May 20, 12:51 PM | Comment [3]

I’m delighted to announce that I have been asked to be one of the judges in this years’ International Web Marketing Association WebAwards web design competition.

Now in its 12th year, the WebAwards is the premier annual website award competition that names the best Web sites in 96 industries while setting the standard of excellence for all website development.

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Helvetica

May 13, 07:49 AM | Comment [1]

I watched Helvetica last night which is a fascinating documentary about typography, graphic design and global visual culture.

“It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which will celebrate its 50th birthday in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. The film is an exploration of urban spaces in major cities and the type that inhabits them, and a fluid discussion with renowned designers about their work, the creative process, and the choices and aesthetics behind their use of type.”
www.helveticafilm.com

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Work update

Mar 25, 12:18 PM | Comment [1]

I just realised it’s been a really long time since I updated the portfolio section of this site. Not without good reason though, and it’s not because I’ve been slacking off and enjoying the Melbourne sunshine (the chance would be a fine thing). It’s because most of the projects I’ve worked on of late have either been internal web applications (so not available for public consumption) or have not gone live yet. As such I don’t want to publish anything visual just at the minute, partly because I’m not really allowed to in some cases but also because I don’t want to spoil the launches for my clients.

That said, I’m enormously proud of some of the things I’ve been working on of late so I wanted to share some of the more notable pieces to give some insight on what I’ve been up to:

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Lessons learned from Gordon Ramsay

Mar 22, 03:29 PM | Comment [1]

I’ve been loving Gordon Ramsay’s kitchen nightmares series’ (the British ones were much better than the American ones – much less ‘reality TV’ shenanigans).

Each week Ramsay helps a struggling restaurant to turn things around, always with the same basic method of combining determination, attitude and drive with keeping things simple, manageable and meaningful to the customers.

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Art, Sensis and yet more Telstra web work!

Dec 10, 08:06 PM Comment

I know, I know… I’ve been a bit quiet of late on the old weblog front, but I’ve got a (feeble) excuse – I’ve been mega busy! – which is a bit unusual for the December/January silly season, but hey, I’m not complaining!

I can’t give too much away yet about what I’ve been working on ‘cause I’m sworn to secrecy and can’t ruin the impending launches, but watch this space for full details as they emerge…

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Photoshop

Oct 31, 04:07 PM | Comment [1]

For graphic designers everywhere…

Photoshop comic strip

New business cards

Sep 8, 05:36 PM Comment

Fresh from the printers today.

Business cards

I’m concerned that the details block sits a little too low on the white side, but there’s always something isn’t there? I guess it’s just part of being a designer.

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Side notes

My little sister
Heres a little one-pager I just built for my little sister.

Jakob Nielsen ponders OK–Cancel or Cancel–OK?
Should the OK button come before or after the Cancel button? Following platform conventions is more important than sub-optimising an individual dialog box.

Flight of the conchords
This stuff is Absolute Genius

Web directions south - User experience conference
A full day conference here in Melbourne, focussing on concepts, technologies and techniques for building great user experiences on the web. Can't wait!

Redesigned BBC news site
The Beeb's 'refreshed' news site just went live. Read about what's changed on their editors blog site.