I'm not going to say I am the King Kong of website designers but I have been doing it for some time now and know what tends to look pleasing to the eye for the most part.
From time to time you get a client who knows fuck all about layout, web functionality, or just aesthetics period. Of course they are (or should be) paying you so you have to grit your teeth and just go with it. Well I say nuts to that!
My current plan is to draft up a contract for any future clients. It shall state that they are hiring me for my expertise in the field of webdesign and they have to listen to me when I say one of their ideas is helmet special. No arguing, no talking back. You listen to me of suffer the consequences. (I can and will make your website look like it was made with Microsoft Frontpage circa 1995)
For those of you who are not familiar with Web Pages That Suck dot com, do so posthaste. In their first book they mused about how designers need a BOT tag. It stands for Boss Ordered This. That ay any savvy designers who looked at your code like the RCA dog would understand that it wasn't your decision to make some of the stupid mistakes that were present.
So if any of my future clients have found this page and read this, you have been warned. You will heed my words or suffer the horror of clip art and animated gifs.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
Code Ganking
I have yet to ever figure this one out. I implement a bit of code on a website. It works. I then yoink that code to use in a similar fashion on another website.
The funny thing is when everything gets put in place it doesn't work the same. Nothing has changed except for a few dimensions and maybe some CSS code. I stare at it for hours changing every little thing and yet NOTHING. Starting from scratch does not appeal to me at all. WHY IS THIS FUCKER SITTING 10 PIXELS LOWER THAN THIS OTHER ONE!! IT'S THE SAME DAMN CODE!!
So after you get done weeping into your keyboard, you take a deep breath and spend more hours scouring the internet for an answer only to come up empty handed. So you make a test page with JUST that piece of code and it works fine there but not in your current layout. Why? Who the fuck knows!?
Finally you just cough up the 8$ for the most current version of the code and realize from the examples that the exact same CSS applied to a class instead of an ID is the only way to get it to work. Why? I have no idea. All I know is that it finally does what IO want and I am TERRIFIED to look at any other browser at this point for fear of an aneurism.
Hypothetically of course...
The funny thing is when everything gets put in place it doesn't work the same. Nothing has changed except for a few dimensions and maybe some CSS code. I stare at it for hours changing every little thing and yet NOTHING. Starting from scratch does not appeal to me at all. WHY IS THIS FUCKER SITTING 10 PIXELS LOWER THAN THIS OTHER ONE!! IT'S THE SAME DAMN CODE!!
So after you get done weeping into your keyboard, you take a deep breath and spend more hours scouring the internet for an answer only to come up empty handed. So you make a test page with JUST that piece of code and it works fine there but not in your current layout. Why? Who the fuck knows!?
Finally you just cough up the 8$ for the most current version of the code and realize from the examples that the exact same CSS applied to a class instead of an ID is the only way to get it to work. Why? I have no idea. All I know is that it finally does what IO want and I am TERRIFIED to look at any other browser at this point for fear of an aneurism.
Hypothetically of course...
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Press the words...
First off I would like to clarify I am not a full time pro web designer. It's a freelance thing I do for artists and entertainers. I won't do lawyer or accountant websites because they are just dull as hell. That being said...
Wordpress can eat my ass.
I can spot a Wordpress website from across the internet. They reek of template. I don't care how good the CMS might be, it's to webdesign what macbooks are to soccer moms. It removes pretty much any hope of artistic design and tries to put it, literally, in a nice neat little rule of 960 box.
Sure I have seen some pretty nice WP sites and a few that don't look like a WP site... at first. However, most eventually fall prey to the blog style format that people think is so "modern". Modern is another word for "Now you can be an individual just like everyone else!"
It has it's uses. If someone asks you to design them something and you don't wanna do any actual work. They are great. There are so many templates (that are easy to fuck up just by altering one little) that you have tons of options to appease even the most jaded idiot who knows nothing about design.
Personally I would rather have a website that has a little heart and soul to it. Not some cold empty shell of a space on the internet that is as interesting as watching 3 year olds eat paint chips.
With that said I can move on to other subjects down the road. Stay tuned for the next stop.
Wordpress can eat my ass.
I can spot a Wordpress website from across the internet. They reek of template. I don't care how good the CMS might be, it's to webdesign what macbooks are to soccer moms. It removes pretty much any hope of artistic design and tries to put it, literally, in a nice neat little rule of 960 box.
Sure I have seen some pretty nice WP sites and a few that don't look like a WP site... at first. However, most eventually fall prey to the blog style format that people think is so "modern". Modern is another word for "Now you can be an individual just like everyone else!"
It has it's uses. If someone asks you to design them something and you don't wanna do any actual work. They are great. There are so many templates (that are easy to fuck up just by altering one little) that you have tons of options to appease even the most jaded idiot who knows nothing about design.
Personally I would rather have a website that has a little heart and soul to it. Not some cold empty shell of a space on the internet that is as interesting as watching 3 year olds eat paint chips.
With that said I can move on to other subjects down the road. Stay tuned for the next stop.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
This better be good....
Ok so I needed a place to rant about how much I despise aspects of website design. I dunno if I will ever post anything useful here other than a cathartic buncha of words that prevent me from grabbing a shot gun, a dozen donuts from that one place in Vegas, and heading to Silicon Valley to take out my aggression.
That being said, Fuck Internet Explorer.
More to come.
That being said, Fuck Internet Explorer.
More to come.
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