Archive for July, 2008

Coming soon: Outpost will let you manage Basecamp projects on your iPhone

Outpost (coming from Morfunk) promises to let you manage your Basecamp projects on your iPhone.

Take notes away from the office. Delegate tasks from the train. Check on deadlines. Upload photos to projects. Anywhere.

Click to sign up to get notified when it launches.

Basecamp color picker

Here’s another excellent example of thinking like a user - rather than a developer - from the folks at 37signals.

Previously, if you wanted to change the color scheme within their Basecamp app, you either needed to select from a predetermined list, or have rudimentary knowledge of how colors are displayed on the Web.

With their new tool, you just select the color you want from a “colorpicker” and the change is instantly displayed on the page.

Nicely done. See it here: http://37signals.blogs.com/products/2008/07/new-in-baseca-2.html

IndyStar.com GO4 design

Launched in the Spring of 2008, IndyStar.com was rebuilt as part of Gannett’s global redesign effort. For those not familiar with our CMS, IndyStar.com is built using Saxotech Online and Pluck and is hosted in Maryland at the corporate server complex. Saxotech is a closed system that required a ton of of javascript to get Pluck integrated, which results in very heavy page loads. Our Saxo expert, Justin Hill, worked as much magic as he could, but there’s only so much you can do with a closed CMS.

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Web 2.0 design resources

Here’s a list of web 2.0 galleries, courtesy of Vandelay Design. The galleries are listed in order of Alexa rank.

  1. CSS Drive, 23,116
  2. CSS Beauty, 25,112
  3. Web Creme, 25,559
  4. Favorite Website Awards, 27,391
  5. Best Web Gallery, 28,102
  6. CSS Remix, 29,858
  7. Stylegala, 38,743
  8. Cool Homepages, 38,783
  9. CSS Elite, 42,846
  10. CSS Vault, 48,978
  11. FaveUp, 54,894
  12. CSS Creme, 57,050
  13. Design Shack, 62,139
  14. The Best Designs, 65,228
  15. W3C Sites, 65,953
  16. Unmatched Style, 77,871
  17. CSS Based, 82,349
  18. Screenfluent, 90,287
  19. Screenalicious, 93,621
  20. CSS Heaven, 96,061
  21. CSS Import, 117,396
  22. CSS Clip, 118,313
  23. Styleboost, 118,431
  24. Web Digity, 125,485
  25. CSS Gallery 2.0, 137,614
  26. Boxed CSS, 142,164
  27. CSS Website, 142,373
  28. Design Snack, 144,613
  29. CSS Artillery, 158,827
  30. CSS Glance, 167,939
  31. The Daily Slurp, 182,358
  32. CSS Website Gallery, 196,126
  33. CSS Collection, 199,695
  34. CSS Reboot, 202,730
  35. Professional on the Web, 211,584
  36. CSS Star, 220,491
  37. CSS Tux, 235,692
  38. CSS Bloom, 237,028
  39. CSSHive, 238,990
  40. DesignFlavr, 242,301
  41. Design by Grid, 257,249
  42. CSS Daddy, 268,324
  43. No Resolution, 272,482
  44. CSS Impress, 290,353
  45. CSS Princess, 314,182
  46. CSS Leak, 319,340
  47. Web Design Gallery, 337,963
  48. My3W, 385,465
  49. Inspiration King, 391,490
  50. Pro Web Art, 396,603
  51. CSS Flavor, 397,298
  52. CSS Container, 417,117
  53. The Horizontal Way, 417,158
  54. CSS Burst, 439,050
  55. Hotwebber, 442,827
  56. CSS Zone, 456,876
  57. CSS Hazard, 475,108
  58. CSS Gallery, 502,992
  59. design|snips, 522,013
  60. Designer Source, 553,625
  61. CSS Love, 573,271
  62. Design Grabs, 585,085
  63. Design Creme, 615,345
  64. CSSEM, 615,507
  65. The Designed Tree, 625,271
  66. Lookum, 635,229
  67. CSS Moon, 731,776
  68. Designs Creme, 767,905
  69. NiceStylesheet, 780,609
  70. CSS Snap, 797,809
  71. Carted Up, 831,381
  72. Genuine Style, 838,273
  73. CSS Smooth Operator, 871,589
  74. One Star Gallery, 890,050
  75. Plastic Pilots, 894,329
  76. CSS Band, 1,151,978
  77. CSS Warfare, 1,166,983
  78. CSS Fuel, 1,298,931
  79. Refresh, 1,490,008

Out with the old, in with the new

Sigh. I lost my old blog database. See, this is why it’s never a good idea to talk to the kids and update a blog installation at the same time. I could try and recover it, but it wasn’t that interesting to begin with.

Most of the posts were two years old. I wonder how some bloggers find the time to contribute long thoughtful topics on a regular basis. I think the cool thing about Twitter, as opposed to a real blog, is that you only have to think of a sentence or two, as opposed to a longer diatribe.

And that’s really all I have to say about that.

IndyMoms.com

Our moms-centric social networking site, conceived, designed and built by our I&D department, revolutionized how newspapers thought about digital audiences. After 2.5 years, the site boast more than 25,000 users and nearly 2.5 million page views per month.

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My resume

Director - Innovation & Development

Company: Star Media Group
2008 - present
In my current role as the director of the Innovation & Development department, I manage a team of nine designers and developers. Our mission is to conceptualize and execute plans to increase the digital reach of the Star Media Group. Essentially, we identify demographics that are underserved by the print components and build digital platforms to attract them - focusing on increasing personalization and incorporating user-generated content.

Digital Design Manager - Innovation & Development

Company: Star Media Group
2006 - 2008
As Digital Design Manager in the Innovation & Development department, I led a team of three designers and worked with a team of four developers. Our mission was to improve existing products/processes and develop new sites that leveraged the print resources of the organization and also incorporated user-generated content. On my watch, our market presence has improved to from 18% to 32% - which is the best in Gannett. We won several awards during this time, including best news site (AP - Midwest). Latest update: Indy.com won the 2008 Eppy for Best Entertainment Site.

Online Design and Operations Manager

Company: The Indianapolis Star
1999 - 2006
During my tenure as ops manager, I led a team of four web designers/multimedia specialists who produced The Indianapolis Star’s web sites - including IndyStar.com and INtakeWeekly (now Indy.com). My team was responsible for not only updating the site on a daily basis by posting hundreds of articles, but also for coordinating with various departments within the organization to produce multimedia, advertising, and marketing materials as well. While in this position, IndyStar.com grew from 6 million page views per month to over 35 million.

Graphics Editor

Company: The Indianapolis Star
1997 - 1999
As the first Graphics Editor at The Indianapolis Star, I supervised a team of five artists/illustrators. I was responsible for organizing workflow for the team as well as doing my fair share of the daily work. It was a great time in my life as I had management responsibilities for the first time. We won dozens of awards during my tenure as Graphics Editor, a fact that I take great pride in.

Sr. Info Graphics Artist/Illustrator/Page Designer

Company: The Indianapolis Star
1995 - 1997
While relocating back to the Midwest gave me the opportunities to reconnect with my family, it also opened a new chapter for me with a new company. It was rocky at first, joining a department that had a lot of individuals who had been with The Star for many years. I won them over with my helpful attitude, ego-free approach and my great respect for their talents. The Star gave me so many opportunities to try new things, from laying out the front page of the newspaper, to illustrating complex stories to creating dynamic info graphics.

Artist/Illustrator/Page Designer

Company: The News Tribune - McClathy Newspapers
1988 - 1995
I was responsible for creating informational graphics for the newspaper. For example, when they were demolishing a building in Tacoma, I illustrated a step-by-step diagram of how the structure would be brought down. We were a mid-sized paper competing with larger Seattle papers, but we held our own in design competitions won numerous local and national awards.

Education

Associates Degree: University of St. Francis

Tech skills

CSS 2.0 - Expert
ExactTarget newsletters - Expert
Flash - Intermediate
HTML/DHTML - Expert
Adobe Illustrator - Expert
Adobe PhotoShop - Expert
Infographics - Expert
Javascript - Intermediate
Keynote/Powerpoint - Expert
Management/Team Building - Expert
OAS/Helios (ad delivery/tracking) - Expert
Omniture (site tracking) - Expert
PHP - Intermediate
Project Management - Expert
Ruby on Rails - Novice
Saxotech object scripting - Expert
Subversion - Intermediate