This Week in Django Redesign

If you wanted to know why I've been so quite recently is because I've been hard working on my development, design, and strategy company Monty Lounge Industries, LLC. But somehow the This Week in Django (TWiD) crew convinced ourselves to launch a new TWiD site during the 1.0 release week. Go check out the redesign - this week in django.

Big props go out to Michael Trier and Brian Rosner for implementing the Django side of things. Those guys are just amazing at getting things done.

Uncovered - Creative album cover project

I'm always excited by creative projects like this one. Essentially, instead of designing the album art to reflect the music or the band, why not give the designer the control to match the music to their art? Love to see how this progresses.

"After finishing their designs, it is up to the designers who they think should be in the band and what the music should sound like. We would like to take it even one step further and let the style, atmosphere and attitude of the music be dictated by the designers as well. Within this concept ONcovered reveals the sound and power of graphic design. It also means a radical new approach in the process of creating new music. "

"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

"As complexity and confusion grows, simple tools become more and more valuable. And while sometimes it’s easy to think we need this that and the other to solve a problem, it’s often the simplest solution that actually gets the job done. Not everything has to be a Swiss Army Knife. Sometimes a screwdriver just needs to be a screwdriver."
— http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/881-37signals-featured-in-wired-march-2008-issue

" Successful design strikes the balance between form and message"
— Jason Santa Maria

The Immutable Laws of Web Design and Development

This is an oldie but goodie post from Brian Fling over on the Blue Flavor blog. It's "print out and paste to your wall" worthy.

"While computer software and engineering is a science, web work isn’t. I view web work as an amalgamation of a variety of crafts and disciplines, like behavioral psychology, art and design, information sciences – and, since the end medium depends on technology, part computer science."

99 Designs - Need a Logo? Bring it On.

I often get questions about logo design. I'm a logo design hack myself. But here's one way to get yourself a logo designed. The concept is a little controversial though. What do you think?

"Getting something designed at 99designs is easy. We help you run a “design contest”, where thousands of designers compete to create the best possible design to meet your needs. All you need is a clear idea of what you want designed and how much you're prepared to pay for it."

Daniel Burka - Designing Adaptable Websites

The good people over at Carsonified have been posting some of their FOWA (Future of Web App Conference) presentations. Daniel Burka (digg, pownce) teaches us about adaptive design and also posted his slides ... which is just a really solid example of how to create a presentation deck minus the bullet points. 

About a design

In attempt to bring something original to the table, I decided to mold the organic, "dirty", "grungy" with a clean minimal look and feel. At least that was my goal...