Skip to main content

Articles By:

Aura Seltzer

  1. The Design Value of Content Audits

    Posted on 6/16/16

    “We have so much content, we don’t even know how many pages are on our website.” “It’s impossible for anyone to find anything.” “Our call center spends too much time answering questions about already-available information.” “I’m more likely to Google what I’m looking for than dig for it.” “I just bookmark everything.”

  2. On Board with Artboards

    Posted on 4/7/16

    Over the past nine months, our design team has been using Photoshop CC’s artboards feature (new with CC 2015). If you’re not familiar, artboards allow you to create multiple canvases within a single Photoshop file. While we had used artboards in Illustrator, the shift in Photoshop wasn’t a breeze. In the short term, artboards disrupted our keyboard-shortcut habits and file management workflow. Multiple design concepts and dozens of artboards later, they’re a part of every new design system we create.

  3. Divide and Conquer

    Posted on 10/8/15

    You’ve kicked off a website redesign project for a new client. Between negotiating contracts, facilitating a dialogue with stakeholders, and establishing a deep understanding of your client’s content and design priorities, you’ve arrived at a list of pages to represent a journey from old to new. These pages likely represent templates from which a site-wide design system comes to life. So you return to your desk, work for weeks and months, and snap all of those pages have been designed and coded, and you’re finally ready to share your work with the client. Right? Not so fast.

  4. Channeling Your Back-end Developer

    Posted on 6/25/15

    You’ve heard the assertion before: Designers should learn how to code. Reading through the many articles and comments on the topic, this discussion has focused predominantly on front-end development. Yes, comps fail to capture behavior and the in-betweens that bring your responsive designs to life, but crucially, front-end code isn’t the only step to actualizing your designs. Even if your coded styles remain faithful to your design intent, it’s your content that will put that design to test. If you care about the way content should look in your designs, you should also care about the logic that powers it.

  5. The Belly Rules the Mind

    Posted on 4/16/15

    In early 2014, I resolved to cook more frequently and expand my skills. Putting my years of Food Network and Top Chef knowledge to use, I challenged myself to create dishes outside my sautéed chicken and roasted vegetables repertoire. My mission relied heavily on recipes collected from personal blogs, publications, cooking websites, and cookbooks.

  6. Webfont Licensing 101

    Posted on 1/29/15

    Choosing a type palette goes beyond considering aesthetics, legibility, browser support, and performance. For fonts to truly be appropriate for your project, they must also be technically and financially sound solutions. No one wants to be surprised by the outrageous cost of a font package after all designs have been delivered.

  7. Frequently Asked Questions on FAQs

    Posted on 10/16/14

    No matter the client, FAQs are often a topic of conversation during many site redesigns. Maybe they are legacy content and deemed a new requirement for the get-go. Maybe stakeholders raise them as a potential solution during the course of the engagement. Sometimes, they even creep up on us (unplanned) after launch.

  8. From My Head to the Browser

    Posted on 10/31/13

    As the web evolves, there will always be two ever-growing lists: one of all the pieces of content that will need to appear on any given site over time and another with all the ways we can access that content. Creating flexible, modular design systems makes both of these lists a little less daunting and a lot more manageable.

    At Happy Cog, we pride ourselves on empowering clients to take ownership of their content, and we provide a framework and all the building blocks to help them do so. These building blocks range depending on a project’s needs. One could be a video carousel; another a contact form. But, the most fundamental building block that’s on every site and we have to get right every time is typography.

  9. Overwriting Less

    Posted on 4/11/13

    I am an overwriter.

    I could stop this post right here, but you wouldn’t believe me.

    There is relief and guilt to overwriting—like you’ve just finished off a large bag of potato chips by yourself. You find comfort in there being no more chips to eat but also discomfort, because, well, you just ate an entire bag of chips.

    Or, you’ve just written countless words to a client team explaining the intricacies of a deliverable. You exhale and cross the to-do off your list, but you secretly doubt whether the post overcomplicated the work or confused your client.

  10. Elevating the Podium

    Posted on 10/4/12

    Design conferences are complicated beasts. They are weeklong marathons and single-day sprints. They are hotel ballroom affairs and intimate gatherings. They teach new skills and polish old ones. They appeal to the novice, expert, academic, and hipster alike. And, to add to their intricacy, depending on the marketing angle, we call them symposiums, conventions, festivals, and even the casual [insert word here]-cons.

  1. Headshot of Rawle Anders Rawle Anders Browse all of Rawle’s articles »
  2. Headshot of Amanda Buck Amanda Buck Browse all of Amanda’s articles »
  3. Headshot of Sarah Carr Sarah Carr Browse all of Sarah’s articles »
  4. Headshot of Ben Carr Ben Carr Browse all of Ben’s articles »
  5. Headshot of Chris Cashdollar Chris Cashdollar Browse all of Chris’s articles »
  6. Headshot of Stephen Caver Stephen Caver Browse all of Stephen’s articles »
  7. Headshot of Anthony Colangelo Anthony Colangelo Browse all of Anthony’s articles »
  8. Headshot of Kyle Cotter Kyle Cotter Browse all of Kyle’s articles »
  9. Headshot of Courtney & Chelsea Courtney & Chelsea Courtney & Chelsea Courtney & Chelsea Browse all of Courtney & Chelsea’s articles »
  10. Headshot of Taylor Daughtry Taylor Daughtry Browse all of Taylor’s articles »
  11. Headshot of Dan Delauro Dan Delauro Browse all of Dan’s articles »
  12. Headshot of Dave DeRuchie Dave DeRuchie Browse all of Dave’s articles »
  13. Headshot of Jason Dziak Jason Dziak Browse all of Jason’s articles »
  14. Headshot of Cat Farman Cat Farman Browse all of Cat’s articles »
  15. Headshot of Abby Fretz Abby Fretz Browse all of Abby’s articles »
  16. Headshot of Helenita Frounfelkner Helenita Frounfelkner Browse all of Helenita’s articles »
  17. Headshot of Jeremy Gimbel Jeremy Gimbel Browse all of Jeremy’s articles »
  18. Headshot of Lee Goldberg Lee Goldberg Browse all of Lee’s articles »
  19. Headshot of Brett Harned Brett Harned Browse all of Brett’s articles »
  20. Headshot of Lauren Harris Lauren Harris Browse all of Lauren’s articles »
  21. Headshot of Alison Harshbarger Alison Harshbarger Browse all of Alison’s articles »
  22. Headshot of Brenna Heaps Brenna Heaps Browse all of Brenna’s articles »
  23. Headshot of Stuart Henry Stuart Henry Browse all of Stuart’s articles »
  24. Headshot of Sam Hernandez Sam Hernandez Browse all of Sam’s articles »
  25. Headshot of Katie High Katie High Browse all of Katie’s articles »
  26. Headshot of Kevin Hoffman Kevin Hoffman Browse all of Kevin’s articles »
  27. Headshot of Greg Hoy Greg Hoy Browse all of Greg’s articles »
  28. Headshot of Mark Huot Mark Huot Browse all of Mark’s articles »
  29. Headshot of Ryan Irelan Ryan Irelan Browse all of Ryan’s articles »
  30. Headshot of Jessica Ivins Jessica Ivins Browse all of Jessica’s articles »
  31. Headshot of Michael Johnson Michael Johnson Browse all of Michael’s articles »
  32. Headshot of Robert Jolly Robert Jolly Browse all of Robert’s articles »
  33. Headshot of Andrew Kaslick Andrew Kaslick Browse all of Andrew’s articles »
  34. Headshot of Alex Kendrick Alex Kendrick Browse all of Alex’s articles »
  35. Headshot of Keyboard Man Keyboard Man Keyboard Man Keyboard Man Browse all of Keyboard Man’s articles »
  36. Headshot of Saima Khan Saima Khan Browse all of Saima’s articles »
  37. Headshot of Katie Kovalcin Katie Kovalcin Browse all of Katie’s articles »
  38. Headshot of Kate Lechleiter Kate Lechleiter Browse all of Kate’s articles »
  39. Headshot of Alyse Lorber Alyse Lorber Browse all of Alyse’s articles »
  40. Headshot of Jenn Lukas Jenn Lukas Browse all of Jenn’s articles »
  41. Headshot of Sue Malomo Sue Malomo Browse all of Sue’s articles »
  42. Headshot of Patrick Marsceill Patrick Marsceill Browse all of Patrick’s articles »
  43. Headshot of Maria Martinez Maria Martinez Browse all of Maria’s articles »
  44. Headshot of Rob McFadden Rob McFadden Browse all of Rob’s articles »
  45. Headshot of Mica McPheeters Mica McPheeters Browse all of Mica’s articles »
  46. Headshot of Tom McQuaid Tom McQuaid Browse all of Tom’s articles »
  47. Headshot of Rene Merino Rene Merino Browse all of Rene’s articles »
  48. Headshot of Leigh Nash Leigh Nash Browse all of Leigh’s articles »
  49. Headshot of Amelia Pardieu Amelia Pardieu Browse all of Amelia’s articles »
  50. Headshot of Sabrina Patrizio Sabrina Patrizio Browse all of Sabrina’s articles »
  51. Headshot of Dana Pavlichko Dana Pavlichko Browse all of Dana’s articles »
  52. Headshot of Yesenia Perez-Cruz Yesenia Perez-Cruz Browse all of Yesenia’s articles »
  53. Headshot of Paul Phan Paul Phan Browse all of Paul’s articles »
  54. Headshot of Emaan Riaz Emaan Riaz Browse all of Emaan’s articles »
  55. Headshot of Joe Rinaldi Joe Rinaldi Browse all of Joe’s articles »
  56. Headshot of Brandon Rosage Brandon Rosage Browse all of Brandon’s articles »
  57. Headshot of Dre Ryan Dre Ryan Browse all of Dre’s articles »
  58. Headshot of Courtney Sabo Courtney Sabo Browse all of Courtney’s articles »
  59. Headshot of Rob Sanchez Rob Sanchez Browse all of Rob’s articles »
  60. Headshot of Aura Seltzer Aura Seltzer Browse all of Aura’s articles »
  61. Headshot of Kevin Sharon Kevin Sharon Browse all of Kevin’s articles »
  62. Headshot of Sophie Shepherd Sophie Shepherd Browse all of Sophie’s articles »
  63. Headshot of Zach Smith Zach Smith Browse all of Zach’s articles »
  64. Headshot of Ben Smith Ben Smith Browse all of Ben’s articles »
  65. Headshot of Greg Storey Greg Storey Browse all of Greg’s articles »
  66. Headshot of Jason Studstill Jason Studstill Browse all of Jason’s articles »
  67. Headshot of Oka Tai-Lee Oka Tai-Lee Browse all of Oka’s articles »
  68. Headshot of Russ Unger Russ Unger Browse all of Russ’s articles »
  69. Headshot of Eli Van Zoeren Eli Van Zoeren Browse all of Eli’s articles »
  70. Headshot of Allison Wagner Allison Wagner Browse all of Allison’s articles »
  71. Headshot of Drew Warkentin Drew Warkentin Browse all of Drew’s articles »
  72. Headshot of Brian Warren Brian Warren Browse all of Brian’s articles »
  73. Headshot of Faith Zaki Faith Zaki Browse all of Faith’s articles »
  74. Headshot of Jeffrey Zeldman Jeffrey Zeldman Browse all of Jeffrey’s articles »