My first major task was to redesign HGTV.ca. I had a great meeting with all the content people to find out what they want to see on the new site.

I also had another meeting with our technology director to go through our existing technology that we had used on our properties.

There’s few things I learned about designing corporate site especially the ones on CMS system.

1. Be Flexible with layout

Modular design has definitely become a trend in recent years. Why? because designer don’t get to put the content on the website, but editors or content coordinators do. As designer, we have to provide a easy solution for editors to arrange the content however and whatever they want on the website.

Modular design should allow content editors to remove or add content pieces without asking designer to do further customization.

Designer will be the one who is determine the look and feel of the content ‘container’. However, we should NOT design around specific content. It’s best to avoid using image for a content title. Let it be dynamic so it can be easily changed.

It is important to design a layout that can fit maximum and minimum contents and make the content easy to relocate.

2. Creating opportunities for monetization

Today, major corporate website is all about making money off traffics. Marketing will try to sell any potential advertising placement on the site.

It is important to keep in mind that we need to leave space for a sponsor logo or any custom sponsored header.

I also love beautiful backgrounds but I also have to design it in a way that it can be changed from time to time. Advertiser loves buying your website’s entire background. So make it easy to change!

3. Don’t re-invent the wheel

I guess being a designer is that we tend to customize our design and make it unique. However, design is easy, but when you hand it over to developers, they will probably want to stab you while you are sleeping because you are causing them losing their sleeps because they had to build it from scratch. So if your developers had developed a widget, but it might not be 100% the way you wanted, seriously, for the time being, just take it and skin the widget.

4. Keep the cropped image on the same ratio

If there’s CMS system behind a corporate site, the ideal way is to upload a large resolution photo once without further cropping. The CMS will do the work cropping down for you. The trick is to keep all the cropping ratio the same.

Beautiful photos are the bread and butter of HGTV. However, the image comes in with vertical and horizontal display. It needs to find a common cropping size that will keep the essence of the photo. I personally find the ratio of width 6: height 5 is the best when displaying thumbnails.

Some people prefer to use square ratio but I think it lacks of contrast.

5. Keep the design consistent, and keep it simple

With corporate website, the common problem we found that there’s too many design elements and too many information all at once. User won’t know where to read or what to read.

The design should support the content but not the other way around.

Take a look of CNN’s recent redesign deconstructed article, it gives a really good breakdown on CNN’s recent redesign, and how they approach it in a pro and con way.

It is important to keep the same design treatment through out the website. The includes usage of color, border, divider,  font family, font size, content header styling, thumbnail size, navigation styling..etc.

6. Finally…

Reading and keep up with current design trend. I often visit patterntap.com for design pattern inspiration. This is a  web2.0 era, make the user engaging your site instead of limiting it.

Why did I decide to leave Torstar Digital?

I had a career goal to be a conceptual designer. I love design. Design makes me happy. However, right now what I do at Torstar Digital is mostly front end production work. 90% of my time are dedicated to making online banner ads, skinning sponsored site components, deploy newsletter and making contests.

My team has restructured 4 times since I started 2 years ago. There’s only one or two people left in the team who actually know my skills and my potential. The rest probably assume I am just ‘another’ designer who does productions. This signals me that it’s time for me to move on.

It took me over 6 months to find something suitable. I love Canwest’s property such as HGTV, Slice and Food Network. When I saw they have a job opening for Senior Web Designer, I did not hesitate to apply it.

Apparently my primary focus will be redesigning HGTV.ca, hopefully the promises won’t fell through like I was promised to redesign toronto.com. We’ll see how it goes and indeed it’s another brand new adventure again!

In graphic design, we learn to layout using a certain grid system, so all the element on the page are align properly and provides a better visual flow.  This goes the same to web design. Screen might not be a print magazine but it still applies the basic grid system.

One of my coworker sent me a link to ‘960 Grid System‘ site. This is probably one of the best link that I have came across so far.

960 Grid system site provides you templates to download for your Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign,Inscape, Omnigraffle, Visio, fireworks, and Expression Design.

I personally use Photoshop to mock up my websites. This grid template is very handy because all the guide lines are lined up for you already. This makes my design to be easier because I have something that I can reference to in terms of alignment. If you have never try to design with a grid, well, I guess it’s about time for you to start. 960.gs !

This is often the compliment I got from my manager and the people I work with. They are referring that I always turn over the work so quickly that I work just as fast as a machine.

I am not a machine but I try to work efficiently.

1. Setup a design resource library

One of the reason that I can create a design so fast is that I always have my design library with me. Half of the time you will get those clients who want something out of nothing. They are also often due within short timeline. So what do you do? Dig out your library and put stuff together.

So what stuff you put in the design resource? And how do you organize it?

I create folders that named by the nature of the assets. For example, fonts, texture, pattern, icons, vector shapes..etc. Anything you want. You are ultimately responsible for your own library and be organized with it. The more organized you are the faster you can find your assets.

Here’s some site where I often visit to grab  ‘free design resources’

• Bittbox.com
• Dezignus.com
• Webresourcesdepot.com
• Tutorialblog.org
• Adobe Exchange
  

Most of the sites often link to other free resources as well, so feel free to dig in!

2. Juggling small task and big task in an efficient way

I guess it’s annoying when you are in the middle of work and suddenly there are small projects show up and they are due the next day. Yes, I know you can’t avoid those, but that’s the ‘time management’ skill comes in.

I usually will take a look at the time line of the project and decide what to work on first. However, I always tackle small projects first (for example, banner ads ). I get them out of the way first so I can concentrate on bigger project later.

It’s unavoidable that people always come back with more changes, but that’s the life of web designer, you just have to deal with changes and not to stress about it.

Oh, another thing I do is, I work on the project as soon as it was hand down to me. I don’t wait for 2 days after I decided to be brain-dead for a while. I work with momentum and I keep it that way.

3. Continue reading and researching

Sometimes I get those ‘downtime’ where I finish my projects and nothing new comes in. I use those downtime to do more reading and collecting design resources. I read about technology and design patterns. You can’t be a web designer if you don’t know CSS. That’s just wrong.

Also, people often mistake print designer as web designer, which is sad but it’s reality. The way we use typography is for screen reader. We design for legibility while practicing the foundation of typography. A practical guide to web typography is a good guide for those who wants to read into type setting for web readers. Another awesome post from Smashing Magazine – Typographic Design Patterns and Best Practices, it gives a very good consensus of the typography practices that web designers use these days.

Smashing Magazine is probably the best place for me to read about design trends, typography, idea and tips.

4. Do ‘other stuff ‘

Have you ever come across ‘creative block’ sometimes? I get that from time to time. It’s often because I am staring at the same project for too long. I lost the ‘creative’ sight of it. Therefore I stop working and just do something else instead. It could be just chat with friends on MSN, go for a walk or simply just look at sites that is totally irrelavant with design.

After I have taken 5 min break or 30min ‘mental’ break, I usually can come back with abit more refreshed mind to do my work.

5. Lastly…

# 1 rule to become a kickass designer is don’t think about work and talk about work after you get home.

# 2 rule to become a kickass designer is don’t think about work and talk about work after you get home.

Cuz literally you will just annoy the crap out of your family and your friends. No matter how frustrate your work is, just don’t talk about it. Leave it behind till you come back the next day. You will be less stressed and live longer.

Cheers!

Now I am the only person in the household working now. Alex had decided to complete his goal to finish his forever part time school to full time school at Ryerson for his information technology management degree.

Financially, I was abit concerned. It’s not like we don’t have money saved up, in fact, we have been saving since the recession hits, and we had a goal to take at least one year off to do full time travel sometimes down the road.

I tried to explain to him that perhaps he can take some time to start a blog now or to ‘make’ some widget or application to get some passive income. Passive income is a great way generating revenue without actually working full time on it everyday!

For example, a flash developer can always submit their flash files or components to Active Den for people to download. The more people downloading the more money you make! That goes the same to photographer who submit their work to istockphoto or any stock photography sites!

There are also a lot of bloggers out there just living off the online ad revenue  and ebook sales. I explained to him there’s a reason why you can’t always depend on the company you work for! Cuz shit happens all the time, who knows if you have a job the next day?

In fact, my goal for us is to have a location independent career. I want to build enough portfolio and connections to make sure I can have projects on the go in the future. I want to be a rockstar designer who works internationally. I literally hate being trapped inside the corporate box.

But for now on, I’ll get to make the money and he cleans the house!

Often print designer did not understand the differences between print and web typography. Typography in web needs a consistency of sizes so that people can connect to the content. Often as web designer, part of our job was to create a “style guide”. It’s a guide that states the font usage and sizing for headers, titles, body text, captions..etc.

In corporate design, we can’t really be ‘too’ creative with the font choices. Instead, we try to make the content to be more legible for reading, we also have to make sure the content flows so users won’t miss out any important content that we want to send across.

I just came across this awesome article from Smashing Magazine, it did a bunch of survey of average font sizes an choices for all web typography practices.

Take a look at Typographic Design Patterns and Best Practices.

Push down  – 970 pixel x 418 pixel

XXL box – 468 pixel x 648 pixel

Fixed Panel – 336 pixel x 860 pixel

We contracted out our new design to an outside company. Great, the new design already taken place, so how are we gonna implement the new design without disturbing the existing template?

Take a look of the new design layout wireframe.

new thestar.com layout

The new design will be a 3 column layout. We will always have a leaderboard and a big box on the page.  The content will follow by a major headline story and then a list of story line up. Everything looks good except the new humongous ads sizes break all the layout rule.

Problem: The new ad sizes does not fit with the new design! As always that advertiser wants their ad above-the-fold to get exposure.  Our design was created and built before those new ad sizes. And of course the outside company is not gonna go back to the layout mode unless we slap them with more cash.

Solution: Tweak the layout in the most minimal way and keep everything on the page identical. In order to cut down the developer’s work, I had to take the existing layout and tweak the most minimal way so that we won’t need to touch the majority of the existing CSS stylesheet.

Push down advertising is the easiest to mock up because all you need is to push down all the content below navigation. Then again, it’s so huge that you can’t ignore.

Push Down 970pixel x 418pixel

Here’s a real example from businessinsider.com for push down advertisting.

Push Down Ad closed mode

Push Down Ad open mode

XXL Ad gives me a headache. Ideally, we want to keep our 3 column layout, but this nasty size literally takes up half of the website width!!! So I had to reorganize the headline story content and have it share space with the XXL ad in it’s own box and push everything down.

XXL Box Ad (468 pixel x 648 pixel)

Finally, the fixed panel. The width of fixed panel is 336pixel. It is literally 36 pixel wider than our right rail, which has our big box ad and all the related contents. And with 860pixel in height, there’s no way the headline story abstract can show that much copy to accommodate the height. Therefore I had to bring some story line up and shrink the width in order to accommodate the odd width size.

Fixed Panel Ad 336 pixel x 860 pixel

So why those large ad? I guess the advertisers are now aware the demand for premium inventory, and not just blinking skyscraper anymore.

businessinsider.com believes the following reasons why advertisers want to move away from just banners:

• If advertisers really want to buy banners, they’ll do it for cheaper through an ad network.
• Banners are too easy to ignore. Demand-generation ads need to interrupt content (like they do everywhere but online).
• When people think of the banner, they think of a blinky, subprime mortgage ad where you have to shoot the duck.

After years of working as designer in the corporate environment, you will notice couple things

• Always design around advertisement
• Always provide the best above the fold exposure for advertisement
• Making online banner ads and sponsored by logo are like daily chore

I am not a big fan of advertisement, but what can you do? it pays everyone’s salary!

Rogers Homephone Challenge Couch Comparison

Both companies are money-gauging company so it’s just disgusting for me to even want to look at the ad. However, what it gets interesting is when company is attacking eachother using the same marketing approach.

Bell's couch comparison

This is Bell’s couch comparison Ad that is advertised on today’s Metronews paper. It took the whole spread. It says “You think I am expensive for my homephone service? I have more stuff to offer for the digital TV!”

While those two are fighting for each other. I saw this Ad from Telehop that took the same couch idea and then added their own. It simply says “I am the cheapest for the best offer, sucka!”

Telehop Couch comparison

nice.

This is how the story begins..  I woke up late and then I realize that I had a meeting at 9:30. I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it. Therefore I msg my buddy at work and ask him to tell my manager that I will be very late for it. So I rush out of my door and then try the best I can to get to work.

When I was about to get off the streetcar and saw my buddy walking out of the door with his backpack and a white envelope. Something comes up to me says “Oh NO! Dave is gone!”.  I went to work and saw his stuff is still there therefore I thought he went for a doc appointment or something.

And then the news come to me, my manager had to pull me aside and told me that they have to let him go because they want someone who’s a “full developer”.

I was shocked.  I knew they were looking for a new developer, but I didn’t know they were looking for a new developer to replace an existing one. Apparently he was let go due to skillset incompetence.

I just couldn’t’ justify the fact that he was “not good enough”. He was such a personable guy and a hardworker. All I knew is that everyone in the team had kept him so buzy that he barely have time to learn anything new or to breathe new air.

He blog about the timeline of getting let go. So I wonder when is my turn?  Letting go and restructuring had happen from time to time at my work.  I am sure everyone’s work as well. I think it’s inevitable, but you get severance pack if you were told to leave. So take it and use it!

I am fortunately to have parent reside in BC, and they love RV-ing. So I took their RV and went on a 5 day trip to Tofino, BC. Tofino is located on the west coast line of Vancouver Island. It takes around 8 hours from Vancouver including the time on the BC Ferry.

Eventhough my parents own a RV (Recreational Vehicle) doesn’t mean I went on a RV trip before. I left Vancouver in 1998. And they bought the RV right after I left to Toronto.

May 18th, 2009

Here we go!

We head to BC Ferry to get to Victoria city on Vancouver Island.

On BC Ferry heading to Victoria, Vancouver Island

The weather was cloudy on the first day. We were glad it’s not pouring rain. Shortly after arriving Vancouver Island. We head to Butchart Gardens to see some beautiful flowers. I visited this garden when I was either 14 or 15 years old. It’s over 10 years ago! Therefore it’s a good idea to visit again to see some nice flowers.

Butchart Garden Entrance

Sunken Garden at Butchart Gardens

After visiting the garden, we quickly swing by Victoria city and took some picture in front of the Parliament Buliding.

Victoria Parliament Building

There wasn’t much going on in the city therefore we decide to look for dinner and then pack it in early.

Barb's Fish & Chip

May 19th, 2009

2nd day 0f our trip, we drove straight from Victoria to Ucluelet. The weather wasn’t too good, it was cloudy and rainy.  However the scenery to Ucluelet is absolutely stunning, we just wish the weather could be nicer.

Goats on Roof Old Country Market store at Coombs,BC

Tall trees at Catheral Grove

Ucluelet is another city south of Tofino. We decided to park here for one night because I was too tired from driving. We found a RV camp site that we can park for 25 bucks a night which includes water and electricity. And look at the backdrop. It’s absolutely stunning.

Ucluelet,BC

May 20th, 2009

There isn’t much for us to do in Ucluelet unless we join a tour to take a charter to small around. Therefore we took a walk around Wild Pacific Trail.

Wild Pacific Trail, Ucluelet, BC

Ucluelet is nice, but there’s barely any tourist. The town is just wayy too dead.

Once we get to Tofino, we saw a lot more people and we parked at this Crystal Cove Resort right next McKenzie Beach.

Crystal Cove Resort next to McKenzie Beach

We head to Tofino city to look for tour company to get us to see whales and Hot Spring Cove. The range of the tour goes from $89 to $109 per person. There isn’t much difference between those tours except maybe you get a better time to go or better boat to go there. We end up picking this tour company called “Tofino Whale Centre” for $89 per person. It takes an hour and half boat ride to get to Maquinna provincial park, and then another 20 minute board walk to Hot Spring Cove.

May 21th, 2009

Heading to the tour at 11pm. We got on a boat of 12 people.

We saw this bald eagle on the boat ride..

The dock near the entrance to Maquinna Provincial Park

20 minute board walk to the Hot Spring Cove

I didn't know you can sponsor those wooden boards.

Hot Spring Cove - 50 C degree water. Perfect!

Hot Spring Cove - Natural Hot spring~

Out of the Hot Spring Area, you will see those mussel everywhere on the rock!

After an hour around Hot Spring Cove, it's time to head back

I am not even sure who owns these dogs, apparently they swam across from the village across the lake to this park when tourist show up from Spring to Summer season.

We saw a black bear on the way back from the park. Apparently those black bear shows up at the beach looking for shells and crabs to eat during low tide.

We actually saw a lot more wildlife while we were on the boat. We saw grey whale, otters and sea lions. It was an awesome trip that made my purpose to be here in Tofino.

May 22nd, 2009

We stayed one night at Tofino, and this ends our trip here. We decided to head back and check out scenery on the road ont the way back.

This is Long Beach. Famous for surfing. However, the wave wasn't great these days therefore I don't really see any surfers.

Kennedy Lake, BC

Not sure what this spot is called, we stopped here to take some photos because it was just beautiful.

There's a small waterfall

Sproat Lake, BC

We stopped by Qulicum Beach for lunch. It's quite beach probably because the summer hasn't start yet.

We took the BC Ferry from Nanaimo to Horseshoe Bay, and this ends our 5 days Vancouver Island journey.

Horseshoe Bay, BC

Final Thought:

Taking a break from work and life routine to do or see something different gives you energy and inspirational boost for sure.