December 9, 2009
Yes, beauty and function go hand-in-hand – in fact it’s the perfect match.
As I’m patiently waiting for my parents back in Denmark to send me their favorite wild rabbit recipes, I’m searching the net to find inspiration. This Friday I’m going to cook two wild rabbits provided by a good friend from Bethel. I will share the dish at a party in honor of her husband and mother-in-law.
Why am I writing about food? Well, along with design, this is a huge passion of mine and I’ve been a foodie since my teenage years living in the countryside of Denmark. I remember coming home from school and going straight to the kitchen to make crepes for snacking.
I just stumbled upon this Alpine Rabbit Stew recipe from FX Cuisine and I have to share the site. This is an example of beautiful, step-by-step food photography. The only complaint I have is that there should be more recipes and more pictures. I wish this guy did this for a living.
Is the website well-designed? No. But, there’s soul in the photography and I feel immediately inspired to cook.
It’s not enough to make something beautiful – functionality is a key ingredient. These pictures take me through the recipe from start to finish and within a matter of seconds I can decide whether or not I want to follow the recipe.
November 25, 2009
Choosing a typeface is about the end-user: The reader. Ultimately, legibility and readability should be the main focus. Incredibly enough some of the absolute best designed and most legible fonts were designed decades ago.
Back in 1996 when I was starting out as a designer in Denmark, I was lucky enough to assist an extremely talented art director for three years. Today, Lars Cortsen is the Creative Director and co-founder of Triple CPH. I remember being quizzed on fonts, scrambling for an answer and how it taught me to appreciate the art of typography design.
Challenge yourself with this awesome designer dorky FONT GAME from I Love Typography. At first try, I scored 24 points out of 34. Should I be proud or work harder?
November 10, 2009
I’ve recently finalized identity design for Andrew Mitton, founder and owner of Vellum LLC. Andrew approached me with a wish of a minimal and contemporary identity for his new business.
Andrew started practicing law in Alaska in 1997 and is now specialized in designing compliance and ethics programs for large corporations.
November 8, 2009
Now, here’s something that isn’t exactly in my field of expertise, but I know enough to give you a taste. Website statistics are essential for any organization wanting to learn more about their users, optimize their online presence and better meet their visitors’ expectations.
You can get rich insight into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness.
A free example is the statistics WordPress offer when you have a blog or website built on WordPress. I can see basic things such as search engine key words that visitors use to find my website, referrals (links that send visitors to my site) and visual visitor statistics just like the image above.
Many companies offer advanced website statistics solutions that can be customized. Two examples are Webtrends and Google Analytics. There are pretty much endless amounts of information to gather and if you use it to your advantage you’re sure to succeed.
When I design websites, I work with Mike Hondel who takes care of technical development (and more). Mike is – in the contrary to me – what I would call an expert when it comes to website statistics and is excellent at what he does.
