Defining our industry's methodologies, standards, and culture have long been a part of Happy Cog's values.
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I first learned of Wharton Esherick when I took an impromptu trip to his studio outside of Philadelphia. Though he has long since passed, his live-in workspace has been preserved and was well worth the 45 minute drive. Esherick is known for many things, as a sculptor and woodworker he was acknowledged as the “dean of American craftsmen” by his peers and pushed the Arts and Crafts movement forward toward organicism and cubism.
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.
Client service is hard, frustrating, emotional, rewarding (sometimes), and challenging. When agency folk get together client stories are shared like a cathartic verbal exchange meant to keep us from attending the next client services anonymous meeting. I’m not condemning the practice, venting is good and there are some absurd stories worth sharing. But venting is a slippery slope. If the only thing coming out of your mouth is negative it may be time to consider an attitude adjustment – don’t condemn the process, celebrate it!
I truly believe in the power of this simple idea: a decentralized network can exist free from the power of governments and corporations to corrupt. The web is that network and its health is immensely important to me not only as a professional but as a member of society. It is an innovation that has spurred on communication, economic and creative revolutions. Most of our modern HTTP-driven world would not exist had Tim Berners-Lee not issued his proposal for linking documents to one another within a network. That small step has evolved into a cultural powerhouse. It has torn down and rebuilt entire industries and given many of us something to do to make ends meet. It’s in our collective interest that this continue.
Until recently, I haven’t had much experience writing. In my distant past there were English classes and essays to keep me in practice, but professionally I knew something was lacking. I was supposed to write more often. I was told it would help me establish perspective as a designer, and help organize my thoughts (which to me sounded like a chicken-or-egg situation). I was reluctant because the idea of publishing a full-length piece in my own words seemed impossible. Determined, I approached writing the same way I approach my graphic design, and slowly it has come more naturally. As I began writing more frequently in blogs, emails, and even annotations, I’ve discovered a few tips that have helped me write better.
Happy Cog is a content company. It’s the thread through all of our projects, regardless of industry, and always has been. We connect people and ideas. It’s in our DNA. When TEDxPhiladelphia reached out to us, we knew this was an opportunity we wanted to explore.
Pattern Lab as a tool is super flexible, it can be used as a simple styleguide framework or scale all the way up to a full-blown CMS, driven by dynamic content. We’re halfway through our first Pattern Lab project in which we are extending it to the latter, if you’re interested, check out Mark’s article on integrating Craft with Pattern Lab for more info on that.
I ’ve done it hundreds of times – I opened the glass door and shut it behind me. Just me and my opponent, enclosed by the familiar four walls of a squash court. Despite squash being a series of quick movements, each game manages to be 10% physical and 90% mental—a test of knowing what shots to hit and when to hit them.
Craft is a flexible and powerful content management system (CMS) with a responsive interface content authors want to use. It uses the Twig template system to power its HTML front-end. Twig comes out of the Symfony project and provides a fast, secure, and flexible system. Twig code is inherently portable and is not tied to Craft, or even PHP, with recent ports showing up in Node. Craft is great for back-end developers.
Some days, writing plain ole everyday CSS can get a little monotonous. It’s all margins, font-families, positions and displays day-in and day-out.
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