Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom. This ancient love poem from Song of Solomon wisely warns of the relational damage caused by ignoring the little problems. The same can be true in all aspects of life.
Continue Reading The little foxes that spoil the vineyard
I recall a time in my late teens early twenties when my sister confronted me about my conduct and somewhat wild behavior. At the time, I was extremely annoyed at this intrusion. Looking back, I’m glad she said something. She was holding me accountable and letting me know I was not moving through life unnoticed. She loved me, and that’s why she was willing to make things a little uncomfortable. She was willing to ignore the norm of my current behavior and address the truth of my problem.
Continue Reading Acceptance of the norm
If done well a client call can build on the excitement gained during the sales process. Inversely, it can also leave the client questioning their decision and wondering if they were sold a load of…well, crap. There’s nothing worse than dowsing the cold water of disorganization on top of client interaction.
Continue Reading Launchpad: A Successful Client Call
Before you ask for readers, write the article you wish you could read. Before you ask for the sale, create the product you wish you had. These were the two quotes from James Clear’s 3-2-1 weekly email that caught my attention this week.
Continue Reading See a Need and Then Do
Where should the article image go? This question feels like it has a simple answer. Simple, that is, until you consider all the factors in play.
Continue Reading Biddle’s Rules for Archive Pages
Graceful degrading is a strategy of handling web page design for a variety of different browsers, both old and new. I’ve seen humorous examples even deployed where the entire site would load in black and white for users who were on an outdated browser.
Continue Reading Beautiful Degrading
Over the last month, The LexBlog design and dev team have been working on a redesign for LexBlog.com article pages. I find the best way to start a redesign is to ignore the home page or other landing pages (which will be updated soon). And focus on a text-heavy article page that receives the bulk of page views.
Continue Reading A new font and article page for LexBlog
In 2004 I was at a significant crossroads in my career. The company where I had spent the past eight years was slowly dying due to economic changes and the dot com bubble bursting in 2000. During this eight-year tenure, I was able to develop my skills as a designer learning to write clean semantic code that separated structure from presentation (Eric Meyer’s book on CSS was transformative in my growth at this time). The positives that arose from this reality of needing to find a way to take care of my family (My wife and I just had our second baby) forced me to begin my career as a freelance web designer.
Continue Reading LexBlog 15
LexBlog design strives to provide leadership and guidance on best practices that ensure our products are of the highest quality. Over the years we have been asked to use or create custom graphics as the title for a blog. While this approach was widely accepted as the norm many years ago, it no longer works with today’s mobile web. I decided to jot down a few reasons why this approach is a bad idea.
There’s the adage that says, Many hands make light work. This truth can also run amuck if the many hands involved are inept and unwilling to work together as a team. The same goes for gathering feedback and criticism on a design project. You need to show others and test on potential users. However, the eyes looking need to be engaged in the process or know the goals so that you avoid drive-by feedback that is without the understanding of what they are observing. Context is key.