Start Here Designs: I Work for small businesses with revolutionary ideas.

Branding

  • Product Design
  • Naming & Identity Design
  • Market Positioning & Copy

Web Design

  • Information Architecture
  • User Interface Design
  • Look & Feel

Front End Dev

  • HTML & CSS
  • SEO Friendly
  • Valid, accessible, semantic &
    standards-driven
A Beautiful Upgrade I’ve been wanting to update the header of OneWed for a LONG time now. It’s amazing how fast products can change in the startup world, and yet they can be so slow if you only have 3 team members. The Problem People weren’t using our minimalist navigation. People really weren’t exploring the site and had a hard time grokking what we did. My Solution Put the meat of our project up top, in an eye-catching way (note the colorful icons!), to encourage exploration and give a better picture of what the site is about. This had some interesting consequences: I was forced to merge the information architecture of our photos with that of our (previously separate) articles and galleries section. It’s not a perfect solution, but I’d say it was a huge step up in the time we had available. The Result Well, we just passed Martha Stewart Weddings’ traffic a few weeks back. I don’t think that’s due to my new header, but everyone I’ve spoken with in testing has expressed an interest in clicking on every damn link in that header, so I think we done good. Still a long way to go, as usual. 
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A Beautiful Upgrade

I’ve been wanting to update the header of OneWed for a LONG time now. It’s amazing how fast products can change in the startup world, and yet they can be so slow if you only have 3 team members.

The Problem

People weren’t using our minimalist navigation. People really weren’t exploring the site and had a hard time grokking what we did.

My Solution

Put the meat of our project up top, in an eye-catching way (note the colorful icons!), to encourage exploration and give a better picture of what the site is about.

This had some interesting consequences: I was forced to merge the information architecture of our photos with that of our (previously separate) articles and galleries section. It’s not a perfect solution, but I’d say it was a huge step up in the time we had available.

The Result

Well, we just passed Martha Stewart Weddings’ traffic a few weeks back. I don’t think that’s due to my new header, but everyone I’ve spoken with in testing has expressed an interest in clicking on every damn link in that header, so I think we done good.

Still a long way to go, as usual. 

The Power of Words

If you’re willing to watch a tear-jerker for the sake of being a more educated designer, press play on this video (aka “sob button”) and prepare to be enlightened.

Read more about making an emotional connection in your design work over at The Middle Finger Project. Thanks Ash! Way to start the day right! Sarcasm!

Social Equality Educators Logo

Sometimes you do a quick pro-bono piece and you don’t think much of it, even if its for a good cause. And sometimes you do a quick pro-bono piece and it turns into nationwide news.

Social Equality Educators is a Seattle-based organization of teachers fighting to defend education and improve the state of affairs.

They’ve been making the news lately thanks to member Jesse Hagopian, whose tireless, public, and always clever activism got him arrested for attempting a citizen’s arrest at the Washington state capitol to protest budget cuts to education, interviewed by Keith Olbermann after the act, and has recently interviewed on CNN and quoted in the Wall Street Journal to represent Seattle’s Garfield High in their refusal to issue the MAP test to their students.

Wanna help?


Kind of amazing where a little design help can go. They’ve started using another one here and there which is unfortunately very ineffective. So hopefully I can support their momentum and improve the one I designed.

But man, how COOL is it to see your logo on some awesome activist action?! I hope it helped, even a little.

good: Commit 1 Percent of Your Time to Service This Year- GOOD HQ shared something to do in Service, Volunteering and Living We can do better than good. Together, we can be great.  As Martin Luther King, Jr. put it, “Everybody can be great, because anybody can serve.” In honor of MLK Day and President Obama’s National Day of Service, we’re challenging you to commit yourself to service. Spend 1 percent of your work hours this year (that’s 20 hours) changing a small corner of your world for the better. However you choose to give back, this year you can be great. Click “Do It” below to take the pledge, and let’s dig in! Illustration by Corinna Loo Thought this was a great use of graphic design to motivate. Don’t you just want to do this because of the awesome graphic? I dunno maybe I’m weird. Now I just need to think of something I can offer that doesn’t involve the social anxiety present in most volunteering efforts…
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good:

Commit 1 Percent of Your Time to Service This Year
- GOOD HQ shared something to do in Service, Volunteering and Living

We can do better than good. Together, we can be great.  As Martin Luther King, Jr. put it, “Everybody can be great, because anybody can serve.” In honor of MLK Day and President Obama’s National Day of Service, we’re challenging you to commit yourself to service. Spend 1 percent of your work hours this year (that’s 20 hours) changing a small corner of your world for the better. However you choose to give back, this year you can be great. Click “Do It” below to take the pledge, and let’s dig in!

Illustration by Corinna Loo

Thought this was a great use of graphic design to motivate. Don’t you just want to do this because of the awesome graphic? I dunno maybe I’m weird.

Now I just need to think of something I can offer that doesn’t involve the social anxiety present in most volunteering efforts…

Roland Tiangco - Dirt Poster (2011)

The back of the poster is covered with a fine black dust which, when rubbed against the white front, reveals the typography.

(via ryanrussell)

Source: likeafieldmouse

OneWed’s Wedding Inspiration App is now available!

AND I DESIGNED IT! I was able to spend a lot of time working on the design (uncommon in the startup environment), and I did a great deal of testing and re-iterating, which had a massive impact on the success of the design.

This is a really hard product to design for - we have too many content types and are trying to do too many things, because we INHERITED the project, rather than starting fresh.

But, everything we do have is really awesome, so the trick is trying to make it understandable. Go get it on the Appstore. How did we do?

7 Essential Mental Activities Inspired by the work of Dr. Rock and Dr. Siegel, we created a visualisation of the Healthy Mind Platter. This is a guide of the seven essential mental activities for a healthy mind.
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7 Essential Mental Activities

Inspired by the work of Dr. Rock and Dr. Siegel, we created a visualisation of the Healthy Mind Platter. This is a guide of the seven essential mental activities for a healthy mind.

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