On Tuesday January 15, MailChimp released its single page 2012 annual report to the public. Using a design consistent with the company’s wonderfully minimalistic branding, the report met great success with the design community. The Twittersphere has been absolutely buzzing with positive reviews for the email–marketing service giant.
Read More ›University of Alabama may have crushed Notre Dame on the field on Monday night at our very own Sun-Life Stadium, but the Fighting Irish definitely seem to be winning from a technology and web design standpoint. Being the nerd that I am, I decided to check out both websites on my phone, ua.edu and nd.edu during the commercial breaks of the championship game. I visited the University of Alabama site first, for no particular reason, and was met with- well, pretty much what I expected- a standard mobile site. It was okay. I could easily navigate through the pages and back, but the low-resolution icons on the homepage did make me a little crazy.
Read More ›The day after Thanksgiving, a close friend of mine forwarded me an email blast from Amazon that boasted their “Black Friday Deals Week.” Knowing I am a huge geek, she forwarded me the email not because she wanted me to be in on the special, but because of the way the email was designed. Instead of a standard HTML email, it contained an animated gif. For those of you who may not know, a GIF is a file which allows various images (frames) in the file to be painted with time delays. Think of the flipbooks you made when you were a kid. What? You didn’t make any flipbooks as a child? That’s so sad! Go grab a pack of post-its and a pencil, and let your imagination run wild! Need some inspiration?
Read More ›I have a lot to be grateful for this year. I’m not saying this to brag, I’m saying this because I know it to be true. I have a roof over my head, a great job, good friends who make me laugh, and family to support me when the road gets a little bumpy. More importantly, I know that not everyone has been as lucky as I have been this year. Because I feel especially fortunate this year, I have decided it is more important than ever for me to give back to those in need.
Read More ›While most people were pre-occupied with their tryptophan-induced food comas last week, I was busy taking part in the madness that holiday shopping has become. Although I did hit up a few of my favorite stores on foot, the majority of my Christmas budget has already been spent online. Apparently I wasn’t the only one […]
Read More ›I always get sentimental this time of year. For me, the next few weeks will be a dizzying blur of aromatic turkey, neatly wrapped gifts, and family. In an effort to keep myself from becoming too wrapped up in the holiday shenanigans of black Friday sales and rushing to buy the last can of cranberry […]
Read More ›This week, our Senior Developer, Julian Beaujardin, and myself, launched the newest improvement to the Optimum7 website. Since I am especially obsessed with how the change has come out, I decided to devote this week’s entire article on it. This week, we have traded in our old, squat footer for a tall, dark and handsome […]
Read More ›On more than one occasion growing up, I would become overly enthusiastic about one thing or another, and point in the direction of my newfound interest. At this moment, my mother or another nearby adult would slap my hand, and recite “it’s not polite to point!” Well, thanks to big names like Microsoft and Apple, […]
Read More ›After last week’s rather in-depth article, I decided to post something a bit more light-hearted. I’d like to do something a bit more fun, and well, what could possibly be more fun than the alphabet? In this article, I will list a mini-glossary of Web Design terms. Feel free to use any of the terms […]
Read More ›When I was in college, one of my favorite professors, Megan Fitzgerald, assigned a 20-page research project that would be due at the end of the semester. You may be thinking to yourself, “Why would anyone favor a teacher who gives out 20 page research papers?” Well, Ms. Fitzgerald was different. When she handed out the rubric for the paper, she also handed out a sheet with a list of dates that were approximately 3 weeks apart. She gave us a list of “mini-deadlines” leading up to the final deadline. Genius. She had given us a tool that would help prevent procrastination, decrease stress levels, and boost productivity. In my opinion, this is quite possibly one of the best time management concepts. In this article, I will explain how I have turned Ms. Fitzgerald’s rubric into a mantra for designing on a deadline.
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