Jamal
Jamal is a young freelance web designer, web developer, writer, and blogger based in Atlanta, Ga. His work can be found at his online identity Five Alarm Interactive(FAI). He is a college student and philosophical poet by day, and passionate professional by night. You can keep up with him on Twitter @5alarmint.
Successful Redesign Tips From Movie Sequels
Ever wondered how some film series’ original can be so good it builds up a good amount of buzz for continuing films, yet its sequels are just nowhere near as good? Well, this of course can boil down to a number of factors. Sometimes too much time passes between the release of the original and its sequel for audiences to even care, the plot didn’t stack up, actor/actress changes messing up chemistry, etc. The list can go on forever, but there is one bigger question to ask. What do successful sequels do differently?
That is what we are going to be taking a look at, and how these traits of successful movie sequels can be used for your upcoming redesign.
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How Responsive Design is Like Water
There are three states of matter known to be found on Earth. These states of course being that of solid, liquid, and gas. Taking into account that these three states are distinctly different, it is easy to assume that they each have a unique form. Solids are rigid and tightly packed molecules , gases are hyperactive molecules that are always just bouncing around everywhere, and liquids are closely connected molecules that have no true form.
Before steering away from this post because of the brief refresher on some chemistry notes, which may or may not have triggered haunting blocked out memories, take some time to consider something. Why would any professional creative ever be daft enough to mention anything relating to science subjects like chemistry in a blog post? And how can knowing this honestly improve my responsive design skills?
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Grand Slam Freelancing: Tips Learned From Top Tennis Players
In the professional tennis world, competition is at a whole new level of intensity than we’ve possibly ever seen. Unlike previous generations of greats, there is no longer just one or a few region(s) dominating the game. The landscape of today can see anyone from any country, despite not having a strong history of top elite players, having a legitimate shot at having a player take home one of the four Grand Slams, the top spot on the season ending rankings, winning the World Tour Finals, or capturing Davis Cup supremacy.
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Why UX Design is like Your Clothes
Even if you gave five people the exact same clothes, none of them would wear the clothes the exact same way. This is because everybody looks at something in their own unique way, this is just a testament to the creativity every person has inside of them. You’re probably thinking to yourself what in the world does this have to do with UX design, correct?
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ACTA: The Global Attempt At Anti-Piracy
Today it is not a common occurrence to have powerful nations across the globe to act on a single issue, outside of war and relief for a tragedy stricken country of course. However, there seems to be a need to add countering counterfeiting goods and enforcing copyrights online of course. This past month there was nothing more popular Stateside on the net than SOPA and PIPA. These bills were of course met with a great backlash to the U.S. House and Senate, even more so for those that originally proposed them. However, it is quite troubling to find out that these bills are actually just a small fraction of the global government attempt at stopping online piracy. Well since the introduction is over, let’s put no more time rambling in the introduction. The point of the article is ACTA(Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement), and by the end hopefully you will be more informed on this matter.
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How to Stop Yourself from Stealing from Your Design Gurus
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but what about when that flattery is taken too far? Take a look at any blog in our industry, there is a 100% chance that there is at least a few posts with nothing but different pieces readers can gain inspiration from. There is nothing wrong with this of course; inspiration posts do a great job of showcasing a designer’s hard work and giving someone some cool ideas from looking at them. However, too often this inspiration found from viewing can lead to something entirely different.
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Finding the Inner Balance Between an Artist and a Designer
The similarities between an artist and a designer are quite easy to see, in fact those unaware of the distinctive differences might even assume that they are the same occupation. However for those that understand the functions of both creative endeavors, they know that is far from the case. An artist is a creative who creates to satisfy their own aesthetic pleasure, unconcerned with the wants and needs of others. A designer is a creative who creates in hopes of satisfying the wants and needs of others with their art, casting aside their own individual creative desires.
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Questions to Ask Yourself Before Becoming a Blogger
For the most part, being a professional blogger is a freelance position. It doesn’t matter how many different blog sites you are loyal to, even if it is your own, a blogger still has the option to have work published anywhere they feel. Unless you’re a corporate blogger who signed a contract with your company of employment stating you would not do so, but then again that technically might make you more of a copywriter. Moving on, being a full-time or part-time blogger means you’re freelancing on some level. As the typical freelancer asked themselves many questions before taking the big leap, you would think the same would go for bloggers.
In the same fashion as any other occupation, there are certain skill requirements that must be met. Almost every industry blog site has published an article about how blogging can improve your career, and then proceeds to convince the majority of readers that being a blogger is the way to go for them. However these articles, for the most part, are all missing one key aspect to them. Somewhere before, or after, informing the readers about the benefits of being a blogger, there needs to be time to reflect on why one shouldn’t be one.
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Is Web Technology Rapidly Progressing or at a Standstill?
Take a moment and realize how far our industry has come from where it originated. It seems like centuries ago since IE6 was considered the top browser and when being able to use CSS in conjunction with HTML was groundbreaking. Remember when the use of tables was a best practice? It is easy to see that there is an amazing amount of progress that has been made and even more amazing is the rate at which it is all constantly happening. Many of the problems those early pioneers had to deal with seem to be far removed for anyone who wasn’t around at the beginning. Or have they just changed form?
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Internet Blackout Aftermath – Is the Threat of SOPA/PIPA Over?
This past Wednesday was quite the eventful day. The impact of Wikipedia, Google, TechCrunch, Mozilla, Wired, Reddit, WordPress, Funny Or Die, and many more big names, and of course those of you in the community who knew about the events and blacked out your own websites was DEFINITELY FELT!
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