Here was my initial response:

I think what’s best is each role [design and developer] is cognizant of what the other role does and has an understanding of the process. I may not know how to write a jQuery plugin from scratch or understand the specifics of a PHP module (for example), but I know by looking at it from an inquisitive mindset or asking the developer specific questions, I’ll better understand why it exists, what functions it performs, etc.

Likewise, a developer should feel free to ask the designer questions, examine their work and understand the process. A hybrid can just ask himself questions.

…it looks like magic to both sides but a lot of what comes out of design/development is experimentation, flashes of brilliance and guesswork. Both roles are not brilliant from the get-go.. you just keep working at it until that message you are trying to communicate breaks free. Even then knowing you can continue to iterate is key. And by all means, know your limitations and be open about them. Some things to remind yourself with as a design/dev: Don’t be a miracle maker, ask for help, collaborate. We don’t do enough of this and silo ourselves to the point where the lines of communication become cumbersome or non-existent.

Jay replied with:

Right back atchya man — it all seems like common sense — but sadly, it is very rare to find. it creates understanding / efficiency / & ultimately = #innovation.

My final thought:

I think because the environment that we all initially work in or learn within (art/design/illustration or development/mathematics/programming) is set up to be competitive in a way. People look out for themselves — natural human instinct — but the more you collaborate the better it’ll be for you and your co-workers, friends, family. I remember being in art class and asking the professor for more projects where I could collaborate with my classmates, there was very little of that. More silo’d projects with followup critiquing.

Most of the problems facing organizations that are doing a redesign could be avoided by approaching the design differently. This means focusing on the meaningful elements in the first place and setting up metrics to properly evaluate what needs to be fixed/improved later.

— Finch on “Long Live the Redesign”

It happens so often, in fact, that I begin to doubt my instincts as a designer. It boggles the mind that a Designers Anonymous group doesn’t exist for this very reason, but I digress.

This way of thinking is ludicrous because everything we create is vital to the design process, no matter the context.

For example: That movie poster that you spent several hours on, the one that was eventually canned because the hero’s (or heroin’s) face ended up being badly contorted at a specific viewing angle would probably seem like a failed creation. You might even be tempted to trash it from your hard drive, never to speak of it again.

But guess what? Horribly mangled facial crufties aside, you might end up recycling the typeface or that speckled texture for a future poster or project.

Make it a habit, if you haven’t already, to file away your delightful creations for future use and avoid cursing your design work with voodoo.

It just never works, I mean what am I supposed to do with this Chihuahua-Goat™?

Just remember the three R’s: Redeem, Reuse and Rejoice.

Actually, I’ve been tooling away at many things, one of which involves this very site, but that I can’t speak of quite yet. I’ll just say the redesign is underway and will mark the return of the crest. For older readers you know exactly what I mean, but for those who’ve only stopped by every once in a while the crest was once part of the brand of this site.

Beyond that I’m participating in Project 52 this year. What’s that?

Project52 is a personal challenge geared toward getting fresh content on your website. The goal is to write at least 1 new article per week for 1 year.

I’m challenging myself to a goal: to write something new once or more per week for one year starting January 1st, 2010. It doesn’t seem like a lofty goal really, not at all actually. It just means I have to commit to something that I’ve long neglected and somewhere along the line it might (I hope!) recharge the fizzled neon sign that is this “blog” or site, or whatever you want to call it. Call it “Fresh Fish Market” for all I care, which incidentally is the name of my wireless network.

There you have it. At least one new post a week for just a year and if I can adhere to that rule I think the prize is an all-paid expense trip to Tahiti.

One can dream such a dream, right?

What have I been up to since I last mashed my fingers across the keyboard and published something of worth? Well, I was offered and accepted a position with AOL/Weblogs, Inc. as a designer for their network of sites. My first thought was; they pay people to design blogs? It’s become more than a dream job for me and I couldn’t be more thankful for the friendships I’ve formed and lessons learned.

There’s that, on the job end of things, and as a far as my personal life is concerned we’re plugging along quite nicely. My daughter Zoe just turned 4. For those of you who’ve followed this site for the 4+ years I’ve been maintaining it this is a huge milestone. My son, Quinn, is now 2 and between the two they manage to keep us busy, thanks in part to how often they annoy each other. We are expecting another child as well so there are more adventures to look forward to.

Speaking of which, this site, my favorite pet project has become more stagnant than ever. You could search the archives… oh wait, no you can’t because that’s yet to be fixed, but hey, if you could you’d find plenty of posts describing some sort of post-mortem. Moving on from here I’ve finally decided to use Expression Engine to use as the engine of this site. One reason for settling on EE is because I’ve used it sparingly in the past for projects and the road map of feature additions & interface enhancements (as showcased at SXSW ’08) looks pretty fantastic.

The other reason is I had dinner with Michael Boyink, recent hire of Ellis Labs (the team behind EE), and through his own articulation and excitement I myself became utterly convinced this was for me. He’s also the man behind Train-EE which is both an incredible and informative resource on all that is Expression Engine, oh, and he offers training course ware on it. How cool is that?

It’s been awhile and I realize that and it bothers me, but, it’s clear to me that the progression of this site is to become something more than a blog, but also it needs to be fun again for me.

After much deliberation and temporary insanity I’ve moved this site to its new home at MediaTemple.

The neighbors here are pretty great. No cookies yet, but lawns are mowed, my mailbox is still standing and I’ve since removed the RamboLux security system. I kept the guard dog however so intruders beware!

My mail carrier is some friendly chap named Google. He’s helpful but the guard dog keeps a watchful eye in his direction.

For the time being the grid is stable and all my stuff is in order, save for a broken Mint. That’s okay though, I’ll just fix that later because I’ve got other fish to fry.

With that, I’m all out of clichés and my back is a bit sore.

If you have any comments, just slide them under the door.

P.S. — Remodeling is long overdue so please excuse any future mess. 

With this data the hackers, using an automated script of some sort, added SEO links/inframes to every instance of index.html or php.

This is the last straw. I’ve been with Dreamhost since mid-2004 and recommended them on more than one occasion and even went so far as defending them when others complained about slow service or half-baked customer support, the latter being something I never experienced.

Not any more. It’s time to look for a new home.

Over the past two hours I’ve had to comb over my files, looking for anything that could have been stolen and to my knowledge some files might have been removed.

Not only that, but the password I used was one of the best passwords I’ve used in a long time and now, thanks to this, I have to piece together a franken-mash of numbers.

It’s sad because while I represent, according to DH, only .15% of the customers whose data was changed in some way, I just wish something could’ve been done to prevent this.

Yet, who am I to say that web hosting is safe from this kind of thing, which apparently it isn’t. I suppose I wanted to believe that they were impenetrable, even if that was a premature wish.

The culprits added inframes and linkage pointing to offshore sites displaying garbled information; SEO tactics indeed.

On the bright side of things, my entries are safe, every one of them accounted for since 2004. This wasn’t an issue really considering I’ve kept backups of my DB since the beginning and make it habit to do it frequently.

I’m also planning on moving to a new CMS and will be taking the entries with me to preserve for the future, when robots make swiss cheese sandwiches with George Forman machines.

Does anyone out there have any suggestions for a new host? 

Here’s a description of the panel (straight from the horse’s mouth):

Fine arts have long held a subtle, yet influential grip on both information and design. From cartoons, illustrations, digital art, photography and more, you’ll hear firsthand from some of the best in their fields, have a chance to explore the past, present, and future of the techniques that you see around the web, and how it can improve your own work and get both sides of the brain working better together.

Turning Thoughts into Reality

To backpedal a bit, before I made the commitment to go to last year’s SXSW Interactive conference — my first visit — I made a promise to myself that come the next conference I would be on a panel. Certainly it’s fun to actively participate as an observer, but to present your thoughts to people, to engage them, to make them think and all said and done, if they can get something out of what you’re saying, well, that’s saying something.

I kept that thought in the back of my mind, that I would somehow, using some force of nature have the opportunity to be up there amongst a group of my peers and share something, even if at the time I hadn’t any idea of what that might be.

Months later during a late night IM conversation with Anton Peck he mentioned the concept of the panel to me and it didn’t take much convincing on his part, I was hooked..

The Dream Team

Next week I will be sharing meatspace with the following creative-minded people:

• Dan Rubin (our fearless moderator)
• Glenda Sims
• Anton Peck
• Dave Shea
• Patrick Haney

Come join us on Saturday, March 10th (11:30–12:30pm) and be sure to mark it on your SXSW calendar.

It’s a win-win; you’ll have a blast, learn a thing or two and I can genuinely promise your creativity will kick into overdrive. 

Carter began his career as a traditional typeface designer, studying under Jan Van Krimpen’s assistant P. H. Raedisch, where he learned the distinctive craft of punch cutting and eventually transitioned into using digital methods to create his fonts, a more expedited method than traditional processes.

In a presentation given to members of the AIGA (New York Chapter), Carter reflected on his many experiences with developing the fonts he’s so famously known for and revealed that many, if not all of his creations, were inspired by actual typefaces from historical architecture.

According to Wikipedia, Matthew Carter “co-founded the Bitstream type foundry in 1981, which he left in 1991 to form the Carter & Cone type foundry with Cherie Cone.”

Bitstream, Inc. was a first of its kind, a company formed solely for the purpose of the production and distribution of digital fonts and their respective licenses. Unlike traditional type foundries, where the typographers would sell wood and metal typefaces, Bitstream dealed exclusively with digital fonts.

If not for the hard work and impressive efforts of Matthew Carter, designers would be limited as far as font selection for print and web.

Whether he knows it or not, Matthew Carter has left behind a legacy that will continue to thrive in future generations, all because of his desires to preserve historical typefaces.

The lack of TLC is attributed to several things, many of which are related to working a 40-hour work week as well as taking courses in the evening. Mix that in with everything else and you can begin to see why there hasn’t been much activity here in over a month.

Instead of allowing this site to transition from a state of limbo to complete neglect, I’ve decided to take a break from blogging for the time being. I can’t say exactly how long this will last, but rest assured it’ll only be a short break to effectively reboot myself.

When I do eventually return, I’ll also reboot this site as well, giving it a complete makeover but without Ty Pennington of course.

Thanks for reading. Have a great summer.

I’ll be seeing you again soon.