Redesign of fueledbycoffee.com

The time is coming (overdue?) for a redesign of Fueledbycoffee.com. I have been considering this overhaul for many months now, and will take this space to share some of my thoughts and a few sketches that I have collected up until this point. But first, a bit of history:

I created my first webpages on the now infamous Geocities and Angelfire web-servers back in the mid 90's (94? 95?). These sites were of little to no content, really-- just a high schooler showing off to his friends the html he had learned, listing his interests and posting pilfered images from other sites on the web, all under the title of "Cheeselog's Pawn Shop" (don't ask). After my freshman year of college, (and in the height of the dot-com days-- oh sweet optimistic 1998) I interned at a web development firm in the Northern Virginia area. (The CEO drove an Acura NSX... how dot-com is that?!) This involvement in the web arena sparked my interests in developing my website further, and in this time period I maintained "Cheeselog's Central Hub", a website that actually contained some content-- mostly relating to music, Honda CRXes, and other sundry 19-year-old interests. Being that I was enrolled in a university that was labeled the "Most Wired Town in America" (man that's really nerdy) I had loads of free webspace on the campus servers from which to host my site. This site grew stagnant over the next few years as I switched majors from mechanical engineering and found my calling in industrial design. After a three years of ID, I decided to set up a portfolio site where I could host some images of my work. Fueledbycoffee.com version 1 was born sometime in 2001. Fueledbycoffee.com was torn up and rebuilt sometime in 2002 after a move to Chicago. This version added the intriguing "blog" feature, something I had been reading about since school, (Design is Kinky, Core77, K10K, etc) but never actually got around to setting up. Fueledbycoffee.com version 2 has been up and running for well over 2 years now, and has become stale-- both aesthetically and functionally-- and it's time for a change. This brings us to today.

I'm most certainly not a web designer, and I would never claim to be. Quality web design requires a depth of knowledge that far surpasses my working knowledge of basic HTML. I would LOVE to create a dynamic website that made use of PHP, minimal Flash interfaces, and such technology-- but that's not really my goal. I want to create a clean interface, modern aesthetic, but foremost a venue to present my portfolio, thoughts, and personality.

Elements of the current site that I dislike:

• The word "design" in the title Fueled By Coffee. It insinuates that I operate a design business under the name, and that's just kind of goofy. The new site will be titled Fueled By Coffee.com only-- the design portion will only be embodied by my portfolio.


• The front page is too static. It might as well be considered a "splash page" considering how static and useless it is after you've read it once.


• My portfolio section is growing mold, and isn't very user friendly. I'll be updating with fresh content and layouts with the redesign, but I also need to work on creating a new design that makes each sample a little easier to recognize (titles) and a lot easier to read (no pop-ups!)


• The contact page is redundant. The contact page is redundant.


• The font used in the title blocks is horrible.
I didn't have Helvetica on the machine I was using, so I used Verdana. Lame excuse.

• The photography (especially the coffee beans) in the title blocks looks amateur (it is) and rushed (it was). Lame excuses again-- make it nicer.


• But the napkin sketch was funny! Yes, it was. Move on.

Okay enough hating on the old design. Some ideas for the new:

• Add a news section to the index page for some dynamic content. News items will include new portfolio pieces, any sort of publicity, notable life-events, changes in employment or address, etc. Keep the about section. (See Fig 1.1)


• Create a new masthead/titlebar using real macro SLR photos of coffee and 3-D computer renderings.


• Add an archives section which aggregates similar blog posts into easier-to-navigate sections. (eg- "Foto Fridays" would be one section)


• Portfolio section with larger and labeled teaser images. (See Fig 1.2)


• Possible music section for posting mixes and rough demo tracks-- an audio sketchbook of sorts.

Fig 1.1 - Index.html


Fig 1.2 - Portfolio.html

  8/31/2004

  Foto Friday :: 2004 Aug 27

  8/27/2004

  Notes from the desk of... [2004 Aug 25]

• Since it was basically self-released and is getting re-released this fall and I hadn't heard it as of this morning, Menomena's debut record I Am The Fun Blame Monster might just be my new candidate for record of the year. Bloody amazing pop record.
  (Make sure you check out their website-- Pitchfork said it best: "Website voted new herald of lo-fi aesthetic, best of Geocities.")




• Most of these Farks of Millenium Park's Crown Fountain are really bad, but this one is great.




• This 3-d display cube is really interesting. At this point it's basically a low-res 3-d television-- each LED is a pixel. And although it's a really cool physical visualization for house music, (see the designer's website for some videos of it in use) it also raises an interesting question about the future of graphical displays-- If the resolution of the cube could be sharpened to that of a computer monitor (maybe instead of LEDs it would be fiber optics suspended in clear resin), could this be a superior way to visualize 3D data? Imagine actually being able to look at a computer-modeled product concept in actual 3D-- while it's being created-- instead of trying to interpret through a 2D display! Not to mention the ability to visualize architecture, infrastructure maps, or complex data plots dealing with three variables. Interesting stuff.

  8/25/2004

  Notes from the desk of... [2004 Aug 23]

• Emily has another great photo published on Gapers Block today. Very very nice.



• Speaking of Gaper's Block, I'm re-posting my response to today's 'Fuel' here, so I can save my summer 2004 playlist for posterity:
  
  

  Time to share: Pick up to 10 songs and post your summer playlist. 01 Matthew Dear - Dog Days 02 French Kicks - One More Time 03 RJD2 - 1976 04 Magnetic Fields - I Don't Really Love You Any More 05 Arcade Fire - No Cars Go 06 Rogue Wave - Every Moment 07 Secret Machines - First Wave Intact 08 Books on Tape - The Crucial 09 Spoon - Sister Jack (demo) 10 Squarepusher - My Red Hot Car Bonus Jams: 11 Stone Roses - Fool's Gold 12 LCD Soundsystem - Losing My Edge (Two years late-- now THAT'S losing your edge) Bonus Album: 13 Erlend Oye - DJ Kicks

  
  



• But seriously, one of the best things about keeping a blog is that I have a record of experiences that I can refer back to later to see what I was thinking/seeing/doing/listening to/etc at a certain time in my life. Even in the short few years(?) I have been doing this, I know I have recorded many things I would have thought about and let pass out of my mind to be lost forever.




• Speaking of blogging experiences, my best friend/college roomate, Alex, (that also happened to introduce me to Emily) is now blogging. Read about his experiences in [his freshly transplanted location of] Boston at Disinformation. Unlearn with Disinformation.




• Speaking of information-- here's an interesting dynamic data-mining application. More specifically, the Amazon Browser and Google Browser are intriguing programs-- albiet not really very useful.

  8/23/2004

  Foto Friday :: 2004 Aug 20

  8/20/2004

  CTA Brainstorm

Remember my "Diagrammatic Suggestion for Green Line Station Addition"? My simple suggestion was to add four crucial rapid transit stations to the Green Line of the CTA's Elevated line to make this under-utilized train line more accessible. These station additions take advantage of the rapid development and gentrification of Chicago's near West side, a trend that suggests that the "West side is the new North side", if you will. In fact, I predict that the majority of Chicago's explosive residential growth in the next 10 years will be in this area-- consequently the CTA should plan on bringing the Rapid Transit in this area up to par!

But here's the kicker-- it will take *TEN YEARS* to for the CTA to build one of these new stations.

Yes, that's right-- *TEN YEARS*-- from the moment they decide to do it, until the first train stops there.

This shocked the hell out of me upon hearing this last night at the CTA's West Side Corridor Study Workshop I attended. This "transit-brainstorm" of sorts was set up by the CTA as the final phase of their research on the West Side's transit system. They set up the brainstorm in a meeting room in the back of the Garfield Park Conservatory (Which, by the way, is a completely bad-ass building which I have vowed to return to in the near future) which is in the center of the "West Side Corridor"-- coincidentally accessible from the Green Line El.

I drove there.

I arrived at the meeting room, and the CTA planners divided the brainstorm volunteers (AKA The Riders) into teams of 5 or 6, with 2 members of the transportation design and planning department. My group was an interesting cross-section of the area, most people represented the far West neighborhoods, or the Southern neighborhoods (like the previously mentioned Pilsen). I was definitely the token white yuppie(!!!)-- but the group was having fun, so it worked anyway. The CTA printed out giant 5'x4' maps of the region (Chicago Ave to the North, Halsted to the East, 26th(?) to the South, and DesPlaines in the Western Suburbs). They handed us markers and told us to mark up the map with suggestions and changes for bus routes and rail-stops. As a group we brainstormed improvements, wrote them on over-sized Post-It pads and prioritized them as a group using dots to mark our personal preferences. It all reminded me very much of the brainstorm process that we use in the design world. It's not a coincidence either: in a design-research presentation I saw recently, three phases of user-centered-research were presented: What People Say, What People Do, and What People Make.

What People Say is basically standard user-interviews-- ask them what they want, need, and desire. What People Do is a little more progressive-- it's known as ethnographic research in the design-research industry, which means the researcher observes users using a product or performing a specified activity, and records and notes user-behaviors. This info can be used later to identify unspoken problems that the user might never think to bring up in interviews What People Make is the freshest methodology, where the user is involved in a mock brainstorm and is asked to work on the problem along side with the design-team. So the CTA was seeing what we make... interesting.

The transit-planners helped satiate my thirst for info-- I found out that:

• The circle line (remember?) would in fact take 30 years to come to fruition, if they even get the funding for it. (!)
  
• The Paulina Connector (the piece of track that is currently unused that links the Blue Line to the Green Line) is ready to roll-- we might see trains on it in the near future, if they can decide how to re-route the current lines.


• The busses automatically announce the intersections they cross via satellite. (Ooh, if only the privacy freaks knew about that one!)


• Consequently if the busses are tracked by satellite, why can't they tell me when the next one is coming as I leave the El station? "Maybe someday", they hinted. (But in CTA years, that could mean 2030.)


• The CTA does lots of demographics research-- oh yes, they DO know where the population growth is...


• The CTA doesn't have an official stance on what's more important-- rail or bus service. (Doesn't that seem like a crucial element of the company culture?) I feel like rail service should be #1 priority, with the busses as patches to weak spots in the rapid transit.

At the end, our group presented our top voted changes, and the CTA wrote them down. Will they go to good use? Only time will tell, really. My main goal was to push my agenda of more Green Line stations, and I got the shocker-- it will be at least 10 years before I can take the El to the West Loop Gate/Fulton Market District. You might see condoliths (monolithic condo buildings all over the North side of Chicago [Wow only a few links come up in Google, cheers to Andrew of Gapers' Block fame for that term]) pop up in months, but El-stations are built at glacial rates.

Lesson learned: Government-funded/public-sector projects take a long. time. to. happen. because. of. all. the. red. tape.

I'll just stick to idealistic futurism.

  8/19/2004

  Notes from the desk of... [2004 Aug 16]

• Interesting minimalist digital clock. Can anyone translate Japanese? I want to know how this thing works... ***



• Whaaa??! Ebay now owns 25% of Craigslist!



• JoshRubin.com : Cool Hunting-- a blog focused on the "intersection of design, culture and technology". And that's EXACTLY how I've been describing my professional interests in one sentence-- no joke!



• Another interesting piece from Nielsen: When Search Engines Become Answer Engines. Best term in the article: "Information Snacking".

*** Update: My Dad emailed me his translation...

Contents:
1 wood block
1 set, peelable adhesive numerals

Instructions:
- At exactly noon (or midnight): press the numerals "1", 2", "0", "0" onto the front of the wood block.
- Each minute thereafter: remove and replace the appropriate numeral or numerals.

Safety warning:
Use of this product may interfere with other activities of daily living.

  8/16/2004

  Foto Friday :: 2004 Aug 13

  8/13/2004

  Influx of Chicago Street Art

Recently I've noticed an influx of street art in Chicago. The latest incarnation that seems to have cropped up over this past weekend is a collection of cartoon-style illustrations on wheat-pasted paper. Some of the art appears to be hand-painted (Hubbard-Peoria) while others seem to be digital or large-scale photocopies (Grand-Green & other unphotographed pieces), however both sets are evidently cut out by hand-- following the art's contours. Emily and I have seen two other pieces in the Wicker Park/Ukrainian Village area, which I hope to post soon-- one at the garage/storefront under rehab just East of Damen & Division, and the other on a residential-storefront on the Northwest corner of Damen & Thomas. What I love most about the two pieces I have posted is the fact that they are not in high-traffic areas-- especially the piece on Hubbard, a street where you could practically lay down in the street and listen to the Metra trains go by. I've included links to locations for each of the pieces-- if you're in Chicago, make sure you see them as soon as possible, as this kind of art exhibition never lasts long with Daley's Graffiti Busters protecting the streets.

Click images to see detail shots:


Hubbard & Peoria


Grand & Green

  8/11/2004

  Meat Market Snapshots

Meat Market.

  8/10/2004

  Notes from the desk of...

• In the vein of Found Magazine--, Trash Log "Collect(s) a piece of trash for the internet every day." A true public serivce.(?)



• At 2am Friday night, my brother and I met the drummer from Linkin Park on Milwaukee Ave in Wicker Park. He was drunk, high, and searching for his rental car that was towed away. We proceeded to "complement" him on all of his prestigious achievments in the Nu-Metal genre. He pointed out that although he was a millionaire, he still wears Chucks. Wow. He made fun of the neighborhood and asked why we weren't drinking PBR. My brother proceeded to beat him in arm wrestling. We told him we loved watching his band's music videos-- on mute. Our conversation/taunting went on for well over 30 minutes, where he answered most of our questions of his integrity with "Man, I'm making a load of cash...". That wasn't really a suprise now, was it?
  
  
• Related Link: You Have Bad Taste in Music.

  8/09/2004

  Doodles from the margin of...

Army field equipment circa 1986?

  8/05/2004

  To Circumambulate

I love to wander the city.

New neighborhoods hold a wealth of sights to absorb. Areas I have traveled before hold a level of detail I have yet to discover. There's always sidestreets and alleyways that have yet to be traversed, and tend to contain the best nuances of all.

And then there's the buildings.

How many hundreds of thousands of buildings can one pass in a city street during an average commute? So many structures will only be appreciated for their external aesthetic-- save for a fleeting glance in a window, aided by the right lighting and a set of blinds inadvertently left open.

The amount of space that will go unnoticed by the masses is absolutely mind numbing. Private residences from modest to upscale to downright dirty or abandoned. Storefronts of shops that you have no interest in ever visiting. Businesses that people go to work at every single day, housing some activity that keeps the gears of capitalism turning. Enigmatic buildings that seem to house some sort of actions-- be it commercial, industrial, or otherwise-- but never reveal their true function. Ninety- nice nine point nine percent of it all will go unseen as you go about your daily routine and keep your eyes focused forward.

That's what my wandering tendencies try to rectify.

On my lunch break I stepped out into the heat and humidity to pound the pavement around my office's neighborhood. I've seen the perimeter blocks many times, so I kept moving North and West where it becomes much more industrial. More and more of the buildings start to become actual warehouses and not quater-million dollar loft-condo conversions. The criss cross of train tracks breaks up the streets and causes 18-wheelers to bounce around as they drive-by. The smell of rotting food products (chicken? vegetables? all-of-the-above?) permeates the air and then dissipates a few feet later.

And then I come across a really interesting building.

It's probably your stock-fare loft-office conversion, albeit tucked away a littler further than it's trendier "West Loop Gate" peers. What sets him apart is that his doors are open. A push of the door and a tap of the elevator buttons and I am traveling to the fourth floor.

The doors pop open and there I am, stepping into the waiting room of a completely beautiful office-studio of some sort. At first apprehension overwhelms me-- Should I really be in here? Will someone ask if they can help me? Will I have to make up some story as to what I'm doing? Nope, there's no one here-- so I start to look through the glass into the main space. It's a completely photo-perfect loft for an ad-agency or design firm. Wood veneered walls with inset flat-screen monitors give a warm, but techy feel. Modern desks house a few Macs, and the gratuitous use of glass gives it all a contemporary feel. The floors are a tinted cement and the wood timbers and beams are exposed and raw, yet at the same time quite refined. Off in the corner I see an amazing modular kitchen area, with plentiful stainless steel and black glass. In another corner I can start to make out a photo studio of some sort. I glance to my right into a very stylish meeting room, and that's when I notice a shaved head bent over reading a report of some sort-- time to go.

I descend the elevator (and of course stop by the enormous empty loft space on the 3rd floor) and head back on to the street and back to work. The exit back into 'public space' feels a lot like backing out of a deep directory structure-- moving out of the specific space I was in, and back into the known, the often traveled, and the everyday. It's all a reminder to me that this city is full of creative possibilities and opportunities, all tucked into dynamic spaces where you might least suspect them. The opportunity to experience a new outlet for creative production is always stationed at the intersection of the right time and the right place. It's just a matter of finding those cross-roads.

Maybe the best way is to wander.

  8/03/2004