Recently, more of my time is going toward web development. After much delay, Vintage 106 will finally see the light soon (hopefully!), and numerous other projects are in the works.

Speaking of which, I reported last month that I was working with Tyler Waddell to get his new art portfolio site online. He has a great selection now available to view, and he has even has prints that will be available soon if you’re interested in getting a nice reproduction. While trying to find the right theme for his WordPress site gallery, Tyler went through dozens of different ideas. He was trying to find a minimalist design that would not detract his artwork. So, the design itself is simple, and it really makes his artwork pop on the screen.

WordPress has become a centerpiece to me for me in my development work. It’s not the perfect system for every website need or anything like that, but it is a user-friendly, yet still powerful system that I can use in a variety of settings. The simple fact is that most people that need to be able to run the content of websites are not coders, and they shouldn’t have to be. Very rarely is someone truly gifted with all of the creative and / or business skills as well as the more analytical, time-crunching code skills. I’ve had much more success showing someone the administrative section of the WordPress interface rather than using a program like Adobe’s Contribute. As many online services have shown, it’s all about the end user’s experience.

So that’s it for May. I’ll be back next month – if not before then – with links to more online projects.

I’m very excited to announce that vintage106.com will be live this week! This has been a great experience in learning how to code in php and in working with the many, many WordPress plugins that are out there. For all of the plugin incompatibilities that make you want to bang your skull against the nearest hard object, there are also some really well done plugins that work right out of the box. If I wasn’t already a convert to the WordPress system, I definitely am now.

Lots more creative news to come later this month, so stay tuned!

Quick post today. I am in the middle of setting up a new website, and I’ve been having a blast. My friends are opening a new clothing store called Vintage 106, and I’m totally digging the hippie retro feel that we get to employ in all of their design work. Their store is a second-hand clothing store with a national supplier, so it looks like they are going to be able to get some very trendy items that reflect the fashion of the entire country instead of our immediate surroundings. As much as I love Goodwill shopping, local shops can be severely limited with what all is included.

I’ve already completed the Photoshop template and am now on to creating my first WordPress theme. It won’t have a ton of bells and whistles or anything, but I am getting the chance to uncover the WordPress structure and play around in PHP. What little programming experience I have had in the past has been in ASP.NET, so I’m enjoying the challenge of working in a different environment.

The site is not up yet, but the logo is now on the homepage over at vintage106.com. More info to come.

Ah, the dreaded cross browser test… It’s one of those things that just make you want to jump out of a window. My workspace is on the second floor, so I probably wouldn’t die. But it still wouldn’t feel good.

Will that CSS file you created work on all of the browsers? Will your JavaScript work the way it is supposed to? Also, does your website have to look the same in every browser to make you / your boss / your client happy? Is your boss or your client even aware of cross browser issues?

I’ve only been in the web design and development field for about a year and a half now, so I did not have to go through the free-for-all years of the early internet where each browser was completely different from one another. Web standards are making this process easier, but there are still numerous differences between even modern browsers. And depending on your website’s visitors, you might have to do a lot of adjustments for Internet Explorer 6 and 7.

Whatever your approach to these matters (progressive enhancement, etc.), you still have to find some way to test out the site in all of the browsers. Working through the modern browsers is fairly simple, but making adjustments specific to IE6 and IE7 can be a pain. I have found no better solution than CrossBrowserTesting.com.

Not only can you test all of the browsers, but you can also test web apps through different operating systems. It can be kind of frustrating trying to test through the Windows 98, since it moves so very slowly compared to today’s machines. But that is what these users are seeing.

Now you may not have any need of testing Windows 98, but the sites that I work with at my day job are often visited by users with machines that are seriously behind the times. We as a company could simply design towards today’s standards and just let all of our users catch up, but who knows if they would still remember us by the time they updated their hardware? We need visitors today and three years from now, so we are constantly trying to balance the two extremes. Without a service like CrossBrowserTesting, it would take much longer to make our sites accessible to as many users as possible.

It’s been a while since the last update, so here’s what is going in my creative world.

Finished

It’s always good to be able to realize a completed project, especially when that project took far more time than originally anticipated. In my last update, I mentioned that I was still toiling away at a screenplay, and I was able to finish within a few weeks after that post. Screenplays are still unwieldy beasts in my writing world, and I wouldn’t call this draft a finished project. But I am closer to that finished project than I was. I have a friend currently looking the script over for me.

In the comic book world, I now have three short stories set to appear in indie anthologies this year. The scripts are all done, and they are sitting in the hands of artists. I’m chomping at the bit to see some of the pages, and I will sneak a preview of some of the art from at least one of the projects as the work comes in.

In the Works

At my day job, I am a webmaster for a small non-profit organization. I had always considered the idea of doing some freelance work on the side, but nothing really came of it until just recently. I had the opportunity to do some development work for the webcomic Celu (http://celu-comic.com), and other work has popped up on completely unrelated fronts. I have two projects that I am currently working on, and each project sits on the opposite end of the spectrum as far as content is concerned. Both of these projects are very rewarding in the sense that I will get some creative license with the design, and I am looking forward to them both as challenges to see what I am capable of creating.

While I’m likely to be busy on freelance work and some creative writing, none of my current commitments creates a real time-crunch. With some personal matters pressing into my creative time and energy, I am thrilled to have some breathing room once again.

Have fun, and I’ll keep you posted.

Photos

Stock.Xchng (sxc.hu) – It’s got a weird url, but the site itself is packed full of great photo resources. This isn’t the place to look for abstract art, but you’ll find tons of nature shots, famous places, crowds, and lot of other “general” kinds of shots. I rely heavily on this resource.

Be sure to pay attention to the licensing on this site. Some of the graphics require attribution and/or contacting the artist, while many others only require that you don’t sell the pictures. I’ve contacted a few of the photographers, and they were grateful to hear that their work was being used.

RGB Stock (rgbstock.com) – This site is new for me. It doesn’t come with a ton of images, but the pictures they do have are very well done. Again, the abstract images are okay, but there are lots of great “general” photos, including textures (stones, wood floors, grass, pavement, etc.).

MorgueFile (morguefile.com) – This site is hit or miss, but I have been able to pull some good images for web designs. Be careful as this site is tied into a paid site. It will let you know if you have to pay for images, but it’s not always clear which images are free.

Vector Art

Vecteezy (vecteezy.com) – I love their little slogan for this site, “Stupid name. Cool Vectors!” This site has a limited selection, but there are some great designs for web icons and buttons. These files are generally designed for use in either Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape (shareware program available at inkscape.org).

Fonts

Font Squirrel (fontsquirrel.com) – I’m really excited to find this site. Many fonts that are available online are license restricted, and users are not able to use them in their web designs. FontSquirrel is the first site I’ve ever seen that has fonts “100% free for commercial use.” These are nice fonts, and they are worth a look.

Got Suggestions?

I’d love to hear about any other sites you have come across. It’s tough to find nice stock art for free, so spread the love!