design

Tools of the Trade

July 7, 2009
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I‘m a web designer, but every now and then my print background bleeds through. I’ll find myself telling a client “Let’s push that left margin over two more picas,” or “I think we can indent the paragraphs two ems.” I can’t help it, it’s how I learned to think about composing a page. When Aldus [...]

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Borked

June 12, 2009

The WordPress update from version 2.7 to 2.8 screwed up my custom header graphic, so you’ll have to deal with the crappy type until I find the time to design a new theme.

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Triumph of the BelmSled

April 9, 2009

Di and I donated tickets to the Boston Museum of Science to Miles’s fourth grade class. His teacher, Ms. Mullen, asked if we would would like to attend, knowing our mutual interests in science would help her in answering questions raised by the kids. One of the scheduled activities was a visit to the Design [...]

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Moving in your sleep

March 31, 2009

Another under the hood change today: While you were sleeping, I moved the blog to a new address: http://blog.belm.com. You were redirected here automatically (look at the address in your URL field), but you should update your bookmarks — the old URL, http://www.belm.com/blog/ will disappear in a month.

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Share and enjoy

March 30, 2009

I’ve added a new feature, the Share/Save button that now appears at the bottom of each post. It’s from Add To Any, but I first saw it used on the wonderful Rational Moms and the Bill of Rights – Security Edition blogs.

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Meet the new juice, same as the old juice

February 24, 2009

PepsiCo, it its unrelenting desire to maintain parity with the Coca Cola Company, has managed to create its own “New Coke” debacle. Their mis-step, however, had nothing to do with the taste of a product, but with its appearance. I’m talking about Tropicana orange juice. We are all familiar with the Tropicana logo: the orange [...]

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Shepard Fairey was here

February 10, 2009

I met Shepard Fairey on the corner of Mass. Ave. and Newbury Street in June of 2000. He was climbing down from a utility pole, where he had just plastered his ubiquitous Obey stickers. I introduced myself, he handed me a batch of stickers, saying “I think you know what to do with these.” When [...]

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More tweaks

January 21, 2009

A bit of Photoshoppery, a lot of reading and commenting out WordPress code, et voila! – a new header graphic, as previously promised. I also added the tag cloud widget in the right column. It wil help me track how much I’m writing on certain topics.

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Pay the designer

January 20, 2009

Last night I spent two hours on the phone with a potential client reviewing his ideas for the redesign of his web site. It’s not an overly ambitious plan, but there are quite a few pages that will need to be created. I estimate the final site will incorporate somewhere between 25 and 30 pages. [...]

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An unlikely UI lesson

January 9, 2009

The UPS man delivered a package from Amazon (the Belkin Rockstar, mentioned here). He handed me the electronic tablet/scanner for me to sign, but when I grabbed it, the signature screen was no longer visible. “Sorry, I don’t see the signature line.” “Yeah, that happens all the time. The most comfortable way for a right-hander [...]

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