Without a doubt, Smashing Magazine is my favorite daily blog read for fantastic inspirational posts that cover all venues of design in the world as we know it.  Their latest post is definitely near and dear to my heart as I am rather fund of retro and vintage stylings of things in our modern world.

This is a rad display of some great web designs that do a nice job of adhering to styles of old.  If nothing else, this is one of the more fun galleries they have had recently. It is chock full of quality work, and even if vintage/retro is not your personal taste it is well worth a look.  Quality work is quality work, whether you like it personally or not! Enjoy this free dose of inspiration…

Source: Smashing Magazine  |  Retro and Vintage In Modern Web Design

That is all about to change in the very near future.  Be sure to check back for more updated work, as I have let visitors down over the past few months.  A lot has happened with my projects, but now I need to show everyone!

Check back for that soon…

I know that some of the items he speaks about apply to me, while others don’t as much simply because I am a one man shop who occasionally brings on another fellow from time to time to help me deal with the larger projects.  Whether this applies to you or not, this really is a great article.  Check it out…

Source: I have a friend who knows a guy whose son does websites.

Now you can!  My buddy Nate sent me this little nugget of internet goodness.  This link alone has validated my high-speed internet bill for the month of September.

You can head over to this site and download your own Hasselhoff paper doll.  Make sure to print yours on some thicker card stock so that you have it for years to come.  It will be the conversation piece on your desk at work that will draw people to your cubical.  Don’t believe me? Just try it.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

As I wrap this post up, let me leave you with a couple of special quotes from Mr. Hasselhoff himself.  The Hoff has a website as a matter of fact, and this is what he has to say about it: 

“My web site is so fresh. The paint is still wet, but stay tuned, because I have lots of personal things, specifically about what is happening day-to-day, that I will keep updating daily.”

In case that first quote was not enough, I do have one more:

“My wife is the dancer, but I certainly know how to sing.” (The Hoff singing..)

I think that is enough said.  Enjoy this awesome and very posable paper doll.

Source: www.vectors4free.com

As I am writing this I am sitting in a hotel in Bryan, TX where I will be attending a wedding later this evening.  I figured I would take advantage of their electricity as well as their free wifi, and just let anyone who cares to know that I still am alive.  I have contacted my current clients and let them know I am away from all things technology related until I get power again.  In the mean time, I continue to work as I can on the generator at my folk’s house in Houston.

We will be getting power again on Tuesday (9/23) of this week I am told, so we will see how that plays out.  Once that happens I am hoping that life can start to get back to normal sooner than later.  I miss getting to play on my trusty Mac all day long.

I am off for now, but hopefully will be back for real in the next few days.  Until then…

I seem to find myself on this site checking out all sorts of different artists.  I guess you should probably be doing the same, as this might be one my favorite sites to hit the net in a very long while.  This is up there with hulu.com in my book.  Here is one great little gem I found on there recently.  It is one my favorite songs of the moment, so you can take a second to check it out or just head over to songza.com yourself and find your own musical treasures.

So here is my new little gem that I have been using as of late.  With a pretty crazy development schedule over the next couple of months, I have been looking for a very simple solution to keep things running locally.   There are several ways to go about keeping a server live, but this is by far the most simple solution.

 MAMP [ Macintosh, Apache, Mysql and PHP ]

Download the rather beefy download (130 MB) and just drag it into your Applications folder, and you are ready to roll.  And yes, this is a Mac only treat.  If you are not in the club, I am sorry, but you had a choice…and you bought a PC.  

Whether you are wanting to develop web projects locally, or maybe just run a Wordpress install on your computer for journalling purposes, this is a great free tool to check out.

Get MAMP.

This short list of practices needs to become habit for all designers…period. They are a great way to be more efficient with projects, as well as just stay sane, as you juggle so many different things.  I know I love it when I have a Photoshop file with roughly a half million layers, and I can’t remember where I put a certain element.  That is my favorite.  

Solution:  Label your dang layers!

That is just one of the great items on the list, but I think that might be my favorite.  This is not rocket science.  Just a simple practice that makes the grass greener and keeps the sky blue as well [at least in designer land].

Just read this article.  It is short, sweet, and to the point, and will hopefully make designers examine their daily work flow and improve upon it.

How To Stop Being A Lazy Designer  |  Smashing Magazine