Sunday, June 29th, 2008

I know, I know - it has only been a few months since I launched the SquareOne Web Design website, but as is my custom, I get bored and feel the need to redesign. So, I present to you version two of the site. I’ve moved to a much lighter look and feel, and after publishing the first version, I wasn’t too thrilled with it. This one works a lot better in my mind, but I still do have some work to do.

One of the main things that I wanted to do is spend more time making the site easier to update. I rethought how I actually coded the pages and came up with a much simpler, template-based system that makes updating almost any aspect of the site a breeze now. Additionally, I’m much happier with the color scheme. I’ve always been a big fan of earthier colors - browns, greens, etc - so this works a lot better in that regard.

There’s a lot of little tweaking left to do (notably having each page have it’s own ‘banner’), but these things will come in due time. Hope you like the new site!

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Posted on June 29th, 2008 | No Comments »

Sunday, March 30th, 2008

WordPress 2.5 has been released, and so far I am quite impressed. What’s new, you ask?

WordPress 2.5, the culmination of six months of work by the WordPress community, people just like you. The improvements in 2.5 are numerous, and almost entirely a result of your feedback: multi-file uploading, one-click plugin upgrades, built-in galleries, customizable dashboard, salted passwords and cookie encryption, media library, a WYSIWYG that doesn’t mess with your code, concurrent post editing protection, full-screen writing, and search that covers posts and pages.

The Happy Cog folks were responsible for the UI refresh to the backend and it’s quite impressive. It seems that every little detail was re-thought from a user’s perspective and they have gone go great lengths to make the simple things like writing, editing and managing your blog much simpler. The administration panel is a lot cleaner now, with fewer options jumping out at you from the start.

On top of those features, one of the things that I’ve been most excited about was the now-functioning MarsEdit integration that allows me to set a post as a ‘draft’ and it sticking on the server. And my dear lord, is the auto-updating plugins feature amazing or what? No longer do you have to download a plugin to your desktop, upload it, log in to WordPress, and activate the plugin. Now, the software tells you there is an update, and you click ‘update’. Done.

If you are a Wordpress user, I highly recommend the 2.5 release. They knocked this one out of the park – not only from a design standpoint, but from a usability and ease of use angle as well. As a side note, the SquareOne blog and this blog now are on 2.5. Let me know if you see any visual oddities.

Ok, end blog nerdery … now.

Technorati Tags:
site-news, software, wordpress, wordpress-2.5

Posted on March 30th, 2008 | No Comments »

Monday, March 24th, 2008

Well, it would appear there is a new FSU in town. One of my friends today told me that Full Sail is changing its name to Full Sail University. While this doesn’t actually change a whole heck of a lot about the school or what it offers, I must say that the name is certainly better than “Full Sail Real World Education”. That is flat out laughable when listing it on resumes or putting it in your portfolio.

The name certainly will help with getting prospective students that are feeling antsy about going somewhere that has such a long, sketchy sounding name. Full Sail University is probably the best thing they could have done to improve future enrollment.

Considering I have degrees from Georgia Perimeter College, Art Institute of Atlanta, and now Full Sail University, I suppose it’s nice to be able to say that I graduated from a university.

I guess.

Despite the fact that the school initials spell FSU, word is that they will not go by said moniker. As part of the deal to change their name to Full Sail University, they had to promise that FSU would not be used as their school name at any time, as it belonged to a certain school in Tallahassee.

Technorati Tags:
announcements, Orlando, Winter Park, full-sail

Posted on March 24th, 2008 | 2 Comments »

Saturday, March 8th, 2008

So, I finally took the plunge, came up with a name, bought a domain, ordered business cards, and did all of the paperwork necessary to get the ball rolling on my very own shiny new (side) business. I’m really excited to have more control over expressing my creative side, along with making some extra money to boot. The ultimate plan is to grow my own business and run that full-time within the next 2-3 years, but for now it will be a side project that I work on along side my current job. So, without further adieu, I present to you SquareOne Web Design.

I anticipate my workload increasing steadily over the next year or two, to the point where I can then quit my job and do this full time. The nice thing about my current full time gig is the fact that I get one weekday off in the middle of the week. This gives me ample time to focus on other things, and will allow me to ramp up to a second full time job. However, for now at least, it’s all about building contacts, building a portfolio, and getting a workflow of my own so that when the time comes, it will be a seamless transition into my own gig.

Why am I doing this? While some it goes back to frustration at my current place of employment, it has been my plan to own my own business by the time I was in my 30s for quite some time. So really, this is a natural progression for me on the way to that goal. I feel like I have the talent to compete just fine with other small design firms around here, and should be quite successful once I get in the swing of things. I’m really excited about the prospects of working from home full time at some point in the future, which is something that’s definitely realistic in the line of work I am pursuing. On top of that, I kind of love web design. So, if I can do this full time, on my terms, I’m going to be a happy camper.

So, please check out the site and let me know what you think! It’s going to be kind of bare until Michelle and I work on the text, I finish all of the minor changes I want to make to the site, and I get through with my first round of clients … but I figure why not launch now and get the word out. If you’re in Atlanta or the Southeast and need web design work done, don’t hesitate to look me up. I’m giving 10% referral fees to friends and folks in the early goings (maybe until the end of August or so), so if you know anyone who needs web work done, send them my way as well & and there’s some money in it for you.

I’ll be chronicling my successes and failures here as well, but I am also planning to start focusing more on web design articles over at the SquareOne web site, and more general stuff here. So maybe you guys will luck out and not have to read as much html-related stuff anymore.

Technorati Tags:
businesss, web design, announcements

Posted on March 8th, 2008 | 1 Comment »

Saturday, February 23rd, 2008

There is an interesting article over at the Helvetica website about ‘a font we can believe in’, the typeface called Gotham. I always find it so fascinating to read the history of the hows and whys behind the creation of typeface families, and when you can combine that with politics, I’m in heaven.

When you go back and take a look at where and why Gotham was commissioned in the first place, it’s interesting to note that the influences behind this typeface closely mirror the goals of the Obama campaign: idealism and social change. Additionally, the typefaces that were used as examples by GQ magazine, the company that requested this new typeface, had a very interesting summation: a ‘fresh”new’ typeface with an ‘established’ and ‘trustworthy’ look at the same time. Some of the typefaces that were referenced by the client were very trendy, very new designs (think night clubs, techno, things of that nature) that would not really mesh well with a magazine like GQ. However, they really wanted something that expressed that type of energy but still held onto the magazines classy, established feel. Sounds like a tough task. From the article:

GQ had a dual agenda of wanting something that would look very fresh, yet very established, to have a credible voice to it.

I think Hoefler & Frere-Jones knocked this one out of the park, and so did the Obama campaign by choosing Gotham as their campaign font. Don’t even get me started on the excellent choice of Perpetua as his secondary typeface which is another great choice. I know it’s corny, but I think that one’s taste in typefaces says a lot about them. The Obama campaign certainly has good taste in that regard. Does this make the guy any more or less electable? Of course not, but I’m just glad I don’t’ have to stare at McCain’s site or Hillary’s font catastrophe very often.

Posted on February 23rd, 2008 | 2 Comments »