Andrew Gormley, keeping designs well-oiled since 1985.
 

Archive for the ‘Inspiration’ Category

I’m Sorry, Readers

…For neglecting all of you. I’ve been caught up in a bunch of projects and just haven’t had the time I’d like to dedicate to blogging for any length of time. Fear not, though, as I have some big design-related writing plans coming up…

Ah, what the hell, I’ll expand upon them right now: I’m going to thoroughly document, from start to finish, my process of re-designing/re-aligning this site. I checked Google Analytics and found that I somehow get a bunch of monthly traffic despite being so sporadic in my updating (especially the portfolio section, which hasn’t seen a significant update since 2008 (for more reasons than just laziness. hint: NDAs), so I’m rededicating myself to making the site better than ever.

The whole thing will kick off with the most basic of information gathering:

  • Establishing a target audience
  • Identifying goals
  • What message am I trying to convey?
  • What is my site currently being found for?

And then move through all of the steps I deem necessary beyond that point, including:

  • Branding
  • Logo creation
  • Sitemapping
  • Wireframing
  • Design
  • Development
  • Deployment
  • Marketing

I think it’s going to be a great exercise and I’ll try my best to be as thorough as possible. Being a video-oriented designer, you can bet there will be screencasts throughout the entire process and many detailed notes. Look for this to kick off soon!

Other places you can find me in the interim:

Panasonic Lumix GF1 Field Test

Pretty amazing photo journal supplementing an excellent camera review. Money quote:

Memory of travel is fleeting at best. Photographs serve as road-markers for returning to those experiences.

Read entire review here.

What Is Design

From the late, great Paul Rand:

Design is the method of putting form and content together. Design, just as art, has multiple definitions; there is no single definition. Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that’s why it is so complicated.

Retro: Jihad BEFORE It Was Trendy

Note: This was a short paper I did for creative writing class during my time at college.  I’m pretty sure I aced this particular assignment and wanted to share it with the rest of you as I think it’s still pretty funny.  Enjoy!

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Jump Start Your Writing Process

I recently ran across a post that elaborates on 7 Can’t-Miss Ways To Kick-Start The Writing Habit and it immediately piqued my interest because this is an area where I want to improve.  For me, writing is something that I’m  pretty good at when I take my time, but not great at. I’ve always been more acclimated towards designing, programming, and video editing instead of writing for my website, which explains why finishing my “About Me” page took longer than a majority of coding anything else. But now that I’ve finally started my own blog again, I’ve faced a weird dilemma: running out of ideas and not knowing how to jump-start my blogging again. When I run out of design inspiration I usually just browse through collections of CSS galleries or read design-centric blogs like A List Apart or 24 Ways, but when it comes to writing I haven’t found that one things that sparks my inspiration.

Here are a couple of the tips from that very article that really made a lot of sense to me:

  1. Write nothing but headlines
  2. Write ‘crap’ without feeling guilty
  3. Schedule regular time and show up, even if you think you can’t write.
  4. Write about how you solved a problem

I’d like to throw one more thing in there to get the list to a nice, even 8: Look for articles that interest you and use them as a starting point for your own writing.  If you learn from the greats, you’ll start to pick up some of their important habits like establishing flow and pacing and even creating your own unique voice.

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