Earlier this year, Google introduced the Google Font Directory, which offers users a selection of open source fonts to use online as web-friendly fonts. I finally set aside some time to find out more about it… only to realize that it takes about 5 minutes to integrate the fonts into your site! I used the Reenie Beanie font on some of the headers throughout my site. I initially was using it on more text, but quickly realized that getting too crazy with some of these fonts could result in very unreadable text. So, while this new free resource is very cool, best usability practices should still be kept in mind when designing your site!
Has anyone seen any other websites integrating these fonts?
Resources:
Where to download the Google fonts to use in Photoshop comps
After nailing down the scope and requirements of a project, I always start my designs with a wireframe of the homepage. In the past, this usually started with some dry erase markers on a whiteboard and then I would recreate those drawings using Photoshop. This is not always the fastest and most efficient way to work. My friend @schusterbauer, however, recently introduced me to Mockingbird, an online wireframing application, and it has completely changed the way I work.
Mockingbird’s simple UI and library of web elements makes it easy to rapidly mock up your designs and outline the basic functionality of the site or application. The user’s ability to quickly update the mock ups make it an ideal tool for brainstorming and “sharing” your projects is a great way to collaborate and get feedback from clients. I would highly recommend using this tool to anyone!
Other wireframing tools worth checking out are Hot Gloo and Balsamiq. Are there any others worth checking out?
Grzimek’s (pronounced “chi-mix”) Animal Life was the first project I worked on at Gale/Cengage Learning. We took an existing animal encyclopedia and turned in to a website. I had a lot of freedom with this design and was really pleased with how the header turned out. I was also responsible for creating the HTML/CSS for the website templates.
Hasbro launched a new line of toys and this game to coincide with the release of the live-action G.I. Joe movie. I worked on pretty much all the screens in the game and we did G.I. Joe and Cobra versions to match up with the two different story lines. What a great project! G.I. Joes were one of my favorite toys when I was a kid (it was hard for me to not just put Snake Eyes on every screen). Definitely the coolest project I’ve art directed for Kunoichi.
Check out the game for yourself!
Worked on this web application with the great people at Kunoichi. Users could create their own snowboard design using the online tools and uploading images and then submit it to be entered into a sweepstakes.
I designed and built this website for a great copywriter based out of Atlanta, GA. Clearly, the Ishihara Color Test was the inspiration for this design. The top-level navigation here is one of my favorites that I had designed in a while.
The other main project I worked on while employed at Campbell-Ewald was a massive redesign of Chevy.com. There were quite a few Art Directors working on this site, but the main section of the site that I was responsible for was Fuel Solutions.
One of the most important campaigns I worked on while I was at Campbell-Ewald was the Chevy Fuel campaign. Since this was such an important launch for Chevy, obviously a lot of advertising dollars went to online advertising and strategic partnerships with other websites. This Flash microsite was done with Kelly Blue Book’s recently-launched Green section of their website. I was responsible for the art direction on this project.
This project was really more of a conceptual one. The Hasbro client had an idea for a place where users could come and create their own characters and movies. I created this design in order to help visualize what we could actually do with a site like this. I handled the art direction.
Jumpgate Evolution is a space-based MMORPG, so of course I had some really cool artwork to start with for this design. This website was a microsite that would be used to get users to sign up for the beta release of the game. I was responsible for the design and HTML/CSS.
