Have you ever had a leaking pipe or faulty boiler and tried to fix it yourself? Or a wall that needed a fresh coat of plaster or a carpet you thought you'd fit yourself? The answer might be yes in some cases (only to realise you've made a pigs ear of it and in the end you've called an actual plumber or plasterer or carpet fitter). All three professions mentioned above are just that. Professions... what does the word profession mean? In the dictionary it states a profession as 'an occupation requiring special training or knowledge'.  I wouldn't argue with that, especially when trying to skim a wall or fit a boiler.  So why is it that people think design is any different?Maybe it's the seemingly easy and comfy surroundings of a studio, computer and a cup of coffee that makes people think the job must be or is easy?  Maybe it's the lack of any actual physical hardwork, like there is in other professions.  But it is still and will always be precisely that, a profession, a job people do professionally and who have studied and learnt and spent years at Colleges and Universities to get to a level of quality which allows them to make a living from it. Now I know people will turn their hands to almost anything, especially us blokes.  But let's be honest, if a plumber turns up to fit a radiator, the only thing you'll do is offer him a cupper, not stand over his shoulder telling him he's doing it all wrong or asking him 'are you doing that right' because at the end of the day unless you've had some experience with plumbing, for example, then you'd have no idea what was going on.  However, when it comes to design, every man and his dog thinks they have a little creative side and thus think they know best.  Surely the reason they approached an agency in the first place is because they're the specialist and know what's best?  But when it comes to taking briefs and specs they insist upon certain things asking you 'what do you think' and usually the response through gritted teeth is 'no...' Now I'm not against input from anyone, but I am against a good piece of work being ruined by someone who thinks they know best.  Maybe what he or she wants to achieve is fine, but the way they've gone about it won't be. At the same time designers have a tendency to self-indulge in work, overlooking what the someone might really want or need in place of something they personally like or might have seen.  I suppose what I'm ranting about is that people are in their jobs because they love it or enjoy it but most of all because they know what they're doing, wether you're carrying a hod of bricks or sat in a comfy chair with a pencil and paper in front of you.  So next time you have a bright idea about how to change something on your web site or advertising etc, consult with your designer first!  :)

Now the site is underway, I’m encountering visual problems that need to be addressed.  In particular, I’m noticing the image quality of the product images.  On the live site we optimise the images to best suit not only the space it has to fit in but also, mostly without thinking, the DPI / PPI is set to be 72, as 99% of desktop monitors are set like this.  However modern mobile devices have a much higher PPI to screen size ratio and so normal web images now look pixelated.  As I am creating the mobile version of the site from the same code base as the desktop one, and keeping clarity in mind, I have to resort to using a larger size image which will then be reduced down to the correct size for the different formats.   Also try where possible, to include images as CSS backgrounds as it will make it easier to modify them to look better on mobile devices. General rule of thumb on mobile websites is to use a larger image and re-size it down in order to keep the quality as crisp as possible.  This is even more evident on the new higher res phones.  It’s also handy to follow the Apple style guides when it comes to hi-res images as they make sense. Apple suggest creating an image, 1.75x to 2x the size of the standard image and then naming it with the ending of @2x. Example:I created a logo for a site and set it as a background image with its container being the correct height and width; {background:url(‘assets/harrisonslogo@2x.png’) no-repeat 0 0;width:135px;height:40px;display:block;} Now, as the image is up to twice the original size, we need to reduce it down by using a bit more of CSS3.  This time it’s the ‘background-size’.  As the name suggests it will reduce the background image size either by pixel of percentage.  The easiest thing I found was to set the width to be auto and the height to be 100%, making the image fit correctly within the container; {background:url(‘assets/harrisonslogo@2x.png’) no-repeat 0 0;width:135px;height:40px;display:block;background-size:auto 100%;} You can also add in a small script called retina.js.  This, once included onto the page, will look at the images on the page, and if the site is being viewed on a retina screen, it will go and seek out an image with the ending of ‘@2x’ within the same folder as the standard image, and swap the low-res one out for this version.  Very handy if you want to make carousel banners look crystal clear!

Gone are the days of having to think about supporting IE6, 7 or 8!  We now have much more freedom to utilise the wide range of CSS3 styles that are on offer.   In most cases using CSS attributes will not only improve page load, BUT it allows us to keep the design a lot more clean and polished, as the device is not required to pull extra images through from the server.  During the current project I’ve been working on, I have been using a mixture of the following: Gradient BackgroundsBox ShadowingText ShadowingBackground SizingBorder RadiusBox Sizing As I mentioned before, the benefit of being able to use the CSS3 attributes, means we can improve the look of the sites on mobile devices.  Most of them use a higher screen PPI so using a series of images would end up looking pixelated and generally naff!  Box Sizing: You know that annoying thing with percentages where if you set a containers width to be 50%, then add padding or borders, it will include them onto the overall width so it’s not 50% anymore? Well with Box Sizing applied to the container, it means that borders and paddings are included so the defined width of 50% will stay at 50%.  No more messing around trying to figure out padding in percentages or getting agitated when you want to add a border, as the container drops to the next line! BUT be aware… This is a CSS3 effect so IE will not have any of it.  Bit of a pain that... I would suggest only using it on mobile development for now as it should be supported across all mobile devices and I think that even applies to the Windows phones surprisingly! You also need to be aware that margin will still behave as it should do, creating space on the outside of a container. How to write it:-webkit-box-sizing:border-box;-moz-box-sizing:border-box;box-sizing:border-box;

Before I begin I want to stress that I in no way dislike Apple or any of its products, this is purely my opinion about people perception of Apple products. Having owned an iMac from 2005-2009 I've experience in using an Apple, using the OS which i think at the time was leopard? (I may be wrong) appreciating the aesthetic of the 'all in one' unit with no tower under the desk and the quirky differences between a Mac and a Windows PC, I got rid in 2009 because the motherboard had packed up and for the price of getting it fixed I might as well and did buy a new PC, this time a Windows PC. At first I was reluctant to get rid of it, I'd had it 4 years and as I say enjoyed using it, simple things like built in Bluetooth and airport meant no unnecessary dongles hanging out of every USB port, and the fluidity of the OS made me want to keep it (although knowing it would either cost me or I'd be stuck with a machine that was temperamental when turned on) I decided to sell it for parts and got about a tenth of what I paid for it. Fast forward 4 years and I was starting to have problems with the new PC I'd bought post Macintosh, so I thought, I know I'll get another Mac, perhaps a Macbook pro this time which to me killed 2 birds with one stone, I could use it at home and take it on holiday et al thus negating the need for a tablet (I'll get to that later) as I shopped around I realised it wasn't going to be cheap, I knew Macs where expensive as my old one had cost around £1100 and that was 7 years ago, a base Macbook was coming out at around £1000 for a 13" and more for the "15 and so on, I didn't want and couldn't afford to spend that kind of money on a computer but A) needed one and B) really wanted a good spec and a nice looking machine, it was starting to become a headache, looking on EBay, Gum tree etc there were second hand ones around £700 but you don't know what you're getting till you buy it, I spoke to various friends and colleagues, some pro Windows and anti-apple and other vice versa, one friend owned a Macbook but had gotten it cheap and said if it wasn't for that he would definitely not have paid up to a thousand for one, another talked about the lower risk of viruses and problems but in the same breath talked about how expensive they are to get fixed with the complicated build quality of the machines and the specific parts needed. In the end my PC would turn out to be OK, but one thing I came to realise is the only reason I wanted a mac is because apple had sunk its seductive teeth into me and made me believe it was the only option. I'd seen windows laptops and desktops as powerful and if not better than a macbook or imac, but every time I browsed for a new PC I kept finding myself back on the apple site or apple pages of websites ogling a Macbook pro, number crunching in my head thinking of ways I could afford one, one day I just stopped and thought, this is pathetic, they're no better than an X or Y laptop and it's double the price! for me the apple now has a 'fashion accessory' aura surrounding it, people buy them to show them off, like a weekend car or something, like I said they work great but so do £400 Winsows laptops, one thing that I read about a Macbook was 'created from a single block of aluminium meaning no unnecessary joins or seams' SO WHAT! It's not like the seams or joins of a laptop will take your finger off, is that what you pay an extra £500 for? No seams? Another factor in hyping up the mac bandwagon I feel is cinema, you see a film and the family computer is an iMac? Or some joe meatball is swanning around with a 17" Macbook? product placement or whatever aside, it just isn't real life, a family isn't going to have a top spec 27" iMac with kids running around, you're not letting anyone near a £1400 computer never mind kids, it just says to me 'this is an ideal life. Wife. Children. Macbook. dog.' you never see a Dell laptop or a HP sat around, fair enough they may not look as good, but that’s just the point, people buy them for the way they look almost as much as they do for the way they perform. Above, a customer carts his 27 inch iMac into Starbucks. I think the whole ‘Designers use Macs' thing is a myth as well, I've used both and currently use a windows PC, I don't particularly find Windows hard to navigate and it probably isn't as fluid as Snow Leopard or Lion and does using a mac mean you produce better work? Certainly not, for anyone to suggest that would be ridiculous, but if the reason behind buying a mac is the superior software or experience of using Apples OS, consider this, if I wanted I could run Lion on my Microsoft PC? So am I buying a Mac for the OS or just to show of the glowing apple and brushed chrome knowing I've got a Macbook but also knowing I'm a £700 worse off than what I could have been? Another friend of mine (a mac user and fanboy) put it perfectly when talking about his expensive iPhone contract, the possibility of getting a cheaper phone/contract and also considering a playbook as apose to iPad he said ‘yeah but it’s the thing of owning an Apple product’ to me that just cements my point. It's like the people who buy, for example, an iPad2 then go and buy the newest iPad as soon as it comes out, nothing really has changed, and certainly not enough to go and spend another couple of hundred pounds, as I admitted, the way they market the products, advertising on TV etc is seductive, they make you think it's either Mac or nothing and they also make you believe the subtlest of changes matters and thus you NEED the latest iPad or iPhone. I recently bought a blackberry playbook, I was looking at a tablet once I knew my PC was going to be OK as I wanted something I could browse on, watch films etc but didn't feel I needed something as powerful as a laptop for such things, so I immediately thought 'iPad' I'd played with a few before and thought they were great I knew the iPad 2.1 or 3 or whatever it is was recently out so thought I could get the 2 for cheapish, £329 was the cheapest I could find brand new, again, I stood back and thought about it, I have a blackberry phone and knew about the Playbook, I did some reading about them, the reviews were positive, people even saying they were better than an iPad especially for the price, I got mine for £169, £160 cheaper than a brand new iPad 2, and it works fantastically well, not just that but having a blackberry phone and an iPad seemed a bit queer, the phone tethers with the playbook just as well if not better than the iphone does with the iPad, things like being able to upload via mini usb as a pose to messing around importing through iTunes, simple drag and drop, bluetoothing from the playbook to the phone. I could go on but have probably rambled enough, and as I said earlier, I don't dislike Apple or their products, they look and work great I just think there's a certain arrogance about them were they feel they can charge what they like and if you don't buy it, who cares, half of the world will whatever the price.

When it comes to reaching the maximum potential client base for your business there are few more effective ways than through social media. It offers the opportunity to address your target market directly and with minimal cost. One of the easiest ways to implement an integrated social media strategy is through the use of plug-ins. [More]

When starting a new project different people have different ways of approaching and trying to develop an idea. I prefer to get ideas out on paper, scribbles and annotations to explain my ideas, usually the poor ones are the first to be scribbled down, the ideas that are too obvious. This technique is something I learnt in my college years on the BA honours Graphic Design course (it's more than likely a universal technique) and I remember at first thinking it seemed like a waste of time, wanting to rush ahead to the final idea, I think when creating something that you're excited about you have to try and show some composure and restraint as to not rush it and not do the idea justice. I've always been under the impression that looking in to many design orientated books can lead to a mish mash of ideas, liking elements from several different designs and, without really knowing it, fusing them into one design, the same thing can happen when specifically looking on a certain site for inspiration, you can end up being tainted by 2 or 3 designs and then subconsciously merging them together into something that A) doesn't look or work right or B) you confuse yourself whilst designing because you realise it doesn't look how you imagined. When starting a new design I tend to prefer flicking through sites such as FFFFound or Pintrest for little snippets of inspiration maybe a certain font can generate an idea or the use of certain assets might spark something, of course for things such as layout ideas for web design, I prefer to know all the elements that are required for the layout then I believe it's a case of working out a hierarchy of importance then playing with the elements required in a layout, moving things around and trying to invent different ways of displaying them. Obviously you can't reinvent the wheel, and there's only so many ways to lay elements out, but I think looking to have them display in different ways can ad variety and bring something new to a web site, i.e. JS carousels, there are many different variations available for free these days and many you can manipulate to suit a particular design or for more originality (I came across a carousel recently and wondered how it worked, then realised it was on I already had which had just been tweaked to work differently.) At the end of the day I'm not condemning the referencing of design books et al (I'd be an idiot to even suggest that) I just feel it's easy to become tainted by a design or style, and it's more the subconscious that is influenced and in turn you end up creating a mish mash or styles, flicking through them and looking for those little sparks of inspiration however is certainly my preferred method.

The use of texture in web design is becoming increasingly popular, it is a simple and effective way of adding depth, brand identity and making calls to action more prominent thus increasing their effectiveness. [More]

I enjoy collecting interesting and well designed apps & links so I thought I would share the most useful ones i have found from 2011. If you have any you think I might like or any you have found to be useful then feel free to add a comment below and I will be sure to try them out! [More]

So Christmas is now officially over, and so is the EAOM 12 Days of Christmas. We have had a great uptake on the giveaways, but just in case you missed any, here is a quick summary of what we gave away and where to find it. [More]

Colour Experts, Pantone, have announced their new colour of the year, Pantone 17-1463 Tangerine Tango a “spirited reddish orange, continues to provide the energy boost we need to recharge and move forward” [More]