My Top Bookmarks of 2008

These are some of my favorite things on the web. What are yours?

Top Fun Blogs that Make My Day
FailBlog - Pics & Video of stupid people messing things up. What could be funnier than laughing at other people's misfortune and/or moronic behavior? (Quick tutorial: "Fail" = poor execution; "Win" = good execution or unintentional fortune; "Owned" or "Pwned" = completely dominated)
BoingBoing - News from the outer margins of popular culture and tech sub-cultures. Admittedly, this blog flies over my head half the time, but it's always good for at least one laugh and/or WTF moment.
XKCD - Hilariously ironic webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language. TIP: Don't forget to hover over the comic graphic for additional insight from the artist (avail: Mon/Wed/Fri)
PhotoShop Disasters - Instances of poorly executed PhotoShop manipulation that have somehow made it past the art director's desk and into public consumption. This blog does often nitpick too much but it's still entertaining to see what's wrong with each image.
You Suck At PhotoShop - A hysterical web video series by Donnie, a fictional, elitist PhotoShop expert who attempts to alleviate his failed marriage by giving PhotoShop tutorials and insulting his audience. While this is intended as a comedic saga, there actually is a lot of valid PhotoShop advice in here. So it's a double win.

Top Shopping/Commerce Sites
Woot - One tech deal a day with BRILLIANT copy-writing.
TramDock - One ski deal at a time, by Backcountry.com
SteepAndCheap - One outdoor deal at a time, by Backcountry.com
UnCrate - An insightful product blog form men. Great design too.
The Goat - An entertaining outdoor gear blog, by Backcountry.com

Top Time-Sucking Social Media Platforms
Facebook - After stomping my feet in extreme distaste for social networking sites, I was asked to use Facebook for work-related research and somehow became addicted to this stupid thing.
Twitter - Ditto. I started out just trying to understand WHY anyone would want to "tweet" to friends and strangers, but now I'm up to 10 tweets a day.
Delicious - I thought I had no use for social bookmarking. But it's actually kinda cool to be able to share links. There's always something new to look at when you're bored or need a study break.
Flickr - Simply the best and most beautiful photo storage/sharing site out there. Plus the API makes it more accessible every day.
CraigsList - Combination online yard-sale, therapist, career counselor and nightclub. Plus with the new firefox plugin "Craigslist Image Preview" you can quickly browse all the images posted to listings without clicking the ad, which is even more addictive.

Top Media/Entertainment Sites
The Big Picture - An unbelievably powerful photo-blog that compiles the top professional imagery on a given topic, while displaying them at a dramatic 990 pixels wide!
Hulu - The new standard in online video. If you're sick of watching people's cats fall off things on YouTube, you can catch up on news and entertainment from TV here.
New York Times - Simply the best news site around. In an age of increasing anti-intellectualism, the Times maintains THE professional standard for journalism and sophisticated delivery. It has also re-set the bar for content-rich interface with its no-frills, text-as-text approach.
B-Net - A gorgeous site for business types. I don't always have a use for it's content but It's a case where design enhances the experience.
TED - Wanna know what the next big thing is? Watch some presentations from big-brained, industry-leading, techno-weenies and prepare to have your mind blown.

Top Design-Nerd Sites
A List Apart - Happy Cog's design and web standards blog offers insight into all aspects of interactive design. I think I have a little design crush on them.
Authentic Boredom - Salt Lake-based designer and lecturer, Cameron Moll expounds on design, type, and the industry. Perhaps a little ego-centric, but still interesting.
Jon Tangerine - A brilliant designer and student of typography, Jon Tan's blog is full of great insights and obsessive detail.
CSS Beauty - Some good inspiration for aspiring CSS designers like myself. Great sites to look at and a vast resource. I just wish it was updated more often.
Smashing Magazine - A great combination of eye-candy and how-to. Lots of great tips on here for designers but also just plain fun to look at.

Onward.

Just a quick announcement: I officially no longer work for FetchDog. About a month ago I was informed that due to recent the economic cluster-f***, FD would be making drastic cutbacks. I was given a relatively generous warning, considering most people were told to clean out their desks the same day. Many other employees were asked to swallow pay-cuts in order to keep their jobs. So I won't feel sorry for myself.

I am optimistic (as usual) that this will be a positive turn of events for me. There were some good things about working there but overall, I was never particularly cut out to work from home. At one point about 6 months ago, I even considered taking another job until Fetch talked me out of it. There's a certain irony there, for sure.

Anyway, I've been considering other opportunities. I was very touched that FlashPoint (a Park City-based interactive agency from whom I've been renting office space) has made room for me on their team. I'll be working part-time with the great folks at FlashPoint while I pursue independent projects on the side and try to ski as much as possible this winter. As I said, this could be a VERY positive turn of events.

New Site

Just a small announcement: I launched a new portfolio site last week. I do that every so often when I want to re-invent my virtual look. There's some new content but for the most part the difference represents a shift professional in my self-image. Over the last few years, I've become less enamored with Flash, both in the user experience and as a professional design platform. I've never liked being lumped in with blatant Flash advocates. And especially since the advent of ActionScript 3.0 (Flash programming language) I've been less inclined to re-learn the language and have watched it fall out of favor with the design community.

The new site (although it's still being developed) is a more accessible and more accurately trackable, CSS-based site with larger, bolder graphics and ultimately more flexibility for me. Hope you like:

www.joe-art.com

Trip to Chicago

Last week I was in Chicago for a web design conference called "An Event Apart." The conference is kind of a big nerd-fest but it was very interesting for me and stimulating for my career. The topics ranged from the high-level creative process analogies (design as chess, websites as comic books, etc.) to the nitty gritty of CSS best practices, web standards, design critiques, and the future of the internet.

The main attraction were the distinguished speakers from all walks of the web design industry; names that would mean nothing to most people I know, but people of influence and unparalleled talent who's work, books and blogs are all a daily influence on my career. Long story short: it was cool.

I also got to visit Chicago for the first time. The first night, I walked from my hotel on the Chicago River, up to Wrigley field (approx. 5 miles) just to see it. The second night, I tried to take in a Chicago Blackhawks game but got there too late to get a ticket, after passing up the conference's happy hour. Oh well. Still a good trip, especially since it was paid for by FetchDog.

Blogging? It runs in the Family

So my sister, Jessica has started building a Chiropractic Practice in Glen Arbor, MI. In recent weeks there has been some rush on brand identity and some kind of web presence. So I put together a quick site today for her and now she's already blogging! Check her out.

http://revivechiropractic.com/

Ban Comic Sans

Those who know me as a designer know that there's one surefire way to make me cringe: Mention the font known as "Comic Sans". This horrible font was designed by Microsoft as an attempt to humanize and perhaps hip-up their characterless operating system and software. In fact, it has done the opposite by proving that they just don't get it. This font is atrocious, yet its wide availability especially in the context of Microsoft's banal alternatives has granted it's prevalent abuse from do-it-yourself-ers and anyone with a PC.

My position may sound elitist, but I can assure you that I have your own best interests at heart. The font was originally designed to be whimsical, a more personal alternative to more traditional old-style serifs (Times new Roman or better yet, Goudy) and Sans Serifs (Arial or better yet, Helvetica). Instead its childishness undermines any credibility of its user's intentions and essentially makes them look stupid. There, I said it.

Take for example, this passage from a recent spam email I received...Would you ever fall for this? I hope not. Would it somehow seem more credible if it were written in a more professional font? Perhaps.

Anyway, although I believe I developed my contempt for Comic Sans on my own, It's always nice to have validation by like-minded people. So here you go. Leading the movement against Comic Sans is this organization: www.bancomicsans.com
Enjoy.

WHOAH, This Just In: Discrete Earns Adobe Site of the Day!!

WOW! Just as I was writing the last post I got word from Adobe that they've elected to feature DiscreteSport.com as tomorrow's site of the day. Check it out!

This is my 4th site of the Day from graphics industry standard software developer, Adobe. It's always an honor since I check their showcase every morning for inspiration. My previous winning submissions were Northeastern University's "Discover Northeastern Flash Tour", Sunday River's Interactive Golf Course Tour, and American Skiing Company's MeTicket.com.

Discrete Earns Cool Home Pages Award

Again, it's not a big deal. But once in a while it's nice for a designer's ego to know that colleagues think you're doing something right. Discrete is a site I did a while back for Utah-based freeskier, Julian Carr. Julian and the late Billy Poole founded Discrete Sport, an enigmatic, ski inspired headwear brand focussed on the individualistic lifestyle-oriented pursuit of Newtonian research. That's long-hand for the fact that they love to jump off stuff. Billy, who recently gave his life to this pursuit, is remembered by the big-mountain skiing community on this site and others around the industry.

You can also vote for this site's recognition at MyDesignAward.com

or vote for Fetchdog and/or Joe-art.com (please).

All I Want for Christmas is to Get Superpoked?

People who know me as a computer guy know that I'm not a huge fan of social networking sites. I HATE MySpace and I've hated since I first heard of it in 2003 or 04. Yet, I have a MySpace page. Why? because my friends in Medina Sod had a page and I felt compelled to represent. To this day I think they're still my only friend on MySpace.

But I recently started playing with Facebook...Purely for research as I was constantly being asked to reference their UI and workflow for our MyFetch section on FetchDog. As much as I abhorred the concept, I found their interface well-built and their usability in some cases brilliant. But something happened between quietly poking around the site and accepting friend requests. I think I'm hooked. The ultimate turning point was when I started actively searching for people from my past. At that point, I was no longer a closet Facebooker. I'm that guy. That guy on Facebook. Now that I have the mobile app (embarassing), I'm REALLY that guy. That guy who writes on your wall and pokes you. I even superpoke on occasion. I'm taking movie quizzes and throwing Santas. I'm comparing taste in popular culture with people I barely know, and I've reconnected with people I haven't seen in 10 years. I still don't UNDERSTAND why I'm doing it, but for some reason I'm doing it. And it's the guiltiest of diversions. Sorry everyone.

FetchDog Wins CoolHomePages Design Award

Not a huge deal, but it's nice to be recognized. I don't actually bother submitting to too many awards sites, but there are a few that I look at regularly for fun and inspiration. And if submission is free, then what the heck. FetchDog was recognized by CoolHomePages.com in the categories of Products, Info, CSS-DHTML, and Color Schemes.

Thanks CHP.