Papertree Design » Shorts

A Look at the Design Process Behind The Guardians iPad App

Jeremy — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 15:50:00 +0000

An interesting visual look at the design process that went into the new Guardian iPad app.

The Guardian iPad edition: ‘Put the newspaper on the iPad’

Quick Report: Post Scheduling and WP 2.9.1 Beta 1

Jeremy — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 21:25:24 +0000

I was contacted by a few clients and saw quite a bit of discussion (outrage) in the forums over the past few days regarding WordPress 2.9 and missed scheduling of posts. I tested it myself on a local install and was met with a missed schedule as well. (There where a few other issues experienced, some more serious and server specific, but this pertains to scheduling only.)

Since I had one client in particular that was relying on this function over the holidays, I grabbed the 2.9.1 Beta 1 to test it out and all seems to be working properly once again. Good news for her.

That’s my report, post scheduling looks to be back to normal operation. I will be continuing to dig around the beta, will return with any other interesting bits.

WordPress 2.8.5 Released

Jeremy — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:26:36 +0000

For those of you that have not seen the notice in WordPress today, have not caught the news on Twitter and for some odd reason subscribe to the blog at Papertree Design over all other channels of information, this is a informational message.

WordPress 2.8.5, titled a “hardening release” has been released and is recommended as an upgrade. Please see the official blog post on WordPress.org for more information.

That is all.

Wrapping up the week

Jeremy — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:51:13 +0000

Been a tiring but exciting week here with quite a few things that needed to be accomplished.

First off, after some client review I got the green light to go ahead and publish their new online home. Very happy with the end result here and will be sure to write more on this in the days to come. For now you can check it out at SEOinhouse.com.

Secondly I stumbled on this beautiful site that was built on the Charlene Theme, http://www.swiff.se/. Really motivating to see something like that, pushes me not only to look back at the theme and see what I can improve but also to finish up some of the other theme projects I have been working on. So thank you to them and beautiful work!

I also had a chance to jump a bit deeper into WordPress 2.9 over the week in my down time. Pretty exciting looking forward to the release. You can check my first post on the topic here.

Lastly I decided to download the iphone SDK and get cracking with the education. So far I have gotten through the basics and now have an app that says Hello.

Enjoy the weekend!

The Fold Additional Reading

Jeremy — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:53:18 +0000

Excellent study here and a very interesting read on the “myth of the page fold”. A lot of clients I work with are very adamant about the content above the fold, it is always interesting to see studies like this that tackle the age old issue of the page fold and whether or not it holds merit when design for the web.

Link to article: The myth of the page fold: evidence from user testing

Additional reading on the subject.

What do you think?

5 Typekit invites to hand out

Jeremy — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:54:20 +0000

While I used Typekit momentarily on a live site, most of my experimentation has been local so unfortunately I don’t have much in the way of fascinating examples of my own trials at this point.

I do however have 5 invites to hand out so you can try it out for yourself. Leave a comment or hit me up on Twitter @jeremyjames and I will be more than happy to set you up with one.

(I do have plans for a future version of this site using Typekit, hmm)

Architects Working Like Web Designers?

Jeremy — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:37:23 +0000

I had to queue this one up in the shorts section, it really gave me a good laugh at the exact moment I needed it today.

If Architects Had to Work Like Web Designers

Hmm, wait a second maybe it threw fuel on the fire and even got me a bit irritated. Now I am undecided.

Either way, enjoy!

Making a Mess “On-The-Fly”

Jeremy — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:58:53 +0000

In my continued search for knowledge and experiment, I decided recently to look into a simple no hassle script for compressing my various stylesheets on the fly. The major reason for this attempt, my inability to sit still. Of course I wanted to have a look at the effects on load time, speed etc.

I credit this super easy to implement script for allowing me to experiment and I credit my own mistakes as the reason for some of you having to see the site with it’s pants down. All though brief, I am slightly embarrassed by the possibility that you happened to be viewing during this testing period.

After fumbling around for around a half hour I reverted to a previous version and went about experimenting elsewhere. (Top secret test lab). Having finally figured out my mistake, we are back and all seems to be going well, minified and compressed.

Needless to say, I apologize for the disarray, you may continue.

Weekend Reading, Watching and Inspiration 09/11/09

Jeremy — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 01:31:30 +0000

Like I said getting back to the “shorts”… Stumbled across a few things definitely worth checking out if you have the time this weekend.

The first one is www.magazineart.org “Vintage magazine cover and advertising art from the Golden Age of American Illustration”. A ton of inspiration found on this site, one of my personal favorites “The Better Buick”.

The next one is definitely worth a read for all of us freelancers and small business owners out there, coming from The Design Cubicle 10 Ways To Gain More Design Work by Building Trust and Relationships. It’s an article packed with excellent advice, a must read.

The final recommendation I have for the week is The Friday Vidcast by Aaron Irizarry on
thisisaaronslife.com. For those of you who are not familar with Aaron or have not had the chance to check one of his weekly Vidcast’s, I highly suggest you start. As I tweeted to him today, they are always enjoyable, thought provoking and provide me with a great way to close out the week on a Friday afternoon.

It’s important to mention that Aaron gives major props to Brian Hoff in this one regarding the article I have listed above. I told you it was a must read!

Enjoy and have a great weekend.

Fixing the Roof

Jeremy — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:16:35 +0000

At the age of thirty-five, you decide to hire a builder to build your new home. Months down the road the last laborer has left, the grass is starting to grow green and the home is beautiful. You are pleased.

A few years go by and the home is just as wonderful as it was to you that first day it was called finished so many months ago. It has kept your family warm and created a lot everlasting memories, but you feel it could use some brightening up. So tools in hand you set out to install a new skylight all on your own. After all you have seen it done on television many a time, you’ve read a number of home improvement books and by golly you are pretty handy.

Ah it’s wonderful, the fruits of your own labor. The kitchen is so much brighter now! All is well.

Then one day the heavy rains come in. It’s an absolute disaster, apparently there was a minor mistake up above that now has your wood floor looking like some one left a giant class of water on Grandma’s old finished table.

Well, only one thing left to do. Time to call the original roofer (we of course know he does good work) and break out the old checkbook. After all he’s not going to do it for free!

The last line holds true in most cases if the roof simply becomes “out of date” and let’s not even begin to imagine how true it might be if you decide to fire a rocket launcher from your living room!