by Theresa Carpine 25.April 2008 08:18
I saw a poster for faces of bellingham© outside La Vie En Rose on West Holly, so I had to check it out. Was it an event? Was it a political statement?
It's a blog by local artist, Lea Kelley, featuring the faces of people she encounters on the streets of Bellingham. That's it, just faces. Her goal is to get 700 faces, representing 1% of the population of our hamlet by the bay. If you find your picture, you're welcome to tell the community who you are, give a link to your website, and share comments on other people's photos. She already has over 500 photos, and I'm hoping that even when she reaches her goal, she'll keep going. The site is an amazingly simple way to feel connected to our community. It's fun to find people you recognize, even if you've never actually spoken to them.
by Theresa Carpine 6.March 2008 11:25
First of all, Karina gets 5 Gold Stars just for working Jane Austen into a blog post about web design. As a Lit major, nothing really makes me happier than a good P&P reference.
But she also makes some great points about what the first priority when creating a website for a client: aesthetic or programmability? And what’s most important when working for that client: giving them what they want or giving them a website that will work? And Rusty reminds us that many clients don’t know why they need a website, so how do they even know whether they need a designer or developer? They might not even know that there is a difference—I certainly didn’t until I started working at Mindfly.
It’s pretty interesting that Karina and Rusty focus on what the “customer” wants, meaning the customer that has hired us to design the site. As someone who never really thought about web design until about four or so months ago, I would think of the customer as someone who visits a site, searching for potential business (like the person who hopefully is reading this blog after a doing a Google search of “Bellingham web design”). The only time I ever considered that a website didn’t just exist or emerge fully-armed from Zeus’s forehead was when my favorite sites would undergo a redesign and I’d have to figure out how to work my way around again. At the time, I always considered it an inconvenience to me—a loyal and frequent visitor of the site. But once you get used to things, you can’t imagine it being any other way. Or that’s what you hope people think, if the design is in fact an improvement.
The good folks at Mindfly have to serve a variety of masters when creating a site: the limitations of programming, visually innovative design, the client, and the client’s clients. And it’s great that Mindfly has a variety of people with a diversity of skills to bring to the table, but there can also be the issue of having “too many cooks in the kitchen.” We manage to work all of these things together to make attractive and functional websites. And when you think about the significance a website can have, that’s exactly what needs to be done.
According to this video by faculty and students at Kansas State University, people in my generation (currently in college or just joining the workforce) spend about 3.5 hours online every day and read 2,300 web pages a year (as opposed to eight books). The Internet is where we get our news, our entertainment, it’s how we network and communicate with each other. I can only imagine what the next generation will expect, as they are being raised (quite literally) on websites.
Without being too sales-pitchy, here are just a few things you might want to ask yourself if you’re in the market for a website. They’re pretty basic, but for a novice like me—someone who is a potential customer of the site itself—they’re probably the first things I consider when I’m looking at a site for the first time.
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Who is the audience and what will they use the site for?
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Is content on the website clear and easy to find?
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What is innovative about this site, both in regards to the design and programming?
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How will the look of the site reflect the business or organization behind it?
by Theresa Carpine 22.February 2008 17:00
Well, here it is. My first Mindfly Blog post. The irony is that I was hired as a writer and it only took three and a half months for me to finally write a blog entry.
I could come up with a multitude of excuses for why it took so long for me to get here. I could tell you that I've been plenty busy writing for other cool projects. I could also mention the fact that it took three and half months for the powers-that-be to give me a login. But the simple truth is that I had no idea what to write about.
Hoping to cultivate some inspiration, I would diligently read the postings of my co-workers, trying to figure out just what belonged on the Mindfly blog or what I could add to the mix. And then I realized that the only thing I had to bring to the table was a background in literary criticism. So that's what I'm going to share with you: my analysis of my fellow bloggers.
Every Mindfly blogger has something unique to bring to their post, usually a tip for web design and websites. So even though when I read a post by Kyle and pretty much have no idea what he's talking about (because he speaks web developer and I do not), I know that I can rely on him to have plenty of links to other articles that will can give me more background. Plus, I know he's going to throw in a few pop culture references to make me laugh.
Now, Heather, on the other hand, comes at her posts with a completely different agenda. She wants to communicate her ideas to you in a clear fashion and equip you with the information to make these changes on your site. Most of her posts come with 1-2-3 step instructions and, I'm not going to lie, that's just what I need when it comes to some of this technical stuff. She's also very visual so she provides lots of screenshots in her examples.
So what I'm getting at is that every blogger has to come up with their own voice. They might not even know they're doing it, but it's there. And it's a good thing because the reason that people come back to a blog (we hope) is that they like something about the blogger; not just what they say, but how they say it. And what's great about the Mindfly blog. We all write with our own particular style about a variety of topics (okay, mostly websites) so there really is something for everybody.