Clear Looks - Better Design

Happy Earth Day Everyone!

clearlooks — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:59:04 +0000

Remember Captin Planet?

Earth, Fire, Wind & Water!

Who Uses Image Slice For Layout Anymore?!

clearlooks — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 05:07:08 +0000

One of my recent design contracts was to come up with a logo and layout for a company that I shall not mention here for obvious reasons. The company has hired a developer—I only did the design part even though I develop as well—who completely butchered my design by literally slicing the graphics from the sample PDF file I sent to the client and slapping them into tables as the site layout. Who uses image slicing technique for layout anymore? Now I can’t use the project as one of my references; I don’t want anyone to think I developed the site, too.

Note to hiring managers: If your developer is not using CSS, W3C standards (namely XHTML) and not coding by hand (meaning the developer is using Photoshop to slice the layout and exporting page as an HTML file) you should consider looking for one who does. How do you make sure the developer is professional? You should give 9 Signs You Shouldn’t Hire THAT Web Guy a thorough read, which will help you filter out most bad developers out there.

A Logo Design Contest – Extreme Ezine

clearlooks — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:59:41 +0000

In an attempt to promote Clear Looks, I’ve decided to provide free design services in exchange for advertisement on the client’s web site. Extreme Ezine is running a logo design contest that I thought might be a good start.

Extreme Ezine’s Logo Design Guidelines:

Logos should include the phrase “Extreme Ezine” somewhere in the design.
Image should be in .GIF, .JPG or .PNG format.
Dimensions should be 390px by 91px with a black (#000000) background.
No animated or flash graphics please.

After a few minutes of navigating through Extreme Ezine, it was clear the logo needed to be simple and red had to be the prominent color. The “X” in “Extreme” dominated as the focal point. Result?

Current Extreme Ezine Logo

My Design

I might do a few more designs but I’m quite confident with this one.

Google Results Suck!

clearlooks — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 05:12:24 +0000

I did some searching for “web design” looking for related sites/blogs on Google to gather ideas for web design blogging. I know blogging is as simple as writing up a post like this one; I just wanted to check out what other designers are publishing. Anyway, to cut the long story short, Google gave me a list of outdated or badly designed web design services sites. Now, I know you’re going to raise your eyebrows at me for saying this (given I work for Youlicit) but I honestly got much better results on Youlicit. Click the two links to see for yourself…I’m sure you’ll agree!

Welcome

clearlooks — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 20:10:18 +0000

Hey everyone! Thanks for visiting my first-ever blog. Let’s see how well this pans out. Stay tuned for endless blogging!