Badass Ideas

This past Saturday I attended my second Barcamp DC. If you are not familiar with what barcamp is you can read what I have written about it in the past here and here.

This year the talk that really caught my attention was that of Jeff Brown’s, a teacher at Damascus High School in Montgomery County Maryland and a member of the Web Standards Project Education Task Force. Jeff’s talk focused on “Webucation”, and the still very wide gap between what is being taught in college Web Design classes and what is being practiced online and in the industry.

While have been teaching part-time at CDIA-BU, Jeff’s topic caught my attention because of an experience I had about 6 months ago speaking with a group of graduating seniors in a Design program (that includes web design courses) at a local well respected university. While talking to about 30 students I asked them questions like “Do you know what user experience, interaction design, or information architecture is?” with shocking results. Not only were they unfamiliar with the terminology, few seemed to care about possible opportunities in web design. HTML, and CSS? forget it. While I am very aware that I did not learn that stuff when I was in school, a lot of time has passed since then and I really expected more of a progression towards web standards, industry technology, and well… basic interaction design.

After having that experience it became very apparent to me that the majority of higher educational institutions are very behind. It has since been on my mind and it is one of the reasons I so excitedly jumped on board when I heard about teaching part time at CDIA-BU (because they are on top of their stuff). Throughout Jeff’s talk he shared his personal experiences of interviewing with a college and his take-aways from the interview only confirmed many of the predictions I had about other institutions and how they are handling teaching web design. After proposing possible classes he could teach the interviewer came back and explained that word processing and “flash animation (for gaming)” were possible opportunities.

So, what was Jeff’s advice on how to solve these predicaments? Find a non-confrontational approach and become a “Webucator”. Make it a priority to be a guest speaker for a class, visit a college campus, or just step up to be an example for students to follow. Jeff’s talk was definitely one of the most unique and inspirational talks I have sat in at Barcamp DC and I really felt like his message is worthy of passing along.

In addition to sharing his message I want to point out an easy way for any of you guys to step up and help Jeff’s mission as a “webucator”: donate to the Web Program at Damascus High School. Jeff teaches a fantastic group of High School students the wonders of Web standards, and is even taking them to the Future of Web Design Conference on Nov 4th. A High School field trip to see Paul Boag, Dan Mall, Hillman Curtis, & Khoi Vinh talk about the awesomeness of all things web? How rad is that! Even if it is just a few dollars it would be an awesome, and very easy way to contribute to the webucation of the people who will be determining the future of web design.

Donate Now »

Photo by Jason Garber

LetterCult
I was looking up some info on Doyald Young for class when I stumbled upon this site for custom lettering. As you know from some of my previous posts, I love custom lettering, and even recently tried my hand at it (under a 4 hour deadline) for a Viget Flash Mob. I am looking forward to this feed in my netvibes.

Good Magazine
As I was sitting in the San Diego airport flipping through an issue of Good Magazine I thought to myself ” Wouldn’t it be rad if they redesigned their site to look more like their magazine design?” Then poof… it happened. Its sort of like when I wished out loud to Jim that there was a 24 inch iMac and then Mr Jobs unveiled it the next week. I am on a roll. What will be next?

The Daily Monster
Now that I am familiar with Stefan Bucher’s little monsters (the fine folks at ADCMW mentioned the name) I am seeing them everywhere! I especially like the new skateboard decks on Zazzle.

Death By Kerning
Do we really need another blog dedicated to the wonders of Typography? YES. I can’t get enough. With a name like “Death by Kerning” how can I keep this feed out of my reader?

Pattern Tap
With the sea of design galleries on the web these days its rare that I find one that really sticks out, but this one does. Pattern tap organizes sites by design patterns, making it unique and incredibly useful. Need to find inspiration on how to design something specific like comments, or a contact form? This is the site for doing just that.

Design For Obama
Regardless of which candidate you support, there is no denying that there has been an unprecedented amount of design created in this election for Barack Obama. This site has some interesting and humorous concepts exhibited in the form of user generated posters. Im a fan of “Barack you like a Hurricane“. All good presidential slogans should reference hair metal, right?

I am currently teaching introduction to graphic design at CDIA Boston University. The class is an exploration of basic design fundamentals reinforced by corresponding examples of revolutionary works of Design. It also happens to be the first class in an extensive design program, so it is very important to expose the students to a wide variety of design disciplines including environmental graphics, poster design, typography, book, branding, package design and even web design.

Skimming the history of design, there are works that have revolutionized the industry created by un-refuted masters of the craft. They have won awards, been published in textbooks, and are internationally recognized as being hands down the most Bad Ass works of visual communication in existence. There are pieces that effortlessly jump from the pages of design history books to use as reference in my class. There is Milton Glaser’s 1967 Bob Dylan poster which is now part of the collection at the Museum of Modern art in New York, Paula’s Scher’s “Bring in ’Da Noise, Bring in ’Da Funk” series which changed the way designers approached typography in the late 90s, and Landor & Associates famous arrow in the FedEx logo design which still gets gasps of pure genius when examined ( still blows my mind ).

But when I sat down to pull out sites from the history of web design, I found myself a little stumped. While the history advancements regarding technical limitations is documented in books such as “Designing with Standards” by Jeffery Zeldman, it is difficult to determine specific sites that serve as icons of that particular movement. What are the revolutionary pieces of undeniable web design genius?

I have my personal preferences, the pieces that are benchmarks in the evolution of web design, but how do they stand up to the actual un-biased history of web design?

Searching Amazon for he term “history of web design” The first book that pops up is “Meggs History of Graphic Design” and the titles that follow all address either history of all design or just topics in web design… but not the history of web design. Under Wikipedia’s definition of Web Design the only site referenced is “CSS Zen Garden“, which is a fantastic example… but is it the only one? Under Wikipedia’s definition of Graphic Design web design is mentioned throughout, but no actual web designers or websites are ever referenced, though several designers in other disciplines are, including Paul Rand and Milton Glaser.

So where is the formal documentation of the evolution of web design? Is it too early to even document it? What sites have revolutionized the industry and how have they effected the progression of visual design on the web? Who are the Milton Glasers and Paul Rand’s of this discipline?

I have my opinions but I want to hear yours.

In the comments, please reference specific sites that should go down in history as defining the evolution of web design. Make sure to include an e-mail address or a link back to your site and if I get more than 10 awesome examples, I will put all of the names of commenters in a hat and draw one to send a paperback copy of Graphic Design, the New Basics by Ellen Lupton. Why? Because it is a damn fine explanation of the elements and principles, and I love spreading the good word of web design. I have no real affiliation with Ms Lupton (Though it would be awesome if we were BFFs). So have at it, I look forward to your responses.

I had never visited the West Coast so earlier this year Jim and I decided that this was the year to do it. The week before last I took my first real vacation that didn’t involve parents, my job, or the internet. Southern California seemed to be a solid bet for good weather and good waves so Solana Beach in Northern San Diego was the perfect spot. Before I jump into my backlog of posts to be written (including a recap of Refresh Baltimore, I promise that is next) I wanted to share some quick highlights from my trip.

Typography

Mollusk’s sign was done by Jeff Canham who’s work is featured in my Surf Typography Post .

Moonlight Glassing & Other Beautiful Surf Boards

Moonlight Glassing is known to be the place where some of the most beautiful surfboards are born, many of Tyler Warren’s boards make their way through this shop. Everyone there was so friendly Jim and I really appreciated our tour. For more surf culture from Moonlight check out their blog at http://www.surfysurfy.net .

Best Smoked Tofu EVER

Mao’s Venice Beach. Amazing.

For all of my SoCal Pictures check out my flickr set.

Designers have lots of different kinds of styles. Im not a designer who puts on headphones and is content to zone out over a photoshop doc for hours. I am one of those designers who thrives on constant human interaction and feeds off verbal bursts of passionate brainstorming. I LOVE people. I LOVE people who LOVE design . I especially LOVE people who LOVE to talk about design and typography. Oh goodness, that is the trifecta I get really stoked about.

When CDIA at Boston University asked me about teaching a web design class at their campus in Georgetown, I had no hesitation in replying with an overwhelming “absolutely”. Hanging out with PEOPLE passionately perusing a career in the design field? That is a no brainer for me.

Well, of course my first class was more than hanging out, it was a fantastic experience that has reinvigorated my love of the creative web industry. The students who greeted me were already deeply entrenched in the design program. Before starting web design at CDIA students complete a very extensive graphic design curriculum, making them both knowledgeable and excited about typography, layout, and some design history. The enthusiasm that greeted me was an unexpected but delightful surprise, I found them inquiring about the typefaces and talking about their favorite fonts amongst each other. Hell yeah, the trifecta!

Since completing the class many people have asked me about it, and in short all I can say is that I LOVED it. There is a lot more to that, here are my 3 take-aways from my first teaching experience:

1) Teaching is really inspiring. Even though it makes me a lot more busy going to class and planning class, it is also a huge motivator to get off my ass and design more. I left each class with tons of fresh ideas and perspectives brought up by the students and all I want to do now is design MORE and better. Each class was a invigorating discussion and brainstorm, the kind that you leave and you say to yourself, “damn that is better than (insert your favorite vice here)“. Thats right folks, Web Design school is better than ________. THAT good.

2) Teaching web design is 100% dependent on practicing web design. Towards the end of class students filled out wufoo feedback surveys that I created, and it was interesting to find that there was a lot of value added to the content of the class by explaining concepts in real-life context. The class was predominantly structured around the design process, starting with research and user experience and then going in to visual design and brand, and ending with front-end development and build-out. The entire time we followed that process through an actual Viget project to put all of the steps in context to a real world situation. It proved to be very helpful. In addition to my previous example the web design industry is constantly changing, hell… if I skip my feed reader for a day I fall behind, so its hard to imagine what it would be like without actually being in the field.

3) Education in the web design field is evolving. When making my initial transition from print design to web design, a program like this one did not exist (that I knew of in the DC area) so I learned from my peers, blogs, books, and trial and error ( don’t forget that I am still learning ). Many things I learned the hard /long way, but I can skip a lot of the crap and just teach the most effective stuff to my students. Essentially they had a road map that many practicing web designers did not have in their learning process, so watching how quickly they picked things up that took me a while to learn was really gratifying.

Overall the experience was so positive I had to write a blog post about it. I appreciate the opportunity CDIA gave me, but also the enthusiasm that my students have. Sometimes when you stare at a computer screen day in and day out, and rely on twitter and CSS galleries as your main form of inspiration, you get stuck in a tunnel. You forget that rush of excitement you had as a student learning new skills, striving for those big ideas, and the feeling of loving design so much that you will go to great lengths to be able to actually make a living at it. Its an amazing thing to be a web designer and I open my eyes every morning and think to myself, “Wow, I get to be a designer today, and not just any designer… a WEB designer. That is Bad Ass.”