This is the first installment of inspiration from book cover design. Every time my wife and I go on a date together we seem to end up at a bookstore at some point in the evening. Why? Because I’m old. And I really like being around books. Something about the massive amounts of data that could be inserted into my brain at any moment thrills me. Reading is like the manual version of Matrix download learning. But I nerdgress.

A few dates ago I started snapping photos with my iPhone of book covers that stood out to me. Here’s the first find from my visual treasure hunt.

Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1, Reader’s Edition

Simple, but effective. You can’t go wrong with good black and white photography under a strong sans-serif font overlay. I may have kerned the “TWAIN” differently, but overall the design jumps off the bookshelf. Also, I always appreciate a designer’s ability to pull of neon-green in a design. (Ahem.)

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Iranian Muslim guy meets Jesus

Pinterest’s popular masonry grid style layout.

A simple solution for a masonry layout built with pure CSS3, and no javascript or floats.

// Parent Element, or Container
.grid (@columns: 3, @gap: 10px, @width: 100%) {
    -moz-column-count: @columns;
    -moz-column-gap: @gap;
    -webkit-column-count: @columns;
    -webkit-column-gap: @gap;
    column-count: @columns;
    column-gap: @gap;
    width: @width;
}

// Child Element, or Tile
.grid-box (@margin-bottom: 20px) {
    display: inline-block;
    margin-bottom: @margin-bottom;
    width: 100%;
}

// Example: Book Shelf concept
.book-shelf {
    background: #fff;
    .grid (3, 10px, 960px)
}
.book {
    .grid-box (15px);
}

Based on Radu’s Masonry CSS. Check out his post for info on browser compatibility and fallbacks.

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Notice the Add Media button… it’s an actual button! The previous version of the button looked like this:

It was an easily overlooked text and icon combo labeled ”Upload/Insert” . This caused problems for users as I’ve discussed before. I don’t know if this small change to a more clickable and noticeable “Add Media” button happened because I suggested it, but I’m glad it’s there. So after suggesting this usability improvement to the WordPress core team, their developers took notice and made it happen.

Thanks, WP devs. Also, I didn’t suggest the name change, but good choice on the new wording from “Upload/Insert” to “Add Media”. Much better.

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Impossible to please.

21 Not everyone who calls me their Lord will get into the kingdom of heaven. Only the ones who obey my Father in heaven will get in. 22 On the day of judgment many will call me their Lord. They will say, “We preached in your name, and in your name we forced out demons and worked many miracles.” 23 But I will tell them, “I will have nothing to do with you! Get out of my sight, you evil people!”

- Matthew 7:21-23, CEV

In the past felt a hopeless desperation to figure out what exactly it meant to “obey my Father in heaven”. It felt impossible to know that I was doing the will of God.

Listen to the words that are coming out of my mouth.

Today, for the first time, I thought about this section Jesus’ sermon a little differently and felt a little hope grow inside:

• Jesus is image of God the Father on earth.
• Jesus’ words are God’s words.
• Obeying Jesus’ teaching is obeying the Father in heaven.

So… what did Jesus teach? Well, a lot, but The Golden Rule sums it up nicely.

12 Treat others as you want them to treat you. This is what the Law and the Prophets are all about.

- Matthew 7:12, CEV

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Some happily chose red or blue today, fully agreeing with the platforms of their party. Others, like myself, are not happy with the options given and had hopes someone else would be on the ballot.

Some decided not to vote at all.

Others chose the lesser of two evils.

I say vote for your principles without compromise.

Find the candidate that aligns the most with your principles, opinions, morals, economic philosophy, or whatever you really believe would be best for our country. Vote for that person with a clear conscience. You’ve done your part.

I use VoteSmart.org to get a snapshot view of who aligns with my principles by answering questions about current issues: 

After you answer questions the candidates change position based on their stand on the issues.

Votizen.com is another good resource, allowing you to view and share the political affiliations through social media: 

An old problem

Politics in America bends to the will of two parties: Democrats and Republicans. Why?

1. Money. Big dollars bank roll these two parties. It takes a lot of money to keep your agenda in the news and part of the culture. Brain-washing is expensive. Which brings us to reason number two.
2. Exposure. They are the loudest parties. They get the most press time and overall attention from major media companies.

Affiliation with, or much less voting for, a party that is neither blue nor red seems foolish. Everybody knows the president is going to come from one of the two big parties. If your values, principles, knowledge of history, or opinions about who would be best for the country bring you to the conclusion that your ideal candidate is not part of the two-party system, you must choose the “lesser of two evils”, right? It’s the only strategic move. Wrong.

The way out = Principles + Money + Votes

Put your support where your principles are. If we continue to vote for the least evil candidate, there will never be another option. Someone must decide to open the door for a more diverse political landscape. The Federal Election Commission allows any party that receives at least 5% of the general election to gain access to federal monies specifically set aside for presidential campaigns. http://www.fec.gov/press/bkgnd/fund.shtml

Since no third-party candidate received 5% of the vote in 2008, only the Republican and Democratic parties are eligible for 2012 convention grants, and only their nominees may receive grants for the general election when they are nominated. Third-party candidates could qualify for retroactive public funds if they receive 5% or more of the vote in the general election.

Some say the electoral college really chooses the presidential election winner so the popular vote doesn’t really matter. But the popular vote does matter. Even if it’s just a bit. Just enough to give a third-party the wedge they need to get into the public’s spotlight a little more.

If your principles line up more with a third-party, then don’t give up hope. Support the candidates you believe in. Vote for what you believe in.

The END of the WORRRRLD!

I mean, once they’re elected the new president meets with the aliens who control the secret society running the global government and gives him his marching orders anyway, so why not go down in history as voting for what matters to you!

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1. Dieter Rams 10 Principles of Good Design

Deiter Rams is an industrial design legend, creating several iconic products for Braun & Vitsœ since the 1950′s. His work also heavily influenced Apple industrial designer, Jonathan Ive, whose become a legend in his own right.  When I found this list I jumped on the chance to get into the mind of a great designer.

1. Good design is innovative.
2. Good design makes a product useful.
3. Good design is aesthetic.
4. Good design makes a product understandable.
5. Good design is unobtrusive.
6. Good design is honest.
7. Good design is long-lasting.
8. Good design is thorough down to the last detail.
9. Good design is environmentally friendly.
10. Good design is as little design as possible.

2. Loving this to-do list app at the moment: TEUX DEUX

I’ve been a Basecamp user for a long time, but needed something more simple to manage random/administrative tasks. I’ve tried a lot of apps, but Teux Deux is my current favorite. It is an extremely minimalistic app that let’s you manage daily tasks efficiently by removing clutter and reducing the UI to only essential interface elements. http://teuxdeux.com/

3. “Wisdom is knowing what to do next, skill is knowing how to do it, and virtue is doing it.”-David Starr

4. Unmanned US drones get a Windows virus

Weaponized robot spy planes are not the place for buggy software. After spy plane software gets hacked, several departments of the US military are switching from Windows to Linux. http://t.co/xbxlIi3d

5. Nomiku: bring sous vide into your kitchen

A handy little device that allows you to cook food perfectly with chef-like methods (sous vide), but without the expensive bulky equipment in chef’s kitchens. I plan on buying one. Check out their Kickstarter page: http://t.co/7QAB2caO

6. Eight Experiences Every User Enjoys

1. Immediacy
2. Looking at Faces
3. Learning
4. Showing Off
5. Influence
6. Simplicity, clarity, efficiency, safety
7. Controversy
8. Checking Items off a list

Read explanations of each experience on Gabor Cselle’s website

7. Romney’s Money & Obama’s Taxes

http://t.co/Su0CS2bO

8. The First Photo uploaded to the Web

Funny how historic moments aren’t always as epic as you’d expect. Case in point.

9. A method for a efficient writing

Write 1000 Words in an Hour http://t.co/th78lDsF

10. The User Experience and Design of the 2012 Olympics

I always like seeing the the process of other designers. Here is a detailed look at the process behind a huge UX project:

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Have you ever tried to move a folder or selection of layers in Photoshop, but were interrupted by this alert?

BLAM! Those layers aren’t moving anywhere.

Somewhere deep down in your selection is a locked layer. If you’re working in a huge file with tons of layers, finding the locked layer or layers could take awhile.

Wouldn’t this be more helpful than just an alert?

SKUDOOSH! Problem solved.

The Photoshop team could add a checkbox to the alert that would automatically unlock the locked layers, so that you can continue moving/nudging your selection.

This small usability improvement would save me a lot of time.

Does anyone know if another solution to this problem already exists in Photoshop? Let me know in the comments section below.

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Goodbye, Internet Explorer 6. Enjoy hell. My plugin gets added to WordPress core!

Paris,

Thanks for making this plugin! After reading your article a while ago, I went and wrote this exact plugin but luckily found yours before I submitted it to the repository. No need for more than one of these.

I checked out the plugin and discovered one bug and a few ideas

The Bug

• You’re styling the div#wp-content-media-buttons rather than a#content-add_media. That leads to ALL media buttons (like the Gravity forms icon) to show up in one weird integrated “button.” See here: Weird button with Gravity Forms.
• If you change the element you’re styling to the link instead, you’ll also catch the Quick Press’s “Insert Media” button which is currently unstyled. It’s tempting to style ALL links in that row, but I’d shy away from that on the chance that other plugins style their own buttons.

Some Tweaks

1. Style-wise, I wish the :hover and :active states more closely matched WordPress’s defaults.
2. To get really nit-picky, the WordPress admin button’s have a border-radius of 11px.
3. To make things a little more WordPress friendly, I’d use wp_enqueue_styles() hooked to the admin_enqueue_scripts hook to register the stylesheet.

So thanks again for making the plugin. If you incorporate these changes, I’ll definitely be adding it to all my client sites.

All of these tweaks made sense, so I’ve released version 1.2 with the above changes included. Download Button It Up 1.2 from the WordPress Plugin Repository to try it out, or from within the plugins section of the WordPress dashboard.

I hope these changes make the plugin more useful, usable and even desirable to the WordPress community. I look forward to more feedback.

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After years of admiring this print by the legendary Japanese artist, Hokusai, I’ve realized the colors are just as dramatic as the composition. So I decided to extract a few hues and create a color palette.

I chose colors from the boats, the sky and, of course, the waves.

• #c1a06e – dark tan
• #d9d1ba – light tan
• #82b0b2 – light blue
• #346b84 – medium blue
• #1a3657 – dark blue

As with all my color palettes you can find this one on ColorLovers.com.

Haunted by a legend

The Great Wave Off Kanagawa by Hokusai is probably my favorite piece of fine art. I caught glimpses of it growing up in American culture, but didn’t know anything about the work until I studied it in art school.

Turns out the iconic scene is actually a woodblock print and not a painting, and its part of a series based on that little mountain you can see in the background. For some reason I fell in love with the piece and when I found a huge poster print for sale I couldn’t resist.

I proudly displayed it in my room during college. Then I hung it over my desk when I got an office job. A coworker and good friend even bought me a sketchbook with the painting printed on the front.

After getting married I brought it home and managed to hang it over our bed… briefly. Something about the imminent death of those sailors didn’t sit well with the wife as a pre-bedtime meditation.

Until I get my home office situated the historic image sulks in my closet. Nevertheless, it lives on as my current desktop background.

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In response to the positive feedback from my last post about making the WordPress Upload/Insert button look more clickable, I’ve written my first WordPress plugin that’s open to the public. I’m calling it Button It Up*.

All it does, for now, is change the style of the upload insert button to look like an actual button.

Other than creating consistency throughout the UI, the main reason for this tweak is to make the button more find-able for first-time WordPress users. Hopefully this tweak, or a better version of it, will make it into WordPress core.

Until then, you can use this tiny plugin to make the WordPress admin more usable for your clients.

You can download Button It Up directly from the WordPress plugin directory.

Let me know if you guys find any bugs or anything.

*The name “Button It Up” was most definitely influenced by the podcast Back To Work with Merlin Mann & Dan Benjamin

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