designer or programmer? (a question to mark)

crash_D.

Hi Mark, agian many thanks for the free software.. as I get more into web development, I find myself more intrested in coding, rather than in design, which is why I have a freelance designer available when needed.. even though I try to design pages, I understand that I better stick to coding, and leave the design to more competent people.... however, I can criticise design and improve it, if someone else is doing it... so, what bothers me is the following: did you design the lussumo site yourself? if so, please say a couple of words on how you manage to be a good programmer (if which we all know what testifies) and good designer at the same time... many thanks.. from what I see, the looks of lussumo sites required working in photoshop of other graphic software... i see your design as neat and minimalistic, yet pretty and stylish... for me its great... but HOW?

Minisweeper

I'm gonna leave the main answer to Mark himself but incase he doesnt get chance to answer for a while I think most of the graphic work was done by his friend (known as Sugati) - I'm pretty sure he was the guy behind the logo's and stuff. I believe though that Mark designed the interface for the forum which has then been slightly modified and improved upon by him and the team of people who worked on bringing the CSS up to scratch. I could be wrong though. I'd be quite interested to know for sure myself..

crash_D.

well,,, i would be much more than amazed if i find out that Mark did this all himself.. i accept this possibility, but chances are he truly was being helped by graphic and technical designers... i am anxious to find out... p.s. the trebuchet ms font is a great decision, which has a significant effect on the entire website layout and looks

Stash

Out of interest, which font do the OSX users end up with?

crash_D.

(i don't understand wat you mean by "end up with"; the website is all in arial..)

Stash

I assume OSX doesn't come with TrebuchetMS by default?

font-family:'Trebuchet MS','Verdana','Tahoma','Arial',sans-serif;
I guess they end up with Verdana...

crash_D.

no idea, couse I only worked (or rather spent time exploring how things work) on a mac twice in my life..

squirrel

Trebuchet MS comes with OSX.

WallPhone

Trebuchet is part of the Core Fonts for the Web package that MS developed and used to provide. It appears Apple has a licence agreement with MS, but the package isn't technically freely licenced, so you have to manually install on Linux machines.

I didn't like it at first, prefering Verdana for "better readability", but Trebuchet seems to have grown on me. I really missed it when working in Ubuntu, untill I had it installed there.

Wanderer

Yes Trebuchet has been part of the standard install since OSX hit. I too preferred Verdana but Trebuchet has grown on me and I like it very much now. I wonder where MS stole it from?

Posted: Saturday, 18 August 2007 at 8:41AM

crash_D.

wonders if the initial question would be answered ..

Mark

Hi Mark,

Hi!

agian many thanks for the free software..

No problem. I'm glad you like it!

as I get more into web development, I find myself more intrested in coding, rather than in design, which is why I have a freelance designer available when needed.. even though I try to design pages, I understand that I better stick to coding, and leave the design to more competent people.... however, I can criticise design and improve it, if someone else is doing it... so, what bothers me is the following:

did you design the lussumo site yourself? if so, please say a couple of words on how you manage to be a good programmer (if which we all know what testifies) and good designer at the same time... many thanks..

I did design everything myself. I have a couple of friends who are professional designers whom I always bounce my designs off, and they help me to go in the right direction. I'm definitely not the best designer, but I do try to make things look good.

As far as being a good programmer? Um. Am I a good programmer? I don't know. I find I'm at my best when I'm interested. I think you'll be good at anything you're interested in, and I get a kick out of programming the same way I got a kick out of LEGO when I was a kid. "Can I really make it do that? How cool would that be? Damn! It worked!" - those kind of thoughts are always going through my head. I have no formal training in programming - I taught myself how to do it because I was intrigued by it.

from what I see, the looks of lussumo sites required working in photoshop of other graphic software... i see your design as neat and minimalistic, yet pretty and stylish... for me its great... but HOW?

I use photoshop for everything. I wish I knew how to use illustrator, but I just don't have the time or patience for it. In my mind, one of the most important things about being a good designer is patience. The ability to sit there and deliberate over a line going one pixel this direction or that - one shade lighter or darker. That stuff infuriates me, but I've seen great designers sit there, tilt their heads, and pontificate for hours on end.

So, the reason my stuff looks simple is because I don't spend any extra time on it. I've got better things to do with my time than deliberate over minutiae like that. Then I take my very simple designs, show them to my friends who know way more about design than me, and they tell me what's wrong with it. Then I'll go through 50 quick revisions until I have something that they think is "okay"