This week we interview Curt Cloninger author of "Fresh Styles for Web Designers" which we reviewed last time. Curt talks about the leading designers he profiles, the dual nature of the Net, immersive environments, and what he's working on now.
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We interview Curt Cloninger, author of "Fresh Styles for Web Designers" which we reviewed last Thursday. Curt's book documents top underground Web designers in an attempt to shake up the corporate world of cookie cutter Web sites.
>CC: I'm Curt Cloninger, a 32-year old guy living in Mobile, Alabama. I design Web sites; I write; and I make Net art. I do other things too, but they're not necessarily pertinent in this context.
>CC: In the "Fresh Styles" book I was mainly trying to be an apologist for creative Web design. So in order to do that, I had to explain how and why certain styles were commercially appropriate. And in order to do that, I had to dissect and analyze the styles.
When I first got into the underground Web design community, I was blown away and overwhelmed at the diversity and innovation. Then I started noticing similarities and patterns. So in order to learn better myself, I began classifying, dissecting, analyzing. "Fresh Styles" sort of grew out of that process.
The book can be read in a lot of different ways. I figured commercial designers would read it for the technical hacks, and creative directors would read it to get new visual ideas.
But I also hoped some people might read it just as an interesting introduction into experimental Web design for its own sake. So you likening me to a design/art historian is encouraging.
>WR: As you design sites how do you resolve the dual nature of the Internet? In other words, how do you resolve the fact that great sites are both aesthetically pleasing and functional?
>CC: Such resolution is indeed the goal. Obviously any site I build has to be functional. That's the difference between "pure art" and design. With pure art, I don't necessarily have to keep my "user" in mind. But with design, I'm actually making something for a user to "use," so it has to be functional by definition. Still, a good designer can't just leave aesthetics out of it.
Personally, I use Google instead of Altavista, mostly because of aesthetic considerations. The overall approach of Google says, "Come on. No BS. Get on in here and we'll find it for you." That vibe is not only conveyed by the functionality of the site (indeed, most search engines function pretty much the same), but by the humorous/non-threatening logo, the minimalistic layout, the lack of immediately visible extraneous options, etc. So in a very real sense, aesthetics improve a site's functionality, because the people using a site are not robots, but humans, susceptible to beauty. Their overall experience is affected (at least in part) by aesthetics.
>WR: There's a tension between the left and right brains, the engineers/programmers and designers/artists of the Web. How do you deal with that?
>CC: I deal with it by learning as much about both camps as I can. I think programmers and engineers do appreciate beauty. Get a reserved programmer talking about clean, efficient code, and suddenly he grows animated and passionate. Many coders actually appreciate the look of raw code on a page elegantly formatted/ indented/commented, apart from what the code even does. That's a bit extreme for me, but I do understand the fascination.
It's important that each side see the "art" in the work of the other side. The three guys at K10K are an excellent example of both camps working together. Toke and Michael are the front end/ concept designer guys. They are the rock stars. But they defer to and promote Per, their back end programmer guy, because they appreciate the magic he works. Here's a picture of the K10K crew at the Prix Ars Electronica festival in Austria (the programmer is in the middle). I'm probably oversimplifying, but to me this image is a visual representation of the way such partnerships are supposed to work.
I'm working on a customer service extranet right now with a sharp SQL/dynascript programmer who knows very little about DHTML. He values what I do because he knows it's necessary and he can't do it. I value what he does for the same reasons. Working with him on this project has been a pleasure. I watch my static design magically become dynamically populated. He watches his cryptic database magically become structured and elegant. It's a beautiful thing.
>WR: As the Web is constantly changing, do you plan on following up with a second edition/sequel to document the new styles that emerge? What other styles have you seen that you like?
>CC: If enough new styles emerge, I'd be game for a sequel. My favorite hip style these days is this sort of bubble sweet icon thing. Minimalistic vector drawings, bright colors, negative space, Flash interfaces, rollover audio, always ironic:
>CC: By no means. To say so would be to stoop to Nielsen's own overgeneralizing, bombastic level. I like Jakob. He's an engaging speaker with a dry sense of humor. Apart from his incurable propensity to overgeneralize, Nielsen's main faults stem from the way in which he sees the Web. He's coming at the Web from a GUI background, so he sees the Web as a big piece of database software that needs a front end. To me, the Web is best understood as a communications medium. Yes, the Web runs on software, but so does digital video these days. Nielsen's approach to front end Web design was ideal in 1995, and many of his tenets are still applicable today. But he's not nearly as "across-the-board" right as he seems to think.
Still, any graphic designer who dismisses Nielsen in toto is probably just reacting to his dismissing them in toto.
>WR: What sites do you like? Who are you influenced by, past and present? What corporate sites do you like? (all not mentioned in the book)
As far as influences, there are a lot, mostly cross-discipline. For instance, Brian Eno is a musician/producer whose theoretical writing influences my art. Walter Anderson is a Mississippi folk artist whose modular approach to representing nature influences my design.
Some past influences: Peter Max (unapologetic psychedelia) Odilon Redon (color as epiphany) Marshall McLuhan (prophetic theory as allegory) King David (transparent passion)
>CC: As a Net artist, I'm probably pixelated punk rock http://www.playdamage.org >. As a commercial designer, I try to stay open and let the project dictate the approach. A lot of my commercial work does wind up being more minimalistic, but that's probably due the nature of the projects I've worked on so far.
>WR: You mention your interest in an environmental approach to design, or making an environment that people can explore, where their choices modify the nature of your environment. Tell us more about that, and EmoSoft (TM).
>CC: There is a movement among Net artists these days toward certain types of "art software." A lot has been made of the "exciting" non-linear/interactive possibilities of hypertext literature; but in the end, the reader/user of hypertext lit isn't really "writing" his own story. He's merely choosing from a set of pre-defined modules and then stringing those modules together to make a story.
Compare Myst/Riven (hypermedia narratives) to something like Quake (an immersive environment). In Myst you click from frame to frame, like in a hypercard presentation. In Quake, you're in a dynamic virtual environment created by a much more complex software engine.
So when I say immersive environment, it doesn't necessarily mean "virtual reality" or some sort of Gibsonian cyberspace a la "Neuromancer." It just means software that responds more subtly and instantaneously to user input. The designer/programmer creates certain parameters within which lots of previously undefined events become possible. Some examples of this type of "art software" may be found at:
With EmoSoft (TM), I hope to construct an interactive environment that acts like a personality test. People input how they are feeling, and the software generates an abstract audio/visual representation of their feelings in real time. It will be like a kind of psychedelic emotional feedback machine - a mood ring on steroids.
I'm about to start work on this collaborative CD-ROM with a bunch of Net art freaks - sort of a faux-commercial, stream-of- consciousness, alice-in-wonderland giveaway thing. I'm giving a talk in November on the Web as a communications medium, so I'm researching that. I'm tech editing Joe Clark's book called "Building Accessible Web Sites." http://www.joeclark.org/book/ > I'm recording my next CD of lo-fi pop tunes (slowly but surely). And last but not least, I'm designing commercial Web sites for various clients.
Curt Cloninger is a Web designer, writer, and Net artist who continues to hold the heretical belief that beauty enhances usability. His Web site is at http://www.lab404.com > and he can be reached at curt@lab404.com.
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Tom Kyte has a simple philosophy: you can treat Oracle as a black box and just stick data into it or you can understand how it works and exploit it as a powerful computing environment. This week's installment covers Understanding Oracle Architecture, Use Bind Variables, Understanding Concurrency Control, and Multi-Versioning. From Wrox Press.
A new call for limits on encryption technology is finding weak political support in the United States, despite a looming clandestine war against terrorism that will most likely hinge on the effectiveness of police and military intelligence. Also ZDNet reports that limiting encryption may open doors to criminals.
The inventor of PGP responds to a Washington Post story over his "guilt" on inventing Pretty Good Privacy encryption.
Now publishers including Salon.com and Microsoft's MSNBC.com require readers to look at a sponsor's ad for several seconds before they can see the story they came for.
If XML is the technology that gives Java something to do, then Perl is the language that will make XML do something useful. After all, it's the language that makes hard things easy, and the impossible, possible. It's also the best text processing language I've ever worked with.
The development of XML modules for Perl has been progressing nicely over the past year. There are now several useful modules available at the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network. A good information reference on Perl in general can be found at http://www.perl.com. A Perl-XML mailing list is also available. To join, send an email to Lyris@ActiveState.com with the message: SUBSCRIBE Perl-XML.
Because XML requires strict adherence to its specification, we will not be using any of the XML modules for Perl in this article. We can, however, use Perl regular expressions to extract information from the tags.
You will also need write access to a Web server directory that allows CGI scripts to be executed. To run the scripts on your Web server:
Modify the first line of the script so that the path points to the location of Perl on your system (*nix only), i.e. #!/usr/bin/perl
Small business owners are constantly searching for new ways to increase the productivity and efficiency of their company. When productivity increases, the company is able to sell more of their products or services to the public and thus have a higher profitability potential than they previously enjoyed. By using tools designed to help improve productivity, small companies can work toward growth and development.
Accounting is a requirement of any business, regardless of size. Small businesses that might not have the funds available to hire a separate accounting division or even a single accountant can cut back on valuable time in keeping track of funds by adding accounting software to the business computer.
Accounting software increases productivity by helping the owner easily keep track of finances. By cutting back on the time spent in organizing information to add to the business books and maintaining the data through an computerized source, the owner is able to spend more time on other tasks. This results in improved productivity as the owner puts more time into creating efficient systems or working on managing the employees.
Online systems designed to keep track of payroll information are not only convenient for paying employees through direct deposit options; they help the company keep track of how much to pay in taxes for each worker, how much the company owes for taxes and deductions the company might be eligible to obtain.
Online payroll systems like payroo.com are ideal when trying to work out tax information. This not only avoids accidental mistakes when working with the IRS; it can help ensure the information is easily maintained throughout the year so tax season runs smoothly.
The iPhone application ReQall is a convenient tool for any small business owner who is constantly on the go or out with clients. This mobile app is a task management tool that helps a business owner maintain their schedule, keep information updated, take notes on their phone while away from the company computer and acts as an assistant.
The iPhone application is easy to use, convenient and does not cost anything to download as use. This makes it ideal for small companies who have limited resources available and might not have the funds to hire an assistant. The application will even convert spoken notes into a written form for the convenience of the business owner who cannot take the time to type out the message through the keyboard.
The Microsoft Office software or similar software options are key productivity tools for almost any business. With the basic tools every company needs like word processing, spreadsheets, presentation software and more, the system is a complete package that provides a small business with some of the most important organization tools.
Every company needs a minimum of office software to make notes, write reports, keep track of information and maintain organization within the business files. Even the presentation software is needed to help keep the business growing while taking to clients or even simply applying for a new loan or funding opportunity.
Business computers should always have updated security software. This is particularly true of a company that is primarily working online and has customers buy products or services through an online server. The security software keeps important information safe from viruses, Trojans and other spyware that might infect the computer. Furthermore, it will help encrypt customer information when working with online payments so that the clients are able to feel comfortable buying services or goods.
Using the appropriate tools is a necessary part of owning a business. Tools range from having the appropriate equipment like a phone and computer to keeping updated software to ensure improved productivity of the business.
Jen Silva writes articles related to online fax services and online tax reviews for products such as Free TurboTax. Visit ChooseWhat to read articles related to these topics.
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