Respect and consideration

Our role as a designer is to use our creativity for a purpose, to transform experiences into one of function and beauty. We think and strategize about how people use our products and interact with experiences on the web. We make things beautiful and engaging while enabling users to focus on the task at hand. For our designs to function well and serve the needs of a business/person/user, it helps to understand the technology that underlie it.

Understanding the intricacies of the web, how it runs and how things are built allow us to understand what is and isn't possible and how to design the best experience given what we have. Designers and developers collaborate more now than ever before for this reason. We work together so we can rely on each other's expertise to inform our work and to better it.

There's a question as to whether a designer should learn how to code. I think it's not merely a matter of learning to code in order to code our designs but to understand the underlying technology that allows our designs to function. An ideal project may be one that begins from scratch, with a code base that is built based on the initial designs and iterated upon. But for designs that are revisited or complex products that evolve, it's not always possible to rewrite the code base. In product development, you build on the code that's already there and sometimes interactions are not possible without having to dedicate many resources (time, development and money) to overhaul it.

It can be a frustrating situation for both a designer and developer to be in. We want to design a certain experience but the back-end may need to be rewritten to do it and there's not enough time or budget to do it in. A designer who understands the underlying technology can appreciate the complexity that the developers are dealing with. That doesn't mean that the designs are impossible. It simply means that we need to weigh the design and development efforts for the project, consider alternatives, imagine scenarios - in short, have a dialogue and plan.

As a designer with a strong technology and development background, I'm able to have in-depth discussions with my developers on implementation issues. I trust in their expertise but I am able to understand their decisions and question them. I'm also able to question my design decisions and whether it's worth a code overhaul, for example. I can empathize with their experience building a design and ensure that I give them all the assets they need to implement my designs in a way that's easiest for them - that means slicing images and naming them properly, providing font files, labelling my psd files properly, providing ready made css styles, etc. 

This empathy shouldn't be one-sided either. Developers may not need to learn how to design or understand typography or grid systems to the point that designers do, but it's important that they respect the principles of design and rely on designers to make informed decisions that solve the needs of the project. It's extremely easy to pick on a design, but instead of criticizing it, critique it. Take some time to understand the design decisions and how the designer has come to it. Again, have a dialogue. There was considerable time and effort put into our designs and trust me, we've thought of the alternatives and came to our decisions thoughtfully. We're all approaching the same problem and trying to solve it. If there's some really important technical issues that our designs might introduce, then let's hear it out and work through them together. And when it comes to implementing the designs, respect the details - the typography, the spacing, the grid system. Think of them as your curly brackets, your comments, your file structure. We are as particular about them as you are with your code.

At the end of the day, it's about mutual respect and dialogue. I've worked within a team where we have mutual respect for each others craft and can battle it out on design and implementation details. And the result is always a better, more cohesive product.

Everyone on the team should be respectful of each other and their work. Be considerate of each other. That means sales people who understand the advantages and limitations of the product or service that the team builds or provides. That means managers who respects everyone's time and ability and schedules enough time to execute the work to the best of their abilities. It's not always easy especially if money trumps everything else. But the best work environments are the one's that respect the project, the client, the different roles on the team and provide resources for everyone to work to the best of their abilities. There's nothing worse than being disrespected for your time, effort, ability and/or talents.

Luminarium Illustrations

This post is long overdue but after a few months I finally got my copy of Luminarium! This year I had the fortune of working again with Alex Shakar. I met Alex through my friends at EFS. Early this year he contacted me to develop his website just in time for the launch of his new novel, Luminarium, in August. The website turned out well and Alex has been blogging while on his book tour to keep us all up-to-date on his happenings.

What I may have briefly mentioned is that I began working with Alex not on his website but on his recent novel Luminarium when it was in it's post-writing, near-publication days. Back in 2009, while in the studio at EFS he approached my desk and asked if I did any illustration work and if I would be interested in doing some illustrations for his novel. I was shocked that he thought to ask me (I'm sure DL/SG at EFS had something to do with it) and I was honoured and excited!

I didn't know much about Alex's work but he outlined the novel and the themes within and his vision for the illustrations which would mark each of the chapters in his book. He wanted simple illustrations that mimicked icons on a computer desktop. They were to be small and minimalistic but easily identifiable. They were to be straight up black and white or at the most with slight gradations of grey.

This first project with Alex was an eye-opener for me as it allowed me to really focus on an idea and simplify it in an illustration. As always, Alex was great to work with and I've fulfilled a (silly... or not so silly now) dream of seeing my name in print and my work published. It was the start of more things to come. Those same icon illustrations appear in the intro sequence to his website.

If you haven't read any of Alex's work, take a look at his website and his works in particular. His writing has received great critical acclaim and Luminarium has been named one of the best novels of 2011 by several publications and editors. I strongly suggest you read Luminarium! The story struck a chord with me and it explores some interesting philosophical and spiritual ideas without losing its heart.

Congratulations to Alex Shakar and best wishes!

Where has the time gone?

When I look back at the last couple of years a lot has happened, and I mean A LOT! And the last few months have been eventful but the wheels are starting to slow and the dust is settling. In terms of my professional life though, well, I'm happy to say that it has been steady, consistent and now is kicking into high gear!

Mission US

I've been working on Mission 2 of Mission US with the guys at EFS for over the last year and I am extremely excited. This mission is so involved and so rich in content! I think kids are really going to enjoy it. The preliminary reviews have been great and the teachers and students are anxious for it to come out. We finish production in January 2012 so it's crunch time!

Weddings!

This past year a few of my closest friends and my sister got married. The festivities were wonderful! As most designers know, it is almost a given that one or some or most of your friends will at some point or another ask you to design something. For wedding invitations, this is almost always the case. Of course we don't do this for everyone but when it comes to our nearest and dearest I consider it an honour.

So first there was my sister. Her and her husband were together for over 11 years before they got married. They're both finance professionals who met at work and over the course of a decade fell in love :) My sister and I are very close and so I came to know their relationship well and learned about their style fairly quickly. They're both smart, funny, kind and intimately warm people. Their style has developed through years of corporate travelling and business shmoozing, which means they love an exclusive restaurant with delicate, expensive wines and they have great taste when it comes to everything they buy. While I lived in New York I was lucky to be rooming with them because it allowed me to live in a West Village penthouse and a Lower East Side apartment with granite countertops. If it wasn't for them I'd still be up in Harlem in my shoebox of a room with a wall built by a drunk mexican and which I rented for what some people pay for a mortgage in the suburbs.

Anyway... I knew when I designed their invitations that it had to reflect their taste but still be classic and simple. So I went about designing and thought first of a logo or monogram for the couple. It would be the unifying element for the printed items. I was pleased that the design of their logo developed quickly and easily. My sister was very particular about what she wanted the wedding to be like so she tweaked the design in her own ways and I obliged. In the end, I think I came up with a design that reflected them both well.

When I designed the logo, I wanted to communicate their years of travel or at least their travelling lifestyle and since Toronto was their home, New York was where he proposed and Singapore is where they would start their married life, it was the perfect trio to include. I also looked to wine labels and liquor labels for inspiration. And when my sister told me she wanted letterpress invitations I was thrilled because everything looks so chic in letterpress, in my opinion. In addition, their venue was St. George's Golf & Country Club in Etobicoke, which has beautiful surroundings and interior details - think mahogany staircases. The interior exudes a certain old worldly charm so I wanted to give the invites the same traditional look that would reflect the reception.

The final design was printed on an ivory card stock with a deep purple ink for the lettering. The monogram was pressed on with the same colour ink as the paper to have a reverse emboss effect. I opted to position the monogram a bit off tilt so as to feel like it was stamped individually by hand. They loved the way it turned out and I'm very happy with the result. What was even better was that the printer could print the invites on just one plate because none of the areas overlapped so they could run the invites once for the text with the purple ink and a second time for the monogram with ivory ink.

The invite and matching RSVP card was printed in letterpress, but the map was printed on a thinner card stock on a home printer. Because the church and the venue was quite a distance away (about an hour drive) and a lot of guests were expected from out of town, I drew the map myself to highlight only the important roads and have space to provide directions.

Overall, I think the invitations look great and I was honoured that the couple loved it. I think it set the tone for the wedding and the reception dinner.

The New AlexShakar.com

About a year and a half ago I was contacted by Alex Shakar, who I met while I was in New York working at EFS, to do illustrations for his upcoming novel. His previous works have garnered critical acclaim and he is an accomplished author and professor. Fast forward to today and that novel is being published with a release date of August 2011! Congratulations Alex! Upon this years release, Alex contacted me again to redesign his website and I am honored that he would come to me to complete his vision. Alex was a pleasure to work with as he was patient and always available for collaboration. Together we came up with a redesigned website that reflected the elegance, simplicity and artistic vision he had in mind. We also architectured the site around Wordpress so we could allow him to post updates and appearances around the new novel easily. He was very happy with the new site and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work with Alex once again.

Check out alexshakar.com and discover his writings. You can also preorder your copy of the upcoming novel, Luminarium, now!

Mission US: Mission 1 Full Launch

I've taken a bit of a hiatus the last couple of months to focus on non-work related things. So this is a bit delayed but important nonetheless...

Mission US has officially launched nationwide (in the US)! It's a project that I've been enthusiastically working on through EFS as creative director and lead artist and I'm thrilled everyone gets to see it. When we first tested it in schools I got to see first hand how the kids reacted and they were so excited learning history in this way. It made me feel honoured to have worked on this project. I think Mission US is revolutionizing the way our kids learn in schools.

Check it out! http://www.mission-us.org/

Download the game and try it out, or explore the website! Even if you're not an American middle-schooler :)

Now that Mission 1 is fully launched we are working on Mission 2 and though I can't say much about it, what I can say is that I'm very excited as we've already started art production for our characters and locations!

After my hiatus, I'm back to full on work mode and there will be more coming...