Finally, after a couple of months of constantly interrupted work, the new skin of OWT is ready. The old one has been both loved and hated and has reached a lot of CSS galleries. I hope you like the new one at least as much as you liked the previous.

Just in case you don’t remember how OWT looked like before:

And here are some highlights of the new skin:

1. Fluid portfolio. I decided there are parts of the website that need to retain the fixed design and there are parts that can use a fluid one, so the Portfolio is fluid now. I’ve used jParallax – a great jQuery plugin and heaps of custom jQuery code to achieve this
2. Highlight homepage. The homepage is now aimed more at highlighting my best work.
3. Cufon is there. I moved first from TTF Titles to FLIR, but then I’ve chosen Cufon my font replacement technique of choice, and so far I love it
4. Blog has a nicer layout. I blog seldom and much of my posts are the images accompanying them, so i decided to expose them a bit more.
5. Contact form. I’ve added a cformsII contact form.

So, that’s it. Enjoy

It’s been some time since I posted anything. This is because a lot has been going on.

First of all, the illustration work has been moved to EyeDraw. This is for the sake of consistency only. Of course if any web design work done by OWT requires illustration, there will be no problem with that.

Moreover, a new design for OWT is being prepared. I’ll be staying with the minimialism, but adding some more interactivity and space.

And last but not least, I’m working on some new projects. A WP e-commerce shopping theme shop will be started in June and a creative inspriration blog will be up in May.

As promised, the free typography-inspired WordPress theme is here for you.

Come and get it. Have fun.

OWT is publishing it together with the Smashing Magazine

Some time ago, when I learned Helvetica was designed in 1957, I was a bit shocked. Do you remember what cars looked like in the 50s? Frankly, I like vintage cars, but the car bodies changed at least 50 times since then. And Helvetica? This typeface always looks modern and you definitely can’t tell it’s 50 years old. This design is timeless.

My bet on another timeless typeface designed recently is Jos Buivenga’s Museo. It will probably not get as popular as Helvetica as it is more characteristic, but I think in 50 years time it will still be up-to-date. It is modern, but it’s not a sci-fi font And most of all – it’s a serif font! I call it the most modern serif typeface

Am I right? come back to this blog in 50 years and check me out

I’m not saying I’d like my web designs to be just like Helvetica – timeless. A typeface is medium technology independent and a webpage definitely is not. And technology is a change driver for web design. What I’m saying (and by doing it I’m probably committing a business suicide ) is that I don’t want to redesign a website each year because each year the last year’s design isn’t fashionable anymore. I’d like to change it when the owner changes their business, or wants to change the user perspective on the business or the technology changed so much that the design can’t keep up anymore.

Do you like typography? Do you like minimalistic design?

Come back on 1st December. I’ll have a free WordPress theme for you.

In an extreme simplification, to get a website, you need to:

1. design it,
2. build it.

Putting an emphasis on the latter is wrong.

Why? Would you…

1. live in a house that has been build without plans?
2. get on a ad-hoc built airplane?
3. vote for a politician who didn’t plan on what to do when s/he gets elected?
4. trust a surgeon who didn’t have a plan on how to operate you?
5. believe that a mobile phone can be built basing on just a sketch on a napkin?

In each of the above, designing = planning on what things should be like when they are built/finished is the most important activity of all, because an error in planning is much more costly than an error in building. Moreover, in some cases, products may be built automatically by machines, and the only human input is the design.

I’m definitely not saying that the second phase – building – is not important, because without building/finishing/realizing the design is just a design, plan, idea. I’m saying that in many areas planning has been taken for granted for ages, like in architecture. In other ones, like software engineering, the emphasis on design is bigger and bigger with time. So as for the web design, design is not just a fancy addition to building the website, it isn’t only about a beautiful image, either. Designing is planning the website. It is about planning the user’s feelings (yes, it is about feelings).

So, having this explained, my advice is:

1. When someone needs a simple task done, like publishing contact info to guide a customer how to get/call a real life entity (like a shop or a restaurant) they should use yellow pages or any other online or offline directory, not a website. Cheap, fast, no planning or design(er) needed.
2. When someone wants the user to feel that they have to visit the place because the website felt so good, they should consider planning as a crucial issue, hire a web designer and ask for a great design.

I recently bumped into Knoi Vinh post mentioning this Mike Essl’s initiative. My first answer was NO, and when I saw the 63% for YES, I knew I was wrong. I got mistaken by my own thoughts. Let me explain.

Recently I was thinking about people sometimes mistaking art for web design and this is why I answered NO (graphic design is not art). Graphic design is definitely art as part of it is pure art (at least it should be). Graphic design does not equal art as it is much more.

Some people mistake web design (and graphic design) for art, artists amongst them. I am a grid-believer (yes, grids are good), but I am not against ornamentation – you can find ornamented sites that communicate the content to their audiences.

For me this is what differs web and graphic design from art. Web and graphic design is about communicating information (the content) by (visual) planning, to an audience. Art may be about communicating information to an audience, but it is mainly about the artist’s voice. Web design is about the voice of the content.

Have you ever wondered why our website is so minimalistic? Shouldn’t a web design studio have a full-blown site with all the bells and whistles of the web design industry? Well, no.

OWT caters for different clients having mostly only one thing in common – they’ve chosen OWT for web/graphic design. We create websites and graphics that sometimes differ a lot in style. To embrace such diversity, we’ve decided to have a very simple, in terms of style, online portfolio. In such a portfolio, any graphic feels at home.

Now, a graphic artist, photographer, architect or designer may find themselves in a very similar situation. Their work has its own style that must not be interfered by the online portfolio’s style. This is why a minimalistic website is such a great environment for a visualy intensive work, and why creating an online portfolio for one of the above mentioned artists/designers is a great challenge. While the website’s design must not overwhelm the content, it has to embrace and expose it properly to capture its style and beauty.

Stock photography is a great idea. I don’t have to be in the right place and time to have a great photo, I don’t have to be a photographer, I don’t have to hire a photographer and I don’t even have to take a photo to have one!

Stock photography sites like stock.xchng with amateur stock photography are even a better idea. There are thousands of photos out there, many of them of quality that will suit many purposes and they are free or affordable to anyone.

So, why do I hate stock photos (in web design)? I absolutely dislike the professional-office type of stock photos. You must have seen hundreds of those pretty models of both genders wearing suits etc, staring at some charts or their laptops, and having absolutely nothing in common with real life in offices around the world (well, most of them)? And they are most probably on blue background, because blue is so professional. And what’s most terrifying, people use them on their websites.

Well, this is why I hate stock photography.

Our desktop calendar, August Fruit, got featured in one of the greatest web magazines, Smashing Magazine ! You can take a look and download, search for “August Fruit”.

Warning! August Fruit has been moved to EyeDraw.