April 10th

I love learning something new! Today I'm showing off a hands-free fox drawing. It all start out with something called SVGs, or scaleable vector graphics. Basically these images are made out of code, instead of captured with pixels. Their original purpose was to keep razor-sharp clarity when the images are resized for various screen sizes. An added bonus is that they allow designers to create really awesome animations by applying CSS transitions and transformations. I set up time delays, tracing, and fills to make it appear like the fox is being drawn.

To play the fox drawing, make sure you only have the tab "Result" selected. You can select and unselect tabs by clicking on them. To replay, first check what kind of device you are using. On desktop computers, you can replay it here on my website by hovering over the bottom right corner until a button labeled "RERUN" appears. Click it and watch the fox go! On all devices you can click the link below the fox to see it live on my codepen.

April 3rd

For as long as I can remember, I have loved beautiful things. My clothes, my room, my desk, my website, ALL THE THINGS must be beautiful and perfect. And I get frustrated when they are not. Part of the process of creating something beautiful is first starting with the desire to make something great. It might sound obvious, but it is this goal that will push you through to the next stage: deciding and planning. And this is where I too often get stuck.

A crucial process of design is the limbo between your vision and your creation that is currently coming up short. You KNOW good design, you KNOW how you want that product to look and feel, but you just can't get it there. This is too often where we give up. "It's too hard." " It's not perfect." "It doesn't look like other [insert talented people's] work." When I get stuck here, I look for inspiration. And then tear that inspiration apart piece by piece.

That sounded violent. Really it's starting with something I love and then figuring out EXACTLY what it is that I love about this piece. Is it the font? Is it the colors? Is it the layout? This thought process humanizes that beautiful piece you thought was soooo perfect at first glance. It's really not as perfect as it seems. It's great, yes. But not perfect. And you can recreate that look once you know what you're looking for.

First step? FIND THE INSPIRATION. Check out my PROJECTS page for a live search of Flickr's huge wealth of photos. Try search entries that are similar to the website that you want to recreate, followed by the word "website" or "template". Try "coffee shop website", or "portfolio template" and check out all the amazing ideas. Or just search for pictures of snails or sloths like I did. What? Snails are adorable!

How did I add this to my page? I used this amazing tool called AJAX along with Flickr's API and a search feature. AJAX is an asynchronous javascript power machine. In other words, I can have the browser load SOMETHING, either from my source files or from another location on the web, parse it from XML into JavaScript using JSONP, and add it to my webpage WITHOUT THE BROWSER RELOADING. Neato.

AJAX also makes working with APIs super easy. All you have to do is set up JSON, provide the link, connect it to your search features using jQuery aaaand Voila! You have a working API. That is only a small look into the amazing powers of AJAX. More to come. Happy Monday!

March 30th

I LOVE creating blog templates for clients. Give me all the pretty stock photos and dreamy colors! This template was designed with a modern client in mind, someone who loves white space and soft, pretty colors. Brb, going to cover my desk in pink roses now.

All of my designs are completely responsive. That means they look fantastic on ALL devices. Yes fam, all. That includes the iPhone OG all the way up to giant desktop displays and even TVs.

Want a personalized blog or portfolio like this one? Shoot me an email with your dream idea and we can talk details.

Happy Thursday!