Using jQuery to Pick Up Where CSS Leaves Off – Chris Coyer – Front End Conference 2009 from Nate Croft on Vimeo.

“[Choosing jQuery] is like choosing the guitar. If you’re going to pick an instrument to play, the guitar’s a cool one to choose, because there’s so much information about it out there. There’s a lot more [Google] results for ‘guitar tabs’ and ‘jQuery tutorials’ than there are for ‘banjo tabs’ and ‘MooTools tutorials’.”

“The key here is to be intentional with what we steal, to look at what the principles are behind the things that are successful, and steal those, rather than just a superficial copy.”

“Over time I started looking at the way that publications look, and the way that web designs look, and I didn’t see that same connection, and I wondered why. So I want to go over some of the stuff I’ve discovered, and why web design looks the way that it does.”

Jason has been recognized for designing stylistic and imaginative web interfaces that maintain a balance of usability and readability. Jason is a celebrated speaker worldwide at such conferences as South By Southwest, An Event Apart, @media, and Webstock. He also maintains a popular website where he frequently holds discussions on design for the web.

“I know one guy who spent $4,000 just on Photoshop over the years. Software companies make 35% of their revenue from just these software upgrades. I call it the software upgrade paradox, which is, if you improve a piece of software enough times, you eventually ruin it.”

“Studying the perfect cases doesn’t inform as much as the fail cases do.” -Scott Berkun

Step-by-step documentation of your design process  including:

• Logo Design (Check out a sample from David Airey’s website – Berthier Logo Design Process)
• Website Design
  • html/CSS
  • WordPress
  • Joomla!
  • Etc…
• Print Design
  • Product Packaging
  • Books
  • Brochures
  • Magazines
  • Direct Mail
  • Posters
  • Etc…
• I’m Open to Other Ideas…

Your process submission should not be general, but include one specific project. Include the client’s initial briefing, talk about the first meeting, brainstorming, sketching, revisions, and the final product.

Tell everyone how you made decisions during the entire design process, and include screenshots/images. Click on the Contact link to find my email address. I will definitely include some information about you as a designer, post a link back to your website, and/or contact information if you would like.

Why?

My overall goal for this is to start a new blog series about “Thinking Outside of the Box.” Everyone has a different process. Many freelancers out there don’t get the chance to collaborate with other designers which is a great way to learn. I’d like to bring a large collection to the table so that designers can come, discuss, and ideally generate a bunch of traffic to everybody’s website. Controversy over design techniques could be a great way to build readership, and linking to blogs.

My future plans include launching an online design magazine, but I first want to create a large following through a personal blog. Also, I’m looking to build relationships with reliable designers so that we can share traffic through guest blogging. It’s a large project to tackle, but I’m up for it. I’m definitely going to be posting my design process for the Blake McCreary Design logo, and more articles on other topics. This is just a side project I’m putting together before Elizabeth Daniell’s article is published on SmashingMagazine.com which features several designers including myself. It should generate a substantial amount of incoming traffic considering they have over 200,000 RSS readers and over 150,000 Twitter followers.