What were three useful points that Zeldman provided that “ring true” to you and how can they help you? Try to relate the article to yourself personally.

• As a designer your job is not only to create great designs but to sell a solution to your clients.
• Designers must sell so if your selling (persuasion) skills are not your strong point, it would be a good idea to participate in a workshop to brush up on those skills.
• -If you’re not a good salesperson, find a partner who is. Designers who can’t sell, sell themselves short by undercharging for their services.

Click on one of the links in his article and tell what you found out when you got there. http://fontsinuse.com/: very cool site that literally shows particular fonts used in actual work

Do you think you and Zeldman are “on the same page” completely or do you think differently about this topic in some ways? Explain what makes you think you feel the same and also where you might differ. I agree with what he says, “A decent designer who can sell will have a better career—and do better work—than a brilliant designer who cannot.” I wise salesman told me once, what the point of having a cool package, if you can’t sell what it’s in it.

Chris Croyier makes creating a custom theme from scratch look so easy. His workflow is well organized. I especially appreciated his starter folder. This is how like to start all of my projects as well.

He demonstrated the advantage of writing the static HTML and CSS code and making sure it works before jumping into the CMS. While it’s tempting to jump in to the CMS right away, I can see the importance of concentrating on good markup first.

Word Press using PHP and MySQL to dynamically build the page. For example, index.php is composed of three main sections header, sidebar and footer. Three PHP lines get.header, get.sidebar, get.footer tell the database to grab the php files with those names and essentially display the information from each respective PHP file in spot where the “get” command is showing.

I found the introduction to custom fields very interesting. Custom fields allow you to store bits of data within in them and then apply them to template pages. Each product page for the sample company will have price, product code, & dimensions which are custom fields in the parent page that are applied to the child (product) page.

1. What can Codekit do for you? CodeKit is an app that helps you build websites faster. It compiles all the cutting-edge languages like Sass, Less, Stylus and CoffeeScript. It live-refreshes your browsers. It combines, minifies and syntax-checks JavaScript. It even optimizes images. All stuff that speeds up both your website and your workflow.
2. How do you feel about using it someday? It seems like a great tool. I would give it a try to see how it works.
3. What are Grunt and Gulp? Gulp.js is an automated task runner that helps simplify the process of automating repetitive tasks. Is uses Node.js streaming syntax to pass results from one function to the next. This makes it very intuitive and allows you to easily build a workflow that is easy to understand for developers. Grunt is also javascript task runner. It is focused around the configuration of tasks using JavaScript objects.
4. What can you do with that second link? The negative grid generator is an excellent tool to create your own grid.  How can you use it? It’s as simple as plugging in the numbers and clicking “generate grid”.  CSS for the grid is produced with all the correct percentages.

1. ]When/how often would we do critiques and code reviews? We should do have formal critiques at least every other week. Maybe we can alternate critiques and chats.
2. Walk us through a typical critique session. What would that look like? Will we use videos? Video phone calls? How would we leverage Google Hangouts to make this work for us? Would we break into smaller groups? Post a link to the site being critiqued at least a day ahead to give everyone a chance to take a look. I’m not one for video. I prefer written so I would recommend snapshots or Jing with notes.

3. Are there any ground rules you’d want to establish? Being honest yet constructive is key. Be specific about what works and what doesn’t work. Make suggestions for improvement. How would you learn the best and get the most out of a critique of your own site? I’m a visual learner so I learn by seeing examples.

4. Would we develop a set of questions or just wing it each time based on what we know, etc.? Having a set of questions to ask or critiquing points would be very helpful. Would the designer begin the session with an intro explaining the goals and challenges? This would be a good idea.

Quacks & Year in Review

What sites did you hand-code this year?

förnya spa

Muse discography

jacineariasdesign.com

Brewhaha Coffee Shop (1 page Typography)

Stick It In Stones eCommerce site

Which is your favorite? Stick It Stones was a collaboration project with Mike Brooks and Keiana Cross. It is an eCommerce site. We were tasked to take a static site and rebrand and redesign it into an eCommerce site What Quacks could you nominate it for? Responsive, User Experience

Student sites and projects to nominate for Quack Awards:

Keiana Cross-Charista’s Dessert Bar & Fine Chocolate- User Experience

Mike Brooks-Weezer Discography-Responsive & User Experience

Melissa Phillips-Three Six D Digital Productions –Best Portfolio

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