If I haven’t written in a while, it’s because I’ve been:
a) Working more (I’ve done something like 6 site designs in six weeks, one of them just this past Saturday morning)
b) Moving
c) Enjoying my new camera
d) Launching a freelance site and working on poster for Hunger Day
e) Watch the Life In The Undergrowth DVDs
f) Making it to Outlands in WoW
g) Putting together a huge DJ mix that will easily top the one I posted some 15 months ago.
In the meantime, I link you to UIE Brain Sparks’ brief discussion of “fairy doors” (a term I will now begin using constantly).
This quickly reminded me of something a co-worker showed me: the Wufoo online form builder. Wufoo’s entire interface is a delight, from the extremely subtle stylesheet touches (like the login field “select” state) to the form-building tool itself, which turns a complicated task into something entirely enjoyable. Note to all interface designers: This is how you do it. But Wufoo adds a sense of extra care and whimsy with its little snippets of instructions.
The default form description is: “This is my form. Please fill it out. It’s awesome.”
Your Account page: “To thine own self be true.”
The logout warning: “Parting is such sweet sorrow!”
The reports page: “Oh no, buddy! There’s no reports! Let’s go make one!”
Okay, so they’re beyond nerdy, but I love them. Incidentally, they’re the exact opposite of the kind of frustrating, evil whimsy I usually enjoy (like naming all your Photoshop layers after Carebears before sending them to be produced).
I’ll blog soon about stuff, I swear.
Naming Photoshop layers after Carebears… Brilliant!
What camera did you get? The PS layer whimsy is awesome… but it pales in comparison to naming every image in a layout “blah”… not that you’d do that.
Isn’t Life In The Undergrowth amazing? Isn’t David Attenborough some sort of definite deity and isn’t his voice the only thing that can take you back to being a child when everything is certain and wonder-ful and nothing is dark. Happiness.. like how Sunday nights should be and marmite toast and mothers… Have you watched The Life of Mammals? Just wait for the Blue Whale bit, and the elephant and the salt in the caves. Amazing.
My iTunes is acting all cool, pretending to be totally unphased but its curiosity is piqued. It’s glanced in your direction but is off to have another fag now, so no rush. (That word got me in trouble with an American once. Here it means cigarette.)
One more thing - Fionn Regan, The End of History. Buy one for yourself and one for all your friends.
I Love you girls
Bay