Tales of a Designer

Creative Workspaces

Being a designer, we all know that our surroundings affect our creativity quite a bit. The smallest things can stimulate creativity, whether that be a poster on the wall, the texture of a piece of paper, or the design of a piece of furniture. All of these things matter when creating your own workspace.

I recently came across This Ain’t No Disco, which is a very inspiring website. It showcases the workplaces of agencies around the globe. There are some extremely creative workplaces, and I think that has a large influence on the work that some of the agencies put out. A few of my favorites are MPM, Grin Creative, Karmarama, and Clearleft.

When thinking about my own designed workplace in the future, two things are of importance to me. One is the actual desk that I’m working at. This needs to be a very comfortable workspace for me. Second would have to be a lounge area. Sometimes my thought process runs dry sitting at a desk, and a creative lounge area has proven to do the trick quite a bit.

How important do you think creative workspaces? And, what do you think is essential in your own workspace?

9rules Ali2 Launched

Yesterday was the long awaited day for the launch of Ali2, 9rules 6th version the the site. This is by far their biggest launch, adding a new design and a bunch of new features for it’s users. You don’t have a be a member of 9rules to be apart of the my.9r community. It is definitely worth signing up for. From the words of Scrivs, this is Ali2:

Ali2 is the next version of 9rules that promises to improve upon the great 9rules formula of providing you with great content. We are not hesitant to say that this is our most important launch since Version 1 and can not wait to show the world what we have been working so hard on for months. Members have been playing around with it this week and the reception has been extremely positive.

The social aspect of 9rules is one of the best that I’ve ever been apart of. With other social networks, I find myself only browsing profiles, maybe leaving comments on some profiles occasionally. On the 9rules Notes, I actually engage in conversation, whether that be about design, sports, or politics. There are tons of topics to discuss, lots of passionate people, and a very close community.

I absolutely love the design that Rundle put together. I’m always intrigued by how some designers handle crafting a good looking site with huge amounts of information like this. I especially like the new design of community sites, like the design community, that give you a great overview of all of the information within 9rules related to design.

So, hats off to Mike, Tyme, and Scrivs on a successful launch of Ali2. I, as well as others, love the new design and features. If you have some time, head on over to the new 9rules and jump into the action. I find more value on this site than I do on any other site on the web, and it keeps getting better.

Accessibility is Still Important

I was recently pointed to this article on a lawsuit involving Target and one of it’s customers. For the second time, Target is in court because of having an inaccessible website.

According to the ruling, plaintiffs — including the National Federation of the Blind — claim Target.com violates federal and state laws prohibiting discrimination against the disabled.

That is extremely irresponsible (for the second time) for Target, who has a top-tier e-commerce site, to ignore the task of making their website accessible. From a company that does an awesome job with their advertising, you would think that they could staff a world class web development team as well.

The sad part is, making a website accessible to the blind and visually impaired isn’t really a hard part of web development. It should fit in naturally when you are coding, and shouldn’t be something to go back to it once all of the coding is near completion. However, when doing a 508 check on the homepage of their site, it fails. I counted 16 warnings of having no alt tags for images. And that’s just the homepage.

I hope this is a wake up call, at least for some. Developers need to build sites suited for the people that are going to use them. If you are new to the web dev world, please do not ignore the issues of accessibility. It makes using websites better for everyone, not just people with no disabilities.