Pizza and the web.

Benjamin W.

January 6, 2011

I love Pizza so much. And as I love it so much, I contemplate it in all it’s splendor.

That’s when I decided that a great pizza was like a great website. Let me explain:

To make a good pizza you need great sauce or great cheese or great crust. If the cheese is amazing but the sauce and pizza are okay, you’ll still say, “that was a good pizza”.

But to create a great pizza, all three components have to be great. Amazing bubbly cheese, perfect tomato sauce (not too sweet, not too acidic) and a crispy, bubbly, buttery crust.

It’s the same with a web site or any product for that matter. It can look amazing but if the content isn’t compelling, no one will care. The content has to be great but if no one can find it on your site, so what. And if people actually find you on the web but you show no character, no goodness, no you, why would they come back ever again.

From now on, I want to make great pizza more often.

The Blackberry Playbook

Benjamin W.

The Blackberry Playbook.

Impressive demo. I can’t help but think that the touch sensitive bezel is going to present some issues. When I hold my iPad, I usually have a thumb or two on the bezels. It would be really frustrating if I kept minimizing my video or game by accident.

37signals Illustrations

Benjamin W.

November 11, 2010

This is another great post from 37signals.

Jamie describes the product illustration process for Basecamp. You should go read it. It’s not long and it gives some great insights.

It’s not an easy task to give a sense of an app from a small drawing of some icons. What I love about this post is that it shows iteration. It shows that the first idea really wasn’t the best idea. Still the first idea had to be executed so that we could see what was or wasn’t working. And get feedback. If he just thought and thought and thought until it hit him like a bolt of lightning, he wouldn’t have come up with that final illustration which is by far my favorite. It says what it needs to say in a clean way.

This is something I need to work on. There are too many ideas in my head that stay there because they’re not good enough yet. They only way for them or me to get good enough is to do those ideas as best I can. Put them out there. And do it again and again.

The Glif: First Kickstarter Project Contribution.

Benjamin W.

October 4, 2010

I just backed my first Kickstarter project. And I’m really excited about it. Iv’e been following Kickstarter for a while. I love what they’re doing and am so glad to finally back something.

If this is something you’re really excited about, I hope you’ll back them $20.

(via Daring Fireball)

Design inspiration in new places.

Benjamin W.

September 29, 2010

As a graphic/web designer, every once in a while you may find a need to explore the web for lovely looking things and find some inspiration. I don’t think there’s a better place to look than BIKEEXIF.

I look upon these motorcycles with envy.

You’re not competing with the iPad.

Benjamin W.

September 27, 2010

In all this talk about Apple vs. Nameless Ugly Product #4459, it’s always about iOS vs. Android. Or iPad vs. Samsung Galaxy no one cares. Or Mac vs. PC. But there’s something missing in all these product vs. product battles.

No matter how great the new Samsung Galaxy Submarine 40S3 is, even if it matches the iPhone 4 in every possible way, Apple has gotten everything else better than you as well. Customer service at Apple is unparalleled in my experience. I can’t think of a better retail store. I actually pause my TiVO to watch their ads. They deliver the best they can at every stage of the chain.

To all the companies out there that are designing an iPad killer that’s basically an iPad but with more clutter from carriers, a less responsive screen and better notifications:

You’re not competing with the iPad. You’re competing with Apple’s attention to detail in customer service. You’re competing with the most successful retail stores that exist. You’re competing with AppleCare. And you’re competing with iTunes. I know it’s not perfect but it gets the job done for just about everyone.

And to all the Paul Thurrott’s out there, predicting Apples’ demise every time a new Droid comes out. Until your favorite [insert non-Apple company here] starts to care about these things a lot, I’ll sleep like a baby every night knowing that when the BlackPad comes out, they’ll be selling it at the Verizon store. Good luck with that.

Geeky side-note:

This is my first blog post written in Markdown. Scrivener and Markdown, I actually might blog again.

Lemonade: Detroit

Benjamin W.

September 16, 2010

Lemonade: Detroit Trailer from Erik Proulx on Vimeo.

A Book Apart: HTML 5 for Web Designers

Benjamin W.

May 4, 2010

I just pre-ordered mine. And I would have bought it eventually but with the list of web heroes attached to this book, I couldn’t wait. And Jason’s design powers didn’t make the purchase any harder.

Read about Jason Santa Maria’s design process.

And go get a copy!

Film Festival Laurels – EPS

Benjamin W.

February 5, 2010

I went on a search for the award laurels you see on DVD covers that have made the rounds in the independent film festival circuit. I didn’t find anything good accept a POS cdr file. Not a fan of the Corel as a result. Impossible to convert on my Mac without jumping through a bunch of holes.

Anyhoo, I found the laurels in a DVD cover I was doing and decided to post them here. Enjoy.

Download the Film Festival Laurels EPS.

The 5 step program for making creativity happen.

Benjamin W.

January 23, 2010

I’ve been building this design studio for a bit now. It’s still just me. I’m still at home. But I’ve got more clients than ever.

A problem I wasn’t expecting was inspiration or lack of it. I need more inspiration than ever to produce more ideas than ever to whittle them down to good ideas. And that is exactly what I’ve been obsessing about. In the course of my obsession and subsequent scouring of the internet in search of answers to a problem I hadn’t even named, I discovered once and for all, the three step list to making creativity happen. Are you ready?

1. Start. Just start. Uh huh, I know all about the “Yeah but I don’t have a great idea to start with” and the “I’m not sure is this is the exact right CMS I should use for this project and thus can’t start brainstorming on big picture stuff until I do except that deciding on which CMS to use can only be decided with data I don’t have yet” and my favorite “Maybe if I check Signal vs. Noise, Jason or David will give me just the insight I need to inspire me to create something awesome for this client”. The real insights you need will come from you sitting with a pen and paper (or your tool of choice) and starting. Whether it’s lyrics, logo design, icons, web apps, whatever you’re trying to do, give yourself an hour and just get going. And pretty soon, the inspiration you’re looking for will come from doing what you wanted to do in the first place and not from obsessing about how, why or if you should do it.
2. If number one fails, and I’ll be really surprised if it does, take a break. Give yourself the opportunity to withdraw from whatever is giving you hell. Read a book, go for a walk, watch something on hulu or write a blog post. Most people (me included) skip number one and go straight to number two out of the wishful belief that number two is what is missing. It rarely is. You have to be doing something to take a break from it and obsessing over whether or not today is a good day for making kick ass stuff happen isn’t really doing something.
3. Back to 1.

That’s it. So much for 5. I guess it’s just 3 steps. It’s always simpler than I think it’s going to be.