Archive for the ‘Art’ Category

Notable – The Easiest Way for Teams to Provide Feedback on Websites

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

Notable

Notable is a web and iPhone based service that allows team members to easily share feedback on all aspects of a website. To start a discussion you create a new project called a capture, or a set to hold multiple captures. Captures can be created from a url, by uploading an image, from an iPhone screenshot or from a Firefox Plugin. After creating a capture your team can comment on the page’s design, code, copy or seo. Users can also output the results to a PDF, email, public or private urls.

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Design

When uploading a jpg, or a capture from a url, Notable creates and stores a full page screenshot of your webpage. Multiple users can create transparent boxes with comments on top of the page giving the designer consolidated visual feedback.

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Code

Code view is organized by html, css and javascript. You can isolate each source file and highlight lines of code by clicking and filling out a pop-up comment box.

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Copy

The copy tab removes all graphics and markup from your page and reproduces the page as plain text. Unlike code view, you can highlight individual characters or words for comment.

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SEO

The SEO tab analyzes how search engines see your page and only displays relevant content. The left column contains a list of keywords and keyword phrases appearing on your page. The right column breaks down the page by metadata, headers, first 100 words used on the page, bold/strong elements, alt tags and outbound links giving you a thorough view of how a search engine sees your site.

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Pricing plans for Notable range from free to $119 a month based on the number of users and the total amount of storage needed. Notable is one of the most thorough site markup tools on the market allowing you to give feedback on site design, code, copy and seo. Pair that with the companion iPhone application and you have a tool that no production team should be without.

Check out Notable here.

Geekend 2009

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

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This year I was lucky enough to be a speaker at the first annual Geekend conference. For three days last weekend self proclaimed geeks descended up Savannah Georgia for talks about design, social networking, technology and gaming.

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The keynote speaker Friday night was Aaron Draplin from Draplin Design. He set a hilarious, open and friendly vibe that carried through for the rest of the conference. Get the full list of speakers on the Geekend Facebook page.

Saturday I gave a talk entitled “Connecting Fans With Bands” centered around how at Atlantic Records we are using design and new technology to promote our artists. My goal was to shed some light on how a designer can progress from print, to web and eventually to non-traditional devices using my story as a backdrop. I tried to make the talk one part backstory, one part examples and one part how to with some specific dos and don’ts when making the switch.

And after my talk (and more importantly) I had AMAZING BBQ at Angel’s BBQ. In an alley. Behind a church.

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All in all it was an amazing time filled with some of the best discussions about design I’ve had in years. I left energized and excited to get back to making work in NYC. I highly recommend checking out the conference next year.

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Believe the Hype

Sunday, November 1st, 2009

Branden Hall & Joshua Davis have created a new ActionScript 3 framework called HYPE, which simplifies a lot of complex actions in Flash like creating auto generating graphics, mouse followers and grid based patterns. Think of it as a how to be Joshua Davis toolkit. From the site:

HYPE is a creative coding framework built on top of ActionScript 3. A major goal of HYPE is to allow newcomers to Flash and ActionScript to creatively play and express themselves while they are learning how to program.

Check out HYPE here.

Hype

Font By Toyota

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

An amazing video on the Toyota site where a group of interactive artists used motion tracking, a car and an empty warehouse to create a new font. The car was tagged with four different color coded trackers and used an overhead camera to convert its motion into shapes. A custom piece of software then converted those shapes into a font you can download from the Toyota site.

Check it out.

Stupid Name. Cool Brushes!

Sunday, July 12th, 2009

The title says it all. Brusheezy is a great site for downloading free Photoshop brushes and patterns and voting on your favorites. It’s a mixed bag as far as quality, and there is no categorization or searching, but all in all there are a lot of great sets if you are patient.

Get free Photoshop brushes.