The Language of Asymmetry

I have always been a fan of industrial and achitectural design. Lately, I have been finding out more and more about the work of Daniel Libeskind, a Polish-Jewish-born architect. Libeskind, who is now based in NY, has a track record of literally outside-the-box thinking designs ranging from the Danish Jewish Museum, Jewish Museum Berlin, the Imperial War Museum in Manchester, England to the Denver Art Museum [DAM].

I had the pleasure of visiting the Denver Art Museum in August of 2007. It was an amazing laberynth of sharp edges and angled walls. One of the many characteristics of this structure, as are most of Libeskind’s designs, are the usage of natural light as its main source of illumination. This speaks as well of the use of organic thought put into his design language, in terms of the traffic flow and visual/emotional stimulus created by jagged windows allowing light to enter just in the right shape and intensity to shine on a given work of art.

An example of this language, is the The skewed angles and intersecting lines, the use of shadows, absence of light, oversaturation of light to communicate feelings of confusion, loss of memory, solitude as seen in the photo [left] in the Holocaust Tower in the Jewish Museum - Berlin.

“The Axis of the Holocaust leads through a heavy, black steel door into the Holocaust Tower, the only Void outside the Museum building. The bare concrete tower is 24 meters high and neither heated nor insulated.

It is lit by a single narrow slit high above the ground. Noises from the outside world are clearly audible but the normality they effuse is unreachable.

The bare and empty Holocaust Tower commemorates the numerous Jewish victims of mass murder.” (Source: The Jewish Museum Berlin)

“The Holocaust Tower is the space which somehow ends the old history of Berlin.” (Daniel Libeskind, 1999).

His work defies the “rules” of conventional architecture and is definitely one of the most daring and intriguing architects of our time. His design flare also caught the attention of the Freedom Towers project in NYC by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, who are leading in the creation of a permanent Memorial remembering and honoring the thousands of innocent men, women and children lost in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Although his design in particular will not be used for the actual towers, his ideas and input are and have been a source of inspiration in the development of the project.

Click here for more on the Lower Manhattan Project

Stay tuned for more on Libeskind.

The World of Google apps and Web 2.0

As most of you may already know, Google is one of the most widely used search engines in the world. It is as ubiquitous as are Coca Cola, Nike and McDonalds. As always, the restless minds at Google Labs are very much in tune with this Web 2.0 world we are living in, meaning, a world wide web of intuitive and useful web applications all revolving around social networking and the need for fast and easy access to personal and/or business information.

With these factors in mind, Google created Google Mail or Gmail, a very easy-to-use webmail application as powerful as any email client you may have installed locally on your computer. Having a Gmail account will give you access to the a myriad of complimentary applications such as Google Docs, which includes Google Spreadsheets, PowerPoint and Word, eliminating the need to have applications installed such as MS Office. Another great application aimed at social networking is the Google Photos or Picasa Photos, a downloadable version is available as well for managing your photos locally. For those wanting to share videos, there is also the famous and sometimes infamous YouTube.

For the those in the IT industry, in particular the web design & SEO [Search Engine Optimization] industry, there is also Google Analytics which is a very powerful and extensive Ajax-based web stats application [running off the Urchin stats engine] where you can monitor all your traffic sources, number of visits, demographics, cross reference OS usage, browsers, etc. Along with Analytics, there is Google site maps where you can upload your website’s xml sitemap allowing Google’s spider to crawl your site more efficiently, therefore improving your site rank and visibility. Finally, there is Google Adwords, a PPC [Pay-Per-Click] application that allows you to create your online ads where you bid on keywords that are relevant to your business and displays your ad in the ‘Sponsored Links’ section beside or above related keyword search results.

Here we have covered only a small percentage of the applications available from Google and are all available simply by having a Gmail account.

Not bad for FREE services.

Check out:
www.gmail.com
www.google.com/services

*Google goes Mobile - be on the lookout for the Google Phone [currently available in the US from T-mobile]. More on that later!

New Portfolio 2008

Hi Y'all... yeah I haven't touched this thing in so long, but I an now officially launching my new portfolio.

Please feel free to check it out:

www.varas.cl

- K

CSS in Mozilla Firefox & MAC OS Browsers

I have recently come across a seemingly bothersome problem when it comes to viewing a site, designed with CSS, in Mozilla Firefox and any browser in MAC OC (IE, NS, etc).

As I normally do, I create a site with a set of styles in an external style sheet. I use a standard for naming schemes so I know what styles I can use, ie; .TrebuchetBold10ptNorm, .TrebuchetBold10ptBold, etc.

Just recently a client / friend of mine told me that some of his customers were having problems with the website, that the text could not be seen (over a black bg), and that the top and bottom navigation menu were looking unusually large?

Long story short, after doing some research and many google searches, I found the simple answer to my seemingly complex problem. I had strayed from my usual naming scheme by something so simple:

In CSS1, a class name could start with a digit (".55ft"), unless it was a dimension (".55in"). In CSS2, such classes are parsed as unknown dimensions (to allow for future additions of new units) : To make ".12ptWhiteTrebuchet" a valid class, CSS2 requires the first digit to be escaped (".\312ptWhiteTrebuchet")

So in other words, I renamed my styles from .10ptTrebuchetBoldNorm to .TrebuchetBold10ptNorm.

That's it!

Nonetheless, always check and validate your code using the tools at the W3C: www.w3c.org.

Designing Content

GUI for You and I - Part I: Content
Finding what you are looking for right away results in great web surfing. The common user browses through information and navigatesthrough it in a non-linear fashion until they reach their pot of gold.

The graphic user interface (GUI) of any website you may visit will have had a lot of time put into thinking about HOW to get the user to find the content they need in as little number of clicks as possible (2 - 3 clicks maximum). The best way to achieve this is to use internal links whenever possible! This means text linking or hyperlinking any keyword references (in an opening paragraph) to content within your site. Use both relative and absolute links, as well as anchors to specific paragraphs on a page. This might sound easy to remember, but many web designers overlook this simple solution when inserting content into their site. Remember, from ANY page in your site, ALWAYS link back to the Home!

GUI for You and I - Part II: Graphics
As mentioned in Part I: Content, tying together content is key in creating a good GUI, but you don't want a text document full of links asyour website; this is where we add graphics! A good rule of thumb when creating the look and feel of your site, is combining usability and good marketing. This means putting yourself in the users shoes (or office chair) and ask yourself, "How do I find Product 01?" The answer to that question may be found in several ways:

1. A site map
2. Clicking on the "Products" link on my side, top and/or footer text links
3. Clicking on a banner created to promote Product 01 located on the home page or in an area constantly visible throughout the site

Keep in mind that marketing doesn't necessarily have to apply to a product, you can use the same techniques even if your site is about "MyGrandmother's Poetry" or "Crazy Pet Tricks".

First Thoughts

My Philosophy
Life will always treat you in the same manner that you treat her. Just by putting yourself in the other person´s place, be it a client, your mother or your friend, you will build for yourself a nice place to live in.....happiness.