For our 2 year anniversary, my wife and I took a trip down to Savannah, GA. We decided on Savannah for several reasons:

1) Though Elly took a trip down there a few years ago, I’d never been but heard great things about it.

2) We both love small towns (especially the ones that don’t necessarily feel small).

3) We both love bacon and fried green tomatoes. I can’t say all of our vacation destinations are influenced by our love for bacon and other southern fried food stuffs, but this one sure was!

Check it out here…

Franklin Synergy Bank has just opened a new branch in Franklin and they had their Grand Opening and Ribbon Cutting today! JLB has worked closely with Aimee Punessen, the Senior Vice President of Marketing, Public & Investor Relations to make sure the Grand Opening was a success.

Constant Craving catered the food, Southern Events provided the necessary event equipment and supplies, Cornerstone Music did the sound and the TMA Group (another client of JLB) supplied the shuttle to and from the parking garage. Kevin Wimpy Photography was around again to document the entire event.

Everyone worked hard to pull off a successful Grand Opening for FSB!

Franklin Synergy Bank has a lot of cool new plans in the works to help serve people even more than they already do, and they’ve asked JLB to help them spread the word. Just recently, JLB had the joy of teaming up with Kevin Wimpy Photography to take pictures of some of Franklin Synergy Bank’s hard working team.

Working closely with the photographer, Julian and I assumed the roles of Project Manager and Art Director respectively to help FSB capture exactly what they need for their upcoming marketing material.

Thanks to all involved!

The XSi has received nothing but glowing reviews and is a great starter camera for me. Though I don’t actually have the camera in my possession yet (I equally love / hate waiting for packages), I assure you, I will not start posting every single picture I’ve ever snapped on my Facebook…though I may post a few.

Well, the folks at underconsideration have heard our cries for help and have produced a perfect bound book (also available for digital download) that ships today called “Flaunt: Designing effective, compelling and memorable portfolios of creative work.”

This little introduction is from the website where you can order the book.

“Through more than forty case studies, nearly twenty interviews with experienced professionals, and a series of (nonscientific) surveys, Flaunt is a resource for design students as well as young, experienced, freelance, and independent designers. It explains how one can find a way to cohesively, succinctly and creatively showcase their work through an accessible, effective, and creative portfolio. Flaunt showcases a variety of alternatives through a selection of portfolios that represent both the most common approaches as well as some offbeat executions. Hopefully, this book will help ease the anxiety and burden of creating a portfolio—and, perhaps, even help demystify the process of putting it together, along with the expectations of presenting it.”

Based on the book samples they provide on their website, Flaunt looks full of easy to read information covering a wide range of topics from portfolio production to actually submitting and communicating with potential employers.

What strategies do you employ when navigating towards a final visual website interface design for a client? How do you help them towards making a final decision when there are many variables in play?
Coding the basic site structure and putting it on our test server is a great final review. It makes the design seem more real and the actual site interaction is there. We usually don’t build out all of the pages, but just having a basic site up that the client can click through is really helpful for them to experience.

Would you show us a few projects and explain your creative process from sketch to rough designs, to finished design (if available)? Would you explain how you establish the purpose and nature of a website and the resulting interface design to visually describe the company and their website?
FranklinIs.com is a local website that is a resource for all things Franklin and acts as a community for its users. With close to a thousand pages of content, and a demographic that runs the gamut of humankind, designing a user friendly interface for FranklinIs.com required lots of planning and about a million design iterations. FranklinIs has been around for about 5 years now and they were in desperate need of a redesign. Using Google Analytics, the site had collected a wealth of information over the course of its existence. We used that information to learn which pages received the most traffic, the amount of time a user spent on each page and from where in the country users came from. That information told us exactly what kind of content should be on the home page and which sections should receive the most focus. Instead of designing an individual page for each of the 10 sections, we decided we’d create 4 standard “landing page” interfaces that each section could fit into. So, we wireframed about 10 home pages iterations 8 different landing pages and 2 or 3 tertiary / standard content pages. We narrowed down the home page to 3 different wireframes and built them into designs. We then narrowed down the graphic designs into one final home page. The site is currently being built out and after almost a year of design and development, we’re about ready to launch.

What advice do you have for students preparing for a career in interactive design? What types of skills do you look in students when evaluating internship and employment positions?
It’s very important to follow the process. Designers begin with wireframes and sketches for a reason. There are certain instances when a designer can get away with not doing that kind of preliminary conceptualizing, but those should be rare occurrences.What I usually look for in an intern / designer is someone who listens and takes notes when receiving design critiques. I also appreciate students who are good at organizing their files and their layers in PSD’s.

Here are some sites that I’ve used as resources and as inspiration: Really good interface designer: http://www.vlourenco.com/

Amazing blog pointing out all aspects of interface design: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/11/17/showcase-of-minimalist-and-clean-designs/

Another good resource: http://webdesignledger.com/tips/10-signs-of-a-user-focused-design

One last thought: Sometimes it just doesn’t matter if you “follow all the rules” and create an end user focused interface design, because if something’s going to be successful, it’s just going to be successful no matter how well it’s designed. Case in point: https://www.buysnuggie.tv/flare/next

Interview by Joshua Lomelino, Director of Interactive Media, O’More College of Design
Joshua teaches courses in Interactive Media with a focus on information architecture, usability, and visual interface design.

How do you prefer to visualize conceptual models in an interface design?
Lets break down my personal process:

wireframes > digital comps > finished home page, secondary and sometimes tertiary page designs > HTML markups

The client reviews the marked up site on our test server and gives the final approval. I sometimes do sketches but not always. I can’t stress the importance of wireframes enough…especially when designing large sites with lots of content. They can save a lot of headache and a lot of time. This is a great article regarding wireframes: http://buildinternet.com/2009/09/why-your-next-website-should-be-designed-with-wireframes/

Though it doesn’t happen often we’ve had clients that have approved everything: wireframes, sketches, jpeg mock ups…and have gotten to the fully and completely built out site on our server, and before we go live say, “This is a good start, but…”

What do you find are the most difficult milestones to meet with clients when establishing a visual identity for a company and for their website? Are there strategies you find helpful?
We do a fair amount of identity development and the kinds of clients we serve are varied. It’s hard to have a single process that applies to every client when everyone we do business with has a unique situation. We have developed identity design briefs that we ask each client to fill out. These briefs contain around 10 questions and serve to inform us of the clients history, their biggest competitor and what they would like to see happen with their business in a given timetable. The briefs really give us a glimpse of the personality of the clients business, which we’ll then craft into a brand. I think some of the most difficult situations arise when the client hasn’t already identified some of these key components.

Once the logo, colors, fonts, logo placement standards and printing substrates have all been decided on, we’ll begin working on the clients web design. Keep in mind that when sending web comps, some clients will take what they see literally. If you’ve used lorem ipsum to fill in some space, make sure they know it’s just filler text because they may ask why their site is in French (it’s happened).

At the start of a project, do you design more than one visual interface design to help the flow of ideas?
That really depends on the client. We have our clients fill out a web design brief (very similar to our identity briefs) which consists of questions that help them identity their goals but also helps to dictate the design process. Sometimes the project will require several different design examples and, sometimes, a client needs us to guide their decision making process a little more than usual, which means we offer one interface design and explain why it’s the best solution.

Hope you enjoy it!

Micah,
 
We were hoping to discover the method behind your creative processes and how you approach visual interface design for interactive design projects. Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions.
 
Could you describe your work at JLB?
I’m the Creative Director at JLB. In other words, anything graphic design related has to go through me before it leaves the office. JLB’s approach to the web is to offer clean, easy to use interface designs with the development having an emphasis placed on strict CSS and some serious Search Engine Optimization. In addition to web design and development, JLB offers solid brand development, tried and true print design methods and creative copywriting. Our clientele is mostly corporate and we do a lot of work with non-profits and local community organizations. We really take pride in having years of experience working in print, web and copywriting and being able to offer the client everything they need from beginning to end. Okay, enough of the sales pitch…

With your work in interactive design, how does information architecture and the organization of an interactive project’s site flow relate to visual interface design? Is there overlap between information design and interface design? Where does this overlap occur and how does one category inform the other?
I’m a firm believer in the idea that the sites content should dictate the design. A designer can’t create an effective and easy to use website unless they understand the kind of content they’re dealing with first. Most of our clientele want their content to be first and foremost and aestheticism second to last.

Through our design process, there usually is overlap between information design and interface design and I think there should be. Visually, it’s obvious when a designer has designed a site without keeping content interaction in mind. The site feels clunky and often times is hard to navigate. If a designer creates an interface that is clean and cohesive and helps to encourage content interaction without being gimmicky or frustrating, the designer has done a good job. Check out this site designed by Cabedge. The NAV is repeated 3 times on the homepage alone and doesn’t feel superfluous.

Some helpful tips: Never "re-imagine" site navigation. People have been conditioned to know where and what to look for and it’s confusing when they can’t find it. Also…never re-size the users browser window for any reason whatsoever.

"No matter how cool your interface is, less of it would be better." About Face author and thought leader in user interface design, Alan Cooper.

Does interactivity drive interface design, or does interface design dictate interactivity?
Yes. It’s been my experience that interactivity can (and should) drive interface design AND interface design sometimes dictates interactivity. In some instances, a site’s visual interface serves only one purpose, and that’s to promote interactivity within the site. Take Youtube.com for example. The interface was engineered mainly to support interaction with Youtubes video content. Or Google’s home page. There’s hardly anthing there but the Google logo and a search bar! There isn’t a single, superfluous element that gets in the way of the user and their end goal.

Do you feel that interface design should reflect creative solutions that are an extension of the purpose and nature of interactive solutions? What are your philosophies on visual interface design?
If I’m understanding your question, then I certainly do. I recently read an article that said a site will receive 30% more e-mail sign ups just by adding a simple arrow pointing towards the sign up button. A well thought out and executed interface will get the results the clients wants and be an enjoyable and non-frustrating experience for the user.

My personal design ethos is to certainly create something that’s visually stimulating but more importantly communicates the information easily and effectively and provides the user with a clear and concise direction through the information.

I love typography and I can tell when a site has been designed by someone who knows what they’re doing when the typography is clean and refined. Keep content organized using contrasting type styles and your design will immediately look more professional. Case in point.

What are your favorite types of projects to work on? Why are they your favorite projects?
My favorite projects are the ones where the client gives me time to experiment and be more "creative." I’m often designing based on customer feedback and sometimes previously tracked numbers. When the client says, "I trust you, fearless trendsetter, to breath life into the internet and create a site in your own image, as you see fit," my little heart leaps. I don’t want to sound cliche, but that’s the truth. Doing so much corporate design means I have to create sites that will stand the test of time…but sometimes I just want to design something based on the graphic design trends of the moment. They can be so much fun!

BIG MOVE GAMES
Rod McLain is a man with a mission. That mission is selling board games and ministering to the downtrodden and oppressed. Rod came to JLB needing the whole package: logo, business cards, website… and we were more than happy to oblige.

BHD
Beth Haley Designs just got voted Nashville’s Best Interior Designer in 2009 by the Nashville Scene. A few months ago Beth must’ve felt something major was soon to happen because we just launched BHD’s new identity and website. The timing couldn’t have been better.

Thanks for reading.