Category: Design

In an attempt to be at least somewhat democratic here at Alternate, I’ve decided to let you, the reader, decide which ‘look n feel’ (or ‘duckbucket’, as we like to call it) we’re actually going to go with for the redesign. Make your voice heard in the voting booth to the left.

This class I am taking is absolutely ridiculous. I figured I’d bolster my slouching GPA with a web design class called “Interactive Media Design.” They really should have called it “Rudimentary Web Design.” I’ve been sitting in this class for three weeks and we are only as far the most basic link tags. This is not a University level class, this is the kind of class that middle aged mothers take at the local community college. It’s almost funny because half of the class is teaching the professor(I use the term lightly) and at the same time it’s quite sad.

I’ve been chronologically reviewing all the past posts on erasing.org. Which is a good way to spend time if you have a heavy heart or a high speed internet connection and a lot of time to kill.

In order to build up some excitement around the new Alternate design, I worked up a little desktop for all you’s out there who might want one. It’s made for 1280×1024, so it’s big, but it’ll resize nicely, I believe.

Holy shit. The company I work for just laid off our entire development/operations staff. Including people that have been around for the entire length of the company’s life. We (the design staff) have been told that we are all safe in our jobs, and that we’re going to transform back into a traditional design shop. I feel horrible for all the people who got laid off.. including people with children. I’m physically ill by this. If ANYONE reading this needs really great Cold Fusion or Java developers, please contact me. They’re all great people who do great work. I’m so sad for them, and quite frightened for myself. Now I’m REALLY depressed Apple didn’t hire me.

If you’ve got any freelance work for a designer, please please let me know.. my portfolio is at Deeperhue.com. Thanks.

So a new design for Alternate is in the works. Just so you know. It probably won’t be up and running for a while, but hey. I’m also thinking about keeping this design online too, so that you can pick your favorite design, and go with that.

Are you a designer? Do you not have the same photographer friend I do? Then you might find some use in Photonica. It’s a badass stock photo site, with some awsome photographers and not-so-normal photos that you can hopefully talk your clients into buying. So check it out. The design is fucking awesome, too. Wow. I just used ‘fucking’ for the first time in weeks.

The most simply I can put it to you guys: Thanks. Thanks for reading, thanks for linking, thanks thanks thanks. This site started out modestly (and still is) with the not-so-great yellow-ish design, and about 4 readers, all of whom happened to be coworkers and writers with us.

So we’re happy that the site is growing, but we’d like some of you to have more of an active role in the site’s expansion. We’d like to take this opportunity to invite anyone with a strong opinion on the internet, technology or design to become a writer for us (if only occasionally).

Please send any inquiries to kev, and we’ll talk. Again, strong opinions expected, preferrably with intelligent reasons behind your arguments (although even I sometimes have a hard time with that..), and you don’t even need to have the same opinions as we do, just back ’em up. Thanks.

Don’t these guys have anything better to do with their time or money? Metallica is at it again. This time the heavy metal “hipsters” are suing Guerlain, a French fragrance manufacturer for trademark infringement. Guerlain is selling a perfume named “Metallica” at fancy smancy retailer Neiman Marcus.

In a complaint filed Friday at the U.S. District Court in the Central District of California, Metallica claims Guerlain, the century-old French fragrance manufacturer, causes “confusion, deception, and mistake in the minds of the public with respect to the source and origin of defendants’ goods.”

Metallica accuses Neiman Marcus of dilution, unfair competition, false designation of origin and injuring the quartet’s reputation because–get this–the perfume might mislead metalheads into thinking the band endorsed the product.

I am sorry but these guys need to be shot (I am really happy today). Ban Metallica, these guys really stink!

I just overheard an interesting exchange in a conference call with a client. The designer spent 3-5 minutes describing to the client why the client-suggested navigation would not work out best from a usability standpoint. The client kind of kept quiet until the word ‘user’ was mentioned (as in ‘it would be more confusing for the user’), at which point the client said ‘Right…’ in such a way that made 2 things painfully obvious: 1) He had never even thought about anyone using his ridiculous idea, and 2) really didn’t care what we thought.

THIS is why bad websites happen (or at least the majority of them), in my humble opinion. It all boils down to clients trusting experts to do the job they hired them for.