June 22nd, 2009
I'd like to single out yet another skill-set a web designer must be aware of. It's Wordpress. The enormous popularity of the Wordpress platform along with blogging and simple content management has transformed the way we build lightweight websites. It's unlikely that a large scale site or application would be built entirely of Wordpress but we see it being used in blog sections of popular websites such as The New York Times.
WordPress has become so popular, that in some circles, a web designer is known as someone who customizes and designs for WordPress. Contrary to popular belief, however, working with Wordpress does not free web designers from the need to learn and gain knowledge of other existing web technologies. Wordpress is like a well prepared blank canvass that a designer or a developer must enhance upon. Wordpress only frees us from reinventing the wheel, but as far as improving and spicing up the wheel, we can all get creative and sky is the limit.
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June 22nd, 2009
Oh yeah. He just created art as he saw fit. If Picasso thought blue should be the color, blue it was. No one questions why. If he decides a woman's right eye should be twice as large as her left, that's okay too. When he thought a nostril of a goat would be a good match for the woman's face, people went crazy throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at the painting.
I'd guess that Picasso rarely had to deal with usability, commercial feasibility, cultural compatibility, revisions, or approvals from fifteen different people at fifteen different times. Those things are what lowly graphic designers like us worry about. Because um..., we're not Picasso. =)
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June 17th, 2009
For some of us that have been writing HTML since the 90s, it's easy to lay back and say "it won't get any better than this" as far as front-end development and client-side technologies are concerned. We have seen first-hand how the craft has improved over the years from the primitive HTML tags, faulty browsers, and lack of community to the modern compliant browsers, convenience of stylesheets, and the ultra cool javascript libraries and frameworks not to mention support from hundreds of active developer communities. So it's easy to think this is the pinnacle for our tools of the trade.
But let's think for a minute about those who began their career as web developers just a few short years ago. Everything that we old schoolers have come to appreciate and find fascinating are taken for granted by web dev/design newbies. To them, the technology is nothing new. It could have existed since the stone age for all they know. No one thinks about the origins of things in the web profession. And just like how we were distressed and annoyed with the limitation of the technologies of the time in the 90s, the newbies are going through the same phase. They aren't satisfied with what they're given. They complain about the limitations of the CSS. They complain about the browsers not being perfect. We (veterans) complain too but not with as much vengeance. The newbies' frustrations are compounded by the lack of initial appreciation which make it much stronger.
But you know what? That is a great thing. Because from that mentality, and from that very cycle that web professionals go through, comes new great ideas and continuous improvements. If it weren't for all our frustrations and dissatisfaction, we might have not had the tools that we use today. It's important that you complain. It's important to want more. It's important to think that nothing is an end product and everything is a beginning.
Tags: browsers, css, HTML, web design
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June 15th, 2009
Many many years ago, a web designer was someone who came up with a somewhat believable Photoshop rendering of what a webpage could look like. Sometime later, a web designer was someone with a working knowledge of HTML along with pretty good Photoshop skills. A few years later, as a web designer, one needed know some javascript on top of good HTML skills, and Photoshop knowledge but not without any discipline in aesthetics. Next, a web designer is expected to know CSS, DHTML, XHTML, XML, XSL, JSON and AJAX along with number of scripting frameworks.
Today, a typical web designer is most likely armed with most if not all of the skills mentioned above. Also, as a web designer, one must possess a working knowledge of various web languages and a pretty good understanding of the programming language in general not to mention the knowledge of databases. Otherwise, it's difficult to earn any respect or work with other web professionals. In another words, a web designers is a serious jack-of-all-trades.
Tags: Photoshop, web design, web designer
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June 9th, 2009
Yes! youngkoh.com comes up number one for search for "Young Koh" on Bing! But still number two on Google. Some may not think it's a big deal but Young Koh is not an uncommon name in Asian countries. Anyway, I do like this Bing search. I'm still getting used to the tool and the layout but so far so good. Pretty fast for Microsoft.
Tags: Bing, Google, young koh
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June 8th, 2009
It's finally here. The long overdue redesign of my own site. I've probably designed close to 20 or 30 sites since I last touched my own. Yep, but that's probably the case for most web/graphic designers out there. Clients' needs must come first before our own.
This time I've used the infamous Wordpress framework for my entire site. I have initially structured it so that all my portfolio pieces are inserted as blog posts with the category of Portfolio. I'm not entirely sure if this is ultimately the format I'm going to stay with, but I'll give it a try. I just thought it'll be more organizeable than putting the entire portfolio on a static page. Well, we'll see.
Tags: young koh, young koh.com, youngkoh.com
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