In my last post I discussed whether or not design/creativity is something that can be learned, and thus decided to test the theory on myself by going through the steps outlined in Elliot Jay Stocks’ new book, Sexy Web Design. My friend Steve has kindly allowed me to use his current portfolio for the experiment (lucky him!). So, let’s begin.

The first step to Sexy Web Design is Research – something I admittedly don’t spend much time on. The only research I tend to do involves asking the client which websites they like, although I was happy to find out that this is indeed an important element. However, one element I don’t spend much time thinking about is, “What exactly should the website DO?”

Fortunately, I was able to get quite a lot of information from Steve when finding out what he wanted to accomplish with his portfolio:

• Blog for posting ideas, projects, articles, thoughts
• About page with information on who Steve is and what he does
• Project page with links to all his current and past projects which will include screenshots and additional information
• Homepage to include callouts to recent projects, recent blog entries, etc

As well as a list of sites he liked and why:

• http://www.cssjockey.com/ – navigation
• http://css-tricks.com/ – footer, simple design
• http://marcgrabanski.com/ – page layout
• http://www.netdreams.co.uk/index.php/what-we-do/ – colors
• http://crushlovely.com/ – footer, colors, navigation
• http://www.45royale.com/ – page layout
• http://orderedlist.com/ – colors, page layout

With very little design experience, Steve did what he could to showcase his work in a professional and simple manner. Since then, Steve’s focus has changed from wanting to purely showcase his work to also wanting a place to include his thoughts and other ongoing projects, all with a much less formal look. In the end, I will not only be designing his website, but most likely also establishing other elements of his online identity. While Steve has given me almost complete creative freedom, he did have some other thoughts on what he would like to see with the design:

• Simple, less formal
• Incorporate skiing somehow – also highlight other elements of Steve’s personality
• Footer style containing random information (Twitter, copyright, etc)
• Look AWESOME (I’m glad he cleared this up)

My next step will involve Wireframing – another element of design I rarely take into account. Stay tuned!

I recently came across an article at PSDTuts titled “50 Totally Free Lessons in Graphic Design Theory” which was interesting because it got me thinking – can good design be learned? If everyone has the potential to design, what separates the good designers from the bad ones? Can those principles be learned?

I don’t see myself as an incredibly creative person, nor a good designer. If design can be learned, can creativity? Is creativity essential to being a good designer?

I’ve decided to test this idea on myself.

I recently purchased Elliot Jay Stock’s new book, “Sexy Web Design.” The book is fantastic, and covers the steps one should take when designing a web site. I must admit – in most of my design attempts, I’ve skipped a lot of important steps (researching, wireframing, and sitemapping to name a few) and gone straight to the Photoshop design. I’m now wondering… if I take these pre-design steps, will my designs improve? By learning a few tricks and techniques, will someone look at my web site and think, “Wow, that’s hot!”?

My friend Steve has graciously (or stupidly) allowed me to redesign his portfolio web site. My experiment will take me through all the steps outlined in Elliot’s book, which I will be documenting here (not the actual content of the book – go buy it yourself if you want to know!).

Stay turned for Step 1: Research.

Here are some videos that made me LOL (for real). Hope everyone had a nice weekend!

I especially love the “bookmark page” face gesture.

In the past month, I’ve been asked several times if my degree in Computer Science has helped me in my web development career. I always find this question hard to answer.

Part of me wants to say that yes, it helped me. I learned Object Oriented programming. I learned about design patterns, use cases, and documentation. I learned how to work on team projects, how to program on a Linux OS (ha!), and how to take tests. Mostly, I learned that I do not care for software development.

Even so, a large part of me wants to say no, it did not help me. Almost everything I know in regards to web development (HTML, CSS, SQL, PHP, Photoshop, the list goes on…) I know because I took it upon myself to learn it in my own time. Outside of class, I did web projects for myself and others. I found two internships that allowed me to practice my web development skills because I did not have that opportunity in my classes. If I had done nothing in my own time and relied entirely upon my schooling in CS to find me a web development job, there is absolutely no way that would have been possible.

I’m positive I’m a better web programmer because of my CS degree and it certainly helped when looking for a job. Every job application I’ve seen for web development wants a CS degree or equivalent work experience. It’s nice to know I have both.

However, I also feel like what I learned in those 4 years of school (and $30k later) I could have learned in my own time. In this day and age – where a 12 year old kid can teach him or herself C++ from the comfort of his or her bedroom – I’m not entirely sure college has as much value as it once did. With information becoming so widely available on the internet, should the same importance be placed on a college education as it once was? Who’s to say that a high school graduate, who has been doing web development since he/she was 10 years old, is not as qualified (if not more qualified) than a college graduate who only has 4 years of CS under his/her belt?

But I’m not here to undermine the importance of college. College is very important for some fields. I’m glad I had my college experience, and I would probably do it again if I had a chance (although maybe a different degree). But as far as I’m concerned, my own motivation, initiative, and passion for web development is what got me where I am today – not a $30k piece of paper.

What do you guys think? Was college useful for you, or not? If you didn’t go, are you happy with your decision?

It seems everyone is talking about Twitter lately – What is Twitter? How will Twitter make money? What will happen to Twitter once it goes mainstream? Twitter, Twitter, Twitter… – so I’m going to go ahead and jump on the bandwagon and add my own two cents.

My friend Henriette just wrote a great post on her blog explaining the differences between Facebook and Twitter. Her post got me thinking, because it was only two weeks ago that I attempted to explain to my mom what Twitter was, and I found I had a hard time doing so. I KNEW what Twitter was, but I couldn’t explain it very well, especially to someone who is not as technically inclined.

Henriette nailed it right on the head when she said,

“You can explore people on Facebook. You can explore people on Twitter. But where Facebook is great to find out a lot of stuff about people based on a context, Twitter is great at exploring people based on conversation and interactions.”

A lot of people think Twitter is stupid (ie, my coworkers), and to give them credit, much of the stuff that is posted IS pointless (many of my own tweets included). However, what makes Twitter great isn’t the individual tweets a person makes, but the collective of tweets and the interactions you are able to make with complete strangers (and companies). As I tried explaining to my mom, “It’s like texting, chat rooms, and message boards combined.” Not a very great explanation, but it worked for her.

I also enjoy Twitter because it provides real time media reporting and channels. I knew about the plane crash in the Hudson river and Lance Armstrong’s recent injury hours before my coworkers read it on CNN. At SXSW, I was able to see which parties were the ones to be at, could read comments and questions regarding a particular pane, and was able to interact with other people in line for Diggnation – in real time.

How will Twitter make money? I don’t know. Gary Vaynerchuk posted a great video on his theory, and Jason Calacanis posted an interesting mockup of his idea. I would also imagine Twitter also has massive amounts of data relating to any one subject, and could pull that data and present it in a clean and concise manner to a company that wants to know what people think of their brand (although that company could easily do it themselves with the search feature, but the companies who don’t know how to use Twitter may be willing to pay).

Personally, I love Twitter. I do recognize that what I tweet about – and what many others tweet about – is pointless, but there’s also something beautiful in the simple and mundane part of every day life. I know that no one cares what I ate for breakfast, and saying so will not affect anyone else’s life in any particular way (except possibly others who are also passionate about breakfast burritos!). But at the end of the day, I feel apart of something. The fact that people care enough about what I have to say (no matter how mundane) to follow me is amazing, and makes me feel like I have a voice on this big thing we call the internet.

Follow me on Twitter! :)