Whenever I redesign Thunderbolt, one of the most discussed aspects of the site is its logo. Although the site has been around for nearly ten years, we’ve never had a single logo for more than a few years. Is this something we should be concerned about or doesn’t it matter what logo your website has? [...]
Last week I conducted my first ethnographic study as part of a university group project. Our task was to go into people’s homes and learn about how they share and store photos, whether that’s in digital or physical form. While other members of my group surveyed young couples and families, I went and talked to [...]
Recently Facebook made a minor change to their inbox message page which has improved its usability considerably. It’s a great example of how small adjustments to an interface can make a huge difference. Perhaps you won’t have noticed it, so let’s first take a look at what the message toolbar used to look like: Looks [...]
I’ve just spent the last week in Nottingham designing the first issue of Impact Magazine and I thought I’d share a few of the pages that I’ve designed:
Archives are often something that are left until the last minute and I don’t think anyone really considers how best to create them. Designers often throw together a chronological list of posts and leave it at that. However, I stumbled across a design by Kyle Meyer today that’s a brilliant solution to the archive problem. [...]
Here’s an awesome little piece of design; the Word Clock screensaver. All it does is tells the time in beautiful, simple type. It’s a neat idea implemented really well and if you have a Mac, I recommend that you check it out.
My games website Thunderbolt has received a visual overhaul today, with a cleaner design and a number of new features. The eighth version adopts a minimalist style which is designed to detract from article text and images as little as possible. I paid special attention to making the site as legible as possible and I’m [...]
As any designer knows, ‘whitespace’ or ‘negative space’ can make websites more legible and easier to digest. Whenever I layout a page for print or the Web, I actively monitor how much negative space there is around, then use it to balance out text and images. However, in the world of videogames websites, this and [...]