Log Cabin 2.0

After a bit of a hiatus, I have put back in action Log Cabin.  I will hopefully finish it for this upcoming Addy awards.  If you are reading this having no clue what I'm talking about, I started a project earlier this year called Log Cabin.  It is a web project of mine where Web designers can come hang out in an outdoorsy atmosphere read articles, check out tutorials in "The Woods", and talk amongst each other in the forum I created, called "Camp Fire". I also threw in a merch section called "Bear Necessities".  When I am finished with this project it will be fully functional on any device making it a fully responsive site.  It has been quite a journey and can't wait to start filling up the site with content.  Can't quite remember the deadline for the Addy's but am starting to feel the heat.  I have probably spent the last two weeks hitting the functionality of the site pretty hard and have finally come to the UX aspect as I can now step back, make it mobile, and think about more aesthetics.  Also got a pretty nifty domain name I'm pretty excited about.  I don't want to give too much away but here are some updated pics below.

Responsive Design: Project 1

So while working at my glorious job, I kept getting the President popping in my office telling me, "Hey, the website looks wierd on an iPad." With a full schedule of catalogs to print, brands to manage, translations to translate in the websites themselves, photos to retouch.. well you get the idea. It was hard to see why, after looking at the analytics and noticing that only .83 percent of the users use the iPad, to put effort in my day in customizing it for that platform.  Fear not I pushed aside some time and started a responsive site for one of the brands I manage.  Its scalable from 960px all the way down to basically what ever phone you have.  Not really wanting to deal with " OK it looks good on the Ipad but know my friends "enter device here" looks weird," I decided to just go with responsive design rather than adaptive.  You can see for your self by taking the browser window and adjusting it to any width from as wide as you can go to really narrow the design will fluctuate as you slide.  It was a lot of fun and will enjoy the moments ahead at polishing it up when I get some time, but hey the technology works ! ha

If your lazy and don't want to go to the site I've provided images below that show how it works.

http://www.progressivebikeramps.com

Codecademy

Don't really dig that they used "Lobster" as their font but hey its FREE!.

So just this week I found out about Codecademy a FREE...ok FREEEEE online learning source where you can sit down and learn Javascript and other programming languages in the matter of minutes.  When you first visit the site it literally gets you sucked in by telling you what to do to output some programming code.  I was tempted and started digging in.  After about an hour I found that I had completed 3 sections of Javascript and was waiting to get a "Want to learn more? Subsribe and pay $30.00" but no never happened.  I made an account and continued to dig deeper.  Now after 3 days I can finally say that I can execute some javascript code by hand with no help.  I always found it hard to get into a new language because you don't really understand what you are going to be using it for.  They always say if you want to learn javascript to build a bingo card or a calendar but that never impressed me.  Through Codecademy you start out small and by the end of it you create a black jack game.  That is way cooler than a calendar.  They also have Ruby, Python and a whole section on how to incorporate Javascript in to your websites.  Honestly can't wait to stop just reading javascript and actually write it from scratch.  Anyways if I have convinced you the slightest to check it out, stop by create an account and start gaining some badges.

Learn Web Quick: Treehouse

So I may have mentioned this a time or two but Treehouse is a great resource for web design/development/ and app development. I was perusing through the site and noticed this little referral snippet and thought I would share it for all to use.  Treehouse is a great resource and use it to reference new things I want to learn.  Check it out.

Great Web design Resources 2012

I've been neck deep in web design since 2010 and continue to dig deeper everyday.  Here are a list of Web design resources I find either enjoyable or something I reference everyday.

CSS-Tricks: (Chris Coyier)
www.css-tricks.com

CSS-Tricks with Chris Coyier

If you are into designing for web i.e. CSS HTML Javascript and don't know where to start.  Make this a bookmark and check back daily.  Even if you don't find his style worthy he has opened up so many doors to other web developers/ designers, authors, etc.  That it is really worth a minute of your time to do some searching through this site.  This site alone got me to learn HTML, CSS, and start into Javascript not only creating sites but understanding the RIGHT way of managing sites from the ground up.  He has a new series right now called  "The Lodge" where you can go step by step with him on redesigning a site from scratch to Wordpress, where I am now making all my sites 100% responsive do to the 12 dollar one month subscription.

CodePen (Chris Coyier, Tim Sabat and Alex Vazquez)
www.codepen.io

CodePen with Chris Coyier Tim Sabat and Alex Vazquez

This is a great place to "sketch" out some css/javascript/html5 new technologies on the fly.  You don't have to get a server started and create html pages to get going.  This site is also great to reference if you want something flashy on your site but don't know where to start.

Shop Talk Show (Chris Coyier, Dave Rupert) 
You probably know where my main influence is from by now...
www.shoptalkshow.com

Talk Shop Show with Chris Coyier Dave Rupert and other special guests

If you sit in an office/apartment/home all day and don't get much interaction with designers/web dev dudes and chickas, but still fill like your part of a community this podcast is great to hear Chris and Dave along with other special guests answer questions and concerns about the web today. It's great to be able to connect and relate with leaders in the industry and you'll soon find out that most of us out there are all the same.  Most web peeps don't have huge egos or live in mansions, we all love to create things we love and love to teach others how to pursue that passion.

Hoefler and Frere-Jones
www.typography.com

Great Typography

If you are as serious about fonts as these guys and don't have a problem spending some money for some great typography this is the place to go.  I've been in college and realize spending money on anything other than food and gas is about all you got the budget for, but if you do have some moolah hanging around check it out, you won't be disappointed.  Plus how awesome is it that they have (typogrpahy.com) <-- legit enough.

Subtle Patterns
www.subtlepatterns.com

Great Textures with a great UI website 

I reference this...Everyday. This is a one stop shop for Patterns for your website.  They come as .png or .pat for Photoshop.  I am more of a design in the browser guy so I will wire frame my site in what ever I want and build the site in my text editor and just place the .png in my image folder and just add it as I feel, but the .pat files can be downloaded in its entirety at Github. (There's a link on the site) and you can have the full collection to date sitting in Photoshop for you to mess with.  Check back regularly as more are updated everyday.

Lost Type
www.losttype.com

Great Pay what you want fonts

Great fonts for what ever you want to pay for them.  If you just want to mess with them and see if the fonts work with your ideas feel free to download it for free.  Not a lot of fonts to choose from but they are hand crafted and used a lot through the design industry.

Smashing Magazine
(Great reference for great authors and articles)

Smashing Magazine Great for articles and news in web

www.smashingmagazine.com
For me this is the first thing I got a hold of as a web designer, This is a great place to find the web community, everybody that is worthy of anything is mentioned on this site,  I actually got in contact to a local design firm due to Smashing Magazine since they posted a contact form that the company designed.  Who knows if you come up with something clever or worth mentioning it could very well be mentioned on this site.

Treehouse (Tutorials and Quizzes)
www.teamtreehouse.com

Tree house is great for Tutorials if you are learning something and don't know where to start

I am pretty sure I have followed this site from the beginning before it was called Treehouse but nonetheless I have watched this site grow into a fascinating site that covers pretty much anything from opening a text editor to PHP, Ruby, and other server side languages.  If I'm not mistaken students of universities get a membership for 9 bucks.  Great value.  Normal is something like 25 bucks so start digging in if you can.

CodeSchool (Tutorials and Quizzes)
www.codeschool.com

Great for a more advanced approach at learning more difficult concepts

This is a very intriguing tutorial site.  Much more concentrated that Treehouse as it digs more into a technical background of CSS Jquery Ruby and server side languages but they have a way of making what could be very dry information very informative.  The last one I got my hands on was something like "Rails for Zombies" so you could only imagine the analogies accompanying the tutorial.  Great site 25 bucks a month.