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I love magazines. As child I used to read every magazine my parents bought and I also bought my owns. Now, there are 2 magazines I never miss, despite the fact I don’t keep archives.
A reason why I like magazines is that a magazine is the mirror of many people’s work. This work might include research, opinions, artwork etc. The feeling you got when you flip through the glossy pages is great. The weight of the paper, its essence, the colors, the layout of a page are foreign lands waiting to be discovered.
Magazines are also a part of my work even though I am not a graphic designer. The leading and the space between columns, the typography, the illustration and the logos are ideas which can be used in Web design as well. The way an article is written can be also a guide for the Web writing. Of course paper and screen are two different areas. However there are certain similarities.
Greek Magazines
While good magazines can pull different trigers in your mind, Greek magazines do not fall in this category. Their layout is boring, sometimes real sad. Articles are conservative and you don’t gain a lot of things after reading them. Once, I read a Greek translation of an article which happened to have read it before in English. Despite the fact that English is not my mother language I found reading the Greek version extremely difficult. In the end I don’t want to pay for something so unimaginative. Not to talk about the cheating of design layouts. So I abandoned Greek magazines and I am fine with it.
The only issue is that I can’t find the magazines I want on time. Most of the times foreign magazines arrive at Greece weeks after publication. So I keep looking in kiosks for my favorite magazines and people around me think I am trying to steal them. Subscription could be a solution.
After buying my Mac I tried to get into the world of magazines around Macs. I bought Macworld, it is good, but I expected more. So I stick to Practical Web Design which I discovered lately and to WIRED which is my favorite one since years. If someone knows any other good magazines, for geeks or not, please go ahead and let me know what’s your favorite one.
Allright, you might never wanted to know or were afraid to ask, but microformats are here to change the way we provide and acquire information so I decided to write a few things about them.
What are microformats?
According to the official announcement…
Designed for humans first and machines second, microformats are a set of simple, open data formats built upon existing and widely adopted standards.
It doesn’t make sense. Can you clarify it?
OK. Microformats are simple semantic code which can be used in a website in order to provide or acquire information about personal data (name, email, address etc), events, reviews etc.
Yes, but can’t I provide such information anyway? Why microformats are useful?
Of course you can. With microformats you let a visitor use the provided information. For example a visitor can store you details in his address book, or find you in a Google map or save the date of an event in his Google Calendar.
How can I use microformats in my webpage?
If you write code, semantically correct code, it is very easy. You just have to use specific classes for specific microformats. The xhtml tags remain untouched, unless you screw them.
If you don’t, you still can use one of the online microformats generators and then copy and paste the output in your page.
Can this information be shown the way I want?
Yeap. You just have to edit a bit your CSS file and add some style to the classes I mentioned above. It’s really easy.
So you think everything is so easy. Don’t you hide me something?
Not at all. The only thing you need is to spare some time to get used to the idea and to be able to respect Web semantics.
I need some examples.
First things first. You can download my vCard and save me among your contacts.
In order to see how far this thing goes you need to download one or two Firefox extensions. These extensions will inform you if a website provides microformats data and how you can use it.
Are you sure microformats are important?
I will tell you three words: Google, Technorati, Flickr. Do I need to say more?
Allright, I am convinced. Now I need some links to start doing things. Where should I go?
A few months ago I talked about my participation in ILG. For you that you didn’t read the post, I remind you that this group consists of Web professionals who aim to promote global use of standards to ensure an equitable Web. ILG is a part of WASP.
ILG works on volunteer basis. By the time I joined the group I was wandering whether we could manage to achieve something - anything at all. As a natural born Greek I remained sceptic about the result of this effort. It looked to me we couldn’t be easily organized while we live so far away from each other.
Of course we haven’t reached our destination. However things in ILG go great. I can’t announce anything yet, but I can talk about how smoothly we communicate, work together, bring ideas and carry out things. The group leaders, Glenda Sims and Steph Troeth are also great. They work hard, they know how far we can go and most of all they are openhearted, polite and mature.
Someone could argue that since we are all volunteers everything is easier. I partly agree. It is easier to leave the group, avoid responsibilities and exploit the success. Exactly the same reasons make it difficult. Anyone who has been a part of a team would say so as well.
In the end, the volunteer character of a project makes no difference. Who cares if the pace is a bit slower? Who cares if the target is a bit lower? Sooner or later any participant will reveal his personality and the real reasons behind his actions.
I personally believe in the group and I am pretty sure we will succeed. If we make it, everyone will benefit. I hope during the following months we will come out with everything that Glenda and Steph have designed. So please stay tuned.
As I kid when I got anwered what I wanted to be when I ‘d grow up I didn’t know what to say. It was an awkward moment for all of us. Until a voice raised which said “Let him be a child. He has all the time in the world to decide”. Each time someone said that all of us were relieved.
It is some time now that I have decided what I want to be when I grow up. I want to be another Homer Simpson. Don’t look down on him. Homer is man who has his own decent beliefs, he is handsome and dreams a better future for himself and his family.
Until the time I become a real Homer I can live with a substitude: Simpsonize me. OK, the result isn’t exactly realistic but it worth the effort.
Time in the era of information is relative. One year, 365 days is equal to decades under the field of technology. Ages are equal to ages. The Greek Web lives approximately in the era of big bang. This is not another commonplace, it is a fact.
I have no idea who are the people who develop websites for the state or for big corporations. However I do know that from the very first pixel of the actual work till the last line of code the final result is of bad taste, deprecated and smell awfully.
It is obvious that there are many designers or developers in Greece who haven’t heard the words: css, tableless layout, semantics, accessibility, information design etc. I would never expect to hear those words from clients, but I thought that they would care about their website.
So I decided to pass from validation tests some websites: the website of the Greek presidency, the Prime Minister’s website and the website of the Greek Parliament along the biggest Greek portal (in.gr) and the biggest e-shop (e-shop.gr). The results were disappointing as you can see in the pictures on the right but the html code behind those websites was even worse. It’s a chaos down here.
The reasons of the failure
If one wants to be fair he should take into account the fact that it is almost impossible to work with the Greek state. So it doesn’t have to do with the developers only. Above all the factor “customers” brings some unsurpassable troubles many times. Customers for example need their website yesterday but they won’t submit content (texts, images, logos etc) until the next year. The chapter “customers” needs actually special analysis which belongs to a different post (or blog?). I could never understand why some people don’t care about something which is going to make them known at least. Others use their website to sell products. Why these people don’t care? Anyway.
All these issues do not make people who make websites innocent. Designers and developers who refuse to learn and become better, companies which don’t evolve and don’t help their people evolve have no excuse. Bad results which happen once can be justified. Bad results which happen all the time are unacceptable. Do I forget something here? But of course! In Greece important are the ones who bring the work not the ones who develop services and a system which work under any circumstances.
Unfortunately, the moto is not “Create better services and you shall be rewarded”. Instead the moto is “Let’s bring the work and we ‘ll make it somehow, anyhow”. This sick approach is the reason which makes world go around.
Why should I strive for quality?
In other words: as long as there is something which seems to work, why should I care for validation tests and standards? The question returns back to the sender, in this case the customer.
I will answer with a few questions: Do you want your website to look and feel the same in all browsers? Do you want it to be fast? Secure? Do you want it to be easily editable? Do you want all the people no matter their physical condition to have access to it? Do you?
Dear customer. If you really want these features, ask for them. You website is your backyard, your home, your shop, your business. Ask questions, raise problems, don’t be easily satisfied and let the specialists do the dirty work. Oh, and prepare to pay the same way you would pay for a TV commercial.
All in all the question “why should I strive for quality” needs to be answered all the time again and again? Quality is quality and it is meaningful by default.
This the new and actually first original design for this website. Having used an altered version of Hemingway template for so many months I put to sleep the most difficult problem each designer faces: to build a template for himself.
So how do you design for yourself? Typically it must be something which represents you… it is very hard indeed. It is almost impossible to stride away from you and design for you. It is a friend, lexx who put the issue so I could ignore it no more.
So I designed a new template because:
I needed to build my own template the same way an architect designs his own house
I wanted to have all the content easily approachable by every visitor
I wanted my template to be powerful and flexible according to my needs
How this design was made
I started with some static designs in Photoshop but I soon flew to Illustrator for a number of reasons I wrote recently. My sources were magazines such as WIRED and newspapers. Generally I found a lot of ideas in places out of the Web e.g. tags of clothes. Opening up my horizons was relieving.
All things concerning code were pretty easy. My choice was Wordpress and remains so because Wordpress can do all the things I need and a lot more. For a moment I was between Wordpress and Expression Engine but the support of the latter was not the one I expected. So I left it behind and I might look it again in the future.
This site has been build according to Semantic Web rules, passes all validation tests and it reachable to people with disabilities. It can be approached easily without loading the CSS files or with Javascript disabled. All pages are accessible by a keyboard. For more you can look at the About this website section.
The final result stands close to what I wanted. During the next days I am going to correct some minor flaws. Generally, this is it, I hope you like it and I hope I will still like it after some months.
It is no joke. Today I played with an iPhone! Of course I couldn’t use the device as a phone since I am in Greece, but I did use everything else.
In a few words there is only one thing that I didn’t like: this iPhone was not mine. Everything else was fascinating.
First of all I ‘ve got to say that this device is something we have never seen before. It doesn’t look like anything we have seen before. After iPhone all other mobile phones look useless. It carries all the features Apple promised and it would be of no use to mention here. What can’t be described by any video or presentation is the feeling and the way it interacts.
Apple did its magic again and this time is the most charming of all I guess. To use it it will take you 10’ or so. It is very easy to use it as a browser, as email software, as an iPod or as just a phone. It is equally easy to do anything in this device. Changing the settings took me moments and above all I never got lost or hesitated to do something.
The feeling of the device is like you ‘re holding a pearl. Mat surfaces make it firm. The screen is fantastic, it is the clearest and most accurate screen you have ever seen and touched. I use the device approximately for an hour and the screen remained crystal clear. The OS X makes everything flow like you ‘re in a dream. When you change the orientation of the screen the transition is so smooth that you want to do it all the time.
Typing is very easy though it didn’t look so in the beginning. I wrote an email very fast. I did 1-2 mistakes but I corrected them at once. Without reading any manual of course. The camera is very good, the sound is excellent like an iPod and widgets are as beautiful as in an computer. Pah… this device is a computer.
iPhone is so good that it is going to change a lot of things in the way we communicate and in the way we think of communication. It is an unsurpassable achievement of technology. And of course it is only Apple that could make it. —— (This photo is supposed to convince the ones who don’t believe I actually used it)
This is something which always made my life difficult. Selecting some colors for a website has to do with a number of parameters such as content (e.g. what is going to be the target group), location (e.g. white represents purity in Western cultures but death in Eastern ones), general style of it etc.
Lately, I have focused on two techniques which solve most of my issues. They are not supposed to solve all issues concerning coloring, but they are pretty handy. Here they come.
Photos and Photoshop
(This is a technique I first read at the website of Andy Clarke. Since then I have found a lot of similar approaches.)
Sometimes life provides the best ideas. A harmonical photo (clear or not - it doesn’t matter) could create a perfect color palette. There are thousands of photos in Flickr, so this is a place to begin from. It is even better to have your own photos. An alternative to photos is art paintings e.g. Van Gogh paintings can be a great source.
From this point on it is Photoshop that helps. By using the filter Pixallate > Mosaic a photo is being divided into smaller or larger squares. With the Eyedropper Tool you can accurately select the color of each interesting square. In the end you can have a great color palette.
Now the question is: when a photo is good enough? This is something which has to do with experience in first place. Harmony is something perceivable, if not provable. It doesn’t have to do with the clarity of the photo or the feelings raised because of it.
Playing with one color
The Color Palette Creator is a tiny but exceptional tool. In a few words it uses blended colors and transparency to create color schemes.
I use this tool when I need less, not more, colors. This way I can have excellent alternatives for secondary menus, shadows or borders. The idea behind this technique is to use exactly the colors you need. It is not a constraint in any way.
Are these techniques enough? Don’t you need more?
Out there there are some really impressive tools like Kuler. I decided to write about these two techniques only because:
When you begin by real photos you sometimes come up to original or unexpected results. This is important because it actually expands the limits of the design.
Color is not as simple as it looks. There is a whole theory behind it and many parameters difficult to be grasped. All this might be a serious obstacle when time matters.
More about color you can find in my Magnolia bookmarks. The sources gathered there are valuable for me so it might be useful for you too.
Magazines are also a part of my work even though I am not a graphic designer. The leading and the space between columns, the typography, the illustration and the logos are ideas which can be used in Web design as well. The way an article is written can be also a guide for the Web writing. Of course paper and screen are two different areas. However there are certain similarities.
It is some time now that I have decided what I want to be when I grow up. I want to be another Homer Simpson. Don’t look down on him. Homer is man who has his own decent beliefs, he is handsome and dreams a better future for himself and his family.
It is obvious that there are many designers or developers in Greece who haven’t heard the words: css, tableless layout, semantics, accessibility, information design etc. I would never expect to hear those words from clients, but I thought that they would care about their website.
I started with some static designs in Photoshop but I soon flew to Illustrator for a number of reasons 
Apple did its magic again and this time is the most charming of all I guess. To use it it will take you 10’ or so. It is very easy to use it as a browser, as email software, as an iPod or as just a phone. It is equally easy to do anything in this device. Changing the settings took me moments and above all I never got lost or hesitated to do something.
(This is a technique I first read at the website of 
Sometimes life provides the best ideas. A harmonical photo (clear or not - it doesn’t matter) could create a perfect color palette. There are thousands of photos in Flickr, so this is a place to begin from. It is even better to have your own photos. An alternative to photos is art paintings e.g. Van Gogh paintings can be a great source.
Playing with one color