Nollind Whachell

Sibyllae posted up some very interesting insights into design recently that definitely hit home with me.

I have now viewed over 782 “best of the best” (as they are titled) website and blog designs for CSS. They are all remarkable and well done. Since I am not a designer, I felt lost and out of place trying to meet the demands of the constantly evolving array of web standards. I felt frustrated. Then I looked closer and I asked myself the SAME question every time I saw something I liked at first sight, but knew I could not imitate in any way for lack of skills to do it; and the question was: “Let’s just assume you could build something like “this snazzy thing over here”. Can you look at this regularly or daily and work with it? Does it suit your purposes?”

Surprisingly, my answer was NO every time.

This echoes my recent revelations on how I want to be real. Simply put, no matter what cool design layouts I saw out there, none of them connected or resonated with me. Thus in trying to emulate them, I was only putting a mask on myself and not really representing who I really am which in turn resonated this “wrongness” within me. Therefore, I knew that I had to stop trying to emulate others and instead just be myself. Easier said than done. For now, I’ve gone back to my Working Late design that I made for Squarespace (but with a few adjustments to it). I like it but it still really isn’t me, as it’s a little too clean. I definitely liking Sibyllae’s new header image though, as it has a real grittiness and texture to it, something I’d like to add to my own site to give it more of a ‘down to earth’ feeling to it.

And from this I learned that one of the most important things about using the web as a medium for any form of expression is: IDENTIFYING YOUR PURPOSE. So through trial and error I identified the following: I am not selling anything, I am not Apple or Microsoft, and I am not a professional designer seeking work. So what does that mean? That means that I can create and re-create my own personal space as the whim suits me. It is OK if it it’s not perfect and doesn’t validate W3C every page, it is OK that it is not pixel perfect. It is ok to violate (which I probably do and I am sorry), every design principle. WOOHOO! 🙂 Maybe the concept here is not just relevant to creating a personal “space; ie: feeling good about your own means of expression… words to live by in other areas of life?

Totally agree. Even more so, I believe this is applicable to professional designers as well. For example, sure follow the rules for layout and functionality, so that your site is usable and accessible but go crazy with your creative juices and do something different, something risky. That’s my current problem. I keep looking at all of these designs elsewhere and while they are nice, some even beautiful, there is no emotion or feeling to a lot of them. They just feel perfect, polished, and empty. Again as noted above, I want this grittiness and texture to my site (in certain areas) and yet also this defused softness as well (in other areas). So I guess a kind of tao ying yang sort of thing.

Anyways, Sibyllae in researching bad design eventually stumbled across Lings Cars and Ling’s WebSite Advice. I won’t go over the various website advice of Ling (as you can read it yourself) but I will say that I was definitely surprised by a lot of what she said. Not in the sense that I thought it was wacky but in the sense of how much I connected with a lot of what she said at a deeper level. In a nutshell, it’s about stop trying to be perfect and start being yourself. When you do this, people will see you as someone who is genuine and thus can truly connect and trust you. Again a lot of it has to do about the feeling you emanate or resonate to others (i.e. “Talk normally, express emotions.”).

One final thing that I really found interesting is Ling’s advice about creating a site that is “alive”, as I’ve been thinking about this for a while actually. For example, so often people get upset about their sites because their designs are so static and never changing (which is why people, like myself, change them so often). This is nuts because it doesn’t truly represent who we are as individuals. Yes, I can create different moods for different sections of my site but it doesn’t really go as far as I want. Instead the idea is to create a living design that is able to change with your moods, seasons, or even holidays. Two great examples of this would be the various alternating designs within Vox as shown below (Autumn Kyoto Moonlight, Midnight, Setting Sun) as well as Hybridworks (with it’s little ever changing pixel world that you have to see to believe).

So for a Squarespace site, imagine your site design is your layout which has specific visual elements within it that are static. Now within that layout though are a multitude of styles that are applied to these visual elements to resonate a different aspect, emotion, or cycle of your life. So one style could be a happy one, another a sad or reflective one, another could be for Xmas, another for Halloween, and so on. I mean if you really wanted to get crazy, you could even make it seem alive by automating a lot of this via javascript, in that at certain times of the year, your design would change automatically. However in all of these different styles the same visual elements would still be there but just displayed different (i.e. if the static visual element was a house scene, it would show snow outside when using the Xmas style or a night sky with moon and a pumpkin on a window if using the Halloween style).

To be honest though, I’d love to push this down to even the post level. So if I was writing a post at night, in a certain mood, that feeling could be conveyed and carried across when you read the post on my website. Don’t really think this is possible yet though, as you’d have to include those variables within each post somehow. I mean I could encode the CSS within each post but that’d be pretty messy, especially for the longevity and sustainability of the site.

Anyways time to stop, as I’m starting to ramble. All said and done, I’m glad Sibyllae posted her thoughts and discoveries on design because it has definitely given me a lot to think about and potential directions to take with my own site design. Thanks Sibyllae!

If you’ve ever seen the wonderful movie Everything is Illuminated then you’ve seen and heard the band Gogol Bordello. That’s because the character Alex in the movie is actually played by Eugene Hütz, the lead vocals for the band. And if you listened to the closing credits, you would have heard Eugene sing Start Wearing Purple, one of the bands more popular songs which can be listened to on their Gogol Bordello MySpace website.

Now while their “gypsy-punk” music is incredibly exhilarating to listen to, their performances are even more incredible to watch as seen by this footage taken from their appearance on David Letterman back in July, where they sang one of their new songs Wanderlust King. I guess it’s no wonder so many people comment on their site about their “amazing” concerts, as their live performances almost seem to be a celebration of life.

Deciding to read some of the bands background on their MySpace site (written by Eugene himself), I was surprised and delighted to discover that celebrating life is exactly what the band is all about. Check out the quote below which is just a small part of what he had to say, as he’s obviously put a lot of thought and energy into his music. 

Often you will hear people talking about a concert theyve experienced for years! Why? In Gypsy mythology they say it is memorable because the devil visited that room, others say the other guy was there But one way or another they all link it to supernatural

Considering its power, it is not impossible to think of music making as a sacred art discipline and, for example, in anthropological tribal studies the medicine man functions are not really differentiated from musicians But lets not get too anthropological on your ass These are just elementary streamline reminders of musics rocking good and what it could do.

But instead, saturated with garbage, airways discredit this art and separate people from the power and meaning of music Rivers of meaningless puke are poured into ours ears on daily basis and many forgot to even think about music as of a major source of energy, joy and inspiration and fucking heat too!..

BTW if you live here in Vancouver and want to get a taste for this sort of gypsy music yourself (although not as punkish), definitely check out the band the Creaking Planks. However don’t be fooled by the song samples on their site, as the recorded sound quality is pretty bad. This band totally rocks live and is full of energy, especially with their full ensemble of musicians (as they sometimes play in a smaller group).

A quote below from David Weinberger on becoming who you are.

I’m suspicious of the metaphysics implicit in the notion of “becoming who you are.” It smacks of essentialism, as if we have a nature or destiny that is fixed. Yet, it is a nearly inescapable perception. There are changes that we can only describe by talk of someone becoming who she is. And even if the metaphysics is off, the process is joyous to behold.

I agree. Believing that your life or destiny is fixed is kind of a bummer, especially for someone like myself who is an explorer and loves discovering the uncharted and unknown. Therefore instead of thinking that we are predefined ahead of time, I instead like to think of ourselves as a chord on a musical instrument which basically defines who we are at our core but with which we can do anything we want with it. Our lives can be a happy pop song, a lively rock song, a brooding heavy metal ballad, or whatever we choose. But at our core, we resonate with this similar chord.

Even more so, this resonation within us is what attracts others to us and us to them. In a sense, our relationships are like instruments in a symphony or band coming together in harmony to make something greater than their individual parts. Therefore, while our inner core may resonate with a unique tone, what we do with it in our lives is up to us.

Just remember to play though, as there is nothing worse than an instrument that is never taken out of its case. To play is to live, no matter if it’s a happy melody or sad one. Just feel the music of your life and express it in your own way.

Wil Wheaton’s Quote of the Day from Friday is an excellent one. He quotes Gabe from Penny Arcade.

I realised I don’t play games for the challenge. I don’t need or want to be punished by a game for making mistakes. I play games for what Ron Gilbert calls “new art”. I play to see the next level or cool animation. I don’t play games to beat them I play games to see them. Coming to that realisation was actually sort of important for me.

What’s interesting is that Gabe’s words are in response to Tycho’s earlier post on the subject which I find even more interesting.

Stars in single player are, for me, irrelevant. I’m sure this makes me a scoundrel. I only care about stars in co-operative multiplayer, where I see them as an index of our indomitable band spirit. I want a measurement of our unity. I’m playing the same game for an entirely different purpose.

And to me it sounds like that “different purpose” is to play games for the simple experience of it, something which Gabe seems to concur with when he says “I play to see the next level or cool animation”. That’s something I couldn’t agree more with. At heart I’m an explorer and I love just wandering through a game seeing what there is to see and experience. For example, when I played World of Warcraft, I would just spend hours wandering the world, crossing mountain ranges, and exploring areas off the beaten track. It also why I enjoyed simple games like Zork so many years ago.

Another important thing that Tycho relates to is this desire to see a “measurement of unity”. When he said that, I felt like a deep chord had been struck within me. We need more games today that relay, teach, and highlight the values of cooperation in a positive way instead of a negative derogatory manner where the end effect is that you almost don’t want to play games that require teamwork (i.e. Team Fortress 2). I’ve still got hope though. I mean games like Warbirds and Allegiance in the past relayed the positive effect of teamwork and didn’t punish you severely if your teamwork wasn’t perfect. That’s because even though you lost, the experience of the game was still enjoyable (and epic at times). Anyways I’m sure there are game designers out there that realize this and will take advantage of this in future games.

Thanks to Sibyllae for pointing out this hilarious and so poignant video song by The Richter Scales.

Looks like Trinity, the new upgrade patch for EVE Online, has done a drop kick on Windows XP users due to a bug in the upgrade which wipes the users BOOT.INI file from their computer, thus knocking it out of action. What I find hilarious though is comments from people like this on the forums.

You only get this problem when you’ve installed EvE on your C: drive

Who in the right state of mind runs games off the system partition anyways?

While this person is correct that you shouldn’t install programs like games to your C: drive, he’s an idiot for stating “Who in their right state of mind does this?” That’s because the average consumer buys their computer from a typical computer retailer or provider (i.e. local dealer or someone like Dell). And most of these computer retailers typically just do a default install of the Windows operating system which means only a single partition, thus just C: drive. That’s it. Thus the typical consumer can only install to C: drive, since they have no other drives available to them.

What this person is really saying is that all computer users should be fully knowledge and learned in computer setup, maintenance, and support. Now who in their right state of mind would expect every consumer to know this level of knowledge just to operate a computer that is supposed to make everything in their computing life easier?  🙂

I was just reading this followup post relating to the Gamespot editor firing from last week, where an anonymous editor comments on the current feelings inside Gamespot right now. It’s sad. I mean money is obviously a requirement in our lives. We need it to survive. But the question is how far do we go to get it? And what are we willing to give up to get it?

I mean I’m sure all of us have seen great sites with awesome content in their infancy but then over time, something changes. Somewhere along the line, something indescribably “good” disappears to be replaced by something indescribably “bad”. And the site that you once thought was great, now only leaves a bad taste in your mouth when you try to say it.

I know many people can’t describe these things but I equate them with the culture of the site and the people within it. For example, a site may start off relaying certain cultural values, only to lose those along the way in exchange for the almighty buck. Thus initially, a site’s content may be original and engaging with a really good design style to make it easy to read and absorb the content. Over time though, the site’s content starts become stereotypical and boring in the quest to cause a reaction (i.e. recycling heated topics every few weeks) and the design becomes more and more cluttered in the effort to fit in more advertisements.

Of course, finally a point is reached where the content itself is altered to appease the advertisers. When this point is reached, the uniqueness and individuality of that site pretty much no longer exists and it just becomes a hollow blowhorn for it’s advertisers. Thus the “soul” or “mojo” as some people like to call it is lost. And when it’s lost, you’ve lost the very thing that draws the people to it in the first place. Thus once it’s gone, so are the people who once came to see and experience it.

A quote from the Globe and Mail, relaying the death of James Barber, cooking-show host of the Urban Peasant.

Mr. Barber, 84, died at his home on Thursday of natural causes. He was found at the dining room table, where he had been reading a cookbook.

A pot of chicken soup was simmering on the stove.

What a way to go. Doing what you love. For those who are into cooking but may not have heard of James, he reminded me of a male version of Nigella Lawson (but way before she appeared on the scene) in that he made cooking enjoyable and accessible to anyone. He didn’t mind getting his hands messy with the food he was cooking, actually revelling in it as part of the experience of cooking. In a sense, he was the opposite of Martha Stewart in that instead of making cooking appear to be for perfectionists, he showed that it could be a thoroughly casual and uplifting experience, something that anyone would want and enjoy doing at the end of a busy day to relax and unwind. Here’s to you James!

You know I’ve always felt that I was pretty decent designer, yet I knew that out there were designers who stood above the crowd and were really truly worthy of the name “designer” (something I’m still not comfortable calling myself). One such designer I’ve noticed lately that utilizes Squarespace exquisitely is Tyler Thompson over at JOB Design. If you get the chance, definitely check out his work (especially his latest work on Edgewater Cottage Community as shown below). You definitely won’t be disappointed.

A quote from Hugh MacLeod from his post entitled Blogging Is Dead? According To Whom?

“…a blog is constantly working, constantly growing. I like that.”

Wow. Well said and so true. What’s interesting about this statement though is that it’s more than just your blog that’s working, it’s every blog that you’ve ever spoken on. For example, I still get a lot of traffic from comments on other blogs from years ago. It’s why I find it funny when people ask me, “How do you get people to visit your site?” Just get out there and start having conversations elsewhere on other blogs. That’s how people will notice you and start coming to your site (assuming they find your writing interesting).

Another thing that I find interesting about how your blog is “constantly working” is that because it is, you don’t have to feel pressured to write on it everyday. In fact, to me it’s more about the quality than the quantity of posts. Are you writing something that is meaningful to you or are you just writing about something, anything that’s in the news, just to get attention? I’ve done this in the past on certain occasions and whenever I do, I always feel like those posts are diluting my site if anything.

I mean think about a great bottle of wine. Do you open it and start guzzling it right away? Or do you open it, give it some space, and let it breathe to let it’s flavours really mature and come out. Same thing with a blog in my opinion. The best ones are those that give each post time to breathe and mature, so that it can be fully absorbed and appreciated by others.