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Web Designer Job Description
- To be fully responsible for the layout, visual appearance and usability of the company website, ensuring that brand continuity is maintained.
Duties and Responsibilities
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Skills / Attributes Required |
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Rounded Corners
The number one rule of Web 2.0: If it has rounded corners, it's modern.
Say what you will about the design aesthetics of rounded corners, at least with the new border-radius rules you won't have to resort to images and JavaScript to get that web 2.0 look.
Say you have some HTML that looks like this:
Try doing this without images
Add this style definition to round off the element:.r-box {
background-color: #666;
color: #fff;
line-height: 20px;
width: 200px;
padding: 10px;
-webkit-border-radius: 10px;
-moz-border-radius: 10px;
}
Here's a live demo for those of you with Firefox or Safari:
Try doing this without images
If you're using a different browser here's a screenshot of how Safari displays the above block:
So what did we do? Well the first five lines are your normal CSS 2 declarations to give things a bit of style. It's the last two lines we're interested in. The actual CSS 3 declaration is border-radius. Until the specs are finalized the various browser manufacturers have enabled the features via prefixes -- the -moz- prefix is what Firefox uses and the -webkit- prefix is for Safari.
The rule works like this (where TopLeft, TopRight, etc... is a numeric value in pixels):
border-radius: TopLeft TopRight BottomRight BottomLeft;
border-radius: TopLeft BottomLeft+TopRight BottomRight;
border-radius: TopLeft+BottomRight TopRight+BottomLeft;
border-radius: ALL;
So in our case we used the later rule, but if you want just two rounded corners, you would do this:
-webkit-border-bottom-left-radius: 10px;
-webkit-border-top-right-radius: 10px;
-moz-border-radius-bottomleft: 10px;
-moz-border-radius-topright: 10px;
Note: as of this writing, the W3C is planning to move toward the syntax Mozilla uses, rather than that of Safari. Because the border-radius spec is not finalized, Opera chose not to support it in Opera 9.5.
The nice thing about border-radius is it degrades gracefully. If a browser doesn't understand it, it simply renders a square box.
For a solution that uses CSS 3's border-radius in capable browsers with a fallback to corner images in IE, see here. The advantage is that the modern browsers don't get slowed down by lots of corner images.
Borders
Borders get some significant new features in CSS 3 as well, like support for gradients. Here's what the rule looks like for Firefox:
#box {
border: 8px solid #000;
-moz-border-bottom-colors: #033 #039 #777 #888 #999 #aaa #bbb #ccc;
-moz-border-top-colors: #033 #039 #777 #888 #999 #aaa #bbb #ccc;
-moz-border-left-colors: #033 #039 #777 #888 #999 #aaa #bbb #ccc;
-moz-border-right-colors: #033 #039 #777 #888 #999 #aaa #bbb #ccc;
width:400px;
}
Which gives you this:
Gradient borders are cool
For those you not using Firefox 3, here's what you'd see:
Image:css3_shot3.jpg
As of this writing, Safari and Opera don't have border support.
Feel free to edit this article when they do
Drop Shadows
Although it isn't technically new, creating text shadows is now very simple. It was originally proposed for CSS 2.1 and Safari has supported it since version 1. It simply requires a text-shadow property:
My Text
The first two numbers control the offset, which is 2px down and 2px right. The last number sets the shadow spread. If you want shadows above the text, just use negative numbers. Here's a live sample:
If you have Safari 3, Opera 9.5, Firefox 3.1a, Konqueror or iCab this paragraph should have a gray drop-shadow.
And an image version shot in Safari:
Image:css3_shot2.jpg
Some browsers (most notably Opera and Firefox 3.1a) even support multiple shadows, which means you can do complex gradient effects not unlike Photoshop -- create flaming text using CSS alone.
Image Tricks
This one really takes your designs out on a limb. As of now, only the WebKit nightly builds support masking properties, but Firefox 3.1 and Opera will have them soon enough. The idea is to apply a transparent mask over an image, video or any other element.
In Safari the rules look like this:
-webkit-mask (background)
-webkit-mask-attachment (background-attachment)
-webkit-mask-clip (background-clip)
-webkit-mask-origin (background-origin)
-webkit-mask-image (background-image)
-webkit-mask-repeat (background-repeat)
-webkit-mask-composite (background-composite)
-webkit-mask-box-image (border-image)
Why: if you didn't do it yourself, the news isn't good.
How to fix it: there are a couple of ways.
Let's look at this more closely.
•
The situation's pretty simple. If you right click on the clock in the Windows taskbar, the Task Manager item is grayed out:
Or, if you try to run taskmgr.exe manually, you get this message:
As we'll see in a moment, there are settings you can access as an administrator that would allow you to disable and enable Task Manager in this way.
You didn't do that, you say?
Then a virus probably did.
Disabling Task Manager is one way viruses try to make it harder for you to deal with their infections. Before proceeding any further, you should run a complete and up-to-date anti-virus scan of your machine. It's possible, perhaps even likely, that you've been infected.
Once you come back virus-free, you can proceed with the fix.
•
If you have Windows XP Pro, there's a nifty user interface to directly edit the setting you want to repair. Click Start, then click Run and type in gpedit.msc:
Once in the Group Policy Editor, expand in turn:
- User Configuration
- Administrative Templates
- System
- Ctrl+Alt+Del Options
•
If you don't have Windows XP Pro, then you'll need to edit the registry manually.Click Start, then click Run, type in regedit, and click on OK.
Expand these registry keys in turn:
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER
- Software
- Microsoft
- Windows
- CurrentVersion
- Policies
- System
•
One thing to note is that it's quite possible that if you're in an environment managed by a centralized policy, these settings may have no effect. Your IT administrator may set things up so as to disable Task Manager, and other things as well at the domain level. You'll need to ask them if this is the case.
Quotes on Art
To become truly immortal, a work of art must escape all human limits: logic and common sense will only interfere. But once these barriers are broken, it will enter the realms of childhood visions and dreams.—Giorgio de Chirico
“Art is creativity, creativity is passion, passion is love.”—Andrew Brynjulson
A painter paints the appearance of things, not their objective correctness, in fact he creates new appearances of things.—Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
With the most primitive means the artist creates something which the most ingenious and efficient technology will never be able to create.—Kasimir Malevich
The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.—Michelangelo
When I judge art, I take my painting and put it next to a God made object like a tree or flower. If it clashes, it is not art.—Marc Chagall
All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness.—Eckhart Tolle
I dream a lot. I do more painting when I'm not painting. It's in the subconscious.—Andrew Wyeth
A sincere artist is not one who makes a faithful attempt to put on to canvas what is in front of him, but one who tries to create something which is, in itself, a living thing.—William Dobell
There's no retirement for an artist, it's your way of living so there's no end to it.—Henry Moore
What distinguishes a great artist from a weak one is first their sensibility and tenderness; second, their imagination, and third, their industry.—John Ruskin
Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life.—Picasso
An artist is not paid for his labour but for his vision.—James MacNeill Whistler
Beginning with audacity is a very great part of the art of painting.—Winston Churchill
I am always doing things I can't do, that's how I get to do them.—Picasso
I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them.—Picasso
Every artist dips his brush in his own soul and paints his own nature into his pictures.—Henry Ward Beecher
Happy are the painters, for they shall not be lonely. Light and colour, peace and hope, will keep them company to the end of the day.—Winston Churchill
The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web.—Picasso
Do not worry about your originality. You could not get rid of it even if you wanted to.—Robert Henri
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.—John Donne.
”An artist's early work is inevitably made up of a mixture of tendencies and interests, some of which are compatible and some of which are in conflict. As the artist picks his way along, rejecting and accepting as he goes, certain patterns of enquiry emerge. His failures are as valuable as his successes: by misjudging one thing he conforms something else, even if at the time he does not know what that something else is.—Bridget Riley
Even at best talent remains a constant, and those who rely upon that gift alone, without developing further, peak quickly and soon fade to obscurity.—David Bayles and Ted Orland.
The seed of your next art work lies embedded in the imperfections of your current piece. Such imperfections (or mistakes, if you’re feeling particularly depressed about them today) are your guides - valuable, reliable, objective, non-judgemental guides - to matters you need to reconsider or develop further.—David Bayles and Ted Orland.
Quotes on Architecture
Architecture is the art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by man, that the sight of them may contribute to his mental health, power, and pleasure.—John Ruskin
A great architect is not made by way of a brain nearly so much as he is made by way of a cultivated, enriched heart.—Frank Lloyd Wright
Architecture is frozen music.—Goethe
The architect must not only understand drawing, but music.—Vitruvius Pollio
The mother art is architecture. Without an architecture of our own we have no soul of our own civilization.—Frank Lloyd Wright
Architecture, of all the arts, is the one which acts the most slowly, but the most surely, on the soul—Ernest Dimnet
Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together. There it begins.—Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Architecture is the learned game, correct and magnificent, of forms assembled in the light.—Le Corbusier
There are a great many things about architecture that are hidden from the untrained eye.—Frank Gehry
All architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space.—Philip Johnson
There are three forms of visual art: Painting is art to look at, sculpture is art you can walk around, and architecture is art you can walk through—Dan Rice
Architecture is a social act and the material theater of human activity.—Spiro Kostof
An architect is the drawer of dreams—Grace McGarvie
Architecture is not all about the design of the building and nothing else, it is also about the cultural setting and the ambience, the whole affair.—Michael Graves
Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space.—Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
This building is like a book. Its architecture is the binding, its text is in the glass and sculpture.—Malcolm Miller
Architecture is like a mythical fantastic. It has to be experienced. It can't be described. We can draw it up and we can make models of it, but it can only be experienced as a complete whole.—Maya Lin
Architecture is the triumph of human imagination over materials, methods, and men, to put man into possession of his own Earth. It is at least the geometric pattern of things, of life, of the human and social world. It is at best that magic framework of reality that we sometimes touch upon when we use the word order.—Frank Lloyd Wright
Quotes on Design
I think design covers so much more than the aesthetic. Design is fundamentally more. Design is usability. It is Information Architecture. It is Accessibility. This is all design.—Mark Boulton
Design is the search for a magical balance between business and art; art and craft; intuition and reason; concept and detail; playfulness and formality; client and designer; designer and printer; and printer and public.— Valerie Pettis
Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.— Steve Jobs
Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose.— Charles Eames
A well-designed text will seem weightless after a time; the initial feel of the book fades away as the mind becomes engrossed in the words.— Mandy Brown
Create your own visual style… let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.— Orson Welles
Design should never say, “Look at me.” It should always say, “Look at this.”— David Craib
Everything is designed. Few things are designed well.—Brian Reed
Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.— Joe Sparano
The most innovative designers consciously reject the standard option box and cultivate an appetite for thinking wrong.— Marty Neumeier
Design is where science and art break even.— Robin Mathew
A designer is a planner with an aesthetic sense.— Bruno Munari
Good design is all about making other designers feel like idiots because that idea wasn’t theirs.— Frank Chimero
Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context - a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.— Eliel Saarinen
Bad design is smoke, while good design is a mirror.— Juan-Carlos Fernàndez
Don’t design for everyone. It’s impossible. All you end up doing is designing something that makes everyone unhappy.— Leisa Reichelt
The design process, at its best, integrates the aspirations of art, science, and culture.— Jeff Smith
Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.— Jeffrey Zeldman
Design is not the narrow application of formal skills, it is a way of thinking.— Chris Pullman
To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.—Joseph Chilton Pearce
Graphic design is the spit and polish but not the shoe.—Ellen Lupton
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.—Leonardo Da Vinci
The ultimate inspiration is the deadline.— Nolan Bushnell
The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.— Hans Hofmann
Simplicity, carried to an an extreme, becomes elegance.— Jon Franklin
Design is about making things good (and then better) and right (and fantastic) for the people who use and encounter them.— Matt Beale
I’m convinced that without bad design, the world would be a far less stimulating place; we would have nothing to marvel over and nothing to be nostalgic about.— Carrie Phillips
Questions about whether design is necessary or affordable are quite beside the point: design is inevitable. The alternative to good design is bad design, not no design at all. Everyone makes design decisions all the time without realizing it—like Moliere’s M. Jourdain who discovered he had been speaking prose all his life—and good design is simply the result of making these decisions consciously, at the right stage, and in consultation with others as the need arises.— Douglas Martin
The only important thing about design is how it relates to people.— Victor Papanek
Art is an idea that has found its perfect visual expression. And design is the vehicle by which this expression is made possible. Art is a noun, and design is a noun and also a verb. Art is a product and design is a process. Design is the foundation of all the arts.— Paul Rand
Design is in everything we make, but it’s also between those things. It’s a mix of craft, science, storytelling, propaganda, and philosophy.— Erik Adigard
Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future.— Robert L. Peters
It’s art if can’t be explained.— Wouter Stokkel
It’s fashion if no one asks for an explanation.
It’s design if it doesn’t need explanation.
A designer can mull over complicated designs for months. Then suddenly the simple, elegant, beautiful solution occurs to him. When it happens to you, it feels as if God is talking! And maybe He is.— Leo Frankowski
— Brenda Laurel
A design isn’t finished until somebody is using it.
A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.— Antoine de Saint Exupéry
To say that something is designed means it has intentions that go beyond its function. Otherwise it’s just planning.— Ayse Birsel
No design works unless it embodies ideas that are held common by the people for whom the object is intended.— Adrian Forty
The designer is a visually literate person, just as an editor is expected by training and inclination to be versed in language and literature, but to call the former an artist by occupation is as absurd as to refer to the latter as a poet.— Douglas Martin
To design is to communicate clearly by whatever means you can control or master.— Milton Glaser
If there were a prerequisite for the future successful digital creative, it would be the passion for discovery.— John Maeda
Design, in its broadest sense, is the enabler of the digital era - it's a process that creates order out of chaos, that renders technology usable to business. Design means being good, not just looking good.— Clement Mok
Only when the design fails does it draw attention to itself; when it succeeds, it’s invisible.— John D. Berry
Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Design is knowing which ones to keep.— Scott Adams
There are three responses to a piece of design – yes, no, and WOW! Wow is the one to aim for.— Milton Glaser
Design is the contrast of the core of limitations therefore there are no boundaries. It is simply an interpretation of creativity.— Jenaiha Woods
Perfect typography is certainly the most elusive of all arts. Sculpture in stone alone comes near it in obstinacy.— Jan Tschichold
Designers may be the true intellectuals of the future.— Paola Antonelli
The life of a designer is a life of fight. Fight against the ugliness. Just like a doctor fights against disease. For us, the visual disease is what we have around, and what we try to do is cure it somehow with design.— Massimo Vignelli
Great design is all about details. With innovative material selection, sensible construction techniques and modern aesthetics one can craft a unique design language that sets a new standard.— Roi James
Visual organization is the deliberate prioritization of meaning within a visual design. It’s the process of applying the principles behind perception - how we make sense of what we see - to illuminate relationships between content and actions.— Luke Wroblewski
The original idea makes design distinctive, function makes it work and quality adds value.— Serge Zuev
Skill in the digital age is confused with mastery of digital tools, masking the importance of understanding materials and mastering the elements of form.— John Maeda
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.— Steve Jobs
Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it.— Jim Jarmusch
Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.—Thomas Edison
Simplicity is not the goal. It is the by-product of a good idea and modest expectations.