Let me be the first (or more likely the 166th) to say, WordPress 2.7 is the new hotness. The new dashboard, the speed, the automatic upgrade being native (yay one less plugin) and being able to add plugins without using ftp is so amazingly handy. The idea that I can add new features to my blog from my iphone now is really useful.

I’ll get to work on a more indepth review later, for now I’m still exploring and checking all of the plugins I’ve written to make sure they don’t have issues with the 2.7 nightly builds.
If you’re interested in making the switch I’d recommend you get the db-manager plugin first to automate your db backups.

In other news, in honor of the switch to 2.7 I also managed to switch from my aging contact form plugin to cforms II which you can see in action over at my contact page.

As a profession design is about content delivery and content framing, I think underlying all of that though is the job of an artist. Without going off onto some long tangent I see web design as an artistic medium balancing the responsibilities of an artist with that of a technical writer with a smattering of marketing and interior design. While some if not many may disagree with me, staying true to your inner sense of artistry has greater merit than simply churning out code in attempt to pay off your new car/laptop/plasma tv.

In my personal experience when I decided to devote myself fulltime to design and all that it enfolds I promised myself that I’d try to do at least 2-3 free sites for people who either inspire me or fight for what they believe in a year.

My main question is though: Would you choose to do a site for a business or organization that you disagree vehemently with their opinions?

Your thoughts?

I ended up using a few different elements in this that I hadn’t been familiar with. First off was a far greater bit of attention being paid to the actual method of building each page. I made sure to keep the sidebar content as well as the navigation system be called via a php include to make editing that content far easier in the long run. Handling those items via php will allow far greater scalability in the future as a variety of scripts can quickly be added in without requiring a full rewrite.

I also used a slightly different method of Faux Columns than usual in creating the layout. I made sure to make things just slightly different in IE to illustrate to prospective clients why standards compliant browsers are better in a very subtle way. I’ve also used a twist on the “onion skinning” css technique on the Firefox version of the site.

Since part of the spec required a backend client management script I decided to go with a rather Basecamp-esque open source script called WebCollab. It’s an excellently written project management system with a whole slew of useful functions such as:

• Easy to read and intuitive screen layouts. Most users can use WebCollab without training.
• Individual users are assigned rights and permissions. Users can also be put into groups with controlled rights and permissions.
• Projects and tasks progress and approaching deadlines are graphically highlighted.
• Changes are personally highlighted for other users to see.
• Changes and new items can be emailed to affected users.

It took a bit of time to see how the system handled CSS and in the end I had to rewrite quite a bit of the backend in order to have the look I wanted. In the end it both complimented the front end layout and provided a secure area where clients can communicate with the dev team.

Overall the time invested in this project gave me the chance to sit back and really formulate how I wanted things to look as well as to continue to wrap my brain around integrating design ideas with existing Open Source software. One of the best parts is for everything I did the pages validate as xhtml strict using the application/xhtml content tag so it’s not tag soup in any way :D

For now head over to lotusmg.com and register for the announcement email.

The actual site still has a lot of backend work to make sure that the sandbox areas, client areas, staff blogs and forums are all tweaked, coddled and colored in but it’s coming along well.
If you’re interested in taking a look at what Lotus does head over to the site and register for the announcement email.

lotusmg.com

Fine Art

I’d say that fine art galleries such as dlaakso.com for example are minimalist frames to display the artists work, anything else begins to detract from the point of the site which is to further the spread of the art being offered. In the case of the webcomics, there are a few webcomics I’m a diehard fan of either due to word of mouth or friends working on them. Those comics don’t have the commercial appeal that other comics do however they’re still quality from my viewpoint. I wouldn’t consider either to be web art however since they are both offline mediums delivered via the web.

Photography

Looking at the example of photography on the web you can use one of two methods in moving the images into an online environment. One is to simply throw them up in a size saving manner(such as I’ve done with: My photos section ) which is an honest way to show photography skill and the ability of your eye to discern natural artisticness (In my opinion really the skill of a photographer is simply being able to spot beauty where it stands and then frame it rather than truly “creating” art. Not that I’m saying photography isn’t artistic mind you). On the other hand taking images and altering or modifying them to reside in a digital environment (such as taking a photo and changing it in subtle ways to add nuance in order to make it a desktop wallpaper) can be quite impressive as well.

Blogs

I think personally in the case of blogs that while the content matters greatly it’s important that the overall design of the site graphically and layout-wise be synergystic to each other. When something is going to be presented to people it should have similar tendencies. I think the reason blogs are so prevalent is the same reason people write graffiti in national parks. When made to feel utterly tiny and insignificant people have a need to place themselves somewhere in the infinite. I think that being able to read the viewpoints of thousands of others and to a certain extent expand the social aspects of the internet can be quite cathartic when you stumble across a post that is similar to something you’ve experienced. As far as the Reality shows go, I’d actually disagree. I think Reality shows have more in common with fiction than with any sort of biographical work.

The blog world (not going to say blogosphere) is actually in many cases authentic viewpoints vs a carefully edited version of reality on the television. Granted writing in a blog is nice since you can communicate, offer your views in a semi-anonymous environment and edit those views before posting, but I think authors personalities and quirks come out in anything they write causing a certain amount of raw honesty not always shown in reality.

The ability to add interactivity to a personal journal (comment systems, forums, etc) creates an interesting situation. On the one hand it leads to the creation of melodramatic posts but on the other hand you can see a blossoming of new points of view.

To a large extent I really think that art is simply looking at something from a different perspective and showing others how you see, hear, touch, feel and taste something (or any other sense really).

Web Design

Ah at last a subject near and dear to my heart (not that the others weren’t). Web designers come in a few different models before you even aproach the artistic styles. You’ve got your content designers “the overall look is something that will enhance the information on the page”, your artistic designers “screw the content, isn’t the page gorgeous” and the hybrids who understand that the two worlds require each other and must be symbiotic to truly succeed.

Beyond that you can look at what is being done on the web and see that there are many elements of every style ever used in every other medium being changed, manipulated, trashed, worshipped together in new unique ways. As the web design world enters it’s 1st large renaissance. Back in the early days it was a techie playground untouched by marketing or anything remotely commercial. A lot of people wanted to express themselves and discover new ways of doing it. At the time there weren’t many tools other than html which in no way was designed for graphic layout handling. As capitalism pushed it’s way into the web the entire artistic movement was suddenly restricted to a smaller niche. with the advent of cheaper hosting and people familiarizing themselves with the massive different technologies and tools many artistic sites sprang up and now we’re hitting a point where artists have grown up using the internet and are truly leveraging all of the current potential.

The artistic side can be expressed through amazing projects like the CSS Zengarden
where artists are limited to only changing the look/layout but keeping the exact html and content. there are a huge number of sites devoted to helping people to explore and push the envelope of web design and to create something truly unique.

Overall I think art is anything you observe or experience. Some art is personal and other stuff is quite public. Anything that causes an emotional response (of any sort) must be considered art. While I don’t agree with or like certain artistic expressions I understand some works are intended to create a feeling of anger in the audience. A great example would be from an artistic environment near and dear to me: Drum Corps. In 1993 a fantastic (near legendary) corps performed a show written to anger the crowd. Every single facet of the show was breathtaking but many didn’t like it and many didn’t understand it.
The works of Robert Mapplethorpe also caused much debate over their “artistic merit”. Perhaps causing discourse is just as much art as taking a risque photo. Art is something we have all around us. As time passes we are inundated with digital imagery and for most of us the web is something that isn’t a separate part of reality anymore. It’s just a different place to experience the full gamut of existence.

At least that’s my two cents worth (I adjusted how much I wrote to account for inflation).
A collection of some of my favorite artistic places can be found on my links page.

Your thoughts?

I started off with a page that was moderately easy to update and 100% css/xhtml compliant but completely lacking an integrated anything. After deciding to use wordpress as the main software on my site (woo aren’t I trendy?) I sat down and took a look at the sites that inspire me most and what I wanted out of my site. I’m pretty sure I covered everything I want for the public side at the moment. Although I do look forward to an integrated blogroll plugin that works similarly to del.icio.us at some point.

Next up on my plate is to start working on an integrated client area for the private side as well as to work on the “hopefully soon to launch” Gallery 2 install (that’ll happen once I finish familiarizing the template system and backend of G2. Sometime before or after that (see how precise my timing can be?) I’ll most likely be revamping the entire backend of this site again in preparation for the styleswitcher and the 2nd stylesheet (which has a working title of “Sonata”). That stylesheet will require some hefty backend javascripting but will be quite worth it in the end.

Finally before I wrap this initial first post up I’d like to thank the following designers/sites for inspiring me to create this site.

• Shaun Inman The holy grail of clean design.
• Benjamin Adam Thanks for cssreboot!
• Nandini Doreswamy Thanks for the brilliance of multi layered fudge!

Thanks again and I hope you enjoy my site

Peace,

Chris